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Mozilla 0.9.9 Released

OSSMKitty writes: "Mozilla.org has released the next version of Mozilla, version 0.9.9. Highlights include MathML enabled by default on Unix and Win32, and TrueType font support on Unix. Read the release notes and then download a binary to test on your platform."

20 of 629 comments (clear)

  1. Fix the MailNews bugs... by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can hardly wait until a release of Mozilla that fixed the annoying behavior of Mozilla's mail and news system - you cannot select a message without displaying it, thus you cannot forward a spam onto Spamcop without Mozilla starting to render it (and fetching any webbugs in it).

    They supposedly have a patch to fix this, but I don't see that bug fix listed in the release notes for 0.9.9

    1. Re:Fix the MailNews bugs... by campgod · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you read the bugzillas about this, it's a good reality check about the open source concept. Sure, everyone can see the code and fix it, but this bug basically turned into a GIGANTIC committee meeting with most of the effort spent trying to figure out whether it should be classified as bug x, y, or z; and whether it should be address via a, b, or c.
      See 22994, 30888, 119266

      Am I a troll, or did I just blow your mind?

  2. Re:MathML. by SlamMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And linux has what?

    --
    Mod point free since 2001
  3. Re:tabbed browsing by Teferi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what if they do? Good ideas deserve to be implemented, no matter by who.

    --
    -- Veni, vidi, dormivi
  4. Re:Slashdot is not bugzilla. by jesser · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Similarly, Bugzilla is not Slashdot. If you're just ranting about a known bug, please do so here, especially if the bug already has a lot of comments :)

    --
    The shareholder is always right.
  5. Re:So close, so very close by shobadobs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Define "correctly." MSNBC does not use valid HTML at all, so Mozilla can display it however it wants to.

  6. GUI still too basic, counter-intuitive by Michael+Wardle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Tabs are a nice idea, but they're still quite immature in Mozilla. For instance, they don't close in the correct order, so they're no substitute for real tabs or MDI, as found in Galeon or Opera.

    I accept that Mozilla is still in development, but many good ideas that make the GUI work better (like this one) are actually being turned down.

    Something else that reminds me of this is there is no Apply button in the Themes Preferences dialog box.

    I'm getting into many bad habits using Mozilla's interface, and when I go to use something that works properly I find myself doing what I would've done in Mozilla, and it doesn't work (and nor should it). It's a bit like people who double-click on web links. :-)

    It seems to me that Mozilla's GUI is made to pacify Netscape 4 users, rather than making it as usable as it should be. I think this is bad for several reasons, not least because Netscape 6 still has a smaller market share than Netscape 4, so Netscape 4 users aren't migrating at all! To me this means that:
    a) some users are sticking with Netscape 4
    b) some users are moving to Internet Explorer or something else, because they're better, regardless of the menus being somewhat different

    Maybe this shows us that open-source projects really need to spend more time on proper GUI guidelines, because as much as I hate products made by certain other companies (that one that makes Windows in particular), I find their apps much easier to use (when they don't crash, etc.).

    I think I'm going to end up using Galeon or SkipStone, because the Mozilla rendering engine seems quite good -- it's the GUI holding Mozilla back (regardless of how pretty the "Modern" theme is!).

    Having said this, I'm still downloading 0.9.9 :-)

    1. Re:GUI still too basic, counter-intuitive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >>so they're no substitute for real tabs or MDI

      MDI has got to be the worst UI idea ever. Having three windows inside a window just means that if you want to see anything at all then you have adjust 3 scroll bars. The worst is that most of the time in windows you have MDI combined with modal windows and you find yourself craning your neck in a vain attempt to see something useful. Then when you maximize the window it's completely confusing as to how to minimize the inside one.

      I have been using computer for 14 years and I still have problems with MDI interfaces. No wonder new computer users hate technology so much.

      Tabs are better than MDI. I don't like them for browsing because I have a superior window manager set up--the only WM and theme that I have found which comes close to meeting my needs. (Both Apple and Windows fall far short of my demands).

      I use tabs in xemacs even though those are screwed up. It's better than just `C-X b.'

    2. Re:GUI still too basic, counter-intuitive by aquarian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree in general. My beef is not with the tabbed browser, which I don't use anyway, but the mail and news programs. I think they're still a bit muddled compared to Outlook Express. The GUI is carried over directly from Netscape 4 with no improvements. Merging multiple accounts is a real pain. Don't get me wrong- I'm no MS fan. I even like KMail/Knode better. OE just works, GUI wise. Of course, its text editor is buggy as hell, and it has all those security problems... but it's still the easiest to use.

  7. Re:Sorry, but no go kitty. by asa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Be patient. The volunteers that have been doing this work for you in the past haven't gotten to it yet.

    -Asa

  8. Mozilla needs columnar bookmarks! by sigma · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I've been using Mozilla for several months now, and the only thing I wish they'd implement is Netscape 4.x style bookmark scrolling.

    I have a good 60 or so bookmarks, and I hate taking the time to scroll to the bottom of the list. It's so much nicer in Netscape where it just spills over to an additonal column.

    Of course, I'm sure that others prefer the current IE style scrolling, so I'd be happy if it is implemented as an option. If you agree with me, please Vote for this bug!

