Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog

As mentioned in the Weekly Update 2008-02-25, Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 is suppose to be released today. So in theory, when this post goes live Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 should have already been released by Mozilla. Users will be prompted for an automatic update within the next 72 hours.Those wishing to upgrade now can do so via the Help Menu, Check For Updates option or by downloading the latest release at getthunderbird.com. Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 contains many security fixes and the full details can be found in the Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 Release Notes.

Reminder: Due to the scheduled meeting time and my work schedule, I am not be able to get the meeting notes posted until the following Tuesday.

• Fx 2.0.0.13
  • Purposed Release Schedule:

    • Code freeze: March 7
    • Builds start: March 10
    • QA starts: March 11
    • Release to beta channel: March 18
    • Final Release: March 25

• Firefox 3 Beta 4

• 12 P1 blockers, ~70 P2 blockers remaining for Fx3
• Fixes coming soon for:
  • All P1s seem to be on track
  • Save As… name suggestions (bug 299732)
  • Auto-hide for toolbars in full screen mode (bug 240859)
  • slow performance in history sidebar bug 385245
  • JSON-based backup/restore, finally bug 384370
• Lots going on
  • Option to use only text zoom restored
  • Lots of visual refresh work landing
  • better antivirus integration on Windows
  • drag and drop working in Places Library
  • last two weeks

• Gecko 1.9 Beta 4

  • Freeze on February 26th.
  • 55 P1s, 155 P2s.

• Lightning/Sunbird (Calendar Project) - No Report

• TBird 1.5.0.14 - No Report

• TBird 2.0.0.12 -

• Revised Schedule
  
• Code complete: January 31
• Build starts (no later then): February 18
• QA/Testing starts: February 19
• Release to beta channel: February 22
• Final release: February 26th

• TBird 3 - No Report

Complete meeting notes.

In continuing with the celebration of Ten Years of Mozilla, mozilla.org was launched 10-years ago today. The purpose of mozilla.org was simple, coordinate the open source development of the Netscape Communicator 5.0 source code. The next big date is going to be March 31st, when the Netscape Communicator 5.0 source code was released to developers.

On a semi-related note, mozillaZine will be celebrating their 10th anniversary as well on September 1st. Here is brief from their first official article Welcome To MozillaZine:

MozillaZine materialized out of a need for a central site for Mozilla advocacy. More and more people want to get their hands on Mozilla builds, or find out more about what’s in the pipeline for inclusion in the next Mozilla release. MozillaZine aims to remedy this situation. We hope to have links to the latest builds of Mozilla for as many platforms as possible, as well as builds of third party projects currently in development.

News Source: mozillaZine

Back in September we announced Firefox had passed the 400 Million Downloads mark. CyberNet had estimated (see below) the 500 Million Downloads mark would be around April 15th. Today (February 22nd) Firefox surpassed the 500 Million Downloads mark! So, when should we expect to see 600 Million Downloads? The estimate is July 30th which is about 5 months and 1 week from today.

The Firefox Download* Time Line:

November 9, 2004 - Fx 1.0 Released
February 16, 2005 - 25 Million Downloads
April 29, 2005 - 50 Million Downloads
November 2, 2005 - 100 Million Downloads
November 29, 2005 - Fx 1.5 Released
July 31, 2006 - 200 Million Downloads
October 24, 2006 - Fx 2.0 Released
February 14, 2007 - 300 Million Downloads
September 7, 2007 - 400 Million Downloads
February 22, 2008 - 500 Million Downloads
July 30, 2008 - 600 Million Downloads?

* # Of Downloads from Mozilla Servers New Sources:

In December AOL announced they would discontinue support of Netscape in February. Now with the release of Netscape 9.0.0.6 comes the official end of support as users will be greeted with this screen with their first launch after installing the upgrade:

However it turns out AOL is not going to force you to upgrade as the Netscape Blog explains:

The “Remind me later”, followed by clicking the “Stay with Netscape” button, can be used in case one wants to keep Netscape 9 after the end of support date. For those who are keeping Netscape, the Navigator 9.0.0.6 release contains the security patches contained in Firefox 2.0.0.12.

From the comments I have seen in the Netscape Blog it appears many users are going to be moving over to Flock. The transition to Flock is suppose to be a “seamless upgrade of your preferences from Navigator 9.” Plus there is theme for Flock that looks like a Navigator theme.

For those wanting to go to Firefox 2 take a look at our Tip: Transitioning From Netscape 9 to Fx 2 article for more information.

News Source: Computer Love

Back in July 2007, Mitchell Baker, then Mozilla Corporation’s CEO, announced a major change with Thunderbird’s Future. Now, nearly 7 months later, David Ascher has announced the official creation of Mozilla Messaging (has unofficially been called MailCo for the past few months). This is a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, focused on email and internet communications. David explains the purpose and the goals of the new subsidiary, including future plans for Thunderbird 3:

• integrated calendaring (building on the great work done by the Mozilla Calendar team and their Lightning add-on to Thunderbird)
• better search facilities
• easier configuration
• and a set of other user interface improvements

See complete article on David Ascher Blog

News Source: Mozilla Links

No Meeting Today

As of February 15th, the Firefox Extension Guru’s Discussion Forum has closed. Over the past couple months there has been a major decline in new activity (except the major increase in spam).  The forum is still accessible for now, but has been set to read-only. Not having to constantly ‘clean-up’ the discussion forum, will allow more time to put towards the blog.

