Run For Cover; It's Mozilla 1.4 Alpha

asa writes "Mozilla 1.4 Alpha is out. This release features dynamic image and table resizing in Composer, smooth scrolling (see release notes for enabling this feature,) and usability improvements to spam filtering. In addition to these feature improvements, 1.4a also contains fixes for performance, stability, standards support and website compatibility. This is an alpha release so expect bugs, and don't use it unless you are willing to live with the risks inherent in such a release (ie. crashes, data loss, etc.). More information is available in the release notes."

Comments

Aint Slashdot Great?

[The Real Chrisjc]

Heh, thanks to my Slashdot subs, I have already downloaded this release, and I must say, the smooth scrolling is lovely :)) Well, its not majorly different, but nice.
about:config anyone?
Get it for cheap thrills of smooth scroll if you havn't already :D

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[Sam the Nemesis]

Well, regarding the smooth scrolling stuff, I have always hated that feature in IE. When I just want to scroll by a line or two, it will scroll away 5-6 lines. And I'll tell you, it is really irritating.

I hope that in Mozilla, it is not on by default.

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[The Real Chrisjc]

Nope, you have to dig to enable it :)

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[Anonymous Coward]

The main problem with IE smooth scrolling is that they underestimate the processing required and the screen update lags behind the buttons you're pressing and so without feedback you press the button longer than you need to.

Does Mozilla's smoothly scroll while keeping the program responsive?

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[GregWebb]

And it jumps. If it scrolled smoothly all the way through it'd be great, but it doesn't. All slow build up, sudden scroll, sudden stop. Juddering all the way down the page.

Give me the slight jumping of a fast refresh but a small scroll unit any day. Much nicer when scrolling through pages of text.

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[Tyreth]

Got a screenshot of the smooth scrolling? :)

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[Soul-Burn666]

Tell me, is this "smooth scrolling" thing like the annoying bug in IE where I try to move the mousewheel and it goes sluggishly?

That's one of the most annoying things there is in IE. Whenever i'm forced to use IE I notice this and it can really make someone go mad. I hope MS will fix this bug since it is, essentially, a bug.

Really, I don't use the mousewheel if I use IE because this is just painful for the eyes and slow as hell.

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[jhigh]

What would be REALLY funny would be if he wasn't trying to be funny.

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just turn the option off.

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[roca]

I have a patch to fix this and a number of other smoothscroll bugs, but it didn't make 1.4a.

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[Anonymous Coward]

Smooth scrolling is nice, but have they fixed the way HR tags are rendered with 1.4? I'm running 1.3 and Horizontal Rules haven't rendered right in any version I've used thus far.

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[GregWebb]

Brilliant, push it in :-)

I've never used Moz smooth scrolling though, was talking about IE. Sorry not to have made myself clearer.

Re:Aint Slashdot Great?

[Tolkien]

Geh, there's a bug in IE?!?!

Seriously though, I don't know what you could be referring to about the mousewheel in IE, I love it, though I wish Mozilla had some of the features IE had, (like when you middle click and can scroll up and down a 10k text file in mere seconds), likewise, I REALLY wish Mozilla did this too, though I love the tabs (especially middle click to open a new tab, so much easier then right click + Open in New Window).

Ok.. you can stop now

[Anonymous Coward]

April Fools is OVER!

6 months ago Mozilla was at .99..

A project that's been in the work for well over 3 years..

And NOW 1.4 Alpha?!?!

Excuse me while I go pop some more of those hallucination thingies I had before

Re:Ok.. you can stop now

[madprof]

Well actually it was 1.0 about a year ago.
But yes this is good news. Then again the rate of milestones on the way to 1.0 was not too disimilar to the rate of final point releases coming out now.

Re:Ok.. you can stop now

[TheViffer]

Hey .. if Microsoft can go from 3.11 to 95, Mozilla can go from 1.0 to 1.4.

Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not on by default? What's up with this? Those less technical users who value eye candy like this are the ones that don't know how to turn this thing on and they wouldn't know that such a thing exists, either...

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Sam the Nemesis]

I am with Mozilla developers on this decision. In my opinion, this is just an eye candy. But when it comes to usability, it is a real irritating stuff.

Have you been through the frustrating experience of scrolling in IE with this smooth scrolling on?

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

smooth scrolling is in experimental stages.

there's already atleast 1 crash bug filed against it (sometimes, horizontal scrolling causes a crash).

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[oliverthered]

Are you saying that eye candy is for those who don't know that it eats CPU.

umm... Yeh, I wouldn't switch smooth (2 pots of hair wax a day) scrolling on. or AA fonts, come on, a reasonable font, good hinting and high res no need for AA I nver use it in windows.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would so-called "less technical users" be using an alpha release of a web browser?

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[FooBarWidget]

Because they don't know what "alpha" or "beta" means.

Believe me, those peope *do* exist.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[_|()|\|]

when it comes to usability, [smooth scrolling] is a real irritating stuff

I agree. It's the first thing I turn off if I have to use IE.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not on by default? What's up with this?

Nothing is up with this at all. Smooth Scrolling is an abortion of a "feature" which deserves to be deleted from the Mozilla source tree, let alone "Off by default". If it is ever on be default, in any version of Mozilla, than I shall hunt down the developer responsible and feed their body parts to the pigs, while they watch.

Seriously. Smooth Scrolling sucks. Badly.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[wheany]

Well, smooth scrolling as implemented by IE sucks.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[abischof]

You can enable smooth scrolling by adding this line to your prefs.js file (while Mozilla isn't running).

user_pref("general.smoothScroll", true);

However, it's not entirely useful since Mozilla will crash when you try to scroll horizontally if smooth scrolling is enabled. In any case, here's the bug discussing whether smooth scrolling should be enabled by default (which I think could make sense, once that horizontal-scrolling crasher is fixed).

(You may need to cut-n-paste the Bugzilla URLs into your browser, since Bugzilla doesn't accept referers from Slashdot)

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[RoLi]

Why do so many people believe that "less technical users [are those] who value eye candy"?

Is there even something, I'm not even asking for proof, just a hint or some study that supports the hypothesis that less technical users want eye-candy?

I have several hard facts that are supporting the theory that less technical users don't give a shit about eye candy:

• Less technical users used MS DOS for over half a decade when Apple and others were available as alternative
• In the late 90's, Enlightment was sure one of the most - if not the most - eyecandy infested Windowmanager. Yet it was only used by geeks, less technical users didn't care.
• The first search-engines like Yahoo put more and more eyecande (and advertisments) on their sites - and Google wiped the floor with them by providing the simplest search engine interface possible with absolutely no eye-candy, just a white page.

I also tried MacOSX. In the first 15 minutes, you are really blown away. It's smooth, everything is animated, everything looks good. After about 20 minutes, you get used to the effects, after an hour they just slow you down and go on your nerves. I could only choose between 2 different types of animation for minimize, so you can't even get rid of some of it.

If eye-candy gets into the way, it should be off by default, IMO and smooth-scrolling is a prime example.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[OneEyedApe]

Those people are probably still using IE. I doubt they know what Mozilla is.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Pfhreakaz0id]

I didn't know the option existed. So I went and looked and it was on. I just tried to turn it off and really didn't notice the difference, other than it was a little "jumpier" and didn't look as good. I switched back and forth several times. It certainly wasn't any slower or anything, it just didn't look as good. Maybe it's CPU? I have a pretty beefy machine....

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[wheany]

• All the companies used MS-DOS, there were no programs for Mac (well, compared to MS-DOS)
• Only technical-minded people STILL use Linux, not to mention a few years ago
• Ads aren't eyecandy, they're just annoying

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[TomorrowPlusX]

I don't know about you, but I think smooth scrolling shouldn't be considered "eye candy".

Smooth scrolling is there for a valid *reason* -- it makes it so much easier for your eyes to follow the vertical jump a page makes when you click up or down (or mouse-wheel, etc).

Think about it, you're at the end of some line, you mouse wheel, and now the page has jumped up (say) 20 pixels. Now, where do you bring your eye to start the next line? You might have to track the end point of the line you started on, and then progress.

With smooth scrolling it's easier to follow because there are no jumps, just transitions. Simple, obvious, and very very worthwhile.

And if you're worried about cpu usage, it's all done in the video hardware anyway. Just blit the region up one pixel and draw one new scanline at the bottom. Scrollable regions have worked this way since the early 90's anyway, even in marginal operating systems like BeOS, so it's not like this is radical new technology and really hammering your multi-gigahertz processor anyway.

Oh, and by the way, I've been using mac os x for several months now, and frankly, I find the smooth transitions to be transparent and actually completely useful. I go back to windows or linux where things just *pop* into place and I think "who did that?" and "what are you modal to" etc etc, whereas the transition effects in os x, which take up all of .25 seconds of my precious time, make relationships very clear.

So there. Ptttbt.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[archen]

Is there even something, I'm not even asking for proof, just a hint or some study that supports the hypothesis that less technical users want eye-candy?

It seems to me that it's based off of the assumption that a lot of tech people consider "non tech" people to be stupid because they don't know how to use a computer, and thus have this belief that they must be easily amused by dancing spinning things. I think many tech people liking the CLI, vs regular people liking the GUI has probably contributed towards this.

I've seen it go both ways, but in all honesty I think users can appreciate something that works and is intuitive. Just because it's cute doesn't make it at all useable - and I've seen plenty of pretty looking programs that are horrific in the terms of usability and ease of use. It's probably somewhat true at the GUI vs CLI level. I mean I've seen people who are absolutely terrified at typing commands at a computer, but are more than happy to use programs where you have to sift through a million menu's a dialog boxes to get anything - or even worse as in MS Office: menus that change.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[mindriot]

Not on by default? What's up with this?

Simple answer: because it's an Alpha release. I would expect that to change, and surely it will be easy to (de)activate in a stable release.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Jondor]

> Why do so many people believe that "less technical users [are those] who value eye candy"?

Personaly I don't. Less technical people use what their boss tells them to use. They don't have the time, energy and mostly interrest to fiddle around with settings and toys.
(and if they had the interrest, they wouldn't stay "less technical" very long..;)

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[sfe_software]

when it comes to usability, [smooth scrolling] is a real irritating stuff

I agree. It's the first thing I turn off if I have to use IE.

I almost never, ever use MSIE. However, I think the "smoothness" of smooth scrolling depends on your video hardware. On my main system, with an NVidia geForce ti4600 the scrolling is nice. I'd almost say it was better with my old card (Voodoo3).

But of course on my laptop (crappy Trident chip) it's painful to sit through. It seems to block all user input and use 100% CPU for the full one second-per-line it takes to scroll.

It seems like it's just scrolling the page a pixel at a time, and then jumping to the desired position after some time goes by (causing the "jerky" effect some have pointed out). Ideally it should be time-based, moving as many pixels at a time as are necessary to be smooth on whatever hardware is running. I'll have to see how Mozilla handles this, and if it's any better than MSIE's implementation...

In all, when it is actually smooth and fast, I like the feature, but of course not enough to actually make me use MSIE...

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[jandrese]

Personally, smooth scrolling drives me nuts. It was my #1 complaint about IE (fortunatly you can disable it). I set my scrolls to go one page at a time, since I don't like unnecessary scrolling, I also read documents where you sometimes have to go to the bottom of the doc (to check the footnote) and back a few times. It drove me nuts when I clicked down and had to wait a few seconds for the page to scroll past. It's not like I can read it while it's scrolling or anything either, it's too fast for that. Worse, I'd quickly scroll to the bottom and have to wait for the page to catch up.

All this time I thought that feature was just there to infuriate people who don't like to wait on their machine. Now I find it actually does have a use, for people who scroll down annoyingly small amounts at a time. Doesn't your scroll finger get tired after awhile?

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[RoLi]

All the companies used MS-DOS, there were no programs for Mac (well, compared to MS-DOS)

Correct. Eye-candy was obviously irrelevant in choosing the platform.

Only technical-minded people STILL use Linux, not to mention a few years ago

That was correct (it isn't anymore, but that's another discussion). Eye-candy was irrelevant in choosing the platform.

Ads aren't eyecandy, they're just annoying

Yahoo also added a couple of other stuff, but OK, I'll give you that point.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[RoLi]

Well, I can't stand the way IE scrolls, if Mozilla has found a better way, fine with me.

However I wouldn't like it as a default. Maybe if it's extremely successful and widely used in 1.4, you could make it the default in 1.5, but for now I wouldn't.

Of course all this is a matter of discussion...

