Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

And One MAJOR error added in the change to the Default theme.

Shouldn't build 2005090719 show that the beta is out when I check for newer versions? The channel is set to beta in about:config and I didn't change anything.

YAHOO! now on spreadfirefox.com

rumors had been spreading around mozillazine forums for a couple hours.

I'm using 1.5b1 to post this :)

Woohoo!! Congrats, Asa and the whole team!!!!!

Please, for the love of God, can people stop complaining about the theme change and realize that it's not going away?

No miracle: Print Preview still doesn't work properly :o(

@Rishi, I think this is an important issue. Before fixing bug 243078 (which seems to be quite hard to implement), we should make the theme looks good to both Classic and Luna. I thought we are trying to spread Firefox to users of older versions of Windows when IE7 is out (which is only available to newer versions of Windows), right? With this theme change, Firefox looks awful to them. Now Firefox looks like one of those ugly-looking Java applications.

I think Digg actually had it first :-P

http://digg.com/software/Firefox_1.5_Beta_1_now_available_

New theme? Is that a windows only thing? I'm on linux and I don't see a new theme.

I have noticed that XUL widgets for the most part are themed correctly for both Luna and Classic, so why is the menu bar any different? I'm not complaining, but what's the technical difficulty here?

@minghong: I think it's important too. IMO, the old way was better until we get native theme rendering, but this is the decision that the drivers made, and I'm willing to live with it. :-)

@jr: It's Winstripe-only. You won't notice a difference on Linux.

Installed the beta, it went through and checked my extension compatibility and got stuck with the progress bar towards the end... hit cancel and Firefox popped up.

I went into Extensions and clicked the Find Updates button, which went through and then reported that Slashy 1.3.0 had an update available. I clicked update, it downloaded it and a new Slashy 1.5.0 appeared on the extensions list -- in ADDITION to the old one (that was greyed out). I closed Firefox, restarted it and opened Extensions, and the Slashy 1.5.0 was enabled... but the old 1.3.0 was still showing there with the [Update] button next to it!

I was able to right-click and Uninstall OK, but I suspect this probably warrants a bug report?

@Remy, the technical difficulty is that the styles are set with CSS. And since the CSS are static files, the styles can't be adjusted dynamically easily. Maybe it is possible to adjust with JavaScript (does XUL have document.stylesheets?), but that would be too much (more like a hack than a solution). :-/

WoW, I will give it a try!

@Rishi:

Please, for the love of God, can people stop complaining about people complaining about the theme change and realize that they're not going away?

:-)

why is help->check for updates greyed out?

Hey, this is a BETA version. If you guys find bugs, the Mozilla gang will fix them. That's the purpose of BETA versions.
I doubt the release will contain theme changes, greyed out buttons or problems with print preview but for that it's needed that you file the problems at bugzilla.

I'm using, as well, to make this post. My favorite theme, LittleFox, works perfectly. Great job. Lovin' it so far. Congrats on the fine work!!!

Do I need to change the update URL now?

Print preview is still broken. Why are you wasting your time making it looking pretty under Luna? You could spend that time fixing some important features like print preview? The Firefox team needs to get their priorities straight.

Will the Update Function for 1.4 (1.5b1) update to the newes nightly, or to 1.5b2 (when its released)?

@zlk, it is a beta version, that's why its standard should be closer to that of a final release. But now it doesn't seem so. At least the print preview is severely broken and the new theme is awful for Windows Classic users, not to mention the numerous UI bugs (e.g. the white line below the title bar, as shown in Help > Help Contents and Tools > JavaScript Console).

Looking back to the history, it seems that the Mozilla drivers sometimes like last minute changes that severely change the product. e.g. removal the CSS switcher, switch from Qute to Winstripe. As we can see, people hate sudden changes.

I think the Mozilla forks in the management level should avoid this kind of changes in the future. Otherwise it would only start meaningless flame wars like this.

fayt is broken: if you want to type in a form field, it's not possible since the find toolbar takes focus then.

