Slashdot Mirror

I can't give you the information you want, but I wanted to let you know that I've appealed to somebody who can. Dave Hyatt works on WebCore (he has a blog [mozillazine.org]) and if anybody can provide a pointer to docs, he probably can.

Thanks for the link; Hyatt's blog gives some info on what kind of CSS support should be there (much of CSS2 and bits of CSS3), what the status of XML rendering support is (not yet), and that, yes, a bug they just fixed did prevent it from running the CSS1 test suite at w3c.org. Now all I have to do is convince them that the lack of type-ahead-links and type-ahead-find in web pages are truly important shortcomings in Safari...I'm afraid that tabs might be beyond their UI guidelines.

I can't give you the information you want, but I wanted to let you know that I've appealed to somebody who can. Dave Hyatt works on WebCore (he has a blog) and if anybody can provide a pointer to docs, he probably can.

The most likely answer is simply going to be no, there's no public documentation yet, and to wait before trying to do what you're trying to do. But you never know. I'll post if I get a response. (I'm sure Dave's very, very busy just now.)

Mark Pilgrim has done an excellent review of Safari and its handling of CSS - I'd suggest you check out if you're having problems, and submit (specific, reproduceable) test cases to Dave Hyatt.

I'll agree that it's a big pain to have yet another browser with a different level of support for CSS (especially since Tantek et al actually did a really good job with Mac IE5's CSS handling), but it is still a beta, and I'm sure that both the KHTML core and Safari teams will work really hard to get bugs ironed out and the standards support increased, so that it'll behave much better on its final release.

Fingers-crossed anyway ;)

He just posted a few comments.

The fact you could not find a forum to post your question is is not so surprising (there is a whole debtate on the "Mozilla is not for the end users" speech).

Personally over the years I've found that mozillazine is the most helpful place to go for non developers. There tend to be enough people there who are friendly to both tech and non-techs (thus you end up with a group of people who know the answers and are willing to tell you them ;). I used to hang out in the #mozillazine irc channel myself when I had the time and before my University blocked irc...

Concerning the memory hog alegations under Windows I feel your pain. For whatever reason Mozilla always seems to be swapped out of memory when left idle for a few minutes which doesn't help it's responsiveness. Hopefully the phoenix (it's still beta but coming along nicely) will help to solve the memory issues.

The fact you could not find a forum to post your question is is not so surprising (there is a whole debtate on the "Mozilla is not for the end users" speech).

Personally over the years I've found that mozillazine is the most helpful place to go for non developers. There tend to be enough people there who are friendly to both tech and non-techs (thus you end up with a group of people who know the answers and are willing to tell you them ;). I used to hang out in the #mozillazine irc channel myself when I had the time and before my University blocked irc...

Concerning the memory hog alegations under Windows I feel your pain. For whatever reason Mozilla always seems to be swapped out of memory when left idle for a few minutes which doesn't help it's responsiveness. Hopefully the phoenix (it's still beta but coming along nicely) will help to solve the memory issues.

Mozillazine had a blurb about it. Here's the full text:

MOZILLA'S MO BETTA

[Mozilla.org Logo]

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser in the world. But it's not the best. That title belongs to Mozilla, a volunteer-built browser that offers everything Explorer has going for it, plus a bunch of great features. Here are three reasons to switch. One: You can set a preference to prevent pop-up windows. Two: You can right-click on any banner ad and select a menu item that prevents the originating site from sending images to your browser. Three: You can open links as "tabs" that appear along the top of your browser window. Don't be fooled by the new Netscape 7.0. It lacks a built-in pop-up killer and will fire a barrage of AOL ads every chance that it gets.

Playboy, January 2003, p.36

This _has_ to be good for mainstream acceptance when such non-tech-oriented magazines like Playboy laud Mozilla so greatly. Maybe if other general living and style magazines adopt such a positive attitude, we'll see a surge in Mozilla adoption. Hey, maybe its wishful thinking but if nothing else, it's increasing awareness.

P.S. -- Consider this proof that I *DO* read the articles. :-P

To me, the most significant point in the article was Mitchell Baker's note supporting phoenix. In it, he lists one of the reasons for supporting phoenix as an experiment to see whether mozilla can succeed by building core browser functionality that others adapt.

