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Planning For Mozilla 2.0
wikinerd writes "The MozillaWiki maintains a number of pages on Mozilla 2.0 which reveals lots of possible new features of the popular browser. What does your wishlist include about Mozilla 2.0, and how has the release of Firefox affected your use of Mozilla?"
What's with Mozilla 1.4, er, I mean 1.5, er, I mean 1.6, er, I mean 1.7 being the Last Release Ever?
It has ended it.
How about a new Theme? I personaly dispise the current theme and the way the various toolbars interact within mozilla.
Also how about a way to manage Mozilla using Windows group policies?
What about a MSI package?
Mine are pretty simple.
A graphical history record (i.e. one that keeps a stored image of places where I've been, rather than a mere text description, as most give very limited info of what that particular site was).
And, an RSS reader equivalent to FeedDemon.
My wish is that Mozilla properly render Slashdot. What an embarassment! Someone even went so far as to make a Mozilla plugin that fixed the Slashdot rendering bug! I mean, c'mon people, you'd think that Mozilla would properly render Mozilla's biggest supporter.
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
So I always used Moz. Personally I think the best change for Moz would be to make it less bloated, and make it totally modular. Basically make it so you can strip away most of the program and turn it into something closely resembling Firefox if you so choose.
Plus, Firefox seems quicker and more stable to me since I have been using both.
Mozilla and Firefox will merge into one super borwser....MoFox... or perhaps FireZilla
I would like to see something like what opera has with web page magnification. Its on firefox too but you cant make images any bigger then they already are like you can with opera. But i still like FF better.
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up... reading.-Henny Youngman
I'm very happy to recommend Firefox for IE users though - Mozilla's Netscape-style interface can be a bit confusing if you haven't seen them before.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
I don't know what these new features are (not even the google cache of the page is loading) but I'll certainly be waiting for these features to make it into FireFox rather then change to Mozilla temporarily.
Of course depending on what the features were I'd probably install Mozilla to see if they cause any issues with the web design work I do.
This has been fixed in the trunk for a long time (but not the branch Firefox 1.0 comes from), and will be in Firefox 1.1, whether Mozilla increments to 2.0 or not.
Bug 217527
Bug 264913
If you really, really need a fix now, visit this URL and download one of the nightlies from the trunk [fair warning - some nightlies have some annoying bugs in them, but generally, are pretty good]. It works just fine there, but I'm told requires too many changes to backport into the ff1/mozilla whatever branch.
I would like to see a build in page validator.
There is a lot of badly coded web pages out there.
It might take a rewrite of gecko by I think it is wroth it.
The normal web based validators really don't cut it
when your developing dynamic cgi scripts.
A kick-ass feature I'd like to see in Mozilla and Firefox would be to automatically break up long words/numers/urls at the edge of the screen.
Since I have a TFT with 1280x1024 resolution, I often increase font sizes when browsing the web to reduce eye strain, but that often causes horizontal scroll bars to appear when long words or urls are in the text, making it much less convenient to read, e.g. in those ubiquitous phpBB based forums.
> IE's html standard
Bad idea, then bad poorly written web pages will never get fixed!
..to the better.
Since Firefox 1.0 came out I have used the Mozilla suite for email and Internet-browsing at work while I still stick with Opera at home. Firefox is there on both locations and are used from time to time. What Firefox did do when it came along was make it clear to me that Mozilla had improved over the years and no longer required me to have a heap of other browsers installed for visiting particular webpages with picky code. So, you may say that Firefox made Mozilla shine in it's own true light.
"-Who said sit down?!"
-- S. Ballmer @ MSDC 2003.
I still remember the day when I tried running two separate instances of Mozilla on the same Windows machine. Neither Google nor the forums helped. Luckily I can still read C++.
Open source should mean you can look into the source if you want to, not that you have to look into the source every time you try something non trivial.
My solution was to download nifty little Firefox with IE. No matter how mad the sys admins were, one could always delete history, cache and cookies with Firefox after each session. (Except at Shanghai City Library, where Firefox wouldn't even install.)
With a large bundle like Mozilla, I could never have downloaded it fast enough to have the patience to wait for it. Size matters.
Though its not directly related to the Mozilla Suite (sorry, I tried to RTFA, but its down) my biggest wish is to see the Gecko Rendering Engine (GRE) finally split from the Mozilla/Firefox/et al code base. This seems to have completely dropped off the road map despite being discussed for months (years?).