In preparation for the upcoming Firefox 3, Addons.Mozilla.Org (AMO) is being redesigned and updated. The biggest change is a new ‘visual refresh’ and redesign of the layout. Below is a preview of the new AMO design via Mozilla Links:

By default when you arrive at AMO it is setup to search for Firefox extensions. At the top right is an Other Applications button/menu which will allow you to choose from Thunderbird, SeaMonkey (former Mozilla Suite) and Sunbird (Mozilla’s calendar project). This simple integrating of these options into a single drop-down menu really makes a for cleaner look. Unlike the present version of AMO, categories will be listed along the left column instead of on top.

The search option is very prominently displayed now on top, but as Percy pointed out “…it can only be filtered by extension category and not by add-on type (dictionary, plugin, theme, extension, search plugin) or theme style, which can result in too many irrelevant results”. This is a bit disappointing, perhaps they will an ‘advanced search’ in the future that will allow you to filter by add-on type. On the plus side though, any add-ons currently pending approval (in the sandbox) will still be displayed in the search and category views. These add-ons will have pink border around them and stamped “Experimental”.

The search result/category view has also been changed a little in this version. Actually, all they did was flip-flop the text and screen shot. However, the add-on page has undergone a major redesign. I’ll use FoxyTunes on Thunderbird as an example [NEW | OLD]. On the new layout, the first section is divided into three columns. The first column has one image of the add-on along with the overall rating, number of downloads and reviews. The center column still contains a brief description of the add-on as well as download instructions/link. In this new AMO version, is a third column which allows users to submit a quick review and rating. This column will also will list additional add-ons (if any) by that author and links to add-ons in the same category (Firefox only).

The More Images section displays all the images for the add-on (prior these were on their own page accessible via a link). Below this is the Long Description, the more detailed description of the add-on. Finally is the Reviews section, which displays a couple of the reviews with a link for the rest. However, there is one last section called Advanced Details which for some odd reason is collapsed by default. There is an ‘expand’ link to the right to view this section. The Advanced Details includes comments from the developer, a link to the developer’s home page and the current (and past) add-on versions.

The one thing I noticed, or in this case didn’t notice is application version compatibility requirement. For example on the old AMO you would see works with Firefox: 1.5 – 2.0.0.* or Thunderbird: 1.5 – 2.0.0.*. So I am wondering if this new AMO site is only going to be for Firefox 3 and latest versions of Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and Sunbird. I’ll have to dig around some more in the developer blogs and see if anyone else has brought this up.

In conclusion, the new AMO redesign is visually pleasing and organized very well. Again I echo the complaint of Percy in that you can not filter your search by add-on type. That and the lack of information on application version compatibility requirements are the only complaints I have about the new design. I did like they will include sandbox/experimental add-ons in the search and category results. I don’t see there being as many complaints and anxiety with this redesign as there was with the previous redesign around this time last year. Part of the anxiety then could been attributed to the introduction of the sandbox, not to mention a major overhaul of the AMO design.

See the new AMO Preview Site.

News Source: Mozilla Links

Mozilla has released Beta 3 of Firefox 3. The next milestone will be the Beta 4. Don’t have any information at this time on a release date for this milestone or the final Firefox 3. Here is a look back at the Firefox 3 Milestones:

• Fx 3.0a1/Gecko 1.9a1 - December 8th, 2006
• Fx 3.0a2/Gecko 1.9a2 - February 7th, 2007
• Fx 3.0a3/Gecko 1.9a3 - March 23rd, 2007
• Fx 3.0a4/Gecko 1.9a4 - April 27th, 2007
• Fx 3.0a5/Gecko 1.9a5 - June 6th, 2007
• Fx 3.0a6/Gecko 1.9a6 - July 2nd, 2007
• Fx 3.0a7/Gecko 1.9a7 - August 3rd, 2007
• Fx 3.0a8/Gecko 1.9a8 - September 20th, 2007
• Fx 3.0b1/Gecko 1.9b1 - November 19th, 2007
• Fx 3.0b2/Gecko 1.9b2 - December 18th, 2007
• Fx 3.0b3/Gecko 1.9b3 - February 12th, 2008

Once we get through the Beta milestones (not sure if Beta 4 is going to be the last) then the next set will be the Release Candidates (RC) and after that would be the final release. So far have not had much success locating an updated Firefox 3 Road map. Everything I found so far just goes up to Beta 2. Hopefully once Beta 4 comes out in the next month or so, we will have a better idea of the final release schedule.

For those of you who want to try this out, do so at your own risk as this still a work in progress. Consider creating a new profile before trying to test this build. You can download it from Mozilla here.