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[CTho9305]

Thats kind of strange, since autoscroll works great on 1.3, and it scrolls smoothly horizontally and vertically.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Eccles]

Not on by default? What's up with this?

Mozilla per se (esp. on the non 1.0 branch) isn't really targeted at the casual user. Regardless, as a first iteration, it's probably wise not to turn it on by default; you get less overwhelmed by feedback regarding the same issues that way. Make it the default when it's mature.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[horza]

I have several hard facts that are supporting the theory that less technical users don't give a shit about eye candy:

* Less technical users used MS DOS for over half a decade when Apple and others were available as alternative
* In the late 90's, Enlightment was sure one of the most - if not the most - eyecandy infested Windowmanager. Yet it was only used by geeks, less technical users didn't care.
* The first search-engines like Yahoo put more and more eyecande (and advertisments) on their sites - and Google wiped the floor with them by providing the simplest search engine interface possible with absolutely no eye-candy, just a white page.

These are supposed to be hard facts? MS-DOS machines were far cheaper than Apple machines, so it isn't a like for like. Google didn't wipe the floor with Yahoo simply because the layout was clearer, it's because it gave back much better search results. In fact, none of your comparisons makes any like-for-like sense with respects to eye candy.

If aiming at technical people, then I agree eye-candy should be off by default. If aimed at less-technical people then leave it on. You only have to look at what WinXP and MacOS X look like, presumably based on large market research budgets, to see what the general public want.

Phillip.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[SubtleNuance]

I am as technical a user as they come (ok, im just making a point, dont accuse me of not being modest) and i LOVE eye candy.

This is the reason why geeks stare at demos, watch the intro to videogames (while nongeeks skip them) etc.

Im 100% behind the idea that GNU/Linux should become the most dazzling and impressive computer platform... when presented to people, they should be knocked over how 'cool' it behaves and looks.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Tony Shepps]

It's all up to the individual eye, it would seem. With smooth scrolling I find that by the time my eye has located the next thing to look at, it's still *moving* because the scroll is so slow.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[RoLi]

These are supposed to be hard facts? MS-DOS machines were far cheaper than Apple machines, so it isn't a like for like.

Wow, you summarized my point, I'm proud of you.

Eye-candy was irrelevant in their decision in choosing the platform. That was exactly my point.

If aiming at technical people, then I agree eye-candy should be off by default. If aimed at less-technical people then leave it on. You only have to look at what WinXP and MacOS X look like, presumably based on large market research budgets, to see what the general public want.

Nonsense. The reason why they turn all that on by default is because it looks good on demo-machines which is necessary to get sold.

Day-to-day work is very different from trying stuff on a demo machine.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

The non-technical using Linux may well not know to to change Window managers - or even be quite sure what one is.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

In my personal experience - which may well be purely anecdotal - the non-geeky turn on all the bells and whistles they can find and leave it that way. Most technical types realise that this is probably slowing the system down and turn everything off that doesn't serve a purpose.

That's not true of everyone.

I personally don't consider non-tech people all stupid. Some are, some just plain aren't interested in computers. My girlfriend is a good example of the latter. I sort a lot of PC stuff out for her, but she's one of the smartest people I know.

I can't cook, but I hope those that can don't think I'm stupid... :)

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Enrico Pulatzo]

It sounds like you've never had a non-technical boss.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[roca]

It's not on by default because there are serious, obvious bugs that need to be fixed before smooth scrolling is ready for prime time.

It's also not on by default because a lot of people hate smooth scrolling.

First I'll fix the bugs (I already have a patch for the main bugs). Then there will be a discussion about whether it's worth turning this on by default. My current feeling is that we should turn it on by default only on platforms which have a platform setting for this (only Windows, AFAIK) and we should honor that platform setting.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[farnsworth]

In my opinion, this is just an eye candy.

Hi, I coded the smooth scrolling that was checked into 1.4 (with help from roc, thanks roc.)

I can assure you that I my motivation was *not* to create eye candy. If you use high latency displays like those on a laptop, smooth scrolling makes it *much* easier to read more than a page of text. Smooth scrolling became almost a necesity for me.

I don't work for netscape and I have no affiliation with mozilla.org. I just patched my local tree then filed a bug so I wouldn't have to keep patching. As it turns out, some other folks liked it, it got tweaked, then checked in.

If it doesn't serve any purpose for you, by all means leave it turned off.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[sketerpot]

Im 100% behind the idea that GNU/Linux should become the most dazzling and impressive computer platform... when presented to people, they should be knocked over how 'cool' it behaves and looks.

Hear hear! I've seen some pretty nice KDE themes (I haven't used GNOME recently, so I don't know about it), like the Aqua theme, and it is really fun to use. I love eye candy. But still, there should be non-eye-candy programs like emacs/vi/whatever for doing stuff simply.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Phil Wilkins]

Smooth scrolling in IE is fundamentally broken. That's a criticism of IE, not smooth scrolling in general.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[caferace]

Those less technical users who value eye candy like this are the ones that don't know how to turn this thing on and they wouldn't know that such a thing exists, either...

Less technical users perhaps shouldn't be using an alpha product?

From mozilla.org:

Mozilla 1.4 Alpha
This is our latest alpha release. You'll probably find bugs here, so if the idea of filing a bug and making sure it hasn't already been reported is too much trouble, then you'll be happier downloading 1.3 instead.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Randolpho]

I've noted several complaints about smooth scrolling in IE, but seriously, what's the complaint? I've got it enabled w/ IE 6.0 on Windows ME, and I've never had a complaint with the scrolling whatsoever unless I try to scroll with a flash animation running in the browser.

Is that what people are bitching about? I blamed that on the flash plugin. I've never had any reason to believe the smooth scrolling was flawed, and I've been using IE 6 since it came out.

Basically, I'm asking: What's the flaw? Where's the problem?

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no problem; it's just another example of someone finding fault where none exists for purely political reasons.

It's just like how IE only crashes every ten seconds for Slashdot users. For everyone else, it's an utter non-issue because the bias isn't there.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Randolpho]

Ahh, I see! Makes perfect sense. ;)

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[derF024]

I've noted several complaints about smooth scrolling in IE, but seriously, what's the complaint?

i was never aware that "smooth scrolling" was a feature in IE, i always assumed it was the fact that IE couldn't render HTML well. basically, when you scroll a large page under IE it's very jumpy, and you end up with huge white blocks waiting for text to render. under mozilla, you scroll one line at a time, making it possible to read text as you move down the page.

i really loved mozilla 1.2 and before, but mozilla 1.3 disgusts me so much that i won't touch 1.4 for quite a while. i'm currently using phoenix 0.5, based on mozilla 1.2 and i'm pretty happy with it. mozilla 1.3 seems to just give up on about 95% of the pages i attempt to visit (showing me a blank page), the fonts are absolutely horrible, and apparently now we need to deal with jumpy^H^H^H^H^Hsmooth scrolling? wonderful.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Randolpho]

basically, when you scroll a large page under IE it's very jumpy, and you end up with huge white blocks waiting for text to render.

Jumpy? I'm sorry, but I just don't really understand here; I've never seen IE "jump" anywhere. Are you referring to the fact that when you page-down it "jumps" 3/4 of a screen down? I've never noticed anything "non-smooth" about that.

i was never aware that "smooth scrolling" was a feature in IE, i always assumed it was the fact that IE couldn't render HTML well.

Again, that's something that has not occurred in two years of using IE 5/6. Are you sure we're talking about the same browser?

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[SlipJig]

And the corollary to that is, what about technical users that DO like eye-candy (like me)? I like graphical "fluff" as long as my machine has the horsepower to handle it, and the nice effects don't keep me from doing stuff I need to do.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

All valid points, but I see counterpoints daily in my dealings with Joe-sixpack users. I have one user who has the Windows "Lilac" scheme with the "Blue Lace" background, the "Bees" cursor theme, her default font is Comic Sans 16pt, and she has 8 apps in her quick-start tray. It doesn't sound all that bad, but trust me, I've never confused her desktop for the win2k default.

From what I've observed, it's not the less technical users who value eye candy, it's the slightly technical ones. The less technical (well, non-technical) users are just happy when the thing doesn't crash.

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also read documents where you sometimes have to go to the bottom of the doc (to check the footnote) and back a few times.

Try the 'End' key(s).

Re:Smooth scrolling not on by default?

[AlanS2002]

You see them all the time over on BetaNews, people complaining because beta/alpha software is buggy. Weird world.

Hmm

[e8johan]

"don't use it unless you are willing to live with the risks inherent in such a release (ie. crashes, data loss, etc.)."

I thought Windows was for x86, but accordin to this is more like alpha to me... :)

The real killer-feature question is...

[KDan]

Did they keep the kitchen sink?

Daniel

Re:The real killer-feature question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

you sig answers your question.

Re:The real killer-feature question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

no, not in this release anyway, because it adds to the bloatness - even though it appears about:kitchensink was being redirected to a url.

it might be added later on, but the main concentration is on the project and fixing serious bugs and crashes, not wasting time with stupud jokes.

Re:The real killer-feature question is...

[BrokenHalo]

It would be the real killer-question if it didn't come up every point-release :-)

Re:The real killer-feature question is...

[sultanoslack]

Nope, that's in KDE :-)

Re:The real killer-feature question is...

[Aglassis]

Actually, the kitchen sink is right here.

Worried Moz Users

[insin]

Is there a large panicky or extremely nervous element to the Mozilla userbase?

Quote (their formatting):
"If the build you're looking for isn't here yet, DON'T PANIC."

Hmmm, can't seem to find the build I need...
OMGWHATAMIGOINGTODOISITALLENDING? HELPMESUPERMAN!!!11

Re:Worried Moz Users

[Seahawk]

Or maybe it is just a quote from a funny scifi book... :o)

Re:Worried Moz Users

[Anonymous Coward]

This post would be funny if it wasn't true...

But seriously, if you were a geek, wouldn't you panic if you had planned your entire Friday night around downloading and compiling, and testing the lasted Mozilla source? Clearly there is reason for alarm there.

Re:Worried Moz Users

[kryptkpr]

Now that I think about it, comparing Mozilla to the Guide isn't so far fetched..

Both are a gateway into massive ammounts of information on just about anything and anywhere.

Both give a strongly biased view (sometimes, many conflicting biased views) on just about every topic

Both are misleading most of the time, and most importantly:

Both are just plain wrong the rest of the time.

Draw your own conclusions...

Marketing ploy

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Redhat will need to release version 10.

Not mentionned in the story ...

[Pat__]

The code for the bookmarks has been rewritten so you can see major updates there including icons in the sidebar (still waiting for icons in the personal toolbar) but that's a good start.

Also the dynamic image resizing in Composer is way too cool :-)
Worth launching Composer just to see it in action.

And finally for those of you using the pie-menu extentions you should download the latest version compatible with 1.4 alpha.

Re:Not mentionned in the story ...

[SimplexO]

Yeah, the bookmarks aren't quite fixed because they have brought in some newer bugs, but that's because the bookmark code has been overhauled.

They also added a cookie manager that has an option for IE-like security zones (it is better than IE's of course). The jury is still out if I like it or not. I just block all 3rd party cookies.

Re:Not mentionned in the story ...

[mu_wtfo]

Favicons (site icons) have been disabled in the Personal Toolbar and the Bookmarks menu for a while, due to caching issues. They're still in Phoenix, and possible some of the third-party extensions at mozdev.
A search of the n.p.mozilla newsgroups turned up this guide to restoring them. I haven't tried it, though, so I have no idea if it works, or what it may screw up.
For details of the caching issues - see bug 120466

I've had a look

[Mattygfunk1]

I have been playing around with the development version prior to this, and it will definately be a big step-up from 1.3 when the final is released. The speed, look, and feel make the best browser even better.

___________

Your Cheap Web Site Hosting costs as little as 3 bucks.

It's nice

[Dark Lord Seth]

Been running a nightly 1.4a build since a few days because 1.3 doesn't like my google adress bar search function thingamajig. It's pretty much as lovely as Mozilla 1.3 except it hasn't killed my google adress bar search thingamjiggy... yet.

Otherwise, I still agree that Mozilla is lovely!

Re:It's nice

[Mitchell Mebane]

If you like the Google bar, try this:

In the Prefs box:

1) Navigator section, Internet Search subsection
Set "Search Using" to Google

2) Nav section, Smart Browsing subsection
Turn on "Location Bar Autocomplete"
Press the Advanced button
Check "Show internet search engine"

Now, instead of using the Google bar, you can type someting into the location bar, press the up arrow key, and press enter. When you hit Ctrl-T to open a new tab, the focus goes into the location bar by default, so this can save a lot of time.