The idea of running the GRE as a service (started at boot) and then simply launching the frontends for the various Mozilla apps (in my case, Firefox and possibly Thunderbird) appeals to me immensely.
I value "snapiness" greatly when it comes to my web browser and email apps. Having to run multiple instances of the same rendering engine is a bit of a downer IMHO. (Yes, I realise there are some benefits. Yes, I realise we all tend to have ample computing power.)
I've been using Mozilla for about a year now, I've used FireFox and I dont really see a reason to change, Mozilla has the plugins i use and they work without any problems and its just as fast if you ask me. I dont use the email client...but i dont install it either so bloat isnt really a problem.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
You're probably not missing anything if you prefer dedicated software. For me though, integrating web browsing, html editing, and email is just logical and one of the reasons I kept using Netscape instead of the Outlook/IE combo in my Windows days.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
1. Backup your Mozilla profile, or at least copy it, before using the new one. You certainly may break extensions.
2. If you're on Windows, rename \Program Files\Mozilla Firefox to \Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.old or somesuch. That way you can revert. Your extensions are generally in the profile anyway. If you're on Linux, just keep the old files.
3. Upgrade to the nightly.
4. Open a new tab, type about:config search for app.extensions.version. Change it to 1.0 to avoid the extensions disabling themselves.
4a. Close and restart Firefox.
5. Give it a shot. If everything gets hosed (not likely, but possible - it has happened to me, though very rarely), you can backout and replace the executables and your profile data.
That's the best I can offer. I am not a Moz developer, I just follow the stuff closely. It's a PITA to play with Mozilla profiles and extensions and frankly, the worst part of Mozilla administration - a failed upgrade or bug can hose your extensions/configuration unless you know which files in the profile can be replaced and which can't.
In general, for what it's worth, Adblock has *never* broken for me, and that's the toughest one to reconfigure.
...and include one central firewall-like facility that lets you perform advanced selection of media you allow/deny from a host, domain, IP range etc. (plus access to ports, like 8080 hurting Mozilla for a long time...)
ad.* DENY images, flash, cookies
*.mozdev.org ALLOW xpi
*.yahoo.com DENY flash
*.gmail.com ALLOW cookies, store-passwd
*.microsoft.com DENY all
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
FOr many Mozilla users, it is just the feel of Mozilla that makes it superior to Firefox. Firefox just has a simplified feeling, while Mozilla looks and works like a power browser. I am a long-time Mozilla user, and I've tried Firefox 1.0, but can't stand it. It just feels like an IE replacement rather than a web workhorse.
This feeling is not all that different from those that prefer Windows NT/2000/2003 to Windows ME/XP, or perhaps for aptly for Slashdot, vi vs emacs. There's just something innately gratifying when you're not assumed to be Joe Average.
Firefox is by far more popular, and while many believe Mozilla to be bloated, in my own experience, there was very little difference in memory usage and speed between the two, which was surprising because my Seamonkey had a lot more extensions.
If Mozilla 2.0 is to be started, some major changes are needed to how the overall software suite works. The current setup for the Mozilla software suite works just fine and as such, there's little need to fix what isn't broken. However, there's a problem amongst the picky.
We all love Firefox for its speedy startup and simple UI. At the same time, we also love Thunderbird for its speedy startup and simple UI. Well, there's a bit of conflict here. What if we use both? Is it any better than Mozilla? For some, yes. For others, maybe not. So here's the idea.
A Mozilla/Gecko Framework -- what this means is that all the absolute basic and necessity to run a gecko-based application is there and that softwares built upon this library will work as though you have a stand-alone application installed. This is good for a few things. For starters, download time. Firefox and Thunderbird both come with the gecko libraries and anything else that depends on it. It's there to simplify installation and to have everything there without the need of having to install system-specific libraries (in my case, windows\system32). Another good that comes out of this is total modularity. This way, we can truly have a modular system where we have a singular installation of the Gecko engine but can have various softwares based on this to run with it. The possibility of having Mozilla software suite, Thunderbird, and Firefox installed at once without eating up 40-50MB of space is there. Perhaps, in guessing, such concept in realized form would consume at most 20MB for all 3 softwares.
Yeah, I'm sure a handful of you people must be thinking: Isn't this been thought up already with 'such-and-such' feature of Mozilla/Gecko? Yes. It has. But it appears at its current form, it cannot do such things. And I specifically remember a long time ago that one of the goal of Mozilla is to build a software suite that is modular. It's been years since. And I have not seen this realized or come to fruition. If this idea is being delayed to 2.0, so be it. But for 2.0 to be deserving of its number, it ought to at least be capable of being modular.
