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Mozilla 1.5 Alpha Available

Posted by timothy on from the excellence-improved-upon dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla.org released Mozilla v1.5 alpha today, with flavors available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Some of the new features include Composer enhancements, Chatzilla logging, multiple tab window closing confirmation, and quicksearch support in about:config. A more detailed rough changelog is also available. In a somewhat related note, Mozilla 1.4 has been downloaded over a half million times in the past 3 weeks (not counting mirrors)."

49 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. sweet by qewl · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now I can enjoy some new and completely unnoticeable changes!!

    --

    (\_/)
    (O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
    1. Re:sweet by CanadaDave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      tell me about it... I thought Firebird and Thunderbird was supposed to be integrated into 1.5a. That sucks. I guess we'll have to wait until 1.6.

    2. Re:sweet by TummyX · · Score: 5, Funny


      tell me about it... I thought Firebird and Thunderbird was supposed to be integrated into 1.5a. That sucks. I guess we'll have to wait until 1.6.

      Why would you want to integrate a database into a webbrowser?

  2. Quicksearch by paul248 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quicksearching in about:config was a much-needed feature. I always had trouble locating stuff in there, especially when I didn't know exactly what it was named.

  3. stats? by di0s · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mozilla 1.4 has been downloaded over a half million times in the past 3 weeks (not counting mirrors)
    Is that the *official* count, or the RIAA count?

    1. Re:stats? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      If the RIAA was counting, we'd have to consider how much bandwidth each user has, and how many times they could download it within a month. So, by their method, Mozilla has been downloaded 72 billion times in the past 3 weeks.

  4. Firebird based? by doormat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Isnt 1.5 and forward supposed to be based on Firebird and not Mozilla? I didnt see that change anywhere in the simple release notes...

    --
    The Doormat

    If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
    1. Re:Firebird based? by reaper20 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Read the updated roadmap, they're not going to make it for 1.5 it seems. Considering that Mozilla recently gained its independance, and a good portion of fulltime gecko developers have been let go, I think they're due for a milestone or two of of getting their bearings and realigning around the *birds.

      Besides, IE7 comes with longhorn, Mozilla has plenty of time, and is already in the lead, Firebird and Thunderbird are already proving to be ready for prime time .... give them a month or two to straighten things out, it'll be worth it.

    2. Re:Firebird based? by tfreport · · Score: 5, Informative

      I was thinking the same thing. Apparently that was the plan but they have been forced to change things (perhaps due to the Netscape break).

      Buried deep in the To Do list on the official Roadmap page is one small but significant change. This is the passage that has been added. (There are probably other changes today as well but that is the one I noticed and pertains to this question).

      It's clear now that we will not be able to switch to Mozilla Firebird by the Mozilla 1.5 final milestone. Instead, we expect Mozilla 1.5 to coincide with Mozilla Firebird 0.7. But we intend to implement the new application architecture in the next several milestones, till most of the community is won over to the new apps.

      Hmmm... At the bottom of the page, the Roadmap states that it was last changed July 22, 2003 - so it appears that they were forced to make the change and only sort of let it be known. Wonder what is going on?

      Well, until then, I will keep using Firebird. But for those migrating - another positive is that 1.5alpha is 1.4 Mbs smaller.

    3. Re:Firebird based? by archen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Besides, IE7 comes with longhorn

      Yeah, I'm sure we'll se ASSLOADS of innovation from IE7. Like "a send a DRM report to Microsoft" button added, along with a few other "enhancements" 99% of the population would find useless and annoying like the pop up image toolbar. Well I'm half joking, but MS isn't going to innovate until they see some sort of serious threat, and as it stands now, I doubt they'll make any significant improvements.

      I think the "browser wars" are probably over. It's not really about browsers anymore as they're practically considered essential OS components. Mozilla probably will play a key role in spearheading the Linux movement, along with providing a good open source cross platform browser across many different venues.

    4. Re:Firebird based? by enomar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think you may be underestimating the innovation behind some of these alternate browsers. IE is just not keeping up. I have a seriously hard time using it anymore. Features like tabbed browsing and mouse gestures are now an itegral part of my browsing experience. They almost feel like...essential OS components.

