Mozilla 1.7 was released along with the mail client Thunderbird 0.7 and Mozilla 1.8a1.
Mozilla 1.7 Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
is there roadmap for mozilla 1.8 ?
as i know the 1.8 alpha1 already released.
http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap.html
moz 1.7 finally out! great!
The roadmap for the project can be read at :
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/
It does not “just” focus on the browser, but on core technologies from mozilla.org, like xul,xbl etc …
Btw anyone willing to write something on xul ?
Ludo
—
http://perso.hirlimann.net/~ludo/blog/
My Firefox 0.9 for Windows crashed after one day of usage. Had to rollback to 0.8. It crashed (after the first crash) even after a clean install… First crash might be caused by a dirty install into previous 0.8 directory.
Is Firefox starting to register something in Windows registry that it doesn’t depend only on its files in its own directories?
After I installed both Firefox 0.9 and Thunderbird 0.7, Firefox would crash on startup. I don’t know if they somehow conflict with each other, but if they do I hope the Moz teams start testing how well their programs play with each other.
… I hope the Moz teams start testing how well their programs play with each other.
They don’t have to start, they already do.
Generally, if you ever have problems with any mozilla.org product, you can usually get help from
forums.mozillazine.org
Did you disable all the extensions of the older version in case you had a few installed? I forgot to do this, and FireFox 0.9 would simply freeze upon starting. I did something drastic to solve this: backed up my bookmarks file & deleted the settings folder in my windows profile. It solved the problem.
BTW, Mozilla also has a “safe mode” which seemed to work for me even when it was freezing. If its not there under the menu for some reason, try invoking mozilla with the flag “-no-extensions” and then try uninstalling the extensions you may have installed for the older version of it.
…about the official Mozilla project’s continued split focus between Firefox/Thunderbird and the full Seamonkey suite, which is now apparently going to continue even after the standalones reach 1.0.
Mozilla’s crucial mistake early on was deciding it needed to be a platform. If this had just meant developing a cross-platform gui and tools, or just developing a whole application suite, it might not have been a problem. But they decided to do both. It cost them, and it continues to cost them.
IBM’s Eclipse project is a good example of how to do a platform. Start small with one app: in Eclipse’s case, an IDE. Then build on the rest of the stuff: IBM’s new Workplace package is basically built from Eclipse plugins.
But continuing to devote resources to Seamonkey is just a bad idea. Not only is it a distraction from making the small, focused apps better, but keeping around Mozilla as an Emacs-style do-everything suite does damage to the brand name. I for one have nothing but bad memories of Netscape, due to the bloat of Communicator. Any project that continues to duplicate that mistake loses respect in my mind, and I would guess in many others’ as well.
In todays ms mambo jambo marketing agressiveness we find out that the “new tek” is in fact old tek and mature and stable and everything that we need ….
When would we’ll be able to proffit fully from this kind of technologies.
We would be able to do so much with so little effort. It is not about programmer lazyness , it is about productivity , about not reinventing the weel over and over again.
They call it “the net biggest secret” , but I , as a common software devloper find so much to dream in this technologies, without ms’s pitfalls.
It is cross platform , it is exentsible , it is RAD.
But for the god’s name : It is so mangled , so hard to learn …
Mozilla as we know is not just a browser , it is a lot more … It is an PERFECT APPLICATION PLATFORM.
I hope in the future we will see things like complete GUI Builders … and maybe … a complete IDE ….
Looking at how big mozilla project is i dont understand why is it so hard to create a basic gui builder for mozilla.
The internet will be a lot more richer ( macro*’s sintagm :Rich internet apps,Rich user experience will apply perfectly for the mozilla development platform )
Well I’ve noticed that any mozilla based browser will not run if you have XP SP2 RC2. It crashes on startup. Never had any issues with Firefox 0.8 or 0.9 till I installed SP2.. then the browser just doesn’t want to run at all.
Just my .02!