I'm happy for the Mozilla developers that they are looking forward to a 2.0 codebase. And I wish them luck in persuing that goal of a final code release. This framework idea is my only suggestion, as it is solely needed since we have 3 'ready-for-prime-time' softwares built upon the same Gecko library.
~ Old Warriors Society
I'd love to be able to set my live bookmarks to automatically update at user-defined periods of time; so, for example, I may want my BBC News bookmarks to refresh every 10 minutes, while my slashdot bookmarks can refresh every 30 minutes. At the moment, they only seem to refresh when the browser is first started.
Also - and this is a niggle, but... - the "find" toolbar (accessible by ctrl+F)... they really should move the close button back to the right side of the bar... as far as I can tell, every other part of the UI has the close button in the top-right (or right) corner of the relevant pane, except for that damn find bar!
*ahem*
Maybe what's really needed for our friends in the less advanced countries is a web site that functions as a browser ?
Yes thankyou, I am an idiot.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Of course, some of the above may alreay be planned but as I can't get on mozilla's web site, I can't check.... Maybe it was slashdotted?
One of Mozilla's greatest strengths is not as just a web-browser but as a cross-platform application development platform.
Just try playing around with XUL a little. It's surprising what it can do. I'm just starting out with it, but having worked my way through MFC, QT, TCL/TK, WTL, GTK++, FLTK, wxWidgets etc. etc. in search of the One True UI Library, I'm liking what I've seen so far.
What am i missing?
I've stuck with Mozilla for my main usage, but almost always have a Firefox instance open. That way I can be logged into my web-based applications as more than one user, as one example.
Probably the main reason I didn't switch over to Firefox was that when I imported settings from Mozilla there were minor issues that I didnt' feel like resolving at the time. My mail folders didnt' have mail in them and my bookmark bar didn't show up in Firefox. I'm sure if I spent 20 minutes troubleshooting I could fix it, but why bother? I have bonded with Mozilla and will probably stay with it as long as it remains a vital project.
One feature I like that I haven't found in Firefox is profile switching. Not a big deal, but a nice feature.
Also, if you have two applications for mail and browsing, then you have two applications to keep up to date.
I've never understood the whining about "bloat". I like feature-rich applications and my computer can handle them just fine, thank you.
Either way, we have an embarassment of riches. I'm still stuck with Windows on my work machines, but the bulk of the actual work I do is in Mozilla, Firefox, and OpenOffice.org. Love them both. Thanks to all the developers! Keep up the great work.
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
1. Smaller, faster. A lot of people still won't download it because it takes too long.
2. More modular. You should be able to install a basic Mozilla installer app which then asks you which modules you want: browser, web client, HTML editor, chat, etc. Then you can use this app to upgrade any of these pieces at any time. This installer can make sure that the shared components all work together, no matter what version. (or at least can give warnings). It can also remember where it left off downloading should the user want to download the rest at another time or should the machine crash. There is currently an installer which sort of does this, except that all pieces are running at the same time instead of as separate apps. I don't want my browser to crash my mail client (and vice/versa).
3. More Outlook like features: calendaring, contacts, to-do lists, syncing with Palm, etc. These could all be separate modules that all work together. We can never get business people to use Mozilla Mail because Outlook, which eats their mail and gives them viruses, has a few features that Mozilla doesn't.
That's pretty much it. #3 is probably the most important. If we could ween our clients off of Outlook, that would give us less business but would also give us fewer headaches and more options.
John
.. it's that they get off their butts and actually fix all the annoying bugs that have been around for YEARS, many of which affect huge numbers of users, yet seem to get ignored in favour of new features... (sound familiar?)9 3 /. to mozilla!)
Just look at the age (and popularity) of most of the bugs off tracking bug 163993 (Mozilla bugs with large community interest):
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1639
(cut & paste into your browser - no linking from
No, I don't use firefox, because it seems too much like IE to me (you know, but without most of the security holes). Of course, maybe thats's why it's so popular...
I'm a perfectionist but I'm trying to cut back.
Use standard GNU autoconf for the builds. Get rid of all the code that says things like "#ifdef HPUX ... then do this and that and this and that because HP's C++ compiler (no, not that one, the other one... and that specific version, too!) can't make a negative zero or some such tomfoolery ... #endif". When I try to build Firefox 1.0 (One Point Fucking Oh!) on HP-UX 10.20 it falls over and dies because I'm not using HP's C++ compiler... nor the other one... and especially not that version... I'm using gcc! What do you think I am, an idiot? Why would I use anything but gcc/g++?
