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SeaMonkey 1.0 Released

Posted by Zonk on from the enjoy-your-aquatic-simians dept.

johkir writes "SeaMonkey has been released. Mozilla.org's open source internet suite features a state-of-the-art web browser and powerful email client, as well as a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. For web developers, mozilla.org's DOM inspector and JavaScript debugger tools are included as well. It also has a few nifty features, of particular interest: drag&drop reordering of tabs, support for a common inbox for multiple email accounts, SVG, , and phishing detection."

48 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by dghcasp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What exactly is SeaMonkey? Based on this summary of features, it sounds exactly like Mozilla.

    1. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by ZephyrXero · · Score: 4, Informative

      SeaMonkey is the old Mozilla Suite... Mozilla foundation decided to stick with stand-alone products, but some people missed the old suite and a few of the features and stuff, so the decided to carry it on as this community driven project ;)

      --
      "A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
    2. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Mozilla foundation stopped developing the Suite after the 1.8 beta 1 release and switched to Firefox and Thunderbird. A group of developers didn't want to abandon the Suite and improved it independently. In order to make clear that the result is not an official Mozilla.org product (and because Mozilla.org owns the Mozilla trademark), it was renamed to SeaMonkey, which formerly was the internal code name for the Suite. So yes, SeaMonkey is "Mozilla", but with different logos, a different name and a different team of developers. If you stayed with the suite and enviously noticed how Firefox got all the shiny stuff like SVG rendering, instant back button, etc, then SeaMonkey is for you. SeaMonkey has roaming profiles btw...

      (Shameless plug: my themes are already compatible)

    3. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by thaerin · · Score: 2, Funny

      What exactly is SeaMonkey?

      Is it chicken or is it monkey?

      --
      If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
    4. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by harrkev · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So, is it Firefox and Thunderbird thrown together in one executable? Or is it something more or less. I guess what I want to know is:

      1) Compatability with Thunder/Fire themes and extensions.
      2) Does it share the same security holes, or will it have its own ;)
      3) Will it be udated as often as Thunder/Fire?

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    5. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by mo^ · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Sorry to troll, but shit, someone had to....

      If you don't already know what SeaMonkey is then it's probably of little interest to you


      Dang, that sounds elitist. Where is the fun in only learning what we already know and using what we already use???

      --
      bah!*@%!
    6. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's the old Mozilla suite. It shares code with Firefox/Thunderbird but it isn't just them combined.

      1) Any plugins that worked with the old Mozilla suite should work (many plugins worked with both Monolithic Mozilla and Firefox). I doubt Thunderbird ones would, but I haven't tried.
      2) It will share Gecko security holes, but not Firefox-UI based ones.
      3) Update speed all depends on the developers and their quality standards.

    7. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by savala · · Score: 5, Informative
      So, is it Firefox and Thunderbird thrown together in one executable? Or is it something more or less.

      It's both more and less. It has a different approach to what such a program should be. Firefox and Thunderbird operate on the principle that it needs to be usable by the proverbial grandmother, and make a lot of sacrifices to get there. Features that are considered "bloat" or confusing are cut rigorously, the user interface gets lots of polishing, and everything that isn't considered essential for basic operation is delegated to the status of extension (which leads to a number of problems). Because of this, Firefox and Thunderbird are supremely usable products, which I'll heartily recommend to any computer novice.

      SeaMonkey on the other hand continues the tradition of the Mozilla Suite, which cared less about appearing clunky and confusing, and is far more customizable and ultimately usable for power users, web developers and other geeks. The SeaMonkey people understand that people can have ways to browse which aren't intuitively obvious to grandmothers, but which are ultimately more efficient, and that enabling this is a great good.

      As a result SeaMonkey has a number of features that aren't present (by default or at all) in Firefox/Thunderbird, ranging from roaming profiles, to the dom inspector and javascript debugger, to tighter integration between the email program and the browser to far more preferences exposed and easily editable. On the other hand, Firefox has more money behind it, and so has been developing rapidly in some areas, resulting in a large gap in SeaMonkey in an area such as extension management (of course, extensions aren't as necessary for effectively using SeaMonkey, but it's still a big gap).