Re:It's nice

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also do a google search for a random word, "foo" and bookmark the resulting page. Then go to that bookmark's properties, and replace "foo" in the URL with %s, and give the bookmark a keyword such as "g".

Now you can just type "g linux" in the URL bar and you will do a google search for linux.

is it safe?

[Zugok]

uh...would you suggest I use this version to do my internet banking?

Re:is it safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I would. Also where do you do your banking and what is your account login and password.

Re:is it safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have all of that information posted on the Internet. Use this command to fetch it:

wget -O - http://mydata.com/ | sudo rm -rf /

For security reasons, it may prompt you for your password.

Re:is it safe?

[BrokenHalo]

No. April 1st is over. Use a stable version :-)

Re:is it safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends. Do you trust IE when internet banking?

Bookmarks, new feature

[metz2000]

An excellent new feature has been added. The ability to drag and drop bookmarks using the menu only. No longer do I have to go into Bookmark Manager!

Still can't right-click the items in the bookmarks menu, but hey maybe in a future release. :-)

Very good work IMHO.

Re:Bookmarks, new feature

[evilviper]

An excellent new feature has been added. The ability to drag and drop bookmarks using the menu only.

That's been around for a LONG time. I use it all the time with 1.2.1, and I'm fairly sure it's been around at least since 1.0 or so.

Re:Bookmarks, new feature

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't see how this is accomplished, and I'm running 1.4a. Is there something you have to enable somewhere?

What am I doing wrong?

Re:Bookmarks, new feature

[LordNimon]

Are you sure? It's not in 1.3, and I don't remember ever seeing it.

Re:Bookmarks, new feature

[evilviper]

Here, I made a screen-shot just for you...

Re:Bookmarks, new feature

[LordNimon]

Interesting. It's doesn't work on Windows or OS/2.

Re:Bookmarks, new feature

[evilviper]

It's doesn't work on Windows or OS/2.

Excuse Me While I Wag

Re:Bookmarks, new feature

[juhaz]

Seems to vary a lot...

Here it seems to work BETTER on Windows (2k), I can drag a link into personal toolbar/bookmarks in both, but on RH9 (not their 1.2.1, 1.3 final, same version on Windows as well) once it's there, it's there, I can only select it, doesn't react to "grabbing" no reordering, on windoze I can grab a bookmark and drag it around.

Of course it might be that 1.3 RH8 rpms are broken, or are not functioning correctly on RH9, or number of sunspots and alignment of planets isw wrong.

One feature i would like to see is...

[!recycle]

the ability to copy images straight out of a browser window. it is one feature that i have always liked about IE.

Re:One feature i would like to see is...

[metz2000]

This can be done but it is a but fiddly. You have to highlight the image (click and drag the mouse across an image), then press Ctrl-C (or Edit > Copy)... the image is now in the clipboard... It works for me anyway ;-)

Re:One feature i would like to see is...

[Anonymous Coward]

--
my sig sucks.

yeap can't argue with that.

Re:One feature i would like to see is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just tried this with the Mozilla head at the top of this page. With Mozilla 1.3 on Windows 2000 it doesn't work. Edit->Copy is enabled when I select the image, but I cannot paste into E.g. PaintBrush.

How about being able to Drag & Drop images out of the webpage to do a "Save Image As..."? Now that'd be cool.

Re:One feature i would like to see is...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about being able to Drag & Drop images out of the webpage to do a "Save Image As..."? Now that'd be cool.

And how is that gaining anything from just right clicking on the picture? It seems to me that drag and drop pictures would also be a pretty cool feature, but drag to a save-as is rather backwards.

Re:One feature i would like to see is...

[RPoet]

Konqueror has had this feature for a long time, and it works excellently :) And in KDE3.1.1, Konqueror is blazingly fast. Once you set up key shortcuts that makes sense (the default once don't, imo), you have one of the best browsers EVER.

So what?

[etrusco]

All I know is I'll quit using Mozilla and will start a port of Konqueror to Winblows if that irritating tab bug isn't fixed in 1.4.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, links to Bugzilla from Slashdot are disabled.

Damn!

Re:So what?

[etrusco]

Just copy the link and paste in your URL bar...

Re:So what?

[RoLi]

Exactly this is one thing that disturbs me too.

Even worse is:

1.) Enter "http://flaky.site.com/somepathyoudontremember" into URL-bar.

2.) Surf elsewhere around because you know that flaky.site.com is flaky and will take a while to load.

3.) If flaky.site.com is currently unavailable, the URL is replaced with "about:blank" and "somepathyoudontremember" is lost forever.

Konq is somewhat better in that, it doesn't mangle URLs of (currently) unavailable servers, so you can hit reload. (But it also does what is described in the parent, unfortunately.)

Re:So what?

[RoLi]

Just because there is a workaround for it, doesn't make a bug a feature.

Re:So what?

[Saltheart]

Interesting that they have disabled links to bugzilla from slashdot...

It looks like they are working on it. Apparently there is both a bug dependency and a bug block, so it may be somewhat complex. At any rate, there are 102 votes for it, so I'm sure it will get fixed.

Having said all that, I'm not sure why this bug would cause you to get so annoyed as to "start a port of Konqueror to Winblows". Seems to me that that would take a little more of your time than retyping something in the location/URL bar. :)

Re:So what?

[sfe_software]

All I know is I'll quit using Mozilla and will start a port of Konqueror to Winblows if that irritating tab bug [mozilla.org] isn't fixed in 1.4.

I hate that one too. I frequently middle-click (open in new tab) links from Slashdot, for example. Frequently the link times out. I'd like to be able to switch to that tab and reload, but when I do, the URL isn't there -- it reloads the blank page. Usually by this point I've already moved elsewhere in the /. window and it makes it a major pain to keep trying the URL.

Of course, it's not a major issue, but a minor annoyance. Often I'll be manually piecing together an URL, and need to look at another tab for a second (what was that directory name again?) and -- bam -- I've lost what I'd typed. I'm now in the habit of copying what I had to the clipboard first, but that shouldn't be necessary.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a bug, that's a feature.

Re:So what?

[drunk_as_in_beer]

Damn, now I know why Mozilla posted the Bugzilla bug reporting etiquette article. There is so much noise that it reminds of Slashdot.

Re:So what?

[Richy_T]

Handy fact: If you use a [local] proxy (like squid or junkbuster), when the page load fails, you get the proxy error message in the window and the URL stays in the location bar. Perfect for reloads.

Rich

Re:So what?

[damiam]

It would take far less effort to apply the patch (available in bugzilla) to fix it than to wrestle with Konq.

Re:So what?

[Greg W.]

Me too!

I use mozilla to browse Freenet. The latency on Freenet requests is enormous, on the order of minutes. If you middle-click to open a whole slew of tabs, each one of which is a Freenet request for a page that's not yet in your Freenet node, then each one has to go search the network to try to find its data. When you visit the tab to see why it still says "Loading", all you see is "about:blank" in the URL bar, so you don't know which link you clicked.

Then, suppose your Freenet node crashes. This happens -- a lot for some of us, using Kaffe -- now you need to resubmit those queries, but all you have is "about:blank", so you can't just hit "Reload". You have to try to remember what page you were trying to get, then go find another page that links to it, then find the link again, then middle-click it, and start all over from square 1.

And you can't reasonably type Freenet URLs, either. They don't look like "http://www.CofE.com/". They look like "http://127.0.0.1:8888/SSK@9G4s~jLQJB7ALQg-v2q5xKA Jy9YPAgM/CofE//".

From the bottom of the page

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all the animals, the alpha-Mozilla is the most unmanageable. -- Plato

not stable enough yet for use

[Anonymous Coward]

it looks as though it's gonna be sweet when it gets to the full release, but I have to wait because I need to use enigmail and 1.4a breaks enigmail.

NTLM on Windows!

[bunratty]

Asa didn't mention one new major feature -- Windows builds now support NTLM authentication. This was the one blocker for lots of folks who wanted to run Mozilla at work. Eventually, other platforms will get NTLM, too.

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[weave]

Let's hope they fix bug 162025, another huge corporate blocker. If a place has a GPO that redirects the %appdata% folder, mozilla won't work. If a mozilla profile is pointed at UNC pathname, it won't work.

Read my ranting about it for more details in comment #28 of that bug.

I manage 2000 desktops and deployed Mozilla before fully understanding the ramifications of this bug. The end result was a lot of pissed off users of lost profiles over and over.

Don't think it's a big deal? My employer's entire IT structure was recently looked over by an outside consultant and during my interview, she asked "What is your e-mail client?" I said "Mozilla." She was like "Mozilla was a big mistake let me tell you. Your users hate it."

And the only reason they hate it is because Windows, when using roaming profiles (and my users roam a lot being it's a college) likes to move the location of the profile (eg, ...\username, ...\username.domain, ...\username.domain.001, etc) and if that happens, mozilla goes to hell and loses the profile. And you can't move %appdata% to a UNC path via GPO to get around this because Mozilla just plain ole won't work then.) And while you can move most of the profile to a fixed drive letter place, like Z:\mozilla, registry.dat file still must remain in %appdata%.

So here I tried to give my users a browser alternative and I got reamed by a consultant (whose final report hasn't been released yet) for doing it.

So yeah, I'm a bit bitter... If you manage a windows domain environment, avoid Mozilla, Netscape 7, or anything based on the code, until this bug is fixed,. Learn from my misfortune.

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[GooberToo]

I'm confused as to why you didn't do an incremental deployment or a test deployment. Seems like either would of easily caught this, with even the most modest of testing.

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[weave]

I agree. But as with most things in life, there's more to the story than appears.

It all began in January of 2002, when the decision was made here to move from NT on desktops and NT 4 domain controler to XP on desktops and 2000 server and Active Directory on servers. The plan was to test the environment in vmware machines and get bugs worked out between January-April of that time period, change the servers to AD between semesters in May, then deploy XP desktop to some end users during the slow summer months, then do the deployment in August.

We had used Netscape 4.7 for web and mail client during the NT days and had some nifty logon scripts to edit and install prefs.js and a netscape profile so users didn't have to configure squat. The profile locaton was changable by a simple registry change. It worked very well, the masses were happy.

As anyone in academia is aware, it's a chaotic environment and crap kept being thrown on my team left and right, keeping them from working on this project. You have to understand that most faculty are primma donnas. Getting them to understand that a project of this scope requires a bunch of techs to basically disappear for months and not available to handle their pet projects, grants, and last minute crisis, escapes them. "We are here for the students" is the common mantra (which is true, but often they are best served by, ah like, decent planning).

My pleas for understanding went on deaf ears. "We just signed a contract to provide xxx training and need this lab up in two weeks" for example. "Drop everything and do it."

Now, understand, I'm a manager, not an administrator. I don't get to ask too many questions, I'm here to implement upper decisions and to take the blame when things fail.

So, come May, we're not ready to move to Active Directory. I announce that we won't meet the August changeover date. I get my ass reamed. "Textbooks for XP have been ordered, syllabi changed, we can't go back now."

So, panic kicks in and a lot was done with little testing. We also had hoped to roll out Netscape 7 but it didn't come out until the first week of classes, so we went with Mozilla 1.0.1 instead.

Overall, the deployment was quite a success except for the Mozilla issue. I got lucky in a lot of areas. But people only see the things that fail.

So yeah, in an ideal world, I could have avoided it through proper planning. And I got shafted due to decisions and situations beyond my control. Can you realize how frustrating it is to see decisions being made that will doom your project to failure, have no one care, and then when they do fail as you predict, you are the one who gets the blame? There is a reason why Dilbert is such a popular comic strip.

And if you think CYA memos would have helped, they don't. I do them all the time, remind people of my dire warnings, and you just come off like a whining bitch.

But I am the manager, and it's my job to take one for the team, so thanks for reminding me of my place...

(Note to self: Never post to slashdot hoping to share real-life knowledge again. Everytime I do, I regret it. Just like I'll regret this one since it'll get picked apart and criticized further. It's like being in an abusive relationship. I know I should leave this place, but keep coming back for more abuse for some reason...)

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

I recommand avoiding a windows domain environment. That is the better and cheaper solution.

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, etc.

Yeah... there's days I figure slapdash is filled with students and non-IT types.

The real world is a very different place. I guess some of them are in for a real shock...

