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Mozilla Bug Week
Gerv continues:
"You'll be shown round our world-class web-based tools (Bugzilla, Bonsai, Tinderbox, LXR), and led through all the steps between discovering a problem and having your patch checked in to the Mozilla source tree. After checkin, those fixes and features will be appreciated by an audience of millions in Mozilla derivative products.
Not Just For Hardcore Hackers
"Mozilla's user interface is written in web technologies - defined in XUL (XML-based User-interface Language), animated with JavaScript and styled with Cascading Style Sheets. This means it can be understood, and hacked on, by anyone who understands HTML/XML, JS and Style Sheets. mozilla.org has recently developed technology to allow fixes to be made to Mozilla's UI without the need to compile Mozilla - all you need is a self-installing nightly build. This widens the field of potential contributors to everyone who's ever made a decent web page.
"So, if you have thought about getting involved in a free software project, but it all seemed to complicated or difficult, here's your chance.
"On the other hand, if you want to check the entire source tree out from CVS, compile the embedding test harness, and go into deep hack mode on Mozilla's C++ core, we'll help you do that too.
"Bug Week will be happening on IRC. Mozilla's nightly builds even include a chat client, ChatZilla, to make it even easier to participate. Look for people whose nicks begin with "BW_". We hope to have people there most of the time, although the help may be concentrated when the US West Coast or Europe is awake."
Rather than just ranting and raving about your pet peeve, you should rant, rave AND enter it into Bugzilla (after ascertaining that it isn't already in there).
Subnote: Don't directly link to individual bugs in slashdot comments. It causes spam when people add ME TOOs as comments.
(Hey, mod this anonymous bugzilla pointer post up, not the various karma whores to follow.)
On both Linux at home and Windows at work. Of course if you could give a slightly better description of the 'problem' you are seeing people may be able to give you some suggestions....
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
yaking about them here on Slashdot is not going to help get them fixed any faster. At least go to the right forum, or write up the bug.
it is very easy to chew the fat about a problem, and then not do anything to fix the issue. Which seems to be par for the course.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
There's one major problem with Mozilla's email component, something that that will probably keep me from using Mozilla all together, specifically the lack of a spelling checker.
I really like the mail reader, it's got all the features that I've been looking for (multiple 'from' options, mixing pop and IMAP accounts for example) but the lack of a spelling checker is really a problem for me.
What are you complaining about? The only projects that end, typically, are failed projects. In order for stuff to continue to improve, it can't end. Are you also sick of hearing about the never-ending project that is windows (which just had its 5.1 release, to great fanfare) this week? What about the never-ending RealPlayer project? Or the Mac OS project? Or the WinAmp project? Or ...? If you don't like hearing about them, here's a suggestion:
Stop reading sites that print news about software!
Jackass.
Insightful: +1. Funny: +1. Flamebait: -1. Troll: -1. A good flame: priceless
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Mozilla is not based on the ''crusty old netscape code''. They tried that. They didn't get very far. Mozilla is, afaik, a pretty much complete rewrite from scratch. One of many legitimate reasons it's taken so long to get to the very useable state it is in now.
Mozilla is a very competent and capable browser. About the best available for non-Windows users and plenty of those like it too. It costs you nothing. It's totally open for anyone to do what they want with it. Why do so many people have a problem with this? If you don't like it, don't use it.
It's taken a long time coming, sure, but so was Win2K. At least you've been able to use Mozilla all the time it's been developed. I jumped on board around 0.9 after trying out the earlier versions and not being overly impressed. It's now on all my machines and my users are very happy with it.
"Don't get mad, get a monkey!"
Why I can not specify personal CSS in Mozilla GUI setup?
There's no UI for it yet, but just put a file called userChrome.css (for modifying the UI) or userContent.css (for web content) in your chrome directory. You may need !important on the rules.
See mozilla.org for more docs and info.
Gerv
Actually the problem is with English. Many (perhaps most?) languages are actually spelled the way they sound. Even loan works are transformed so they match the local spelling rules.
Spending valuable time memorizing thousands of bizarre English spellings might help you to impress people, but that's time that could have been spent learning something useful.
As far as I'm concerned, trying to improve my spelling in the age of spellcheckers is about as useful as trying to improve my handwriting in the age of word-processers. It's a nice hobby if you enjoy it, but it's not a life skill.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
The biggest problem I have with Open Source software is that there is this myth that because something is open, anyone can fix bugs and contribute updates.
Well yes they can. But the problem stems from the lead time required to get the know the project, how it works, what does what and how different functions interact with each other.
Some examples. One of the companies I used to work for (a large IT consultancy company) I worked on a telemetry project. For every person who joined that project, there was a lead time of about three months for them to get used to, understand and know how the system works.
Okay, so that was one massive project and with people working full time on it, but Mozilla and other open source projects aren't exactly small either.