  9. Re:What about Opera? by swordgeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's nice. Hope you're happy with it. I'm not. That's just fine, though--in fact, it's the way things should be.

    You like Opera. I like Mozilla. There's no reason I have to switch to Opera, or you have to switch to Mozilla. There's also no reason that the six people who live in a cave and prefer Netscape 4.76 have to switch either.

    The thing that makes Opera and Mozilla (and Netscape, and ye randome othere browsere) good and important is that they're choices and alternatives. That's why we shouldn't be fighting about which one is better, and evaluating them honestly for ourselves.

    --

    "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
  10. Re:New Feature: Pop-Up Blocking! by MavEtJu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That feature was already available in 0.9.8.
    I've only disabled "resize or move" and "raise or lower".

    --
    bash$ :(){ :|:&};:
  11. Re:Thanks for the attempt by electroniceric · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Gaw?

    We're benchmarking the progress of the browser by whether Mozilla will be able to render MathML within mangled HTML on 2 sites?

    Sure it'd be nice to scream at other geeks in greek letters and such, but I think I'd put more stock in being able to publish math-intensive work directly to HTML, rather screwing around with LaTEX and pdf and whatnot.

    Give em some credit, man!

  12. Re:So close, yet so far... by neuroticia · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey, it could be worse. I mean.. The current release of Mozilla is one of the most stable things I've used, although it leaves some things to desire. When one compares it to "Netscape 6" or "OS 10" or all of these other products that are supposedly beyond the high up in the version rankings... But that still have feature sets lacking and bugs that need fixing..

    I'm all for excercizing caution in version numbers. Under-promise, over-deliver. In this world there's a lot of pressure to release versions one, two, and three within months of eachother and to have a high version number before the product has been around for too long. Doesn't anyone remember the days when version numbers *meant* something?

    -Sara

  13. Salon Article on Mozilla by twjordan · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Check this article out. In it Salon's Tech Editor describes his 180 turnaround on mozilla.


    Before:

    The last time I tried it, a year and a half ago, it was so buggy, slow and lacking in features that I gave up in disgust after a week of software pain. Ever since, I had dismissed as overly idealistic advocacy the mumbling I kept hearing from various developers who touted each new Mozilla "milestone" release as incrementally better than the one before.


    Now:

    As I write these words, I've been running Mozilla for Windows for almost five hours. While that's obviously not enough time to make a detailed technical appraisal, I can say that Mozilla has already become my default browser and that it is as fast and slick and full-featured as I want.


    Nuff said!

  14. thanks by salmo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Asa, I just wanted to say thanks. You're always answering lowly user's questions on Slashdot and Mozillazine and such. You don't get peeved because people don't keep track of every minute detail of the Mozilla construction process. You only rant at the people who act like complete tools. Your informative answers to people's problems and questions have definitly made my Mozilla experience much better and I'm sure you've had the same effect on others.

    Thanks for putting up with all the crap that you put up with and for helping us little guys out. I appreciate it.

  15. Re:why is mozilla good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Security explois asside, IE6 is a far superior browser, I am not a M$-Phile but neither am i a M$-Phobe, If it is good I use it. right tools for the right job, I use FreeBSD for my NAT server, Linux for my Internet srervices and Windows2K for my Desktop. wouldn't have it any other way

  16. Lovely tabbed browsing but... by Trogre · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... I'd still really love to see ROT-13 encoding/decoding in the mailer a la netscape.

    Its absence makes reading encoded usenet spoiler postings most difficult.
    .
    .
    .

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  17. Re:why is mozilla good? by Unfallen · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Fair point. IE6 doesn't load any slower than Moz, works, does everything IE 5 did... And, indeed, while it's bundled with Windows, I fear that many people will still be happy with it and that the monopoly shall continue.


    I'm using Linux on my home desktop, and Win2k at work, and am running Moz on both for several reasons:

    • Mail - ignoring the browser for a mo... But I don't really fancy loading both Moz and Outlook, so it makes sense to use either Outlook/IE or just Mozilla. And the IMAP support in Outlook is blown away by.. uh.. well, anything, really. So Moz gets that bit.
    • Peace of mind - Mozilla had its cookie and image managers way before IE 6 came out. I love the "enable cookies only from original server" aspect. Coupled with this goes the whole IE privacy issues - I have no idea who's looking at what I'm looking at in IE, authenticated-Microsoft or otherwise.
    • Extendability - mozdev.org (currently dead tho?) is a fantastic example of OSS community. From Annozilla to Recall to Multizilla, it's good to see people picking it up, and I hope the projects will evolve as Mozilla does.
    • Debugging - From a web developer POV. Microsoft and "useful debugging info" in the same sentence? Ahahahah. No, seriously. Ahaha.


    • Bizarrely, despite MS's desperate attempts to blend the boundaries between the desktop and the net, IE is still very much just a window for browsing remote sites. If anything, it's moving info away from the desktop into the waiting arms of fat controllers. Mozilla (and, I suspect, many other browsers) has succeeded in providing a platform from which interactivity and true innovation is infinitely more feasible, the seeds of which we are seeing now. Distributed independence. If AOL take it and run with it without screwing it over with hype and brand names, and if the Mozilla team can carry on the good work, iron out all the blatant bugs and maximise performance, then I'll be a very happy man.