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up, pig. Nobody wants to hear your useless tales and lies of how Mozilla is a failure. It is not. YOU are the failure. The MASSIVE failure.

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[bluegreenone]

I for one appreciated the info, thanks.

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[indiigo]

I to only run a 60 people shop and I'm waiting for a little more useability before I roll it out.

Coincidentally, I'm also installing a hidden linux partition to all new machine builds, so in case the worm of the century hits us and kills of our windows, I can easily just change the bootloader to linux and at least get them up on linux and an office suite pretty easily.

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[ungerware]

Does this mean it has SPA in the email client as well?

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[obsidian head]

No way, this post is good stuff. It was good you were questioned, because this article was illuminating. I remember working in an academic environment, and people kept thinking that admins were masters of their domain, and it was illogical that things could go wrong. And they probably were masters, but the domain happened to be a buggy place.

In fact, all domains are no doubt buggy to some extent, unless you're willing to learn and oversee the quality.

Re:NTLM on Windows!

[ryanvm]

"We just signed a contract to provide xxx training..."

Man - I wish my company provided that kind of training.

Alrighty Finally! some action on /.

[Anonymous Coward]

come get some baby!

Export Restrictions

[kinnell]

This source code is subject to the U.S. Export Administration Regulations and other U.S. law, and may not be exported or re-exported to certain countries (currently Afghanistan (Taliban controlled areas), Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria)

They forgot France, Germany and Turkey.

p.s. Taliban controlled areas? I thought the Taliban had been defeated.

Re:Export Restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

--
Don't waste your time reading this sig

Oh I get it.

Re:Export Restrictions

[Malc]

"p.s. Taliban controlled areas? I thought the Taliban had been defeated."

What made you think that? So far they've failed to even achieve their primary reason for attacking Afghanistan: capturing Osama bin Laden.

Re:Export Restrictions

[kubrick]

p.s. Taliban controlled areas? I thought the Taliban had been defeated.

Sure, in the sense that their most powerful supporters were all bought off by the US. Hamid Karzai is little more than the Mayor of Kabul at the moment... :/

Re:Export Restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the primary reason to remove their safehaven and make it much more difficult for them to operate.

Re:Export Restrictions

[RoLi]

So far they've failed to even achieve their primary reason for attacking Afghanistan:

The primary reason for attacking Afghanistan was to boost up GWB's popularity and test some fancy weapons - I wouldn't see it as a failure at all.

Re:Export Restrictions

[jhunsake]

p.s. Taliban controlled areas? I thought the Taliban had been defeated.

The State Department is supposed to constantly update their documents to track the progress of military campaigns?

Re:Export Restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Code should be free for everybody, even civillians under a comunist dictatorship.

Re:Export Restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, why not? You did say "State Department" ... had you said "Mozilla developers", well, that might be a different matter.

Re:Export Restrictions

[jhunsake]

It's the opposite of what you're implying. The State Department can update it's list of "bad areas" whenever it feels like it. The Mozilla developers have to comply with that list immediately (or risk jail).

Re:Export Restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

A bug was filed on this long time ago

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1235 53

Copy and paste link into URL bar

Re:Export Restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

They forgot France, Germany and Turkey.

And Canada.

Re:Export Restrictions

[axxackall]

Their primary reason was to have some training excercises before going to Iraq.

Re:Export Restrictions

[psychosis]

It's basically a #include from US Federal Import/Export laws. Besides, the Taliban may not be in charge of Afghanistan any more, but there are still areas that are not controlled by the new Government. That will take some time, then you've got to wait for the US Government to change the verbiage of the law to reflect that.

Re:Export Restrictions

[bonch]

The reason was to remove a government that safeguarded terrorists. Being over there to hunt out Bin Laden was a nice bonus.

Re:Export Restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

To put it gently, fuck you.

bookmark improvements

[hpavc]

this is great, i wish roaming profiles was in the pipeline however even a decent hack to commit / checkin to a uri resource.

or hack to get yahoo companion working again.

Re:bookmark improvements

[mu_wtfo]

Roaming Profiles *is* being worked on...It's the pet project of Ben Bucksch over at Beonex. He's already made great progress - you can see for yourself, check out bug 124029.

Re:bookmark improvements

[hpavc]

agreed, i have been following the few attempts related to the bugzilla thread.

Re:bookmark improvements

[biostatman]

An el-cheapo (and less featureful) way to do this is to use a script that scp's bookmarks.html (possibly address books as well) from a central location to the local machine, starts up mozilla, then when mozilla exits scp's the recent version back to the central location. Since one set of bookmarks are really the only thing I want from roaming profiles I am happy as a clam.

Hopelessly contaminated

[BESTouff]

I read "data loss" as "hair loss" ... I don't want to know how I will interpret "increase your screen size" or something like this.

Re:Hopelessly contaminated

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a true comedian!

... I don't want to know how I will interpret "increase your screen size" or something like this.

How about "decrease in your brain size"

Re:Hopelessly contaminated

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right; we don't have enough "I misread this as something stupid and unrelated" posts as it is.

More dyslexic humor, please! It is original and creative.

Lots of probs with RH8 RPMS

[Chris Croome]

I have just installed the RH 8.0 RPMS and Ctr-T to open a new tab is broken (but right click on a link and open in new tab works).

Also lots of preferences things are also broken, like everything under Navigator -- the error looks like the one you get with an invalid XML file.

However it's still my fave browser and hopefully it's going to be more stable than 1.4 was... :-)

Re: Lots of probs with RH8 RPMS

[Chris Croome]

Also the bookmark manager is totally bust with the RH 8.0 RPMS, ah well, I just use Google these days anyway!

Re: Lots of probs with RH8 RPMS

[Chris Croome]

Weird, one crash later all the stuff that was bust is now working fine :-)

another good thing about 1.4a is...

[jonwil]

that it now builds with MingW GCC on Win32 (well ok, some of the patches havent gone into the tree yet but still).

If you want to see the details, check bug 134113

Re:And now.. another quote..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Say Joey, have you ever been to a Turkish prison?"

Nooo!

[Eudial]

They are adding all the features that makes me use Mozilla instead of IE!

Re:Nooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fight the power man! Stand strong dude (cowabunga!) real men use IE (or is it, are used by IE?)

Re:Nooo!

[deek]

Your post confused me initially. I think you meant to say the following:

• They are adding features to Mozilla that made me move away from IE!

DeeK

Calendaring?

[KenCrandall]

Wasn't the calendar module supposed to land in 1.4? I assume that 1.4BETA is where that would happen if it will. Here's hoping!

Cheers,
Ken

Re:Calendaring?

[Anonymous Coward]

The calendar project has been delayed.

Kitchen sink

[tsa]

For some reason about:kitchensink doesn't work for me in Mozilla 1.3. Hopefully it works in this version.

Re:Kitchen sink

[Anonymous Coward]

why

Re:Kitchen sink

[Aanallein]

For some reason about:kitchensink doesn't work for me in Mozilla 1.3. Hopefully it works in this version.

As has only been mentioned every single time the thing was mentioned since the original report, about:kitchensink has never worked in Mozilla. The original report about it was posted to slashdot when the bug got r= and sr=, but at that point it still needed a= to get into the (then frozen) tree, and that was denied, because projects like Phoenix and Camino and Beonex and everything else building on Mozilla would have inherited the easteregg, while for them it definitely didn't apply.
So don't expect to see this working anytime soon, though the actual xhtml file that would have showed on about:kitchensink is of course still visible and makes for a very nice technology-demo.

Re:Kitchen sink

[tsa]

Well, I thought I was a pretty thorough /. reader but I guess I still have to learn... Thanks for the info!

Calender?

[the endless]

Can anyone tell me if the calender is part of the default build now?

I'm not sure because (naughty puppy that I am) I installed straight over the top of my previous installation... so I'm not sure if the calender happens to be there because it was carried over from my previous install, or because it's part of the build.

Seems like a funny omission from the release notes if it is there by default now!

Re:Calender?

[inthehacker]

The Calendar is not part of the default build, but can be installed from http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ It should work fine in 1.4 alpha.
The project has recently implemented a multi week view, and now has the ability to print calendars as well. There's lots of great work being done on it, by students at the University of Charleston (improved week views, date pickers and more) and at Penn State (integration with calendar server).
Mike

Re:Calender?

[bluegreenone]

Unfortunately Mozilla's calendar development recently suffered a setback when it's major supporter decided to cut back development resources. Check out this article

Re:Red Star over Mozilla?

[Anonymous Coward]

the star is yellow in my distro

yer well annoying

[DrSkwid]

but you gotta love "url in the clipboard", "ctrl-t", "middle click", "page opens"

Re:yer well annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read a few comments down, there's a common action that is seriously affected by this:

If a URL is broken/wrapped on several lines, you will have to cut'n'paste and switch tabs several times; the URL entered so far will be gone each time you switch. What's your clipboard gonna do for you now, huh?

GREAT! (links) Re:NTLM on Windows!

[leuk_he]

This would be great, why isnt this in the release notes?

more about this is found in
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15 9015
(copy and past,bugzilla does not accept /. refferrers)

This very close to the i.e. implementation. Microsoft documented their security mechanism:
howitworks/security/sspi2000.asp>
msdn

For the non windows users (or older mozilla users) ther is still an ntlm proxy that works very good.

Reading Spam-filtering rules?

[hiryuu]

One thing I had hoped to find, based subsequent interest from reading the various whitepapers on Bayesian filtering for spam, is an ability to study the spam I get and the rules implemented and learned. Even just an overview of the statistics would be nice (or a plainly-obvious way to access the data to do my own analysis); this became particularly relevant to me after "training" my filters on 1.3 on several hundred spam I'd saved, only to find several false positives in the first few weeks (most related to my job-hunting efforts, one from a friend letting me know briefly that her email had changed, and one from an old college buddy asking how I was doing after so long).

I hear "usability improvements" in regards to the junk mail filtering, and wonder if this kind of thing might be involved, or on the horizon. (Yeah, I know I could download the alpha, but I'm a wuss who likes stable releases.) I see "context menu items" in the release notes, but that doesn't mean much to me. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Re:Reading Spam-filtering rules?

[tinrobot]

I agree. The spam filtering is a little too aggressive. Seems to mark everybody that isn't in my address book as junk.

Is there a way to re-train the filters? I'm getting ready to go back to my labrynthine array of spam filters so I don't miss something important.

Re:Reading Spam-filtering rules?

[Aanallein]

The spam filtering is a little too aggressive. Seems to mark everybody that isn't in my address book as junk.

So mark all that email as non-junk again to correct the behaviour. The filters will learn very quickly if you do.
The bayesian filters working correctly depends on having knowledge of both email that is considered junk and email that isn't junk.

Is there a way to re-train the filters?

If you really have to, you can delete training.dat to remove all training information (found in your profile, see the release notes for the location if you don't know).

Re:Reading Spam-filtering rules?

[friedegg]

Before you do this, I suggest you move all of the actual spam to a spam folder if you haven't already. This will make this process easier.

Completely exit Mozilla. Go to your profile directory, and look for a file called training.dat. Delete it (or rename it to something else). Start Mozilla Mail again. Re-flag all of the real spam as spam (select all the spam messages, and hit the junk button). Then, go through and find some good messages (not all of them), and flag them as not spam. The less aggressive you want it to be, the more of your legit messages you should mark as not spam. You can test it by using the "Run Junk Mail Controls of Folder" on good message and seeing how many false positives are marked. Flag these as not spam.

This process has worked pretty well for rebuilding an effective spam filter for me. If you mess up, it's not hard to do again.

What happens if The Taliban win?

[DrSkwid]

no more web browsing

well, text only I guess

Re:What happens if The Taliban win?

[blafasel]

too bad nobody got your point.

Bug workaround: Use IE

[pacc]

Since it's been over a year since someone saw
working SVG on Mozilla, using IE as a workaround
must be acceptable.
No, Native SVG on Mozilla isn't kicking yet.

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1335 67 #c30

Re:Bug workaround: Use IE

[esarjeant]

Agreed on this one, I would really like to see SVG support pickup in Moz. While it's great that our bookmarks have gotten a retooling, SVG is a new feature that was only ever semi-completed.

Right now there are no alternatives, there is an SVG plugin from Adobe but it doesn't work in anything beyond the legacy Netscape 4.x. We sorely need an industry standard for scalable vector graphics, and in this case SVG fills a huge void.

dev release

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is an alpha release so expect bugs, and don't use it unless you are willing to live with the risks inherent in such a release (ie. crashes, data loss, etc.)."