This is where OSS succeeds right now in mainstream implementations, as a base that a value-added integrator can then modify for clients to achieve a lower cost solution. It is hard for OSS to market directly to end-users. OSS is not close enough to end-users to know how to modify interface and other features to suit their needs. However, value-added integrators are.

With microsoft, value-added integrators face high licensing fees and the danger that microsoft will try to eat their lunch. In OSS, this is less an issue.

However, there is one problem with this view. There's plenty of reason for value-added integrators to use mozilla. What is the reason to contribute back? In the end, I suspect the interest for contribution to mozilla is with platform providers, e.g., AOL, who do not want access to their platforms controlled by their competitors. Note, a number of OSS projects have moved to corporate sponsorship congruent with this view, e.g., Gnome, Mozilla, and even Apache.

So, mozilla might find its real success as a neutral technology that can be adapted across a number of platforms by value-added integrators. It will have to look for support to corporations whose interest is in having neutral access technologies for their platforms.

"There's only one small problem. I really miss being able to click my mouse wheel and move the mouse up and down to scroll through the page faster."

Then you'll be wanting the AutoScroll add-in (currently still in beta). You can get it here. There's a little more information in this MozillaZine article.

Autoscroll extension for Mozilla/Phoenix as reported by Mozillazine.

0.5 will be the last release to be called Phoenix. Version 0.6, expected in January, will have a new name. And they really mean it this time.

The best place to discuss Phoenix is at the Mozillazine Phoenix forums.

Extensions are available here -- including radial context and mouse gestures.

Themes are available here and there's a beautiful page of similar-but-different themes here.

1.- What can I do to help?
We need all the distribution we can get. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell your coworkers. If you're a student, get it distributed at your college. Submit a story to Slashdot and other news sites about the release. Make some noise on your blog. Spread the word!

1.- What can I do to help?
We need all the distribution we can get. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell your coworkers. If you're a student, get it distributed at your college. Submit a story to Slashdot and other news sites about the release. Make some noise on your blog. Spread the word!

here's an informative thread...see ted's post, five comments down.

would've been nice if this had been posted in the story itself.

For those of you who are interested, here is a link to the new roadmap

source: mozillazine.org

Of course, most of them were fixed before the article on The Register was even written.

The test URL refrenced is here.

BTW the site works with no blockage in lynx :)

There are people working on this. Currently, Phoenix is the brower only app. It's lean, quick, and efficient. Bugs are still being worked out, but it's very usable right now. Also, K-Meleon is a browser that uses the Gecko rendering engine, but not the Mozilla XUL interface.

As for email/news clients, there are two, I believe. Thunderbird and Minotaur. Neither are out at all yet to use.

embed[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"] {
display: none !important;
visibility: hidden !important;
}

Mozilla Riddled with Fixed Security Holes

The most remarkable detail about these bugs is that most of them are already fixed. In fact, only one of the flaws (reported here in September) is present in the latest stable branch and trunk releases (Mozilla 1.0.1 and 1.1 respectively), while the more recent 1.2 Beta isn't vulnerable to any of them.

Chimera (Mac browser based on Mozilla, like Phoenix for Linux/Windows) now has Talkback. Maybe they'll be able to backport it to Mozilla.

The post suggests that theme support is new to 0.4. That's probably my fault for a not-as-clear-as-it-could-have-been release note. Phoenix uses XUL. Part of XUL is that the browser GUI is styled using images and CSS. That makes any XUL-based product "skinable". This is the first release of Phoenix where there were a number of completed themes available but it is not the first release with support for themes. Theme support is a byproduct of the decision to build the UI with images and CSS (XUL). For more information and discussion of Phoenix themes and other Phoenix issues check out the MozillaZine Phoenix forums.

--Asa

Everybody please avoid Passport for *nix when it comes out - they are in all likelihood doing the exact same thing. They will abandon you as soon as they get what they want (i.e., a monopoly position).

I'm using the Classic theme on XP so it's using native widgets to render the UI, maybe that's why it's faster for me.

While I admit that is often useful, it's not really the purpose of a web browser to also be a file manager. The reason IE does this is so MS can claim its part of the OS. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

Now try it in IE, it's different.