      --

      :wq
    5. Re:Firebird based? by PeterHammer · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Mozilla probably will play a key role in spearheading the Linux movement

      That sounds like a boring dismisal of Mozilla. I use windows regularly at work, and at home, and Mozilla is my browser of choice. I have also successfully converted a number (probably around 20) regular joes who like to call me their tech geek

      I think Mozilla needs to promote a consumer oriented browser, particularly now that the AOL cord has been severed. It is certainly light weight enough if you strip all the geek features - Venkman, DOM inspector, Chatzilla, Composer etc... - and I think most web developers who target standards would agree that it is vastly superior to what IE would provide. My team would love to be able to drop IE as an obsolete monster. But its hard to convince users to install the whole Moz suite, let alone Netscape 7.1.

      Firebird needs to evolve. And it needs a grass roots movement promoting it. If every developer out there could convert 10 people - and those 10 convert 10 more. Well I don't have to tell geeks how to do math. Do I?

    6. Re:Firebird based? by blibbleblobble · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Yeah, I'm sure we'll se ASSLOADS of innovation from IE7"

      Longhorn being a large, dumb animal which consumes vast quantities of resources and turns most of them into shit?

      pic

  5. What's up with Camino by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does camino have a future? No releases have been made since 0.7, quite some time ago. Should MacOS X users switch to Mozilla, or Firebird.

    ObSafariSucks

    1. Re:What's up with Camino by Rura+Penthe · · Score: 4, Informative

      Mike Pinkerton as well as others continue to work on Camino. It is by no means dead, but nightlies are highly variable in quality.

      That said, the bug button in Safari still exists (it is disabled by default in 1.0) so report those bugs so it can get even better! This will help KHTML advance more quickly as well!

  6. omg 500!! by atari2600 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Those guys actually list about 500 issues they've taken care of with this release. Go people go!
    some useful ones imho
    *Mozilla crashes when magnifier is used
    *Browser crashes when javascript closes a window [@nsDocShell::InternalLoad]
    *Save As > withoua> extention result is a html fila> and a directory > *When saving a .zip file "as...," Moz appends a .x after the .zip extension
    *mozilla can't subscribe to existing imap folders
    *Browser crashes on HTTPS urls - Trunk M140RC1 [@cert_get_next_general_name
    *Loading personal certificates
    *pop3 password failed error msg missing

  7. Bloat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Has the Mozilla crew ever thought of quit making the browser as one giant, bloated super-applicaton and separate all the components into distinct, different programs in the spirit of IE/Outlook/FrontPage as well as Safari/Mail/iCal?

    I know Firebird/Thunderbird/Dodobird exist but they seem like separate distinct projects, and the apps are definitely not as stable as stock Moz; trust me, I've used em all.

    I mean, does my web browser REALLY need an IRC client?!

    At this rate, Moz 1.6 will have an included oral sex plugin.

    1. Re:Bloat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      At this rate, Moz 1.6 will have an included oral sex plugin.

      Fuck, I just installed Firebird.

    2. Re:Bloat by rolocroz · · Score: 5, Funny
      At this rate, Moz 1.6 will have an included oral sex plugin.

      Some people tell me Mozilla sucks, but this would be proof.
      --

      I meta-mod all positive moderation Unfair, because it's abuse of the system.

  8. My settings by Skeme · · Score: 5, Informative

    I always set

    user_pref("dom.disable_window_flip", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_move_resize" , true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .close", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .directo ries", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .locatio n", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .menubar ", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .minimiz able", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .persona lbar", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .resizab le", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .scrollb ars", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .status" , true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .titleba r", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature .toolbar ", true);
    user_pref("dom.disable_window_status_chang e", true);
    user_pref("browser.block.target_new_window ", true)

    to keep crappy web pages from disabling my menus.

  9. Choreographed releases. by CryptOntology · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I've been fairly impressed with Firebird and hope the move to 1.5 will start the integration of Firebird concerns, bugs, and issues to the main trunk to be hashed out.