      So, to answer your three questions:

      Compatability with Thunder/Fire themes and extensions.

      Partly, depending on the specifics of the extension, and the effort its developer went to. I answered this question more fully here.

      Does it share the same security holes, or will it have its own ;)

      It will mostly have the same (as most security problems are in the backend), but a few less in the frontend, as SeaMonkey has tighter review requirements than Firefox does. (I can think of one big security problem in the last year that was related to extension management which was only present in Firefox, not in Mozilla/SeaMonkey.)

      Will it be udated as often as Thunder/Fire?

      Yes, that is the goal, give or take a few weeks and some point releases. A SeaMonkey 1.1 release should come around the time of Firefox 2.0, and a SeaMonkey 1.5 for whenever Firefox 3.0 happens. (They'll be matches fairly closely in time, as both depend on the same branches and heavily tested stable code.)

    8. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by antiMStroll · · Score: 2, Informative
      No. I realize it's three whole paragraphs down, but:

      "The SeaMonkey project is a community-based project hosted at mozilla.org that emerged around Mozilla's suite codebase when the Mozilla Foundation announced it would discontinue further development of its suite product.

    9. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by jesser · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What missing features or options were you disappointed by?

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
    10. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      That's right! My grandmother demands that the DOM inspector be installed by default, because she is incapable of installing it herself.

    11. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by HardCase · · Score: 2, Funny

      Social Security!

    12. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by oojah · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > Its user interface design is largely based off of Netscape Communicator 4 and is only meant
      > for those who are nostalgic for the days of yore.

      Or else for those who think that Firefox is just a dumbed down version.

      imho.

      Roger

      --
      Do you have any better hostages?
    13. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by ShagratTheTitleless · · Score: 3, Interesting
      What missing features or options were you disappointed by?

      Missing: The "New Tab Button" on the Tab Bar. It's removal flew in the face of consistency (You can remove tabs with a button on the bar but to add them you must navigate a menu or use a keyboard combo). At the same time Firfox added the ability to create a new tab by double clicking blank space in the tab bar which works well until you have several tabs and no more easily clickable blank space. This is poor design. I would suggest amending it by always leaving a little free space on the bar but at that point why not just put the button back? I am aware you can get it back with an extension but it often doesn't theme right and disapears around upgrade time.

      Missing: "About Plugins" Menu Option. It's nice to see what plugins you have installed and what insecure out of date versions your running. Firefox has the info but no UI access to it (why no link in advanced options?). Since Firefox is supposed to be simple and secure it should probably check popular plugin versions and offer to update them or send you to a download instead.

      Missing: Performance. I remember when the design goal for Firefox was "Lean and Fast". The Suite Browser seems snappier on my system.

      Missing: Modern Theme. A lot of people don't like it but it really is useable.

      Missing: Plugins that can persist across minor upgrades. Every time a buddy of mine upgrades Firefox I have to fix his plugin that allows him to stream videos to Windows Media Player instead of dowloading them completely before playback. Every time I think about telling him "Nevermind, just fucking use IE".

      While I still recommend Firefox to friends, it seems sometimes they are going backwards from their initial plans (hidden features bloat, pigheaded design decisions from on high).

      --
      Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
    14. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by Craig+Davison · · Score: 2, Informative

      To make the missing new tab button appear, just right-click on the button bar and choose customize.

      --
      Hands in my pocket
    15. Re:For those of us who don't follow mozilla.org... by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You may recall that the fruits of Mozilla.org's efforts did not gain any traction with the general browsing public until the Firefox interface came along,..

      What I 'recall' is that I used the Mozilla suite for a long, long time and was quite happy with it. Then a bunch of people started hollering about 'Firefox' so I thought I would give it a try. I installed it, and found it missing all kinds of features and menu items I made use of with the suite. It basically gave me the impression of being the 'Windows XP' version of Mozilla.

      I ditched it. I am using plain Mozilla (1.7.12) these days, built from pkgsrc on NetBSD. I don't know that I'll ever use 'Firefox' although I suppose eventually it will be installed by default on Windows XP machines, or their descendents. . .

      I'm sorry, Firefox just looks all candied out and simplified. Like something that people who finally started using 'Linux' in 2002 or so would like.