You do realize that many people who don't use IE view this (oft-used) argument as a troll. Mozilla simply can't (and shouldn't) follow in IE's footsteps all of the time. I mean-- for one thing, that would make Mozilla IE's bitch!

Another usability problem is the placement of the Address bar. Why is it at the same layer as the toolbar?

You're right, a bug has been posted about this(172818), and (AFAIK) it is planned for a future release. We all want more screen space.

but of course... nobody cares about Usability issues.

Hey... hey... now, you know that's just not true. Come on, pumpkin, buck up. I care, don't I?
(I'm sorry, but that was such a troll)

And that "Toolbar Customizer" with the drag and drop has bad usability problems.

Really? I found it pleasing and easy to use. Why don't you stop by the Phoenix Forums and share your thoughts on how it can be improved?

Also, the Bookmark Management is very sloppy. They need sidebar management for bookmarks.

Agreed.

--
Posted with Phoenix!

Here's a help site dedicated to Phoenix, created by David Tenser. Announced in this thread on MozillaZine, and see also the Phoenix forums.

Here's a help site dedicated to Phoenix, created by David Tenser. Announced in this thread on MozillaZine, and see also the Phoenix forums.

Minotaur is being developed as a Phoenix-style replacement for Mozilla Mail and News, except with the same UI as Mozilla. Eventually, Thunderbird will be developed from Minotaur, only with a Phoenix based UI.

It has been delayed until next week. They are pushing the mail client a bit forward as well. See the post on the Phoenix Forum for details.

http://www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/hyatt/2002_04_1 4_mozillian_archive.html

>. What is needed are many, many, focus group sessions to create an OSS interface guidlines document that everyone can refer to (or not) when they build thier applications. Arent Gnome doing something approaching this?

Focus groups themselves don't necessarily give you clear vision. First you have to agree on what problems you're looking to solve then go from there.

Regarding design-by-dictatorship vs. design-by-committee, look at the Phoenix project and Chimera which were started as a reaction to the designed-by-committee state of Mozilla's UI.

I won't disagree that IE is preloaded but let's be realistic here about Mozilla's strengths and weaknesses. Mozilla overall is just not a fast, lean application. If Phoenix can improve new window preformance by 30-40% there is obviously plenty of room for improvement!

Internet Explorer for UNIX has been discontinued. The bastards at Redmond pulled the wool over Solaris and HP/UX users' eyes. The download links are still up, though, so get it while it lasts! MozillaZine has the details. How much longer until Mac IE is pulled? Damn you M$!

AOL browser still uses IE for it's underpinnings.

The latest release of Compuserve uses Gecko. The latest AOL client for Mac OS uses Gecko. Beta versions of AOL 8 for Windows use Gecko. AOL was waiting for its Netscape division to finish Mozilla 1.0 before switching away from Microsoft browser technology.

If you prefer bleeding edge code with more bugs then use Mozilla.

Actually, according to asa, Mozilla 1.1 has about 1000 less bugs than Mozilla 1.0.1, which is what NS7 is based on.

MozillaZine has an article about this with a few more details.

MozillaZine has an article about this with a few more details.

Netscape is basically a branded version of Moz with some slight tweaks (like some UI, or the lack of popup blocking), so don't expect to get anything extra. But if Netscape does abandon their browser, and only makes it availible for embedding, that would also mean that there would be no Netscape engineers working on any part of the browser outside Gecko, and I fear how Mozilla's UI mess would escalate without even the little guidance it has now, so be careful what you wish for ;).

The major detractor was the user interface, since it didn't feel like a Windows application. This was probably due to a poor understanding by the authors of XUL.

Uh, why can't the problem just be that Mozilla's user interface is not very good? I'm sorry, but there's a reason why there are multiple Mozdev projects to build browsers without Mozilla's cumbersome interface, why Dave Hyatt and mpt have savaged the current interface.

Why can't some people accept the fact that Mozilla's UI needs a lot of work?

AOL has also released betas using Gecko. The thing is that Mozilla uses the same embedding API as IE, so it's easy to switch. I really hope that AOL pushes the Netscape thing, because if IE doesn't have competition, they have no incentive to fix their non-security-related bugs and inconsistent standards support.