Like many others, I switched to FireFox from Mozilla around the 0.8/1.6 releases as at that stage Firefox had definitely become the more usable browser
I also had objections to the size of the combined Mozilla codebase. I note somehting very similar happened to Staroffice/Openoffice.Org – in the 5.x closed-source release all the apps were in one combined application.. in the OOo/SO6 builds there was a move towards applications separately launched which I understand will continue (The Developer Roadmap for OpenOffice 2.0 quotes a need for all apps to appear/be totally separate.. and to have enhanced desktop integration with the host OS)
I for one am glad that OSS projects are recognising the need not to lumber the user with un-desired functions. All we need now is a decent Outlook replacement for Windows. I’m hoping the rumours of Evolution Win32 are true!
Check out Splosky’s new piece:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2004/06/17.html
You should uninstall older versions before installing 0.9. This is explicitly pointed out in
http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/
SVG was in, now it is out. When will it be in again?
I need my playing cards:
http://david.bellot.free.fr/
SVG was in, now it is out. When will it be in again?
This is extremely short-sighted if true. SVG is important for on several levels:
1. Static SVG is the most attractive and useful 2d graphics format.
2. Animated SVG means you get all the functionality of Flash without vendor lock-in. I know many of you hate Flash, but it has its uses and is extremely popular with a lot of people.
3. The full SVG spec means more than graphics: it’s basically a complete gui application framework.
4. Full SVG spec plus a standard widget set = the cross-platform gui to end all cross-platform guis.
I’m not kidding. Insanely great. Think Longhorn’s scary? SVG is scarier. In a good way.
Right now it looks as if the only team with even a glimmer of recognition of SVG’s power is Gnome; and even then it’s not much more than a glimmer.
This is the way forward.
I had the same problem with 0.9 crashing on startup…
I uninstalled 0.8 first. I then Uninstalled 0.9 and reinstalled and it still did it. Then I uninstsalled again and did the magic touch… Rebooted Windows, then reinstalled. Now everythings seems to be fine.
-adam
Mozilla as we know is not just a browser , it is a lot more … It is an PERFECT APPLICATION PLATFORM.
Little documentation, no native widgets and the only well-supported language is Javascript. Less than perfect by my lights.
as a constant user of, fan of, and advogate of firefox i am very disappointed that 0.9 is so buggy. these are not subtle bugs – but bugs which prevent you working smoothly. i won’t list these bugs here – but its a shame because i have cobnverted people over from IE to firefox 0.8 and they reap greta benefits. i feel i must warn them against 0.9 – but id on’t want to put them off opensource / alternative software forever.
i tried workarounds to a few bugs (editting the prefs.js, for example) ,… but more bugs kept expressing themselves. i really hope 1.0 is much better… otherwise 0.8 will go down as a golden-age release.
Can anyone clearly define any bugs in firefox 0.9? It sounds like people are just installing 0.9 over 0.8 and its not working. I did the same thing wiht 0.6, but I learned my lesson the hard way. I’ve been using 0.9 since it was released and haven’t seen a single problem with it. Now there definitely could be bugs, almost guaranteed, but much of this seems to be user error.
(Maybe their installer should check for 0.8 and uninstall it for you first, after asking, of course, so this doesn’t happen.)
Im sure i read that mozilla was not going to be developed any more ? and firefox and CO were going to move in, but since then i have seen 2 release versions ?
Snake
I installed and ran 0.9 for almost a week before mine started crashing immediately during startup. Uninstalling and then reinstalling didn’t help; it would work for a little while then start crashing again. I tracked it to the “Software Update” feature. It hasn’t crashed since I disabled that feature.
I’ve been following the WHAT wg through the mailing list – http://whatwg.org/specs/
The Web Forms 2.0 spec is pretty far along and gives a good idea of what they consider a “rich client experience”. Once this is implemented in Firefox and Opera (and Safari, and KHTML), it will give application developers, the ones making db business front-ends especially, a huge leg up.
This is what Mozilla should concentrate heavily on, as it could be a killer app for the community: a rich client experience, with no installs and automatic updates. It would be a solid competitor to Microsoft’s WinForms
here are some bugs (and no i did not install over 0.8) – completely cleaned out all the .mozilla .phoenix and even installed 0.9 to itws own /opt.
1. setting the home page fails – the window “ok” does not work, all other settings are ok. you have to do this in prefs.js to make it stick.