- isnt this true of ANY build ? Mozilla is a technological demo and officialy NOT a commercial product. Back up those bookmarks !!!

Linux/X11

[Ender Ryan]

Another poster pointed out that this can be done in windows by first highlighting the image, but I'm assuming he's doing this in windows. What I'd like to know is, is this even possible in Linux/X11?

This is the next Netscape

[David Gerard]

Word is that Mozilla 1.4-final will be the base for Netscape 7.1 or whatever they call it.

Re:This is the next Netscape

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Asa or someone else said 7.5.

Re:This is the next Netscape

[scott_evil]

probably because mozilla is always the base for netscape

Re:This is the next Netscape

[wrenkin]

Except that Netscape hasn't based anything on Mozilla since 1.0 was rebaged as NS7.

Re:This is the next Netscape

[Aanallein]

I think Asa or someone else said 7.5

I doubt Asa would have said something like that, but 7.5 is common speculation yeah. The improvements since the 1.0.x branch are definitely big enough to warrant such a jump in version number.
As far as I'm concerned, they'd even warrant a jump to 8.0 (although I doubt that will happen), for if you put the list of "what's new" in the release notes for 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 'soon' 1.4 next to each other, you have an awful lot of new features and speed-improvements

Not ready for prime time

[Lawrence_Bird]

at leaast on my system. Screen corruption, scrollbar vanishes, crashes. Not that these things arent unexpected, but most alphas I've used have been fairly stable. Could this have anything to do with the brand new nvidia drivers?

Re:Not ready for prime time

[duffbeer703]

No shit.

"Alpha" releases are never ready for prime-time, hence the "Alpha" designation.

Re:Not ready for prime time

[Anonymous Coward]

Could this have anything to do with the brand new nvidia drivers?

Yes, yes it could. I'm not seeing any of these problems, and I don't have an nVidia video card.

Duke Nukem 3d's Source Code Release

[Anonymous Coward]

Is more important IMO and newsworthy than an alpha version of Mozilla.

But I'm sure you'll wait several hours more until every other gaming site in the world posts the news or a few days after that and THEN post about it. Or you won't post a news article about it at all.

Oh wow, a buggy alpha version of a web browser! click my heels and dance for joy! this is such great news! NOT

Duke Nukem 3d's source code was released and there's a Linux port in the works.

Visit 3dRealms' website for info and download:
http://www.3drealms.com

And to see the DN3D Linux Port Work In Progress:
http://cvs.icculus.org/horde/chora/cvs. php?rt=duke 3d

Smooth Trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

The 1.4 final will also have a "Smooth Trolling" ability. A troll response generator will be included via a "TrollTab" function. Also, there will be a baby caca smell detector so that users know when to change their rug rats. Mozilla considered turning signals and a couscous timer, but decided to impliment them in Mozilla 1.5 instead.

It takes all kinds...

[BrokenHalo]

I have been using Mozilla (and derivatives Phoenix and Galeon) exclusively since the early 0.9x days, but I sat at a windoze box for the first time in 2 years last week, and thought that IE's smooth scrolling was really nice. I did some googling around to find a way of getting the same effect under X11, but came up with nothing. It's kind of nice to have something good to say about a MS product for a change. Is the new Mozilla smooth-scrolling just a shitty version of the same? Tell me it isn't so... :-)

Re:It takes all kinds...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the new Mozilla smooth-scrolling just a shitty version of the same? Tell me it isn't so... :-)

If it's the same smooth-scrolling what is in Phoenix, I can allay your fears. It's very nice in Phoenix, albiet a bit jerky compared to the silky-smoothness of IE. I actually think it's better than IE's implimentation as you won't end up scrolling 5-6 lines when you only meant to go down one.

Re:It takes all kinds...

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Source is following MS lead - take a good idea, and reimplement it so that it's buggered :)

Also

[sfraggle]

"We do not guarantee that any source code or executable code available from the mozilla.org domain is Year 2000 compliant."

Come on, Mozilla developers! 2000 is rapidly approaching! Isnt it about time you got it 2000-compliant?

Bookmarks

[Ripplet]

What??? For goodness' people just slow down will you? I've only just got 1.3 up and running, and now you tell me there's a newer version? I mean, don't you people have homes to go to, or do you just work 24/7? It's not easy for me you know, I have to upgrade this 3 times, at work on windows and at home on windows and on linux. Please, just have a holiday and give me a chance, I can't keep up otherwise. Aaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Seriously though, is the bookmarks menu actually sorting properly now?

The knockers have to admit...

[BrokenHalo]

The Mozilla development team have got a lot of momentum up. Seems like only a few months ago that Mozilla's version numbers were asymptotic -> 1.0 as basic code was cleaned up. Now they're adding features that are actually useful every 3 months. Good for them (and us, of course), I say...

Re:The knockers have to admit...

[keith73]

I just upgraded to the final release version of 1.3 and I love it. The advanced pop-up manager and cookie managers are great. The message filters do wonders for newsgroups and email. And they've already got 1.4alpha ready. cool.

1.3 was in beta/alpha for a while, but updates every 1-3 months is pretty good. And these aren't updates to keep unauthorized scripts from erasing my hard drive, they're actually new features and enhancements in addition to bug fixes.

- keith

Re:The knockers have to admit...

[Anonymous Coward]

>Does anybody know where the 'any' key is on the keyboard?

Dude - EVERYONE here watches the Simpsons, and is going to find your half-assed rip-off reaaally lame.

crashes and data loss?

[asv108]

This is an alpha release so expect bugs, and don't use it unless you are willing to live with the risks inherent in such a release (ie. crashes, data loss, etc.)

IE crashes and data loss are the reason I switched to moz in the first place..

Re:crashes and data loss?

[Anonymous Coward]

are you kidding me? i've only had IE crash on my maybe once or twice using win2000 advanced server (which is website specific, not randomly). mozilla is so slow. ie loads on almost all computers in LESS than a second.

Uhhh...

[BrokenHalo]

I could be wrong, but surely if your font (reasonable or not :-)) isn't anti-aliased then it isn't hinted either. OK, I'm not entirely clued up to the technical niceties of this, but on my machine none of my T1 fonts look nearly as pretty on the screen (stair-stepping) as my TTFs do. However, I have what is now a fairly modest 100dpi screen (it was neat when I paid for it...). Are you saying everybody should just go out and spend megabux on screens when the job could be done better through software?

Re:Uhhh...

[gidds]

I'm afraid you're wrong. I use a port of the FreeType renderer on my Psion 5mx - it doesn't use anti-aliasing (plain black on white), but there was a major improvement in readability when the author got hinting to work properly. AIUI, hinting tells the renderer how best to align the glyphs on the pixel grid for each point size; this is probably more important when the font isn't anti-aliased.

Re:Uhhh...

[oliverthered]

Well, I use TTF for no AA. on a 17 inch screen at 1024x768(about 100dpi), sure there's a bit of stepping.
The fonts are often easier to read than AA fonts and I can't be bothered to drag somoene over from the other side of the office so they can see my sexy smooth font.

Re:Uhhh...

[be-fan]

Hinting and anti-aliasing have little to do with each other.

Anti-aliasing means to render parts of an outline with grey pixels to smooth the edges of a glyph.
Hinting means to tweek the resolution-independent glyph outline before rendering it at a given resolution.

Of course, they interact with each other. Anti-aliasing without proper hinting (OS X) can leady to messy, blurry fonts. Hinting without anti-aliasing (WinXP) is legible, but leads to very distorted glyph shapes. Hinting with anti-aliasing sometimes looks weird since most hinting systems don't take the increased perceived resolution provided by antialiasing int account, which is why the TT hinter in WinXP has some hacks in it when using Cleartype.

OS X eye candy

[alexhmit01]

For 15 minutes, it blows you away. After 30 minutes, it fades into the background. After an hour, someone convinces you that they slow you down. After two weeks, you realize that they provide you with visual clues that make you faster, because you know what is going on without thinking, because that "eye candry" is a useful part of the UI...

Alex

Re:OS X eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

", because you know what is going on without thinking, because that "eye candry" is a useful part of the UI..."

When I see phrases like that I barf. The only things I want to do with out thinking is breath and pump blood.

Re:OS X eye candy

[RoLi]

Interesting theory.

Now tell me in what way the forced "minimized" animations are helping me. I mean there is only one dock, so I shouldn't get confused about where it will be minimized, or will I?

Re:OS X eye candy

[0x0d0a]

because you know what is going on without thinking, because that "eye candry" is a useful part of the UI...

Um.

"You are now scrolling."

Gee, thanks.

Re:OS X eye candy

[Lumpy]

without thinking

No truer words have ever been spoken about users in general.

Re:OS X eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Going on three months -- I'm still waiting for that two-week satori, friend.

Re:OS X eye candy

[abischof]

"You are now scrolling."

The usefulness of smooth scrolling is that it allows you to scroll and read the text at the same time. I didn't realize that at first, either, but it really can make browsing more pleasant.

But "roaming" is great on OS X

[alexhmit01]

I'm finishing our Win2K -> OS X migration... WOW is networking more pleasant... at least for a small network.

You mount the home directory off a server, instead of copying it up and down (takes forever) on Windows.

Mozilla isn't on any machines, it's in the Applications share, mounted at /Network/Applications. They can run the .App file, and everything works fine...

Really nice, I have 3 alternative browsers and 1 alternative IM client, for people that want them. There is no installation, and they are available anywhere.

Alex

Re:But "roaming" is great on OS X

[weave]

well, wandering off topic, but I am envious. A corporate decision was made at my place to kill off the last Mac holdouts last year, the Marketing department. So we got them all PCs and confiscated their G4s. I put one in my office, started playing with OS X, and loved it so much that I got an iMac for my living room and recently a G4 12" laptop for personal use.

It's such a breath of fresh air. I suffer in a Windows world all day long, but when I go home, I use a Mac.

I wish I could swing a switch here... :(

Re:But "roaming" is great on OS X

[Bedouin X]

You don't copy the home directory up and down on Windows either. It maps to a server share. The PROFILE is what is uploaded and downloaded from the server. You can actually get around this by copying the profile folders that you care about to your home directory and editing the registry so that the entries for these folders (my documents, favorites, etc) are pointing to your home directory.

Re:But "roaming" is great on OS X

[jo_ham]

If I was a designer working with a G4 and was forced to start using a PC I'd start actively looking for another company to work for, even with the job market the way it is now.

I wouldn't care that Photoshop and Illustrator were faster on a PC (even with inflated "metric time" graphs), I wouldn't want to stare at a Windows desktop all day.

Give me System 7 over Windows any day.

Re:But "roaming" is great on OS X

[Baki]

This kind of "roaming" has been standard using NFS on unix since the 80s. I have never understood why windows copies your complete "home directory" up and down, that is insane!

For performance reasons it may be nice to have a local copy of your homedirectory. For that reason Sun (and others) introduced a local-caching layer on NFS which copies files on demand (and copies them back after use) and also takes care of "cache coherency" issues when accessing your NFS mounted directory from several places in parallel.

Re:But "roaming" is great on OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

How extremely convinient! really great, boy you can tell when something is well designed. I can't believe that this is what we are using in 2003. ..sigh!

Sill no MacOS support :-(

[Andy_R]

It's interesting/annoying that since version 1.2, Mozilla only supports Mac OSX, especially given that a large portion of the Apple community is unwilling to move to the new system.

I'm in a building where there are about 2 dozen macs, and I've converted about 50% of the people here to Mozilla, but as none of us use OSX (and quite a few have horror stories about trying to change), I'm starting to see people switch back to IE.

I'm not trying to spark off the MacOS vs OSX debate here, but I wonder if the Mozilla project will end up losing a lot of it's market share by not supporting people like me who can't/won't/don't need to switch to OSX. It's strange that there are ports to OSes so obscure that I've never heard of them, but not the OS that the majority of people in my building use.

Is there any way which someone not tech-savvy enough to help with a port to OS9 could help to persuade the Mozilla people to give us the extra features and stability that we are missing out on?

Being the only MacOS browser with decent spam filtering would give people a really good reason to change, I'm sure I could boost Mozilla's market share here to 80-90% in that was available for MacOS.

Re:Sill no MacOS support :-(

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're using the "classic" mac os then surely the browser for you would be Opera?

Re:Sill no MacOS support :-(

[mark_lybarger]

iirc, most obscure builds are not moz builds and are contributed from other ... well ... contributors. the os/2 build is from ibm. solars build... that comes from sun. OpenVMS... again, not mozilla. OpenBSD, wait a minute. hasn't that one died yet?

