Earlier this week I was alerted by Grand Stream Dreams’ Claus the possibility there was going to be a Firefox 3.1 Beta 3. Well, I am currently (and not sure for how long) using Shiretoko 3.1 Beta 3 Pre.
As for Beta 2, still no release date other than “due out very shortly.” At least that is what Mozilla programmer Ben Turner said Thursday. There is a new feature in the works that there has not been much press about, Web workers. Here is some background from CNet Business Tech:
One big change in the 3.1b2 is the addition of “Web workers,” a feature that lets the browser process tasks in the background. That feature, part of the still-evolving HTML 5 specification, adds another level of sophistication for programmers writing Web applications and gives multicore computers a better way to use their processors’ abilities.
“We’ve been hard at work with folks from Google, Apple, and others to get this new spec nailed down,” Turner said of the Web workers work.
The Firefox Extension Guru's Blog 
[…] Release Recap: December Week 1 Published Saturday, December 6, 2008 Firefox Sorry this is so late, been a very busy Saturday. Anyway, got some new release dates for Firefox 3 and Thunderbird 2…But still nothing for Firefox 3.1b2 other than “due out very shortly”. […]
Hi Guru,
Firefox 3.1b2 has just hit the FTP site.
It’s not being offered yet via my 3.1b1 internal update check so they still must not have turned on the “offical” updates but it is now listed and flowing from their FTP location.
Index of ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/3.1b2/ ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/3.1b2/
Yummers!
Thought you would like a head’s-up!
Cheers!
Claus V.
Oh noes!
On my system, I now can’t drag-n-drop open tabs into bookmark folders to make a bookmark item.
The API thinks that I just want to rearrange my tabs.
Sure I can still bookmark via the right-click menu from the tab, but I’m a drag-n-drop guy with my Bookmarks toolbar.
Hmmmm.
See what you mean about the tab-tearing as well. Could be annoying if “tears” too easily!
CV
@Claus – Interesting, I usually just grab the favicon and that will allow me to throw the current URL in a folder on my bookmarks toolbar. I do this at work a lot whenever I come across a help article I know I will be accessing in the future.
As far as the tab-tearing there is presently no way to disable it and there is suppose to be a patch but it is not on the official builds, so I really don’t want to try it.
Guru,
(There’s a comment of my awaiting moderation again…)
I was thinking about what you said about “grabbing a favicon” and tossing it into a folder.
In previous versions I’ve used the tabs for my bookmark tossing, but like I said, that isn’t working in 3.1b2 as it thinks I want to move the tab.
So on a hunch I tried grabbing the favicon next to the address bar for the loaded tab I want to bookmark. That worked! Hurray! It’s not what I am used to doing but is minor enough not to matter. I’ll check the bug reports and post one if I get time.
I also see that I am now able to grab bookmarks and drag/drop into Gmail again. I used to be able to do that, lost in the latest update, now can do it again. Before I was having to copy/paste the bookmark into Gmail to embed the link. That is also a good sign!
Thanks for the tip!
Cheers!
Claus V.
[…] received and seen posted elsewhere a couple of comments that people are having troubles […]
Hi Guru!
RE: the following comment post
“Oh noes!
On my system, I now can’t drag-n-drop open tabs into bookmark folders to make a bookmark item.
The API thinks that I just want to rearrange my tabs.
Sure I can still bookmark via the right-click menu from the tab, but I’m a drag-n-drop guy with my Bookmarks toolbar.”
Been playing with 3.1b3 and now I seem to be able to grab open pages by their tab, and dump it into a bookmark folders/location again without “tearing” the tab into its own window again.
Hurrah!
And just when I was finally getting into the habit of bookmarking by grabbing the favicon in the address bar.
I know it’s a little thing, but it’s big to me.
Cheers!
–Claus V.