  2. SeaMonkey - how cute by fanblade · · Score: 5, Funny

    SeaMonkey? I bet this thing dies in a matter of days.

  3. WYSIWYG by ZephyrXero · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So how does the Sea Monkey web editor compare to Nvu? If it's better, that'll really suck having to download a whole suite just for that one component. Why Mozilla Corp/Foundation hasn't released it's own editor still is beyond me...

    --
    "A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
    1. Re:WYSIWYG by savala · · Score: 5, Informative
      So how does the Sea Monkey web editor compare to Nvu? If it's better, that'll really suck having to download a whole suite just for that one component.
      It isn't better, as it's the basis on which NVu has been built (missing lots of features, but with the same basics). NVu's main developer has committed to donating back all the new code to the main Mozilla tree before releasing another version of NVu, and as far as I know, that's currently in the process of happening (although slowly, as it's a lot of code to be reviewed, and not many people capable of doing so).
      SeaMonkey 1.5 should contain the results of this work, so basically a WYSIWYG editor nearly identical to current NVu.
    2. Re:WYSIWYG by CTho9305 · · Score: 4, Informative

      You don't have to download the whole suite - grab the stub installer (a bit over 200KB), and just the parts you want.

      --
      My server
    3. Re:WYSIWYG by Otter · · Score: 3, Informative
      Nvu comes from the Mozilla editor codebase, although I don't know if the two have forked or if they're kept in sync at all. Comparing Nvu with the current Mozilla editor -- Nvu has many more features, some of which (site control, CSS editing) are great, some of which (the different link attributes like "date" and "crush") are stupid and some of which (the "New" command, for heaven's sake) don't work. I still prefer Mozilla for light editing, but Nvu would be better (although probably inadequate) for heavier use.

      Anyway, "suite" here is only 12-13 megs -- it's not like installing Office or Open Office.

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    4. Re:WYSIWYG by savala · · Score: 2, Informative
      but I didn't know if the Sea Monkey guys had tried to improve on the old codebase though...that was my question ;)
      Ah, ok. In that case, yes, there've undoubtedly been a number of fixes to the editor code since 1.7 (which is what NVu started of with). I'm seeing "+3703/3280) Lines changed" in the /editor directory in the rough timeperiod between the two branches (April 2004 to September 2005) and 56 bugs marked as fixed for the same timeperiod in the editor component. (Not linking, as slashdot referers are blocked.) Of course that code is shared with the email composer and Midas (the rich text editor), but there still should be some improvements.
  4. IE? by ZachPruckowski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, IE officially fell behind again. I mean, it sounded like that new beta was competition for Seamonkey/Firefox, but ten minutes after that's out, Mozilla obsoletes it. Was this scheduled?

  5. What's new: by karmaflux · · Score: 2, Funny

    Autoscroll! HOORAY!

    canvas tags! Boooo!

    Drag and drop tabs! Eh.

    Also, "Attempting to compose, forward, or reply to a message may result in a non-functional compose window." Sounds handy.

    Really, I've just been waiting for autoscroll.

    More at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/releases /seamonkey1.0/README.html

    --

    REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.

    1. Re:What's new: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Canvas is a WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) recommendation for a "resolution-dependent bitmap canvas, which can be used for rendering graphs, game graphics, or other visual images on the fly". In other words, it's some of that web 2.0 stuff. More info here.

    2. Re:What's new: by AeroIllini · · Score: 2, Interesting

      canvas tags! Boooo!

      What's wrong with <canvas> tags? I think they are a revolutionary idea.

      Once they become part of the HTML5 spec (and WHATWG is working on it now), then suddenly web developers will have a way to show those corny Flash movies without needing a plugin. The browser will support dynamic bitmap refresh natively. Eventually, it will support 3D rendering natively too, probably through OpenGL. Imagine playing Doom in a web browser, with no plugins. Or a contractor showing clients around a virtual model of their home before construction begins.

      Does it have the potential to be horribly abused? Of course. So does the <script> element, and even the &nbsp; element. And who can forget the abuses of the <embed> and <object> elements?

      Does it offer limitless opportunities for a more dynamic website? Yes.

