Major Update Starts Tonight!

The long awaited Major Update (Fx 1.5.0.12 to 2.0.0.4) has arrived (or will shortly)!  Mozilla has announced they will begin rolling out the Major Update later this afternoon.

News Source: Mozilla Developers Center

“I think it’s a problem with Vista”

Next time you are giving a presentation or just trying to show someone something on your computer and it starts acting up,  simply use the stall-tactic “I think it’s a problem with Vista“. That is what happened the other day as a team of students from Korea showed Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Craig Mundie its entry in the company’s Imagine Cup competition.  Of course it wasn’t just Gates and Mundie, there was also a ton of media looking on too. The presentation started off well, until the team launched into its demo, and the computer stalled momentarily.  That was when one of Korean students said, “I think it’s a problem with Vista.”  Fortunately, the computer recovered and they were able to proceeded with them demo.

News Source: Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog

TBird about:config

Thunderbird like Firefox does have about:config settings. But, how the heck do you get to about:config in Thunderbird since there is no address bar to type about:config in. The access to about:config is well hidden: From Tools, select Options…, Click the Advance Tab, select (if it is not already) the General sub-tab and finally click the Config Editor… button. Note: On TBird 3 builds you will get a “This gun is loaded!” warning message the first time (and each time if you don’t disable) you access this option.

Click for Full Size Image

Alternatively, if you don’t want to go hunting through the Options menu, you can get and setup the AboutConfig extension:

1. From Thunderbird Add-ons >> AboutConfig
2. RIGHT-CLICK on the green install now button and select ‘Save Link As…’ . Note: XPI installs do not work yet in TBird, left clicking the button will install the add-on in Firefox.
3. Save the file (aboutconfig-0.6-tb.xpi) to your desktop
4. In Thunderbird, go to the Tools Menu and select Add-ons
5. Drag the file (aboutconfig-0.6-tb.xpi) from the desktop to the Thunderbird Add-ons window
6. When the Install button becomes active click.
7. Click Restart Thunderbird
8. Right-click in an empty area on the toolbar and select Customize…
9. In the Customize Toolbar window, look for about:config button (likely will be at bottom of list) and drag it on to the toolbar where you want it.
10. Click OK when done. Note: Do not click the X as this will not save your changes.

Latest TBird 3.0a1pre Nightly has Tabs!

The newest Thunderbird 3.0a1pre nightly (062707) now has tabs support. It doesn’t work very well, but it is important to keep in mind TBird 3.0 is still in very early development (not even an official Alpha release yet). A couple minor quirks, the close tab buttons are there but don’t do anything (need to right click on the tab and select “Close Tab’). Also double-clicking a message will cause it to open in a new window. You will need to right-click on the message and select ‘Open Message In New Tab’ option.

TBird 3 is also very unstable as it only took a couple minutes of me playing around with it to get it to crash. Also looks like there are issues with Talk Back (which I thought was replaced by Airbag/Break Pad) as I was getting the familiar memory writing error when I exited the application. I’ll be sticking with my 2.0.0.5pre build for a while still but wanted to try this out.

 

Click For Full Size

Edit: Added a couple screenshots. Also noticed all the tabs will sometimes reset to whatever folder you are currently navigating in.

News Source: Mozilla Links

Weekly Update 2007-06-25

Here a few highlights from this week’s Weekly Update Meeting.

• Fx 2.0.0.5 & TBird 1.5.0.13/2.0.05 – Target official release date 07/31/07. Beta release 07/24/07
• Major Update (Fx 1.5.0.12 to 2.0.0.4) - Roll out delayed until 06/28/07 due to some issues with users losing home page and default search engine preferences.
• Fx 3 (A6)

• Places (Places team)
  • down to the last few blockers for A6 freeze
  • patch expected soon to hook up full text indexing to places
  • UI specs being finalized, implementation already started
  • lots of plumbing and blockers

• Site Specific Prefs (myk)
  • Framework landed, available to UI and extensions
  • Text zoom persistence landed