2. right click open in new tab fails.
these 2 basic functionalities failing indicates something seriously wrong.
these are just 2 that stop me working normally. they are not related to registry entries (i’m using linux) and no clashes with other versions – i cleaned out completely and did a fresh install. no extensions. only installed Qute theme – but the problems were there before.
I personally was disappointed with Firefox 0.9. Aside from the crashing bugs, and other minor ones. I noticed that the install of Firefox 0.9 did not display or allow you to edit the profiles on the computer very well..
Aside from that I found this site very helpful (http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/) its a site that has posts on latest trunks of Firefox 0.9, but it also covers some of the interesting points.
Enjoy
I had the same problem with Firefox crashing the next day I installed it. The solution is:
Start > Run… Firefox.exe -P
Create a new profile and make it default.
We should read more carefuly instructions on site. There was something on their site saying we should uninstall previous versions first.
Good luck!
>>Mozilla as we know is not just a browser , it is a lot more … It is an PERFECT APPLICATION PLATFORM.
> Little documentation, no native widgets and the only well-supported language is Javascript. Less than perfect by my lights.
I would of course have to agree that it is less than perfect, but have you actually worked with it? It is quite a capable platform. Also, I wouldn’t exactly say there is “little documentation”, given that just about every book written on Mozilla/XUL is now available for download, including Nigel McFarlane’s excellent “Rapid Application Development with Mozilla”, and there are thousands of pages dedicated to documentation at various sites.
Here is a great starting point: http://www.mozdev.org/docs/
Also some great links at http://authors.phptr.com/mcfarlane/links.html
The real problem with Mozilla documentation is that it is still scattered and somewhat unorganized, but there is lots of it.
When it comes to delivering a rich UI experience over the net, you don’t need Mozilla to support many languages, because all the serious work will be done server-side, with Java, Perl, PHP, whatever. The lack of “native widgets” is really a red herring these days, IMHO. What matters is whether it delivers what people want. The end user doesn’t care whether it’s native or not, but whether it renders fast, and doesn’t present any nasty surprises. Anyway, native widgets NAVE been implemented for Mozilla with the Camino project for Mac. In other words, it can be done, if people want.
When it comes to client-side development, I agree that there should be more work done to support other languages besides Javascript. So far, there is Perl and Python, as well as C/C++. However, the Mozilla version of Javascript is quite a serious language, not just a toy to make popup menus. What languages would you like to see supported?
What languages would you like to see supported?
Ruby. But I’m glad to hear about Perl and Python support (do you have links?).
Running fine here on WinXP Home SP2 RC2. What I did notice when I upgraded from 0.8-0.9 is that quite a fw of the extensions installed on 0.8 broke it. Deleted the Firefox directory in Documents and Settings/username/Application Data and re-installed 0.9..job done.
>>What languages would you like to see supported?
>Ruby. But I’m glad to hear about Perl and Python support (do you have links?).
http://www.mozilla.org/catalog/architecture/xpcom/
Wow, it looks like Ruby is already on that list
. But, it looks like there hasn’t been much activity at http://rbxpcom.mozdev.org/ recently. How would you like to see if you can help on that project?
Ah, okay. That helps a bit. I’d been looking for ‘ruby xul’ – hadn’t realized the distinction between XUL (the interface description) and XPCOM (the actual framework).
I’ve always been something of a dummy when it comes to object frameworks, but I’ll give a definite maybe to helping out at some future period if I can sufficiently grok the architecture.
“SVG was in, now it is out. When will it be in again? ”
Its still in the roadmap as far as I can see. And as far as I know you can still compile mozilla with SVG support. I haven’t tested to do this yet for 1.7, as previous versions have been very buggy and not worth the trouble. This is probably why it isn’t in the default configuration. I long for the time when it finally is included by default though.
Any idea the rpms for FC 2, any URL.
Regards.
Expect to get rpms for next week as the tar. file is converted and tested to avoid bugs.
Great release along with firefox 0.9.
Nice SVG work on the playing cards ( http://david.bellot.free.fr/ )
May I suggest that svg’s be publicized as svg’s and NOT as jpg’s, gif’s or png’s. Why jpg’s, gif’s or png’s? They are not any smaller.
