Weekly Update 2007-07-09

This week’s meeting has brought a lot of big news and not just the usual Firefox/Thunderbird.

Firefox/Thunderbird Builds

• TBird 1.5.0.13/Fx 2.0.0.5 – Code freeze scheduled for this Friday (07/13) with a targeted release date of 07/31.
• TBird 3 – Begin phasing out the old Talkback on this weeks trunk builds. Will be replaced with Breakpad
• Fx 3.0 – Alpha 6 released on July 2nd [Release Notes]. First Beta release on the Fx 3 branch was slated for 07/31. However there is now going to be an Alpha 7. Code freeze is scheduled for 07/25 with ship date of 7/31. See Gecko 1,9 section below for new release schedule. Lots of UI work in progress:

  protocol handling

  malware UI (landed)

  plugins in the addons manager

  download manager

  Places UI for adding tags and bookmarks

• Gecko 1.9 – Updated Release Schedule (NOTE: dates are not to be considered fixed). [Build Info]
  • Alpha 7 – July 25th Code Freeze / July 31st Ship
  • M8 – September 5th Code Freeze / September 18th Ship
  • M9 – October 16th Code Freeze / October 31s/Early November Ship

Firefox/Mozilla News

• Firefox eBay Edition launched for UK/DE/FR last Wednesday, July 4. Related Article: Fx Logo Engraved MacBook Pro
• Non-Fx 2.0 compatible add-ons have/will be moved to the sandbox today. Related Article: Non-Fx2 Compatible Add-ons
• Flock 0.9.0 (based on Fx 2.0.0.4) to be released on July 10th

Complete Meeting Notes

Fx Logo Engraved MacBook Pro

Mozilla is currently auctioning off a couple MacBook Pro’s, one [eBay item 170128089933] has a laser
etched Firefox logo similar to the picture here. This is being done to promote the newly launched Mozilla Firefox eBay Edition, a special Firefox 2 release bundled with the Firefox Companion for eBay, an extension that allows users to track watched and selling items. Also, 100% of the final sale price will support Computer Aid International. At time of this posting the bidding was at $2856.

News Source: Mozilla Links

Fixed Broken Feed Subscriber

This is one of those ‘I wonder how long it was broken?’ kinda things. It seems my custom Subscribe Now! widget was broken. Now when you click on the RSS logo in the sidebar (under the Subscribe Now header) depending on how your browser handles feeds it will either:

• A new tab/window will open to FeedBurner where you can subscribe to the feed with a web based news reader. OR
• In the case of Firefox 2.0, you will given the option to add a Live Bookmark.

To add our feed to Firefox’s Bookmark Toolbar simply click the RSS icon in the address bar. Note: This option does not work due to domain forwarding. Please use the subscribe link in the sidebar.

UPDATE: Installing Add-ons in TBird

In the Installing Add-ons in TBird entry, I put together a very comprehensive step-by-step list to install add-ons. All along I was think ‘there has to be a simpler way to do this.’  Well, there is according to this comment from CHR:

As far as I know, one could still drag & drop the extension from firefox to the thunderbird add-ons manager window to install the extensions right away.

Okay it cain’t be that simple, can it? Well I decided I would test this out and install Lightning (which I am still having trouble saving events/to-do tasks) via this method. So I found the add-on in the Thunderbird section of AOM and dragged the Install Now link from the green box into Thunderbird add-ons manager window.  At first nothing happened then a few seconds later the usual install dialog popped up.  I went through the steps and installed Lightning and then restarted Thunderbird.  Once I restarted there was Lightning installed and ready to go.  Now if someone can tell me what the heck I am doing wrong when trying to add tasks or events I’ll be able to do a write-up on the add-on.