March 10, 2010 - 10:08 pm
Mozilla has released the first beta of Thunderbird 3.1, code named Lanikai.
As expected, there’s nothing revolutionary in this release. Instead, it focuses on improved stability for the many changes Thunderbird underwent in version 3.0.
From the release notes:
- Several fixes to improve upgrading from Thunderbird 2.
- Several fixes for auto complete, tabs, and activity manager.
- Several design improvements and corrections to the interface.
- Stability and memory improvements.
You can try Thunderbird 3.1 from Mozilla Messaging available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in 25 languages.
- 10:55 am
Mozilla has made available the first development release of the Jetpack SDK, which extends the Jetpack architecture currently available as a Firefox extension.
Jetpack allows extending Firefox functionality with much more simple code and packaging, doesn’t require a restart, and guarantees backwards compatibility for future releases, addressing most of current Firefox extensions limitations.
The Jetpack SDK will let developers to create jetpacks that run on Firefox (including mobile versions), or as stand-alone applications.
It also supports easy unit tests development and execution, and will also include a graphical IDE (Integrated Development Environment), codenamed FlightDeck, that will embed Bespin, Mozilla’s web editor.
It has been confirmed that Jetpack will be integrated into Firefox, so developers can be confident users won’t require installing and extension any more. According to some old Firefox roadmap, Jetpack inclusion is expected for Firefox 4.
Due to some confusion, the mockups and Jetpack SDK video included UI pieces of a proposal design firm MetaLab submitted last year to Mozilla. MetaLab cried fault, and Mozilla has appropriately apologized for the mishap.
The Jetpack team is aiming for releases every 4-6 weeks to get the most feedback in its development
March 4, 2010 - 11:29 am
Mozilla has released Mozilla Developer Preview 3.7 alpha 2.
It’s necessary to first talk about the name. I think this is the first time Mozilla is using this kind of quirky name for a development release, which reflects it is still not clear what we have here or when we’ll have it. The main goal for this release is to test the out of process plugin (OOP) architecture that allows plugins to run on their own process, improving overall Firefox stability and security.
A few weeks ago, Mozilla announced OOP would come as a minor update (code named Lorentz) to the current 3.6 branch. This developer preview however comes from the trunk (Mozilla’s main development code repository) as OOP hasn’t being ported to the branch yet.
OOP is available only on Windows and Linux at this time and you can see it in action via Windows’ process manager where every running plugin is listed as mozilla-runtime.exe. For example the screenshot below shows Silverlight, Flash, and Foxit Reader running in three different processes. Also note that even as I’m playing two YouTube videos and have several PDFs opened at the same time only one process is created for each plugin. So yes, it means if a plugin instance crashes, all instances do as well.
Here’s how it looks when a plugin (Foxit Reader here) crashes. As you can see the rest of the page is there, as is Firefox. Just the plugin area is grayed out and you can click on a link to have the page reloaded.
As Mozilla’s Benjamin Smedberg explains, it is possible to force a frequently crashing plugin in process (along with Firefox code) by creating an advanced preference like dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.nppdf32.dll and setting it to false, replacing the last part with the appropriate plugin library name.
I hope this could happen automatically, so if Firefox detects a % of crashes above a certain threshold (say 30%) it will automatically set the preference and save users a headache or two.
Also worth noting in this release are the first steps of the big Windows theme update which looks very good so far.
Also the bugs that prevented correct tab preview from Windows 7 task bar on Firefox 3.6, seem to be ironed and it works perfectly now.
However, these last two features will most likely come as part of Firefox 4.0 as planned.
February 22, 2010 - 12:50 am
Internet Explorer 8 doesn’t support HTML5 <audio> or <video> tags which allow easy audio and video embedding, and Microsoft haven’t said whether they plan to implement them in IE9.
Fortunately, a workaround is closer thanks to Christian Adams who is working in a new plugin that would make IE capable of handling these new tags.
According to Christian, it’s in early development status so there are no progress bar or any control, but they should follow soon.
Check this screencast to see it in action:
Via Chris Double’s blog.
- 12:22 am
Google has announced that it will stop development of its Gears browser plugins which allowed powerful features including offline storage (for running web apps while offline), geolocation, web workers, and desktop integration.
Instead, Google will support these features as defined (or in process) in the W3C’s HTML5 specification.
This is good for the “one web” goal, but like other proprietary implementations there will be a cost: developers who embraced Gears’ way of doing things will now have to rewrite their code, including big names like WordPress, which took this way for offline storage and speeding the admin interface.
February 18, 2010 - 9:02 pm
eWeek, one of the best enterprise technology magazine, has released a list of 25 Technologies that Changed the Decade, listing Firefox in number 9:
Just a few years ago, the future of the Web and the browser looked bleak. Internet Explorer dominated the market, and Microsoft wasn’t interested in browser innovation. But when Mozilla released Firefox, we finally got real browser choice and innovation. Firefox reignited the browser wars, and today we have more competition and choice in browsers than ever before.
The list also includes 3G, WiFi, AJAX, iPod, Gmail, and other heavy-weight names.
February 12, 2010 - 7:17 pm
It didn’t take long before we have the first handy Firefox extension for Buzz, Google’s new microblogging service.
Buzz it!, developed by Arthur Sabintsev, adds a button to the Firefox toolbar you just need to press to share the title and a link to the current page via a Gmail post.
A simple extension to help early adopters.
Get Buzz it! at Mozilla Add-ons.
February 5, 2010 - 9:41 am
Mozilla has released the first alpha of its forthcoming Thunderbird 3.1, code named Lanikai after a Hawaiian beach.
Alphas are very early development releases and should only be tried by developers and testers. Among other improvements, Lanikai Alpha 1 includes:
- Several improvements to IMAP.
- Several fixes for Smart Folders, message filters, and attachment handling.
- Several design improvements and corrections to the interface.
- Download Manager is now accessible as a menu item (Tools > Saved Files).
- Stability and memory improvements.
February 3, 2010 - 12:34 am
Mozilla’s Stephen Horlander has released a couple of videos showing the plans for a few Firefox tab tasks like adding a new tab.
January 30, 2010 - 2:34 pm
Mozilla has released Firefox for Maemo in its final form, bringing Firefox to mobile devices for the first time. It is Firefox: you get the awesome bar, a download manager where you can pause and resume downloads, one touch bookmarking and tagging, tabbed browsing, the site button for quick security checks, popup blocker, a password manager, the same rendering engine (HTML5, native Theora video, embedded fonts), spell checker, etc.
What makes Firefox for Maemo a product on its own is the efficient user interface designed from the ground up to take challenges like having no keyboard, less computing power, or a smaller display while taking advantage of tablets’ touch screens, and handling.