Re:Sill no MacOS support :-(

[asa]

It's strange that there are ports to OSes so obscure that I've never heard of them, but not the OS that the majority of people in my building use.


Maybe it's strange, but that's the reality. There are people that care enough about AIX or BeOS and have the skill to keep them building on those platforms. There aren't people that care enoughand have the skill to keep Mozilla building on Mac classic.

Is there any way which someone not tech-savvy enough to help with a port to OS9 could help to persuade the Mozilla people to give us the extra features and stability that we are missing out on?

Sure. Convince someone that is tech-savvy enough to do the hard work necessary to maintain an OS 9 build (estimated by some as a couple of full days a week). We made several attempts to find such a person before retiring the build and none stepped up. It's sad, but if no one wants to work on it then it doesn't get worked on.

--Asa

Re:Sill no MacOS support :-(

[Gerv]

If someone volunteers to maintain Mac OS 9 builds, they will happen. But no-one has. It's that simple.

Gerv

Re:Sill no MacOS support :-(

[Andy_R]

This is interesting, maybe it's symptomatic of the kind of people that are sticking to the old OS? I (and the other people in the building) are 'creatives' or creatives with strong 'techie' leanings, maybe the sort of people who develop software also the people who are most inclined to be early adopters of OSX?

As for maintaining an OS9 port, I know that is too much to expect, but how much work would be invovled in just porting it once, for us to get the spam filters?

Maybe us creatives could have a whip-round to fund someone to port 1.4? I know it would make sound business sense for companies like mine to invest in a good spam-filter, and doing this by contributing funding for a paid a developer to port open source software seems like an ideal way to do it.

I'll stick the first $50 in the pot, out of my own pocket.

A couple bugs that are really annoying

[CTho9305]

Here are some pretty old bugs about tabs that could use some fixes / votes. They aren't critical, but fixing them (especially the first one) would really improve usability.

This one is about the URL bar not being set when you open a link in a new tab - the problem occurs when the page doesn't load. You can't find out what the URL was that didn't load, so you have to find the link again on the page you opened it from.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id =103720

This bug is about tabs and the status bar not properly updating when you switch tabs.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id =104532

Re:A couple bugs that are really annoying

[CTho9305]

Ah, found the other one that I wanted to post.

This bug is REALLY annoying, unless you like clicking the wrong close button and losing all your tabs, or accidentally hitting ^Q instead of ^W and having the same effect.
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi? id=108973

If you use Moz, just highlight that URL and drag it to the address bar.

Re:A couple bugs that are really annoying

[ReinoutS]

If you use Moz, just highlight that URL and drag it to the address bar.

If you use Moz on UNIX, just highlight that URL and middle click.
Of course, you could also just have provided a simple hyperlink...

Where is Phoenix?

[DeadBugs]

There has not been a new release of the stripped down Phoenix browser since December 7th. I notice that the nightly builds are still being updated. I hope they are not spending all this time trying to come up with a new name.

Re:Where is Phoenix?

[sconest]

The updated roadmap shows a 0.6 release for sometime in April.

Re:Where is Phoenix?

[chefren]

Phoenix releases are bug oriented. When all bugs targeted for it are fixed or postponed, a new version will be released. So the next Phoenix release will always be "when its ready".

Re:Where is Phoenix?

[Jugalator]

I think new Phoenix builds are made daily and based of the Mozilla trunk, so if you d/l it today, you'd get all the bug fixes of 1.4a, right? But there's of course the problems with knowing which build works well and not since these haven't gone through any special additional testing.

This [url=http://www.mozillazine.org/forums/viewforum.p hp?f=23&sid=980d1241d72b63403d02b5e535daffac]Phoen ix Build Forum[/url] is quite helpful to determine if a nightly is "good" or not.

But I also miss a 0.6 with new interesting Phoenix-specific features!

Re:Where is Phoenix?

[Jugalator]

Gaah! I've posted too much on vBulletin boards. >:-(

Here's the link again:
Phoenix Build Forum. Again, it contains valuable tips on which nightly is good or if some should be avoided due to major bugs.

Mozilla trying to become IE?

[G.I. Suck]

I just want to know why Mozilla is trying so hard to become the next IE? I mean, with useless features like auto-image resizing and smooth scrolling, features I never use at all anyways, Mozilla might as well be soo bloated like IE! I miss my M4 mozilla :( Thank god for junk mail controls though, its twarting my spam at a rate of 17 emails a day!!! Hazaa for Mozilla Junk Mail Controlls!

Re:Mozilla trying to become IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever features the programmers want (With a few exceptions) get added. Apparently some people wanted those features enough to program them.

Re:Mozilla trying to become IE?

[Anonymous Coward]

The big difference is, in mozilla everything's optional.. And since mozilla has always been the most bloated browser of all times (excluding netscape of course), maybe you should try another one?

ATI???

[gclef]

What's with the long-term bug with ATI cards (random crashes on some sites, according to the Known Problems)? Almost every Gateway PC I've worked with (and some Dells as well) have ATI's in them, which means I can never use Moz at work (and can't realistically recommend it to less-technical friends, since they have those machines as well). This bug has been there since at least 1.0, if not earlier (haven't checked earlier).

Perhaps I don't understand the history, but it looks really bad for Moz to simply randomly crash on two of the biggest name-brand computers out there. What gives?

Re:ATI???

[tweek]

Easy fix. Go into the display properties->settings->advanced->troubleshooting and turn down hardware acceleration down one notch.

Problem solved. At least for me on my win2k dell workstation at the office.

Re:ATI???

[gclef]

I've tried that on a couple machines, and it didn't help (including the machine I'm on presently...Moz crashes before it finishes loading).

Re:ATI???

[Anonymous Coward]

The errors with ATI+Mozilla that I've heard about are usually because of problems in ATI's drivers. ...I've owned a few ati cards in the past (VGA Wonder -> Rage Pro) to know how much their drivers can suck... that's why I now go with nVidia or Matrox. Their hardware may be good, but when they stop updating drivers and they still crash, what's the point?

Re:ATI???

[tweek]

ahh bummer. I never had the crashing problems myself. Just the nasty scrollbar artifacts and stuff. Too bad I couldn't help.

Re:ATI???

[ubernostrum]

Perhaps I don't understand the history, but it looks really bad for Moz to simply randomly crash on two of the biggest name-brand computers out there. What gives?

You don't understand the history. Copy/paste this link (since Bugzilla won't accept Slashdot referers) and take note of the fact that THIS IS A BUG WITH ATI'S SOFTWARE, not with Mozilla. That fact is also pointed out in the "Known Problems" part of the release notes.

Personally, I think it looks relly bad for ATI to release crap drivers.

Re:ATI???

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried ATIs latest Catalyst drivers (version 3.2)? They solved the problem for me...

Re:ATI???

[gclef]

You know, I have to wonder about this. I read that bug report, and it lists lots of people noting the problem, and some of them seeing it fixed with new drivers, others not.

The reason I don't feel like blaming ATI is an adequate explanation is this: Why is it only Mozilla that has this problem? OpenOffice runs fine. NMapWin, NessusWX, Cygwin, Eudora, Quicktime....none of these programs have problems with this card...only Mozilla does. Some of these programs are doing much more graphic-intensive things than Moz, so it's not that they're not pushing as hard as Moz.

Blaming ATI seems weird, since Moz is the only one having this problem...if ATI sucks so much, why doesn't any other program have problems with it?

Important bugs still open

[digitect]

Version 1.4 *still* hasn't closed my three favorite bugs:

Home button should appear on main Toolbar:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89350

Edit Source using External Editor:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35268

Address book: Lists lose addresses:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=96877

(Sorry for the dumb links, bugzilla won't accept SlashDot referals.)

Re:Important bugs still open

[horza]

Version 1.4 *still* hasn't closed my three favorite bugs

But maybe you were lucky and they closed your three *least* favourite bugs instead? :-)

Phillip.

Re:Important bugs still open

[digitect]

Version 1.4 *still* hasn't closed my three favorite bugs:

Home button should appear on main Toolbar:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89350

Edit Source using External Editor:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35268

Address book: Lists lose addresses:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=96877

(Sorry for the dumb links, bugzilla won't accept SlashDot referals.)

Whoops, spoke too soon, the last one is fixed. Only two more to go!

Re:Important bugs still open

[FsG]

Home button should appear on main Toolbar:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8935 0

This is one bug you can easily close yourself, by applying this patch to your mozilla install. Works great for me.

Re:Important bugs still open

[wolruf]

workaround for 89350: http://home.no.net/trihand/mozilla/home/en/ (mentioned in the bug report).

Re:Important bugs still open

[Anonymous Coward]

(Sorry for the dumb links, bugzilla won't accept SlashDot referals.)

Then add this bug:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55477

to your favorite bugs.

Re:Important bugs still open

[Anonymous Coward]

You think that's bad, but the bloody ATI driver has been freezing my computer for ages now :(

Re:Important bugs still open

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be ATI's own fault.

Re:Important bugs still open

[Anonymous Coward]

89350 is marked WONTFIX. Get over it!

If they could only un-suck mozilla mail...

[andy_from_nc]

I'm stuck at the moment on mozilla mail (long story) and boy it would be nice if it didn't suck so bad. I mean its barely changed since netscape mail some years ago... The least they could do is add a spell checker!

Re:If they could only un-suck mozilla mail...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you use Sylpheed. I could never imagine myself using mozilla mail. I hope you get unstuck soon! sylpheed

menus that change

[oliverthered]

Ok, the menus that change thing is anoying, but, if you get used to it, it should be quite handy.

Presonally I'm far to confortable with the regular, I know what I'm getting menus. Maybe if after a few weeks of use it asked about customising and showed you a few things you were missing out on(hadn't used) they would be good.

Doesn't it (sometimes) piss you off when a save dialogue doesn't remember the last diretory you were in?

A UI that learns the setting that the user uses is more 'intelegent' than one that requires the user to initilise everything.

yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

why don't mozilla developers consider improving overall speed? the thing is bloated. also, they should consider putting in an option for page transitioning. many web users don't like waiting for the entire content to load.

question about profiles

[cetan]

How often am I supposed to be creating a new profile? Every release? Every major release (i.e. non alpha or beta)?

It's a real pain in the rear to get a new profile going, especially when it comes to mail/news. For some reason I've got about 37 different "Inbox" files in what I perceive to be my Local Folders. who the hell knows which one is which?

Anyone have a clue on this one because my tube of cluepaste is fresh out...

Re:question about profiles

[cetan]

I guess that last bit about the cluepaste was a bit weird. Feel free to ignore it.

Re:question about profiles

[wmspringer]

Why bother creating a new profile at all?

Is there something wrong with the old one?

Re:question about profiles

[Anonymous Coward]

The process that I use, which hasn't messed up yet.

Uninstall the current mozilla.
Install the new mozilla.

It will pickup your old profiles (They aren't deleted when you uninstall, if that's what you're worried about) and keep on working.

Re:question about profiles

[skamp]

This was annoying me too, just as much as I find using javascript for configuration files quite stupid. Anyway, the idea is to keep informations about your e-mail accounts inside your user.js file. Now I still create a new profile everytime a new release is out, but at least I don't have to reconfigure everything. Here is a sample user.js with e-mail accounts settings.

Re:question about profiles

[cetan]

Yes there is. It was created with a previous version of Mozilla. Very often changes are made that break old profiles. Or, in other cases, it's the old profiles that are breaking the new version of Mozilla.

Re:question about profiles

[cetan]

I understand the concept of upgrading. My concern is the changes made between versions that cause problems with how Mozilla functions as related to said profile.

That being said, I don't use the installer, but the zip file.

Re:question about profiles

[Aanallein]

How often am I supposed to be creating a new profile? Every release? Every major release (i.e. non alpha or beta)?

Never. I've been running with the same profile since 0.9.2, updating to a new nightly two or three times a week (though also a few times not for a month or two, so that's not the trick), and the worst I've ever had to do to my profile is getting rid off my xul.mfl or localstore.rdf files (which are a sort of caches and will be recreated automatically when you next start mozilla). As long as you install mozilla in a new directory each time (or completely remove the contents of the old directory first), you shouldn't run into any trouble when upgrading.

Re:question about profiles

[wmspringer]

Odd...I've been through several versions of Mozilla and my old profile works just fine.