No, it wasn't. It was released on the 11th. There has been a freeze for a while, builds might have been calling themselves 1.1a, but the official release build was on the 11th.

See here or here for the history.

You could try this

Go to Mozillazineand put your money where your mouth is.
Oh, what is that? You don't want to use evil Pay Pal? Then write a damn check. I am sure someone will take it.

How about showing that you support the cause. Not only will you pay for your beer, you will add a your voice for support.
Only by rigidly supporting these guys will you ensure sucess. Sure everyone will bitch about the time it took to finally
make it this far. But I as, how many browsers have you developed lately? That's what I thought. Now, get behind these guys and give a push.
Oh, and BTW, how many reviewers assisted in this. Exactly!

bloated and ugly!! but don't take my word for it, read this mozilla sucks ass. and NO, i do not use IE.

For a few laughs, check out MozillaQuest. Mike Angelo has an article on the 1.0 release. Now he has to branch out into articles on other things (such as Linux distros).

In this article, he complains in this article that the mozilla roadmap doesn't call for a 1.0 release.

For real news about Mozilla, of course, try another site, such as MozillaZine/

http://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article2278.ht ml pretty much says it all :)

Congrats to all the hackers on the moz project. Fantastic job and well worth the wait.

From Hyatt's blog:

Monday, May 27, 2002 Posted 1:12 PM by David Hyatt

Eep. Sometimes I forget that people are actually reading this thing and developing grand conspiracy theories. I especially like the part where I'm referred to as a "long-time Mac nut." Until about 3 months ago, my Mac desktop was a glorified paperweight, Cocoa was something you drank, and Objective-C... well, I would have just blinked and responded with "Objective what?"

Just to set the record straight on this conspiracy theory... all Netscape employees who were hired before AOL took the company over are eligible for a six-week sabbatical after four years of employment. You also have to take the sabbatical within one year of becoming eligible for it, or you have to go through the hassle of filing for an extension. As of July 5, I'll have been working for Netscape/AOLTW for 5 years, so I had to take the sabbatical now. It also seemed like a good time to do so since Mozilla 1.0 is wrapping up (and in very good shape). This sabbatical has absolutely nothing to do with Chimera.

Although an iBrowser would be an interesting development--IE is only one of three third party apps that ships with OS X, and the use of Mozilla in a Beta version of a Mac AOL client gives this some weight, I don't think Hyatt is working on it.

Apple co-opts the Mozilla code base for a skunkworks native OS X browser that's both super fast and grannie-friendly. A Galeon for OS X. "iBrowser" thus completes the set of consumer software apps gradually introduced with iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie, which are being advertised under the slogan "everything's easier on a Mac".

In this scenario, Jobs flips Microsoft the bird- indicating that Redmond is just another component supplier - and slackness won't be tolerated! - so restoring some of the pride lost by having to butter up Bill in 1997 to keep Mac Office alive.

Absurd, isn't it?

Well, yes, but the evidence has tickled conspiracy theorists. First, up pops Chimera: a native OSX browser that's based on Mozilla, but one that's fast and lean and suffers none of the bloat that's associated with the sprawling lizard, and majors on end-user features such as organizing bookmarks, tabs, and blocking cookies and pop-ups. (That's the goal, but it's early days yet). It's led by David Hyatt, a member of the Netscape/AOL project and long-time Mac nut, whose blog attacks both the creeping featurism of the Mozilla process, and the portalitis of his employer. He waxes evangelical about the value of giving the end-user a good experience, and describes Netscape 7.0 as "full of annoying marketing-driven nonsense" Which of course, it is. That's a fine line to take, but we're glad someone's taking it.

Coincidentally, Apple annoints Chimera as the browser of choice for the WWDC developer conference keynote demos, which is a stunning endorsement of a product that is barely a month old. All eyes are on Chimera. Then David goes on a sabbatical.

So what's going on here?

Not being able to track David down himself (mail us, David), we rang Mike Pinkerton, another leading light behind both the Macintosh Mozilla project and Chimera, at AOL's Virginia office.

Mike said yes, he'd heard the rumors but no, nothing was going on with Apple.