But it's worse than that. A few simple platform-checking #ifdefs could be fixed, the code converted into autoconf checks and replaced with HAS_FOO macros... but no. The build tree isn't even a tree -- it's a fucking forest! There are like 17 different build trees, each one gnarly and moss-covered and subtly (or not so subtly) different from the next, all plastered together into one shambling mass of code. Some of the sub-trees hard code ld -foo -bar -ZxCvB commands instead of invoking $(CXX) to be the linker. Some of them hard code cc as the compiler instead of using $(CC). I shit you not. Oh, and you can't type "make" in a sub-trees to build just that sub-tree. You have to start all over from the top level. After a few days, I gave up.
It's bad, folks. Really, really bad.
I'd be embarrassed to release something like that as a 1.0 version. 0.6 alpha 2? Sure thing, no problem. But 1.0 is supposed to be finished.
P.S.: your "Firefox" code still unpacks itself in a directory named "mozilla". Not "mozilla-1.7" or "firefox-1.0" either... just plain "mozilla". It looks like a CVS snapshot to me.
I don't know how many times I've gotten a "you must accept cookies in order to see this site" message, and had to pull up a page's HTML source code just to try to find out what address the cookie was coming from.
Firefox is ahead of IE on so many levels, but is years behind on this one.
Truthfully, as small and quick as Firefox is, I still have to say that I like the Mozilla browser so much better. I love control of my browser, and clicking on the tools menu drop down and having direct access to all of the managers (cookies, popups, etc..) is the greatest options on could have as easy as they can give it to you. Firefox was a little tricky to get used too at first, and I particular dont like the button interface.
- SVG
- A better client-side VM.
- Heavy duty form support, including the ability to create and use form "widgets"
- Client-side persistent store
Want to compete with MS's upcoming XAML platform? I believe this list will go a long way toward that.This will allow interactive graphic applications that are just not possible now with primarily text-oriented DHTML.
Like real compiled Javascript 2.0 or perhaps a Python VM. You can do some amazing and surprising things with client-side JS, but as web apps tackle what are now primarily the domain of "fat" installed apps, we're going to need some real client side power. The ability to create and call libraries of routines will prove to be important.
These issues are being addressed in both Ian Hickson's WHAT-WG and W3C's Xforms. Implementations of these in compiled code would be great.
From what I gather, Moz 2.0 will embed the small SQL engine SQLite to store it's configuration data, etc.. How about providing access to this engine for web apps? Think of it as maybe a cookie on some relational algebra radioactive steriods. Imagine being able to download chunks of data from your server-side store and work with them locally. You would effectively have web apps that continue to work when disconnected from the web.
For some reason the Firefox engine will not print from my Samsung ML1750 printer without skewing the text up. Everything else prints on it fine. This is a show stopper for me and I am using Opera (which works fine with the printer).
I want/prefer/like my email integrated into the browser. Firefox/Thunderbird works OK but not as well as Mozilla. But overall I prefer the Firefox browser for tabbing, speed and ease of user. It just feels good. It's nice to have choices again. I am a happy camper even with the problems.
Are you really sure that's a fair comparison? You ask if firefox is any less bloated than mozilla, stating that it takes 10-12 seconds to start up and it crashes randomly. But then you go on to say:
I do appreciate the growing number of extensions for Firefox, though I wonder why they can't have been adapted for Mozilla since it also uses XUL. I currently use Image Zoom, Advanced Highlighter Button, User Agent Switcher, Web Developer, All-in-One Gestures, Nuke Anything, Print It, and Flashblock...
Are you sure it's not an extension that's bringing down firefox? Or slowing down the start up time. You can't really compare stock mozilla against a customized firefox for speed and stability. I realize that you may love those extensions and wouldn't want to live without them, but otherwise you're comparing apples to oranges.
I would like to see an extension to tabbed browsing where you could grab a tab and make a new window out of it and pull it out of the current window. And I guess the inverse transform would be handy - allow merging of windows into tabs.
Most of my boxen have virtual desktops, so it's handy sometimes to have different windows on each desktop each with several tabs on the same subject. For example, I'll have one desktop with slashdot and a few links alongside IRC and another desktop reading API documentation for a project.
Another reason this is useful is so that when you open links from the mail program in a new tab, it does not always put the tab in the window you want.
- You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!