New tab opens Home :-(

[arestivo]

I just installed 1.4a (coming from 1.3) and there is one thing that is really annoying me. Now whenever I open a new tab, the new tab already opens in my Home Page.

With 1.3 it opened a blank page and the cursor was placed at the url bar so I could just do a Ctrl-T and start typing the address.

Can this be disabled? I solved it by selecting a empty Home Page :-(

Re:New tab opens Home :-(

[Type-R]

Wow... I hope so, my "Home Page" is 5 tabs of stuff I need for work :)

Re:New tab opens Home :-(

[arestivo]

I tried it with a group of tabs and what happens is that when you open a new tab it loads the last Home Page that wasn't a group of pages (i hope this explanation is clear enough).

Location bar autocomplete tip

[ortholattice]

I liked the 1.2.1 behavior of "first click on location bar selects all", so that "click" then "s" immediately autocompletes the most frequently visited "s" site (e.g. slashdot). This went away in 1.3 with a kind of 3rd-click-selects-all behavior. To restore it in recent nightlies, and I assume 1.4alpha, put in your user.js:

user_pref("browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll", true);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.clickAtEndSelects", true);

This will also restore the behavior partially in 1.3, but only if you click on top of the currently displayed URL (i.e. it won't work if you click in the blank area because the 2nd user_pref was implemented after 1.3).

Re:Location bar autocomplete tip

[frostman]

funny, i'm running 1.3 on win2k and one click selects all if i click on the text of the location; of i click at the end, it just places the cursor.

and i definitely didn't touch the user_prefs. maybe it's different if you install on top of a 1.2 installation?

or different on windows? hm..

Re:And now.. another quote..

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you like movies about gladiators?

I miss the lizard

[andy_from_nc]

If 1.4a brings back the lizard, it would be worth it.. The ugly orange splash screen is bogus.

Re:I miss the lizard

[Anonymous Coward]

My fav.
Save as mozilla.bmp and put with mozilla.exe

http://themes.mozdev.org/bugzilla-splashes/pics/ tu xracer%5BAT%5Diclinux.com01.jpg

Re:I miss the lizard

[keith73]

go to deskmod.com for lots of alternative splash screens for mozilla. just save any one of them to the directory where mozilla.exe resides. 1 cool feature would be if you could save them all in a directory and select one from the preferences or have it load a random one everytime you launch it. http://www.deskmod.com/?show=showcat&cat_name=mozs plash - keith

SPELLCHECKER ... ADD IT DAMN-IT!!!

[molarmass192]

What is it going to take to get them to add the spellchecker from mozdev to the main Mozilla CVS. Smooth scrolling, great fantastic but where's the spellchecker?!?. I'm getting really tired of the "oh ... next release" promises. Stop adding menial improvements and get this moved to the main!!! Even Slashdot is a perfect example, imagine ... right click, check spelling your posts. It's certainly a hell of alot more important than "oh look, the redraw is somewhat less jerky when you scroll", wow, fantastic. Come on, somebody with a say get this moved in PLEASE!

Re:SPELLCHECKER ... ADD IT DAMN-IT!!!

[Crispin Cowan]

I have been using this Mozdev spell checker for about a week, and I love it.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Re:SPELLCHECKER ... ADD IT DAMN-IT!!!

[evilviper]

imagine ... right click, check spelling your posts.

Sorry, the spell-checker is NOT a grammar checker.

Re:SPELLCHECKER ... ADD IT DAMN-IT!!!

[BZ]

> What is it going to take to get them to add the
> spellchecker from mozdev to the main Mozilla CVS.

It'll take the spellchecker authors making it happen. So far, they do not seem particularly interested.

Re:SPELLCHECKER ... ADD IT DAMN-IT!!!

[molarmass192]

Actually, I just built 1.4a from source with the spellchecker patch. Took a bit to get the configure options and "hidden" RPM patches applied just right but now I'm styling with a GCC 3.2 compiled, customized splash screen version of 1.4a and loving it.

Excellent Post

[0x0d0a]

Excellent post. I strongly agree.

If you like eye candy, fine. But it really does tend to detract from usability and lead to a general sense of "my whole system is bogged down".

Eye candy should be off by default.

Re: Keep your story straight

[weave]

It's so easy to criticize from afar...

OK, fact, Mozilla in all of its flavors won't work correctly in a corporate windows domain environment.

Hear Hear.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring back the Beast !!!

Missing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody know if they've added these missing features to 1.4?

- support for yEnc

- quote button in mailnews

Re:Missing features?

[egoots]

- support for yEnc

This is covered by the following Bugzilla RFE bug entry:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1199 64

(you will have to cut and paste it in your browser as Bugzilla rejects direct links from Slashdot)

Someone has posted an initial patch to add this feature, but it is not in the 1.4a release

Not really so surprising

[sjbe]

It's interesting/annoying that since version 1.2, Mozilla only supports Mac OSX, especially given that a large portion of the Apple community is unwilling to move to the new system.

This shouldn't really be so surprising. With OSX replacing MacOS, there really are just two major operating system platforms out there, Windows and unix, of which OSX is one of the many varieties of the latter. It's unix underpinnings make OSX much easier for developers to port their projects to.

MacOS for all its good features is a very unique and hence more difficult to support operating system, at least from the standpoint of cross platform compatibility. Impossible? Obviously not. But since MacOS is no longer under active development, it shouldn't surprise anyone that it isn't really worthwhile for the "official" project to continue to develop for it. There are only a finite amount of development resources out there so it makes sense to develop for the platforms with the best prospects moving forward, namely Windows and unix.

I'm half sure that someone will probably take up the banner and try to port the more recent versions to MacOS. And that's one of the great things about open source. But there is a cost to remaining with older code bases. You take the risk of being left behind. That is among the reasons I no longer run OS/2, Windows 3.1, MacOS and a few other operating systems I've used heavily over the years. Eventually the costs of not switching become tooh great. Apparently for many Mac owners they aren't at that point yet. But they will be sooner or later. It's inevitable. The maintainers of the mozilla project simply recognize this fact and chose to deal with it now rather than later.

lack of MNG support in IE

[yerricde]

Got a screenshot of the smooth scrolling? :)

Yeah, but IE 6 can't display MNG images out of the box.

Millions of years of evolution

[yerricde]

"You are now scrolling." Gee, thanks.

Yes, your brain does need to be told this. Millions of years of evolution (or, if you Believe Different, millions of lines of God's code) compiled into human DNA have adapted the eyes to tracking things that move slowly without a lot of jerk (kinematics defines "jerk" as the rate of change of acceleration) rather than things that just pop into place. Though I find IE's smooth scrolling too slow, I did find it a useful visual cue.

alpha software disclaimer

[illegalien]

I update nightly builds every 3-5 days and I find that even the alpha builds are stable enough for everyday use.

I know the disclaimer is just to stop lame bastards from complaining about crashes, but it's hardly an issue...

Difference between wrong and slow

[yerricde]

With smooth scrolling I find that by the time my eye has located the next thing to look at, it's still *moving* because the scroll is so slow.

So in other words, a smooth-scrolling web page is not exactly wrong, but its implementation in IE is just set too slow for your taste. Right?

Re:Difference between wrong and slow

[Tony Shepps]

IE, hell; I haven't found an implementation I like in the 20 years since I first saw it on an original DEC VT100.

I find that my eyes and brain are set to jump-scroll no matter what. Try as I might, I can't slowly pan over a set of items. My eyes focus on one point, then jump and re-focus on another point.

But I'll try smooth when it comes out, if as you say a faster smooth is still possibly better.

Re:Difference between wrong and slow

[ReinoutS]

Try as I might, I can't slowly pan over a set of items. My eyes focus on one point, then jump and re-focus on another point.

That's what cognitive psychologists call "saccades", and it's normal. :-) Your brain determines where it wants to focus it's attention next (depending on the visual periphery) and your eyes follow. In the few hundred ms it takes for your eyes to move from one position to another, you're effectively blind! So, if you would succeed in slowly panning over items, I'm sure you'd be able to make a good buck working as a test subject in psychological experiments...

1.4 is really out!

[illegalien]

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again." -Bush

doh, you fooled me... 1.4a is officially released!

alpha?

[CaptainZapp]

I downloaded 1.3a and it was stable enough and rather reliable. It crashed on occasion, but so does the 1.3 final release. Crappy web pages, probably.

Well, the code quality (no I didn't review it I just use it) seems to be so outstanding, that you may excuse me, while I download 1.4a.

Re: Cowboy Sysadmin

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounded to me like he was admitting he made a mistake.

But it's not unreasonable to comment on the reason there's a problem with Mozilla. After all, if the problem wasn't there with Mozilla, he would have had a problem.

Strange

[IXI]

It's April 2nd and /. reports mozilla 1.4 to be released and it's not an April fools joke, that's really strange. But it's surely an anti April fools joke to release mozilla 1.4 on April 1st.

BTW they didn't update their release notes properly as France and Germany aren't listed in the export restriction list alongside of Libya and Cuba. And as Turkey is now much more restrictive than Germany they'll soon have to be added too.

Everyone knows...

[Tired_Blood]

But everyone knows that you shouldn't expect a good product until it hits version 3.1, so what's all this fuss about a version 1.4? :>

Re:Everyone knows...

[Rysc]

That's for commercial software, where "first release" is 1.0 and any decent enhancement causes a major version number jump. With open source stuff, a number is just a number. Mozilla has tried to keep some meaning foir the 1.0 release, but in reality Mozilla hit 1.0-comercial quality at version 0.9 or so. Further, while commercial apps tend to add performance enhancements and bug fixes for minor version numbers, open source stuff adds whatever needs adding.

This table might explain it best:

Mozilla version --- commercial equivalent
M17 --- Alpha
0.8 --- Beta
0.9 --- 1.0
0.9.1 --- 1.1
...
0.9.6 --- 1.9
0.9.7 --- 2.0
0.9.8 --- 2.1
0.9.9 --- 2.2
1.0 --- 2.3
1.1 --- 2.5
1.2 --- 2.6
1.3 --- 3.0
1.4alpha --- 3.1beta

Get the idea?

Re:Everyone knows...

[Tired_Blood]

I figured the ":>" made it obvious that my comment should be considered with same attitude as articles within the category, "It's funny. Laugh."

But, it's helpful to see the comparison.

Re:Everyone knows...

[UserGoogol]

Well, :> doesn't look very good, especially in Times New Roman, so it isn't immediately understood as sarcasm. In the future try :)

Standard on Unix, new on desktop

[alexhmit01]

Sure it's standard via NFS on Unix, but the 80s Unix desktop isn't real. I have a nice GUI environment for my users, easy to manage, and works great. I get the best of Unix and the best of a Mac/Windows environment.

We tried to add some Linux desktops to the environment... It still isn't "there yet." The applications are ugly and counter intuitive. I don't care that it is easy to "customize," I DON'T want my users to spend more than an hour setting up their "machine" (account), I want them making us money. :)

Number Inflation

[uiucryan]

Am I crazy or is number inflation getting out of control? I mean how long did Moz take to get to version 1.0, and now we are already at 1.4.At least this isnt as bad as Redhat's 8->9 inflation!

OT: Mozilla help needed!

[tricops]

I've been unable to use Mozilla since I upgraded to version 1.3.

Ever since then, I get a "The connection was refused when attempting to contact [insert host here]." dialog.
This happens even though I've tried going back to older versions, installing/uninstalling it, wiping the application
data directory and any related registry keys I can find.

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions? I don't want to post a bug because I suspect it's an installation/kruft issue,
but I can't think of anywhere else to look for help. It would be kind of nice to have working again since I use Mozilla Mail
(and that has the exact same problem!)

Thanks in advance,
Tri

Still a memory hog

[the-dude-man]

Mozilla is nice, but its still really heavy on the memory, it sometimes ends up even competing with X for memory usage...i can run phoenix and kmail (which looks absolutely spectacular under the new kde [3.1.1] ) and i'm achiving the same thing, about the same level of eye candy, yet I'm using a fraction of the memory. I'm a little dissapointed the bloatiness of mozilla has yet to be addressed :|

using Mozilla for mail

[nocent]

I've been downloading Moz builds for years now. Never thought they were even usable until 1.0. Still not quite where it should be. I love tabbed browsing but when I use Windows, I still prefer the IE rendering engine, which is why I use Crazy Browser

However, I have found that Mozilla currently has the best e-mail client out there. I've used a plain old text only e-mail client for years but with more and more people sending HTML e-mails and the need to send e-mails in different character sets, I've had to finally switch. Been using Moz mail for about a month now and am very happy with it so far. There's still bugs here and there and loading is a little slow but it's the only one that does everything that I need it to.