      Does it mean the fragmented world of browser+plugins is converging to browser+JavaScript/AJAX? Yes.

      Plugin functionality with no plugins--just JavaScript and a <canvas> tag. I like it.

      --
      For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
  6. SeaMonkey is not Mozilla... by digitaldc · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's a cheap packet of cryptobiotic shrimp you can order off the back of any comic book. By the way, they never look as friendly or as big as the pictures. :(

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    1. Re:SeaMonkey is not Mozilla... by i.r.id10t · · Score: 2, Funny

      Those are brine shrimp you are thinking of... my fish love 'em as treats, and when they are babies and still have their yolk sack they are very nutritious for raising fry...

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
    2. Re:SeaMonkey is not Mozilla... by jacksonj04 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, Sea Monkeys are a specific brand of these brine shrimp, designed to be easy to set up and feed and stuff.

      http://www.sea-monkeys.com/

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
  7. Link on Seamonkey site is bad by solaufein · · Score: 3, Informative

    Link to download Seamonkey 1.0 for win32 leads to a 404.
    Link for full download is: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/re leases/1.0/seamonkey-1.0.en-US.win32.installer.exe
    Link for ftp of releases: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/re leases/1.0/

    --
    I'm of a mind to give them a piece of my mind, but I seem to have lost my mind.
  8. Re:Am I just confused? by Fritzy · · Score: 2, Informative

    The suite never died. It was decided back in early "Phoenix" days to switch priorities, but Firefox and SeaMonkey have still been arm and arm. Most features that make it into Firefox are developed in SeaMonkey. Firefox is simply lighter weight and more aimed at the "grandmother can use this" style UI.

  9. Seamonkeys.... by revery · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have been a bit leery of anything called "Seamonkeys" ever since I ordered a kit off of the back of my Amazing Spider-Man comic book many years ago. I was quite disappointed when it arrived and the creatures that hatched in my goldfish bowl were not the family of happy trident-bearing mer-creatures pictured in the ad, but a bunch of freaking shrimp.
    So go ahead Mozilla, and sell the world on your little state-of-the-art web browser and powerful email client, as well as a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. I'm not gonna be sucked in to your little scheme. In the words of our great President Bush, "Fool me once, shame on... you.... The Fooled man can't be fooled again"

    1. Re:Seamonkeys.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on... shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

      Sheesh... I mean if even the president can get it right you should at least put some effort into quoting him correctly.

  10. Re:Am I just confused? by AuMatar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Its more like this

    In the begining there was Mozilla Suite, and it was good. However, a large number of people wanted a standalone browser. Instead of just splitting Mozilla Suite, they made their own browser, Firefox. Despite having an inferior UI, the Mozilla FOundation decided to drop the Suite in favor of Firefox. Some of the users of Mozilla don't particularly like the UI of Firefox, so we revived Mozilla Suite. Unfortunately, Mozilla is a trademark and the Mozilla Foundation does not let them call it Mozilla Suite, so it is now SeaMonkey.

    You can tell what side I'm on. I'll be dling the new SeaMonkey tonight.

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  11. Re:Firefox extensions? by savala · · Score: 4, Informative
    Do Firefox extensions work with SeaMonkey?
    Some do, some don't. It mostly depends on how much effort the extension developer put into his work. A lot of basic extensions should be completely compatible between the two programs, with only needing to use a different installation system, and most of those will indeed have versions for both. A lot of other extensions depend on Firefox specific UI / code, and probably won't (if they even make sense at all in the SeaMonkey/Mozilla world), unless the developer cared, or got lots of requests from people to make the extension compatible. You can browse the Mozilla/SeaMonkey extensions at addons to see what's there.
  12. Re:For those of us not in the know... by CTho9305 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is the "Mozilla Suite" project dead? Is Seamonkey the replacement for the old Mozilla Suite? Will the next version of Netscape be based on Seamonkey 1.0?

    "Mozilla Suite" will only get security updates. No more new development. SeaMonkey is a good replacement for the old suite - it's effectively Mozilla 1.8 (SeaMonkey 1.0 alpha was what would have been Mozilla 1.8 beta 5). If Netscape decides to ship annother "Communicator" (rather than just a browser), they would be wise to use SeaMonkey as a base for it.

