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Mozilla Foundation's Future: No Mozilla Suite 1.8
batb0y writes "The Mozilla Foundation has published its Mozilla Application Suite transition plan, confirming that there will be no official Mozilla 1.8 release. There will be a 1.7.6 release to be maintained by the Mozilla Foundation. All future suite versions from the Foundation will be minor updates only." Don't despair, however, as there is already a community effort underway to continue development.
Umm, netscape 8 is based on Firefox/Thunderbird.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
> What exactly do you like more about Mozilla than
> Firefox?
One thing I like is searching or entering URLs in a single large bar. By default, Firefox has separate search and URL bars on the same line, which mean you can see less of the search term/url you're entering.
My wife says that it's easier for her to open tabs with the mouse from mozilla (the new tab button is immediately obvious to her in Mozilla, but not in Firefox).
-- Rick
Mozilla == the successor to Netscape Communicator. It spoke HTTP(s), SMTP, POP, IMAP, IRC and other stuff. It was the original "kitchen sink" wrapper around the Gecko HTML/XML rendering engine.
Firefox and Thunderbird were split off as standalone apps that embedded the Gecko rendering component and a few other goodies from the original Mozilla suite, but they've always been their own critters, from an application standpoint.
So, now it looks like major development on Gecko-based products is going to be on apps that do one small cluster of things well, instead of a large app that does lots of things.
clear 'nuff?
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
Thunderbird is the replacement for the e-mail part of the Mozilla suite. Nvu is (arguably) the replacement for the editor part of the suite. Et cetera.
Here is a link to The Book of Mozilla
The mozilla foundation, somewhere around 2 years ago, decided replace the Mozilla suite (which has had the codename "Seamonkey") with a group of standalone applications. There were projects already underway to create a standalone version of the browser and e-mail client, and the Mozilla foundation chose these two (which after a couple name-changes became Firefox and Thunderbird) to serve as the base for their development.
Originally, "Firebird" and "Thunderbird" were meant to be code-names for these apps while they were under development, as Seamonkey was the codename for the Mozilla suite. When these products reached version 1.0, they were supposed to be renamed "Mozilla Browser" and "Mozilla E-mail".
However, the development versions of the software had become famous/popular enough that people become worried that changing the name would lose name-recognition (which is bad for branding purposes) so it was decided instead that they'd be called "Mozilla Firefox" and "Mozilla Thunderbird". As far as I can remember, those are now the final names, but perhaps someone who knows better will correct me.
Anyhow, these stand-alone apps were designated to be replacements/upgrades for the old suite, and indeed, most users have stopped using the old suite and are using the new applications. However, many developers still prefer the old suite and are gearing up to start a development group independent of the Mozilla Foundation and branch off from Mozilla 1.7. For this purpose, it has been suggested that they call the software "The Seamonkey Internet Suite" because, no longer being affiliated with Mozilla, they can't use the "Mozilla" name.
Make sense?
"I think Micrsoft UI's are generally lousy"
Think again. Microsoft has spent a lot of time and money refining their UI. It may not be as clean as Mac OS, and there are definately some rough edges, but after seeing how new users pick up on Windows XP's new features, I have no doubts that their product is "easy to use".
Err... I've spent alot of time with users and analyzing how to use their computers. WinXP had the worst learning curve out of all windows releases. Win2000 seems to consistently win out. Also, after users learn WinXP's UI, they still remain highly inefficient in what they do. This extends from the operating system to the Office Suite as well. Interestingly enough, OS X has the least intuitive interface (albeit the highest level of eye candy) yet after learning it, users have a higher level of functionality and ease of use as compared to WinXP. Linux desktops, while requring the highest learning curve and sometimes(depending upon the distribution) theme tweaking to be pleasant on the eyes, almost always result in the user becoming most efficient and capable of utilizing the most functionality (the two kind of go hand in hand). I think thats typical of OSS, developers throw in tons of really great ideas and other things, but often don't know how to properly implement it in an interface. Gnome is really doing quite a job of making the linux desktop experience easy for users of all needs from novices to advanced. (That is not to say anything bad of KDE, its just Gnome focuses more on a strict HIG). Of course the desktop in general is only halfway near the level it should be at and hopefully this will all be fixed within a few years.
Regards,
Steve