• Password Manager (dolske)
  • Blocker fixes getting done, rewrite of FillDocument done (last of the problematic and baroque code)
  • Tons of new test coverage

• mozStorage (sdwilsh)
  • Updated sqlite to 3.3.17, lots of fixes and perf wins

• Addons Manager (Rob Strong, Mossop, mwu)
  • better l10n support (bug 257155), still waiting on review, basically done
  • backend for unifying plugin management (bug 382367), has new approach worked out between jst and mwu, work ongoing and expected for b1
  • working securing updates in bug 378216, feedback welcome and encouraged

• Web Content Handling
  • multiple patches in the pipeline (sdwilsh, myk, dmose)
  • currently in progress: GET vs. POST discussion, prefs dialog updating

• Gecko 1.9

• GFX, Layout: Textframe enabled last week. Reflow regression fixes. Blocker focus continues.
• Thank you to those in the community who have helped to find leaks. Your efforts really help out. See this for more information on reporting leaks.
• Mac news: The Mac Focus bug in next on Josh’s list.
• A6 Code freeze is still planned for tomorrow (June 26).
• Welcome to Eli Friedman (elif)!

• TBird 3

• Mailnews no longer builds xpcom_obsolete (including nsFileSpec)! Kudos to bienvenu, Mark Banner, Phil and others who helped with the effort.
• Work continues on making mailnews support frozen linkage. This week: finding a frozen linkage replacement for nsTextFormatter (Bug #384979).

Complete meeting notes

Page Updating

I decided to make the Fx 2.0 Tweaks more easily accessible so I have created a Tweaks page. By creating it as a page, it will be right on the blog header now. No more having to search or going to the popular posts page to find the Tweaks. In order to make room for this new page on the header I combined the About Firefox and About the Guru pages into one About Fx & The Guru.

Tip: How to Remove the Search Box

I had a very good comment/question from Sarah today about the Firefox 2.0: Removing ‘Go’ Button entry:

How can I remove the Search Box in top RIGHT corner of the FF2.0.0.4 competlely. or atleast reposition it to LEFT side.

I use googe tool bar and which has search box the LEFT side and I am addicted to use the searh box on the LEFT side. At the moment I have TWO serch boxes and I do not want the one on the topRIGHTside.

Moving or even removing the Search Box is really easy. No about:config or userContent.css tweaking need. All you need to do is:

1. Right-Click on an empty area on the toolbar
2. Select ‘Customize…’ from the context menu
3. If you want to move the search box just grab hold of it with the mouse and drag where you want
4. If you wnt to remove the search box just grab hold of it with the mouse and drag it into the Customize Toolbar window. Note: If you later want to put it back just locate the search box (may be at the bottom) in the Customize Toolbar window and drag back on the toolbar.

This works (far as I know) with all versions of Firefox as well as Flock. I will be adding this the Tweaks Guide shortly. Thanks for the comment and question Sarah!

What Your Computer Does At Night

Slow Mozilla news today so here’s some more computer humor for your entertainment (be sure your sound is turned on and you have FLASH enabled)…

Software Battles It Out!

Microsoft Surface

Got $10,000 laying around that you don’t know what to do with? Invest in a ‘Big Ass Table’ with Microsoft Surface…

Note: If video does not start when clicked, reload page and try again.

Toolbar Buttons

Recently a comment was left on my Get Mail Extension stating the add-on was no longer on AMO (addons.mozilla.org) and provided a link to his Toolbar Buttons extension. Once installed and you restart Firefox (SunBird, Flock or Thunderbird) right-click on the toolbar and select ‘Customize…’ , you will discover a treasure trove of new toolbar buttons. Simply drag and drop the buttons to your toolbar. Important: be sure to click ‘Done’ when finished. If you click the X instead, your changes will not be saved. A couple buttons I found useful were Undo Close Tab and Check for Update (much quicker then going through the Tools menu).

The extension works with the following applications:

• Firefox 1.5 to 2.0
• Thunderbird 1.5 to 2.0
• Flock 0.4 to 1.5
• SunBird 0.3 to 0.4a1

Tip Source: Michael Buckley