    --
    My server
  13. Pssh. You call that life-like? by fanblade · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here is the exciting new logo for this suite. Oddly, it looks nothing like a real sea monkey.

    Personally, I think it's a cross between a blue bird and a scorpion stinger.

  14. When will lightning strike? by baldinoos · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Continuing the old Mozilla suite is fine, but one thing I am missing is a way to integrate my email and calendar. Mozilla "Lightning" was supposed to do this but the page hasn't been updated since January of 2005. Anyone have any clue if this is still on the Mozilla radar?

    1. Re:When will lightning strike? by petenz · · Score: 2, Informative

      Lightning is still being worked on, and progress is happening, as detailed in the calender weblog http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar/. The project page itself is here http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Lightning. It's good to see progress happening - for those of us using Thunderbird in a work environment I think it's obvious that a Lightning style integrated calender will be an important part of mozilla's mix - those that currently use outlook won't easily switch to Thunderbird due to loss of functionality.

  15. Re:Am I just confused? by robson · · Score: 2, Informative

    Some of the users of Mozilla don't particularly like the UI of Firefox, so we revived Mozilla Suite. Unfortunately, Mozilla is a trademark and the Mozilla Foundation does not let them call it Mozilla Suite, so it is now SeaMonkey.

    As one of those users who prefers the Mozilla UI and likes having Composer around on the rare occasions it's needed, I'm glad that the Suite has a new lease on life.

  16. Re:Composer by savala · · Score: 2, Informative
    In the current SeaMonkey release there is no component called "Composer". Where is it?
    Assuming an install that includes mailnews, it's the third icon in the bottom left (otherwise the second), also accessible through the menu bar: Window -> Composer, or by hitting ctrl-4, or ctrl-e to edit the current page.
  17. READ PREVIOUS POSTS PLEASE by wolff000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How many times are people going ask what is SeaMonkey or is it the same as FireFox? If you don't know then go google it for god's sake! The other half of this question is why do people keep answering? If someone is not intelligent enough to read the previous 50 posts that answer this question they shouldn't be on /. Now back to the topic, please excuse my rant. I love that this going to continue being worked on. I like it more than firefox especially the debugging tools. If you are a developr this is a great suite and worth the time checking out!

    --
    WTF?
  18. Hehe, thats ironic by HeliumHigh · · Score: 3, Funny

    Right as I clicked on the link, Windows BSOD'ed on me. Hehehe... it must really be good!

  19. The flexibility of OSS by danielk1982 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think its awesome.

    A browser that was dumped in favour of something newer and shiner was picked up by a community willing to put work into it. This is a perfect example of what Open Source is all about. Compare that to software like OS/2 or BeOS, both of which have a following and a community which is willing to back them. Instead they are gathering dust in some proprietary repository.

  20. Internationalization? by pe1chl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is there still an i18n project? I see two local builds, but not the long list of language packs.
    Are the current i18n groups willing to translate Seamonkey or will this have to be setup completely from scratch?
    Presumably a Mozilla 1.7 translation can be used as a basis...

    I would like to install a Dutch version at work, but I see no mention at all of Seamonkey on the Mozilla-NL site. It is centered around Firefox and Thunderbird these days, but still had a Mozilla 1.8a translation last year.

  21. Re:Am I just confused? by Crispy+Critters · · Score: 2, Interesting
    "However, a large number of people wanted a standalone browser."

    This sounds like a rewrite of history, although it may be part of the story.

    More importantly, there was a set of Mozilla developers who were tired of working with a vast code base where each decision had to be made by a committee and was endlessly criticized by posers who never wrote a line of code. These developers decided to write a new browser front end on their own so they could have fun again coding and be accountable to no one.

    Amazingly, the new front end became wildly popular, even though the logo and the name are completely different animals. (Foxes are cool, but red pandas a.k.a. firefoxes are cooler.)

  22. too many name changes by lamp540 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    first they called it netscape(which was mosaic), then they change it's name to mozilla, then firefox, and now it's called sea monkey? and it's always the same, just a web browser...nothing amazing.

  23. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion