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SeaMonkey 1.0 Released
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."
SeaMonkey? I bet this thing dies in a matter of days.
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."
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."
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
Link to download Seamonkey 1.0 for win32 leads to a 404.e leases/1.0/seamonkey-1.0.en-US.win32.installer.exe
e leases/1.0/
Link for full download is: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/r
Link for ftp of releases: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/r
I'm of a mind to give them a piece of my mind, but I seem to have lost my mind.
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"
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?
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
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.
Dang, that sounds elitist. Where is the fun in only learning what we already know and using what we already use???
bah!*@%!
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:
Partly, depending on the specifics of the extension, and the effort its developer went to. I answered this question more fully here.
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.)
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.)
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.
Right as I clicked on the link, Windows BSOD'ed on me. Hehehe... it must really be good!
That's right! My grandmother demands that the DOM inspector be installed by default, because she is incapable of installing it herself.
> 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?
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.