    I think the Mozilla developers have been doing an excellent job lately, especially with respect to choreographing releases with future development needs. --- the switch-over to Firebird could have been disasterous or annoying, but it's been smooth.

    1. Re:Choreographed releases. by insecuritiez · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Smooth? It's been smooth because it hasn't happened yet.

  10. How about convincing software companies to by zymano · · Score: 4, Insightful

    add it to their cd's so people can get a feel for it ?

  11. Mouse Gestures by Acidic_Diarrhea · · Score: 4, Informative

    Great! But Mozilla isn't complete until you've got MOUSE GESTURES. Honestly, I've found that mouse gestures coupled with tabbed browsing is such a more pleasant experience than anything that Microsoft is peddling. It seems that the best innovation is still coming from elsewhere and Microsoft is playing catch-up. Didn't I hear about IE having tabbed browsing in the next release?

    --
    I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
  12. New feature I'd like to see... by fedaykin42 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Mozilla.org released Mozilla v1.5 alpha today, with flavors available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Some of the new features include Composer enhancements, Chatzilla logging, multiple tab window closing confirmation, and quicksearch support in about:config. A more detailed rough changelog is also available.

    ...usability without having to have a monster machine. I use Mozilla, but damn is it slow for even the most mundane of pages. If you want to load a plugin, forget it. I'm running a 1.3GHz Athelon with 512MB of RAM and it gets bad. Personally, I couldn't care less about a good deal of the wiz-bang bloat features...make it fast and reliable.

    1. Re:New feature I'd like to see... by Slurm-V · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have a grotty old PII 350 with 64mb on win98 (not SE - for some absurd historical reason that I no longer believe and I don't expect anyone else to either) and I use Moz exclusively for tabbed browsing and spam filtering goodness. It's faster than IE from my perspective and, unlike IE, doesn't fall over more often than a one legged man in a falling over competition.

      --
      Of course it's going off the rails. How else is it ever going to fly?
  13. Mozilla Firebird seems better by dyj · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At least if you just want the browser, Mozilla Firebird seems already much better than Mozilla.

    I have been using a recent nightly build of Mozilla Firebird as my primary browser, and it has been very stable and already feels much more polished than Mozilla.

    Small things like the Ctrl-Enter shortcut and automatic mouse scrolling make Mozilla Firebird feel more like a polished product than Moziila does.

  14. about:config by cavegrub · · Score: 5, Funny
    After typing about:config and browsing to the bottom of the list...
    timebomb.first_launch_time 1034222022286000
    I always knew that IE had a built in crash timer, but Mozilla? ;)
    1. Re:about:config by cavegrub · · Score: 5, Informative

      A bit of explaination: the "timebomb" preference is a relic from the Netscape days. It provides a countdown until some final date, which when reached, the application will provide an expiration notice popup and request that the application stop working.

  15. Re:Why make a Windows version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's odd, according to the half million download report, the Windows version is by far the most popular, with 71.5% of downloads. Speaking for myself, a Mozilla/Windows user, I use Mozilla because it works better and has more features. It's also not plagued by countless security issues.

  16. Re:This will help a lot. by Cutriss · · Score: 4, Informative

    Funny.

    It hasn't been five minutes since I posted this comment and I've already figured out what the problem is.

    In order to set up the language support, you must go to View -> Character Coding -> Customize..., and add the language support you want for browser rendering. This is *not* at all what the popup message indicates, and seems like something that needs to be present in Preferences as well, and more clearly labelled. If a person is likely to be using a web browser in more than one language, then they'll probably want to configure all the language options all at once, so there's no sense in putting them in two separate places in the application.

    So, kudos to Moz for a lightweight multi-language browser, but demerits for making it counter-intuitive to configure.

    --
    "Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
  17. Let's see Chatzilla and Mail put in a tab! by Pvt_Waldo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they could get Chatzilla and Mail in the main tabbed interface it would roxorz IMO.

    1. Re:Let's see Chatzilla and Mail put in a tab! by IvyMike · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not really supported or production worthy, but try typing "chrome://messenger/contents/messenger.xul" and "chrome://chatzilla/contents/chatzilla.xul" into your URLbar.