Maybe post a single sample in jpg, gif or pnt – as a lure – but the rest in svg. If the users browser does not support svg then there’s always adobe’s plugin (which still is the best there is).
It does not help on svg’s traction if users do not need to deal with it.
I kept getting crashes when starting Firefox so what I did is make sure all instances of Firefox were closed then I deleted the C:Documents and SettingsUsernameApplication DataMozillaFirefoxProfiles folder (but make sure to back up your bookmarks.html file first!) and the next time I ran Firefox everything worked 100%! Just stick your bookmarks file back into the profile and adjust your options.
That should be:
C:\Documents and Settings\Michael\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
I guess the parser removed the backslashes.
Am i the only one who thinks these icons suck donkey balls?
No Offence to Spikey Monkey, or the Mozilla community, but I visited the firefox website (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) I didn’t really see any place where it explains that you MUST re-create your profile. Sure the Bookmark.html is PART of the profile, but what about blocked images file, or the Password lists, if you cache them.
The one thing I loved about firefox, Mozilla, was the fact is I could just use the existing files from my previous install, and vioa … just like I didn’t have to upgrade.
But The one peice of advice to anyone, If it comes with a Safe-Mode, your likley going to have to use it..
Kinda sad.
– I am Canadian
Note, while Ruby and Python may work with XPCOM, it does *not* work with XUL. You still have to use Javascript for XUL. IMHO, the Mozilla team should seperate the XML + Javascript support into a component that could be just one front-end to the underlying XUL engine. That way, you could write a XML + Ruby front-end, or a XML + Python front-end, or even an sexpr + lisp front-end
I am increasingly confused by Mozilla architecture.
That’s because the Mozilla architecture is confusing
It’s like the Masons…
If you understand it, you’re probably already part of it.
If you aren’t already part of it, you probably think it’s not worth understanding.
If you are part of it, you do your best to explain it to people who aren’t part of it so they’ll join, but you always leave out the key parts that would let them understand it.
Because the key parts that would let them understand it can’t just be told out in the open; there’s a lot of verbiage to go through beforehand.
If you’ve already gone through all the verbiage, you either decide it wasn’t worth it and quietly go home, or else you just throw up your hands and become part of it.
(Could apply to any software framework really
Tried the RC1 for .9 and it wasn’t very poilshed at that time. I then went back to .8 and thought I’d wait for a better RC for .9 to come out before trying it again. Then to my suprise, they released a final .9 just a week and a half later.
For these reasons, I’ll just keep using .8, wait for the 1.0 release, and hope they did a better testing job on it than they have with .9
Mozilla 1.8 alpha 1 was actually released on May 17th. See http://www.mozilla.org/news.html
This code is actually gathered from the net , orderd a bit then used , nothing original , except the ideea of mixing macromedia like loadvars class with mozilla, but just for simplicity (if this is then combined with phpobject from ghostwire , then a tremendous thing can appear … who knows …. whatever:) )
/**
*
*
* @FileName: LoadVars.js
* @Author: ion gion – [email protected]
* @Version: 0.01
* @Revision History:
*
*/
/**
*
*
* @FileName: main.js
* @Author: Mike Hostetler – [email protected]
* @Version: 0.1
* @Revision History:
*
*/
function LoadVars()
{
var contentType = “”;
var loaded = true;
var onData = null;
var onLoad = null;
var method = “POST”;
var SERVER_URL = “gateway.php”;
var parms = new Array();
var parmsIndex = 0;
var execute = phpRequestExecute;
var add = phpRequestAdd;
function Pair(name,value) {
this.name = name;
this.value = value;
}
function addParams(name,value) {
this.parms[this.parmsIndex] = new Pair(name,value);
this.parmsIndex++;
}
function executeRequest() {
var error_in_execute = false;
var response = “”;
try
{
var httpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
}
catch(e)
{
error_in_execute = true;
return !error_in_execute;
}
try
{
var txt = “”;
for(var i in this.parms)
{
txt = txt+’&’+this.parms[i].name+’=’+this.parms[i].value;
}
if(this.method==”GET”)
{
httpRequest.open(this.method, this.SERVER_URL+txt, false, null, null);