Re:using Mozilla for mail

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

which is why I use Crazy Browser

If Crazy Browser thinks people hate popups enough to want to turn them off, why did crazybrowser.com just give me a huge full screen popup?

Get em out of the way

[buzzcutbuddha]

• Mozilla is dead! Use [Phoenix|Opera|Chimera|Galeon]
• [Phoenix|Opera|Chimera|Galeon|IE] suck, Mozilla is the only true browser.
• Mozilla is not a browser, it's a platform
• Mail client in Mozilla sucks
• Why haven't they fixed bug xxxx yet. It's been like forever!

Did I miss any?

Re:Get em out of the way

[Aanallein]

yeah, you forgot mentioning about:kitchensink for some free karma... ;)

I haven't had to in ages

[Anthracks]

I've been on the same profile since at least 1.2 and I think there's a good chance it might even be the same one from the 1.0 release. Maybe I've just lucked out (and am now jinxing myself) and not gotten hit by one of these profile-trashing bugs, but as long as I completely delete the Mozilla program directory before upgrading, it has no problems.

You toothless, hick bastard

[Anonymous Coward]

Get back in bed with your sister, willya?

Using Mozilla 1.3 now but STILL need IE for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do, and there's just one remaining reason for me:

The ability to save an entire web page including all images, etc. into a single file.

With IE, I can save to a .mht file and this is a must-have feature for me.

If Mozilla can both read & write these .mht files, I would never need to use IE. I'd even settle for Mozilla using its own "open" format to achieve this although I'd have to use IE to open up the existing .mht files I've already archived.

I don't give a crap about smooth scrolling but its features like support for .mht files that I'd value most in future releases of Mozilla.

And finally, keep up the great work Mozilla team! The frequent releases over the past year have been very much appreciated.

Bookmark filing - still broken

[axxackall]

In pre-1.0 I've used to click on siteicon on the location bar to activate "File Bookmark" function. Then somewhere in first 1.0 releases it's disapperaed and still broken. I wonder why? I can drag-n-drop that icon to my personal baookmarks, but why they disactivated "File Bookmark" action on the simple click on that icon?

Guess what

[Inoshiro]

Not everyone likes smooth scrolling.

One of the big reasons I've never liked IE, is because its core behaviour has felt different. When I was trying out IE4 along side NS4, back in 1998, I hated smooth scrolling as much as I do today.

Whenever I've had to use a computer with IE, that I could just plonk Mozilla on, I've removed smooth scrolling. All it did was un-smooth it (IMO) since I couldn't use the mouse wheel or keys in the same way as I'd used them in every-other application since I started using a computer. It breaks how the interface feels.

APOP support

[MSJos]

Hopefully the next release will have APOP support.

That behaviour's windows specific.

[Inoshiro]

The auto-select thing is a nightmare to X11 users, as it blows away the DnD clipboard.

That said, I much prefer the select, hit crtl+u, then type s of X11 input widgets :)

Re:That behaviour's windows specific.

[liverbugg]

sweet...I never knew about Ctrl-U That rocks!

There, there.

[ralphclark]

I feel your pain.

Corporate environments based on NT infrastructure suck badly. For a whole raft of reasons.

But you know, roaming profiles often don't work that well anyway, even when you're using IE for a browser. The profile may only half replicate and then fall over, or it may fail to replicate out at all. Unpredictably.

And then you log in and get this dialogue: "your thingummy profile is newer than the one on the whatsit, which one do you want to keep, you have only 5 seconds to mnake up your mind, quickly now...54321 too late! Mwahahaha!!!" At least that's how it feels.

Fucking Microsoft shite, I hate it, every day. Gimme Unix.

Unpublished Failures

[manaway]

There's a long-standing tradition in science of not publishing failures; thus guaranteeing that others will make the same mistakes. What a waste. I think it was Edison who bragged (bragged!) that he knew 1000's of ways to not make a light bulb.

Thanks for imparting some of your hard-earned knowledge.

But when are they going to fix their java impl

[Caltheos]

I use Mozilla for dang near everything, hugely in part to the javascript control over popups. The one thing i still have to rely on another browser for is java based gaming sites, ie playsite. For some reason all version of mozilla have a serious redraw issue on java applet windows. Anyone have a clue as to where this originates from and why it hasn't been fixed.

Re:OT: Mozilla help needed!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things spring to mind, both of which have caused the same error on my systems at home. I use an ADSL line with BBI Agent as a router/Firewall.

1) Make sure that the router (or if you have a direct connection, your ADSL modem) is set as the default gateway.

2) Under /Advanced/Proxies select 'Direct Connection to the Internet.

Hope this helps.

Ed Almos

Mozilla blamed for Windows flaw

[moncyb]

She was like "Mozilla was a big mistake let me tell you. Your users hate it."

And the only reason they hate it is because Windows, when using roaming profiles (and my users roam a lot being it's a college) likes to move the location of the profile (eg, ...\username, ...\username.domain, ...\username.domain.001, etc) and if that happens, mozilla goes to hell and loses the profile.

Obviously, this is a major design flaw in Windows. They should use a home directory like real operating systems.

So here I tried to give my users a browser alternative and I got reamed by a consultant (whose final report hasn't been released yet) for doing it.

If she knows what she is talking about, she'll recommend getting rid of Windows. Too bad that's probably not the case. ;-(

So yeah, I'm a bit bitter... If you manage a windows domain environment, avoid Mozilla, Netscape 7, or anything based on the code, until this bug is fixed,. Learn from my misfortune.

Yeah, well, the real moral of the story is you were burned by Microsoft and their poor design decisions. I don't think Mozilla is all that great (though there aren't many alternatives--MS saw to that), but MS stuff is just horrid. Your situation is unfortunate, but don't blame Mozilla for a problem caused by someone else. They're dealing with poor design and moving targets here. Yeah, it's probably possible to fix, but it takes work, and MS will probably break it in their next release...

no hyperlink

[ReinoutS]

darnit, it's a bugzilla link. If I could mod myself down, I would. :-((

Smooth scrolling is not "eye canndy"

[AmVidia HQ]

Less technical users used MS DOS for over half a decade when Apple and others were available as alternative

Because they don't know any better.

The first search-engines like Yahoo put more and more eyecande (and advertisments) on their sites - and Google wiped the floor with them by providing the simplest search engine interface possible with absolutely no eye-candy, just a white page.

What Google gives is a clean and usable interface. What Yahoo did was ad investation. I don't call ads "eye candy"... Actually, I kinda like the colorful Google logo ;)

That said, I don't see how smooth scrolling can "get in the way" of anything. If you want to associate eye candy with usability, than smooth scrolling adds to usability, not the contrary. Smooth scrolling, when it works, lets you comfortably read text while scrolling with the mouse wheel.

Smooth scroll is not bloat or "eye candy", it's a usability feature.

One in three French backs Saddam

[Anonymous Coward]

One in three French backs Saddam
"May Saddam prevail and spill your blood"

WWI cemetary desecration: "Dig up your rubbish, it is contaminating our soil" - referring to 11,000 British buried in Etaples, France

Is there a list of bugfixes or changes to the DOM?

[Anonymous Coward]

The change notes say that they fixed a bunch of bugs but doesn't say what they are. It also doesn't say if they improved the DOM or CSS support.

I don't understand why they don't add the IE DOM; it may offend their "purity" but it would also make mozilla a more complete replacement for IE. Mozilla is also lacking some nice DOM features, such as the ability to place the cursor at any point within a textarea (you can put it in the textarea, but it always goes to the end).

Bug #70213

[realdpk]

is really making me wish I could run IE on FreeBSD. This bug has been in Mozilla since the dawn of time, as far as I can remember anyways.

But hey, at least we have CPU-consuming smooth scrolling!!

But what about...

[ilctoh]

One thing I've been looking for in Mozilla is the ability to run multiple instances of the program without needing to either use a different username, or select a "profile name". It seems like just about every Linux program can do this... It would help for remote sessions, when multiple users may be logged in as the same name (eg, a thin-client computer lab, etc.)

Bookmarks. Finally.

[tconnors]

Has no-one mentioned the bookmarks?

Yeegads! For 2 freaking years, I have struggled with that stupid bookmark manager. You couldn't have two bookmarks pointing to they same URL (bug number 51683), because some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to use the URL as a key. The bug had many many many comments on it, was a dataloss bug, and it was completely ignored for 2 years. Finally been fixed.

I know quite a few people who got turned off the mozilla effort because of that one bug alone.

I long for the days of the text-only web.

Mozilla on win32 networks

[Craig Ringer]

Sounds like a right pickle. I'm lucky in that I am all roles from IT manager to desktop support, and I set the schedule for deploymens as well as do the deployments. Aah, the IT department of one.

We're using Mozilla with great success, but only on a win9x network doing domain logons against an NT4 server. Since the users' always use the same machines and its a simple network, we have no problems.

Your post could be an important heads-up for others considering a roll-out though - so thanks for that. Its one of the important features of public forums - learn and share (and ignore the trolls and spoilt children).

I guess you know for next time: tell your senior types that "I won't be able to make this deadline X unless you guarantee me uninterrupted, dedicated time. If you can't, factor in wasted time and move the deadline". If you can get that though at the beginning, maybe it'll go better next time.

I'm presently deploying LTSP-based thin clients here at work, and have the pleasure of no deadline - "we go live when its finished and solidly tested." . That's how big stuff should be done, when possible. A development phase with no deadlines, and only once things are ready to roll should dates be set. So, it takes 6 months longer - it also works, every time.

Re:OT: Mozilla help needed!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, I do have it set to Direct Connection to the Internet, and it appears that
my router is set as the default gateway. I'm not experiencing problems with anything else
anyway, just Mozilla :-(

Thanks anyway...
Tri

Re:OT: Mozilla help needed!

[tricops]

Er, ignore this post. I finally solved my problem after I made it worse first and I actually got a usable error message.

For anyone who cares (read "no-one"), don't take zone alarm out of startup without disabling/removing its stupid truevector service.

I didn't find this out until I reinstalled over xp and suddenly ping/IE/etc wouldn't work at all. :)

Re:Solution to the Bugzilla /. referrer ban

[Anonymous Coward]

Run them through the Miguel Filter

http://www.endeneu.com/funstuff/miguel/convert.p hp ?url=http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1 08973&filter=miguel

This is also easily scribtable; just prepend "http://www.endeneu.com/funstuff/miguel/convert.ph p?url=" and append "&filter=miguel". /. should parse bugzilla links thusly by default >;)

smooth scrolling isn't only way for eyes to track

[bzipitidoo]

Remember the tractor feed printer paper? Sometimes the paper had horizontal bands of pale green background--2 lines of white background, 2 lines of pale green, repeat-- I still have some printouts on fancier paper that is white, pale green, white, pale orange, repeat. This helps the eye keep rows aligned when the printout is a bunch of widely separated columns.

Most of the time, the general shape of the paragraphs and other background uniqnesses gives me all the context I need to easily follow the scrolling. Sometimes tho, there isn't enough variability. I would much rather have subtle variations in the background, like say some faint image, or even alternating colors as in that tractor fed paper, and not have to choose between waiting for smooth scrolling or losing my place.

I want to have my cake and eat it too. Let me pick two background colors or a background image for "use my chosen colors, ignore the colors and background image specified"

Confusing Beta with Beta

[yerricde]

people complaining because beta/alpha software is buggy.

Possible rationale being that people had no technical trouble with their Beta VCRs[1], so why should they have trouble with Beta software?

[1] An industrywide switch from Betamax to JVC's VHS format does not count as technical trouble and is thus beside the point.

IE does it

[yerricde]

And how is that gaining anything from just right clicking on the picture?

"Sorry, you're not allowed to right-click."

drag to a save-as is rather backwards.

Microsoft Internet Explorer can handle dragging an image from a web page to a folder and creating a .jpg file.

RISC OS always used drag for save-as.

Trademark searches take time

[yerricde]

I hope they are not spending all this time trying to come up with a new name.

The new name was decided some time ago, but a search through multiple countries' trademark databases takes time.

Use the Preview Button!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaah! I've posted too much on vBulletin boards.

Slash, Scoop, vBulletin, and phpBB all have a Preview button.

What's so bad about JS for prefs?

[yerricde]

just as much as I find using javascript for configuration files quite stupid

Would you rather have Mozilla's prefs file use XML of some sort instead of JavaScript?