      It's clearly not totally debugged, and weird stuff can happen (who knows), but it seems to sort of work for me.

  18. Re:still no MNG support? by idiotfromia · · Score: 5, Funny
    Other apps that display PNGs do not have this problem.
    Have you ever used Internet Explorer?
  19. Enough Mozilla, More Firebird! by Emperor+Tiberius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know if I'm the only out there who's noticed, but, Firebird development has slowed considerably with all the Mozilla fuss. The next FB milestone (0.7 Indio) is going to be late almost two months in a few days. Meanwhile we've had the Mozilla 1.4 RC1, RC2, Final and 1.5 Alpha come out.

    CVS checkins to the Firebird suite have also lagged behind. Personally, I would like to see FB development accelerated instead of put on the back burner.

    1. Re:Enough Mozilla, More Firebird! by jesser · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've been seeing a lot of firebird checkins lately (past 3 weeks or so).

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
  20. Re:Firebird based? - not quite yet by patrickjolliffe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unfortunately it may take a bit longer than that. It'll take a year to get something shippable to end users (brendan)
    This is disappointing to me as I use Firebird regularly and am really impressed, but I guess they (the developers) know what they are talking about.

  21. Re:Why make a Windows version? by swordgeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hah!

    I use Solaris a lot, and Linux a bit. Mozilla is on both of those platforms.

    But Windows--Oh man, it's nice to have a really GOOD broswer on the universal de facto platform. Given that Windows is a toy to begin with (no insult intended--I use it for games, and nothing else), why would you NOT want to have the best browser on it?

    OK, look at it another way: If 99% of the Linux people used Mozilla (an exaggeration, I'm sure) and 0.5% of the Windows market used it, then which group would account for more browser downloads?

    (Hint: The answer is Windows)

    At any rate, I know a lot of people--100% pure Windows users--who are quite happy about having Mozilla. Tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking is a boon.

    --

    "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
  22. Mail Notification in Linux? by Bill+Dimm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem that I've had with every version of Mozilla I've seen so far is that I can't tell when I have new email under Linux. Under Netscape 4.8, when new mail arrives the mail client icon on the KDE Kicker panel changes so I can see that I have mail even if the mail client is iconified. In Mozilla 1.x or Netscape 7.1 this does not happen, so I can't tell when new mail arrives if the browser and mail client are iconified or covered by other windows. I realize there is an option in preferences for audio notification, but it doesn't seem to work and I really don't want to annoy everyone in my office ever time I get email anyway.

    Is there some simple work-around that I don't know about? Are there any plans to fix this? I've raised this issue on mozillazine.org and reported it to Netscape (a few weeks before AOL killed Netscape), but it seems to get no attention. This is a total showstopper for me. Someone please rescue me from having to use Netscape 4.8 for email...

  23. MSIE works, eh? by LPetrazickis · · Score: 4, Funny

    IE is free, dumbasses. And guess what? It actually WORKS!!!

    In other news, the Wheel will never catch on because Dragging Things on the Ground works and is very widely deployed already.;)

    --
    Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
  24. Re:Mozilla news, but what about Opera? by dubious9 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Why predominately Mozilla?

    Mozilla is one of the biggest open source projects out there. Slashdot has lots of people that like open source stuff.

    Mozilla is more than just a broswer, it's a runtime (Gecko Runtime Engine), GUI language (XUL), bayesian mail client, html composer, etc.

    People can actually contribute and test mozilla beta releases, as opposed to opera releases.

    Mozilla is available on more platforms than opera, and is 7.2b2 even available on linux?

    Mozilla has a 30% share of slashdot traffic, and thus is more directly popular with slashdot readers in general.

    --
    Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
  25. Re:Mozilla news, but what about Opera? by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Opera sucks. Firebird is just as fast and doesn't put a huge banner in your face. Only a moron pays $40 for a web brower, especially one as god-awful as Oprah.

    Your whole argument seems to be that paying for anything when you can get something else that does the same job is only for morons.