Another example. I wrote a GPL perl script called AvantSlash to take the content of Slashdot and process it for handhelds (since Slashdot's own isn't very good). Unfortunately due to a bug and an overdependence on AvantGo's caching, it accidenly spammed the slashdot site and got its IP barred. (This was in the 1.x thread, v2.0 doesn't suffer this problem).
A comment by Jamie a couple of days ago mentioned why it was banned and suggested that I contribute to slashcode.
Whilst this, in theory, is a great idea, as it would seem to be common with open source coders he unfortunately forgot that there would be several months of lead time whilst I learn how the code works, what does what and why and then, once I knew the system well, actually apply a well written patch.
Don't get me wrong, I love open source and the stuff it produces and I have a lot of respect for anyone who spends their time doing such stuff.
However, I'm just pointing out that there is a common myth amongst people in massive open source projects that people can just download, install and then immediately start dipping into the code and producing patches without having to go through the whole learning process.
So, back to Mozilla. Anything which speeds up this lead time has got to be a good thing and will have the added advantage of getting more people interested in the whole project.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
you can download a plugin to get a fullscreen view in mozilla. try multizilla.
Multizilla's the tab thing, not full screen, isn't it?
Full screen is currently being written, I think.
Gerv
Bugzilla is extremely successful. Galeon, K-Meleon, Skipstone, Activestate Komodo, the OS/2 Web Browser, Beonex... all these are successful Mozilla derivatives or spin-offs.
All the ports build and work fine - check our Tinderbox if you want.
Gerv
yeah, but in the mean time displaying a tab in fullscreen is probably close enough. There is a toolbar that comes with multizilla that allows for this. It acts just like the IE fullscreen view I would imagine (minus the tabs of course).
If you habitually misspell words in your e-mail messages, the problem is likely to lie with your education rather than the software. Inclusion of software crutches for a wetware problem only makes the latter worse.
Utter nonsense. Typographical errors are a fact of life, especially for those of us with some degree of wrist problem. I was third in my state in the national spelling bee in the eighth grade and yet I thank the gods daily for the passive spelling checker in Outlook Express, which saves me from the errors of my aging eyes and hands. I only wish Explorer had the same capability in text areas.
Yours is more of the "blame the user" philosophy that is endemic to the UNIX world. Errors happen. Humans are fallible. Software should try to prevent them and help you correct them, not laugh at you for making them.
Tim
Did you ever read the Release Notes? It's all in there. Where else would you like us to put it?
Gerv
Gervase Markham is a Christian
:-)
Absolutely. But I'm not sure why you say it as if it's an insult.
and has also been arse licking the mozilla devs to secure an internship.
Definitely. I secured this job entirely through ass-kissing; I didn't do any work on the project before at all. In fact, I worked on Konqueror for a year and a half.
mozilla is the best web browser in existence
There's no such thing as the best web browser in existence - they all have different strengths and weaknesses. But Mozilla does rock
Gerv refuses to worhsip at the 'Church of Emacs'.
Absolutely. I'm an nedit user, although I sometimes use vi for checkin comments because I'm too dumb to set CVS up to work with nedit by default.
Gerv
dude, don't give trolls the time of day. This one especially doesn't deserve it.
:-)
Everyone's worth the time of day.
Gerv
>Actually the problem is with English. Many
:)
:) there is even a joke for that. There are many words like that !! and many many exceptions, and most French people are delighted by this complexity.
>(perhaps most?) languages are actually spelled
>the way they sound. Even loan works are
>transformed so they match the local spelling
>rules.
Well this is probably completely off topic, but couldn't resist.
Obviously you didn't learn French at school
When I began learning English I was delighted to see how words are actually, mostly spelled as they are. In French (and I guess in many other languages) you have so much exceptions, due to mainly to historic reasons. One of the most famous is for instance "De Broglie" which is the name of a famous quanta theory scientist actually the father of the theory is pronounced "Debreuil", and this is the "only" name in French which follow this particular rule ! go figure
In fact, I think that English is one of the most pragmatic language, a lot of thing have been simplified, and this really a good thing. French people have vehemently refused a spelling reform (proposed by a minister of the government !!! )
When I began learning English I was delighted to see how words are actually, mostly spelled as they are. In French (and I guess in many other languages) you have so much exceptions, due to mainly to historic reasons.
Actually, French is probably the only Western language with *worse* spelling problems than English. Most languages like Spanish, Italian, or German have far more regular spelling than either English or French.
Thanks very much :-)
Gerv
French is kind of funny, in that, in general, you can figure out the pronounciation from the spelling, but there's absolutely no hope of going the other way. There are _tons_ of silent letters, but the rules are followed well enough that you can usually figure out which letters aren't pronounced. (Of course there are exceptions like the ones you point out.)
At the other extreme from English and French is Finnish. It's spelled exactly the way it sounds, right down to long and short consonents. It's pretty neat. In English the difference between "balled" and "baled" is in the vowel, in Finnish the vowels wouldn't change, but the length of the consonent would be different.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow