Mozilla Firebird 0.7.1 Released For Mac OS X

An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla Firebird 0.7.1 has been released for Mac OS X only. The release - coming just over a week since the last one - fixes a number of bugs that made 0.7 frankly unusable on Macs. There's more info in the release notes. All MacBeards should upgrade immediately."

Comments

Excellent news...

[Karma Sink]

I use Safari in Mac OS X, as a rule, but I haven't used anything but Firebird for Linux or Windows since I first downloaded it. It's an impressive program, and I love the fact that there's no installer to deal with. Everything's in one folder. It works well for the "Power User" type, but I've been passing the word among even my less tech-savvy friends.

Now it can be my browser of choice on all of the machines I use.

Re:Serious Question

[agent dero]

One of the reasons I use Firebird and Mozilla on MacOS X, is because of Safari's quirky Java support, some applets just don't work, while others crash the browser.

Something that Mozilla & Firebird have pretty good, java support

404

[squiggleslash]

I got a 404 trying to download the .dmg.gz. However, changing the "http:" in the URL of the 404 to "ftp:" fixes that.

Hope this helps anyone else who gets the same problem.

Files appear to be missing

[Jon Abbott]

Odd -- the files for 0.7.1 appear to be missing from the download site. Are they afraid of being slashdotted? :^)

Re:Firebird vs. Camino

[MinutiaeMan]

I used to use Camino as my primary browser until shortly after Safari 1.0 came out, but I have also been keeping my eye on Firebird simply for its cross-platform capabilities.

In my experience, there is very little difference in any of the browsers out there for Mac OS X, aside from various UI and preferences differences. But specifically for Firebird versus Camino, I think the only thing that Camino has over Firebird is the snazzier Aqua UI. Firebird is still butt-ugly -- not that that's a bad thing in the grand scheme of things, because I'm just a vain Mac user. (I do of course pity those who don't realize that you CAN choose "pretty" -- or to put it nicely, "aesthetically pleasing" -- appearances for my apps. But since I'm on the Apple part of /. here, I'm probably preaching to the choir now...)

Yes!

[michaelggreer]

Actually, the Pinstripe theme has achieved this for some time for Mozilla, and evidently will be standard from the next release on in Firebird. I care for native controls too, and we have 'em in Firebird.

Re:Yes!

[ahector]

Not exactly. I mean, you are right that the theme makes Firebird (and Mozilla, for a while now) look like aqua, but it's not actually using real OS X widgets. Get a copy of Moz or Firebird for Windows and you can do the Pinstripe theme as well; it doesn't rely on carbon or cocoa for ui elements. Good, I say, that the Pinstripe theme helps the browser fit in better-- it's just not the same, exactly, as other OS X apps. Even though I'm nitpicking here, it's kind of useful and interesting info. Right?

Re:Yes!

[lpontiac]

To me, it seems that the Pinstripe theme only affects controls drawn in config dialogs, the address bar etc, but form elements in actual web pages are still drawn in Firebird's default look. Or am I doing something drastically wrong?

Re:Lacks the right feel

[Quobobo]

OS X apps can use Aqua or brushed metal (or their own nonstandard GUI, of course). This is a choice made by the developer, but apps can be tweaked by users with either a third-party app called Metallifizer, or with the developer tools. I personally can't stand the brushed metal, but some people seem to like it.

Oh, and just a note, a lot of Apple's apps are nonstandard brushed metal (iTunes, the Finder in 10.3). This means that you need a lot of workarounds to change them to Aqua. :(

Re:Lacks the right feel

[foniksonik]

Problem is that Mozilla DOES NOT use standard API calls, at least in the Mac version though I believe this is correct for all platforms. Mozilla uses it's own XUL language and widgets to do windowing renders... instead of the native UI widgets, etc. again at least on Mac.

Re:True, but its not quite that bad

[bengoodger]

That's correct. If you work around the site's OS check and install the theme on windows you'll get the Aquafied icons but not the actual pin stripes, UI controls (buttons, scrollbars etc)... they'll look like Windows controls to an extent since the Windows implementation of the theme renderer is doing the drawing.

FWIW - many apps on MacOS use highly customized widget sets that are not part of the collection of "stock" widgets provided by the OS, including Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Internet Explorer and even Safari. These "owner draw" widgets are effectively the same concept as Firebird with its native theme renderer + XUL. The deal with Firebird is that because it's in its pre-1.0 state on MacOS X not all of the rendering glitches have been corrected.

Pros and cons...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Mac user, there are four major browsers from which I can choose. Each has their little quirks that annoy me. For example:

• Camino: no way through the GUI to disable image animation; relatively little information about cookies if you ask for cookie prompts.
• IE: bloody ancient. No tabs. Poor cookie control. No way to disable image animation.
• Safari: no way to disable image animation. Poor cookie control. Metal interface (although that's fairly easy to fix).
• Mozilla/Firebird: Proxies aren't linked to the Mac OS network preferences. (You'd be amazed at how annoying that is when you're shuffling a laptop between work and home...) Non-native widgets (minor irk from my point of view).

If somebody could change Firebird to link proxies to the network preferences, it'd be ideal -- I'd live with the non-native widgets quite happily. Or a cookie manager for Safari...

Re:Serious Question #2: Firebird verus Camino

[Anonymous Coward]

It froze and then unfroze. The latest nightly builds have a new bookmark system. http://rums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=12