    If that's true it's a good thing for Ferrari/Porsche/Aston Martin/ Rolls Royce have plenty of rich dumb customers who don't know that they could buy a cheap Ford/GM/Crysler/Nissan/Skoda that'll work just as well.

    Similarly, all those people who pay more than $5 per head on eating out at fancy restaurants are also morons. Don't they realise they could fill up on a Big Mac and fries rather than fillet steak? And what about those idiots who buy designer clothes when the bargains at TK Max will keep them just as warm?

    God-awful? Only for morons? Just exactly what browser are you talking about here? You sure ain't talking about Opera.

    Anyone who's used Opera for more than five minutes (and that's obviously not you) would never come to that conclusion - it's small, fast, innovative and feature-packed. Try saying that about any other browser available on all the major platforms.

    Paying for a browser isn't for everyone - just as paying for a luxory car, gourmet meal or designer labels aren't either - but just because you don't see the benefits of using Opera (hint: open your eyes) that doesn't mean that that's true for everyone else.

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
  26. I cant read html without Mozilla any longer..:D by miffo.swe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have to say Mozilla/Firebird has really grown onto me. At work i have to use IE and what bugs me is that while Mozilla has evolved fast IE has been standing still. Things like popup kill, tabs, privacy and cookie management etc, i just cant be without them now that im used to them. Today Mozilla is the best browser out there without a doubt.

    To the Mozilla decelopers and Netscape/AOL, thank you!

    --
    HTTP/1.1 400
  27. Re:Firebird based? - not quite yet by Brendan+Eich · · Score: 5, Informative

    That quote from staff minutes was out of context. I was citing the agreement I'd reached with all-volunteer Mozilla Firebird developers before the Mozilla Foundation was announced, where 0.7 would coincide with 1.5, 0.8 with 1.6, etc. I went on to say to staff, at that meeting, that if we get more time from the developers, the schedule could be shortened.

    Now, we hope to hire a Firebird developer fulltime at the Mozilla Foundation, and we expect to go faster. No promises yet; the roadmap will be updated in due course.

  28. Roaming? by Jahf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I still don't see roaming. There needs to be a final monolithic version (ie, not Firebird/Thunderbird) that supports roaming. That way companies who are still stuck on Netscape 4.79 for its roaming capabilities can migrate to a newer engine.

    --
    It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
  29. Re:Composer Tips? by glazou · · Score: 4, Informative

    About
    : yes, I can agree with that. We currently use a lot of
    because Gecko forces us to do so. If there is no content, there is no frame (basically, that's how we call the abstract boxes rendered on the canvas); and if there is no frame, we can't place a caret... Given how much the layout team was axed last week, I don't think we'll have a fix for this very big issue any time soon. I am myself working on another approach, ie make Composer get rid of any useless
    as soon as possible. You have to understand that's not a simple task _at all_. I currently have a fix in my own tree, but it's not fully satisfactory yet.

    About definition lists: I agree too and I am working on it.

    About nested lists, bug 54479: that's a major issue, and solving it is a HUGE work. I have a partial fix for this that helps **creating** valid nested lists but does not handle copy/paste yet.

    About editing stylesheets, you were probably on another planet during the last year and a half ;-) I recommend you take a look at http://cascades.mozdev.org/ or build yourself the editor in mozilla/extensions/editor/cascades.

    Daniel Glazman, Mozilla Composer module owner and author of CaScadeS.

  30. Re:Mozilla news, but what about Opera? by BZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, older versions of Gecko that did not attempt to support the bloated mess that is the CSS 2.0 specification were also small enough to fit on a floppy....

    With features, unfortunately, comes size.

  31. Mozilla tips ! by MythMoth · · Score: 5, Informative

    Lots of tips & tricks for mozilla at MozillaTips logically enough.

    They've got some good stuff already, but could probably use the extra traffic !

    D.

    --
    --- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
  32. Mozilla Composer by onco_p53 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What really bugs me about composer is that when you view the HTML source it is in mono-colour text. How hard can it be to use the same scheme as the "view page source" window when you are examining a webpage.

    The different colours make identifing the code much easier