Oh, really?

"It's way too early," said.

"I think Apple is just so happy it's got a browser people can use [on X]," he told us.

From now on the team will focus on X, rather than MacOS. 1.0 was touted as a definitive break, but Mike but it more tactfully: "we're trying to put it to bed," he said.

So there's nothing behind this sudden endorsement, and sabbatical?

"We've reached a milestone, developers have been working on this four years, so it's natural if you're a little burned out to take a break," he said.

And it's true - Mozilla post-mortems are going on all over the place. But none are so brave and coruscating as David's. They're a terrific read. Yes, he says, Mozilla is a great code base. But no, you don't need to weigh it down with vertically-integrated marketing crap. "Netscape will never make inroads into the market until it abandons its quest for revenue and focuses once again on making a browser that puts the end user first," he notes.

"Let's face it. The Mac is just plain slow. Anyone who has compared Gecko across platforms knows this. Wired even wrote an article about it recently..." he writes. "Even naked Mozilla... makes browsing a higher priority than Web properties... wouldn't it be ironic if, through your own efforts, you rendered your product obsolete?"

Does Apple hate IE so much?

Let's toss this theory around for a moment. First of all, it assumes that Apple sees "browsing" as a consumer experience on a par with making movies, playing music, and processing photos. Right now on Windows, you've got a fairly lame choice of applications to do each of these digital media processing applications, or more likely, none at all. There's no iPhoto, or iMovie. There's no integrated MP3 player or burner, and Microsoft's playback software Media Player is a bug-ridden piece of bloatware that embarrasses even The Beast's staunchest allies. It's supposed to do audio, and video, but does neither well.

And web browsing is capably served by Internet Explorer itself, which comfortably leads the pack and can boast a host of features (such as the Scrapbook, bookmark management, auctions) not shared by the Windows version. So from a consumer point of view, a Macintosh computer isn't really lacking a browser with weight.

So is this a problem that needs to be fixed? That leads us on to the next question, which is, if it isn't, why else should Apple pursue an alternative browser strategy, at the risk of antagonizing the biggest Macintosh software ISV?

Guilt, revenge and bargaining chips

For a start there's common decency. Having knifed Netscape in the back in 1997 by agreeing to make IE the default Mac browser, perhaps Steve feels he owes them one. With a press that looks to Jobs as both a tastemaker and visionary, he could give the open source browser an enormous filip by endorsing a Mozilla-derivative for the Mac. The heavy lifting's already been done, after all, and Steve knows a bargain when he sees one.

On the other hand, since this is Jobs and this is Apple Computer we're talking about, we shouldn't be entertaining such talk of common decency or ethics for too long. More likely, Apple can appreciate a bargaining chip when discussing IE ship dates, and in other negotiations, too. Both parties know that an Apple endorsement of say, Microsoft's DRM technology - which the Beast is desperate to push - or the confirmation of the Mac's status as a .NET client shines light on them both. Microsoft can't afford to be seen to be shafting the Mac platform, and Apple along with the rest of the industry, surely sees that Microsoft is trying to cut the ground from under the commodity CIFS clones such as SAMBA, NetApp or Apple itself.

Remember Apple is in a stronger position than it was in 1997. Back then smart money gave the company months, if not weeks to survive. Now, with the blessing of a healthy balance sheet, and the adoration of the press tastemakers - is it possible to loan a piece of Apple kit to the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg without the reviewer offering to sacrifice a child, or at least a limb, in sheer gratitude? - the company is in a position to stand its ground.

On balance however, we'd rate the likelihood of an Apple iBrowser as pretty outstandingly remote. Despite the sound technical and political advantages we've outlined above, it's a long-term commitment that only the brave would make. A temporary insurgency can turn into a full-scale Vietnam, if you're not careful.

And integration costs are the most underrated in the industry. Integration costs are why Microsoft won't win corner-stores over to make smartphones that overthrow Nokia, Ericsson and Sony, and why Dell can't make a huge SMP that challenges Sun, HP or IBM, even though they've got scale, and a hundred other reasons to succeed.

But the iBrowser meme will run and run, and we'd love to be a fly on the wall during the next negotiations between Microsoft and Apple, that's for sure.