Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mozilla Firebird 0.7.1 Released For Mac OS X

Posted by timothy on from the sense-of-urgency dept.

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."

7 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Serious Question by agent+dero · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

    --
    Error 407 - No creative sig found
  2. Re:Firebird vs. Camino by MinutiaeMan · · Score: 5, Informative

    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...)

  3. Yes! by michaelggreer · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Yes! by ahector · · Score: 4, Informative

      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?

      --
      sig
  4. Re:Lacks the right feel by Quobobo · · Score: 3, Informative

    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. :(

  5. Re:True, but its not quite that bad by bengoodger · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  6. Pros and cons... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    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...