httpRequest.send(”);
}
else
{
httpRequest.open(this.method, this.SERVER_URL, false, null, null);
httpRequest.setRequestHeader(“Content-Type”,”application/x-raw”);
httpRequest.send(txt);
}
}
catch (e)
{
error_in_execute = true;
return !error_in_execute;
}
switch(httpRequest.readyState)
{
case 1,2,3:
//alert(‘Bad Ready State: ‘+httpRequest.status);
error_in_execute = true;
return !error_in_execute;
break;
case 4:
if(httpRequest.status !=200)
{
//alert(‘The server respond with a bad status code: ‘+httpRequest.status);
error_in_execute = true;
return !error_in_execute;
}
else
{
response = httpRequest.responseText;
}
break;
}
return response;
}
function load(url)
{
this.executeRequest();
}
function send(url,target, method)
{
this.SERVER_URL = url;
this.method = method;
this.executeRequest();
}
function sendAndLoad(url,targetObject, method)
{
this.SERVER_URL = url;
this.method = method;
this.executeRequest();
}
function addRequestHeader(headerName, headerValue)
{
}
function getBytesLoaded()
{
}
function onDataCallback()
{
/* to be continued
*/
}
function onLoadCallback(success)
{
/* to be continued
*/
}
}
no more nsPRXGSDHGJJIRCom <- make me think at HN_ all the time …. geeezzzzaaassss
“That’s because the Mozilla architecture is confusing
”
Hehe… Yes, it is, I suppose. I have been working with many parts of it. I definitely agree that some things should be done to make it less confusing, and your idea about separating the XUL+Javascript component sounds reasonable. Not being an implementation-side developer, I wouldn’t know what problems that might entail for the core team, though.
But I think the model is more flexible than a lot of people realize, and even with a little knowledge, one can go a long way. For example, I have been primarily a PHP web app developer (yes, with all the wrong pre-conditioning that implies for serious client-side development
. But with just a little toying around, I managed to figure out a way to write most of my logic in PHP CLI mode, and communicate with sockets to the Mozilla front-end (direct sockets, NOT HTTP). Because of the semi-functional, dynamic evaluation nature of Javascript, it is very easy to write just a few generalized routines on the XUL/Javascript side, and then maintain the majority of the logic on the back-end or server side. Of course, using PHP to send actual Javascript statements to Mozilla also means I can endlessly re-define what is happening on the front end, without ever re-writing Javascript or XUL. I suppose some people would not like working this way, but it turned out to be kind of fun, I must say.
Generally, if you ever have problems with any mozilla.org product, you can usually get help from forums.mozillazine.org
Some people won’t go to discussion boards, irc channels, etc.. because they have had bad experiences in the past with those. Someone yelled “RTFM” or “read the faqs before posting” or my personal favorite “read the entire backlog for our mailing list before asking the same question someone else asked” or, you know, something along those lines. I mean come one, folks. Those are just rude. RTFM is actually rather vulgar.
Mozilla is bound to have bugs, and so is every other application out there, so my suggestion when you run into one of those bugs, don’t hesitate to report it; ignore the rude comments, and listen to all the great advice. There are some really nice people trying to help get Mozilla, Firefox, etc… working perfectly.
Can someone gime me some reasons (if any) to change from Opera 7.5 to Mozilla ?
>1. setting the home page fails – the window “ok” does not >work, all other settings are ok. you have to do this in >prefs.js to make it stick.
>
>2. right click open in new tab fails.
>
>these 2 basic functionalities failing indicates something >seriously wrong.
I am using firefox 0.9 for some days now, without problems. The functions you mention are working normally (just changed my homepage). Installed some extensions & themes w/o problems and tha day-to-day use is smooth, while in 0.8 I had problems posting in some forums.
I am using Linux and when I want to install a new version, I rename the install directory and uncompress the tar.gz file into /(sth)/firefox. Works perfectly
Can someone gime me some reasons (if any) to change from Opera 7.5 to Mozilla ?
Just play around with the AdBlock extension for awhile .. nothing in Opera can touch it
That’s the main reason why I use Firefox.
Yeah!
http://www.codefish.net.au/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=ar…