Wow, it DOES feel significantly faster than the previous version. Thank you Asa and the rest of you guys, you did a great job indeed.

Is Greasemonkey available for Firefox 1.5?

Reordering tabs, fast back, clear private data, descriptive error pages, SVG support, Reporting a broken Web site...

It seems like Firefox is moving in Opera direction.

@Poop, whatever. But FYI, the Mozilla SVG project began long long time ago.

I've got two bugs to report

1. Upon starting FF1.5b1 for the first time on MacOSX Tiger.2, the extensions check loading bar doesn't animate and the extension check goes very slowy, eventually getting to 75% and then seemingly hanging. The loading bar should animate at all times so you can tell that the app hasn't hung.

I'm using DeviantLink, FireFTP, WebDeveloper, DeviantMessage, AdBlock and dAmn XPCOM extensions. I had to cancel the check to continue. After doing so, I found that I could no longer type into input boxes anymore. After restarting Firefox it was fine.

2. Tried using Profile Manager. when you create a new profile, when you click the Finish button, the sheet disappears but the window doesn't refresh. If you click in the list *then* the new profile name can be seen.

Also, just out of interest, has a bug been filed for when you resize the window in OSX to stop it going below the dock like safari does. It's fitt's pain at best.

Looking forward to testing all the new features out...
Regards,

Kroc Camen.

The Austrian newspaper "der Standard" already has an article about the Beta:

http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=2169212

In other news, webhits.de places Mozilla at 18.4% market share in Germany:

http://www.webhits.de/deutsch/index.shtml?webstats.html

Hi,

where can I get the zip build of Firefox 1.5b1?

Looks good to me so far. Great work Mozilla again!

As for everyone complaining about the theme in Classic...this is BETA. It should get better by the final release.

I'd fix this one:

http://www.security-protocols.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2910

www.security-protocols.com/firefox-death.html

Right now, I wouldn't recommend browsing untrusted websites in this (or any) Firefox version, please see Secunia: Firefox URL Domain Name Buffer Overflow.

Any ETA on a fix?

ah yeah fix that bug, I tested it and it completely killed my firefox

I try to open it now and it gives a memory reference error

With everything new and improved in FF1.5b1, I have two extension that did not update and I do not know if they are needed any more. They are (as show in the Extensions list) "Popups Must Die! 1.1" and "Talkback 1.4." Are they built into FF1.5b1 and safe to remove or should I keep them there and wait for the update?

As far as I know the popupblocker had been improved in 1.5 so Popups must die can be removed.

One thing I really thing needs changing is the name of the clear all privacy feature. Well, its called SANITIZE SETTINGS. Well most users I've already put this to are like what the hell is that. Its not a user friendly name for this feature, it sounds scary, complex, advanced, and as such will recieved confusion and a lack of usage.

It's in the PRIVACY SECTION. I propose a much better all round clear name for this for users: CLEAR ALL PRIVACY.

It will be understood and used far far more.

Comments please on this and where to mention this to. Ive mentioned it on Mozillazine, Mozilla feedback. Asa, anyone, comments?

Adblock has problems with 1.5b1 (some images not displaying), but isn't disabled as incompatible. Any reason, or just an oversight?

Kris, what version are you using? The Sanitize was changed a couple weeks ago or more to 'clear private data' ...

I'm using Luna theme on this computer, and the menus generally seem ok. However the spacing on the bookmarks is just painful. I keep my bookmarks pretty tightly organized, but with as many as I have, the loss of -- what, 10-20% of vertical space? -- makes several of my folders require scrolling that didn't before. To get around this, I'm going to have to make even more nested folders, and I'm already working at 3-5 levels for most stuff.

Anyway, I'll see how things look in classic theme when I get to work. Considering the Luna changes are supposed to be the 'good' version, I'm not looking forward to it.

I also noticed that the "Clear private data when closing Firefox" option asks for confirmation during startup, not shutdown. If this is intended behavior, then the option's text should be corrected.

@Remy, there was an extension or combo of extensions that was causing it to work backwards, but I can't recall which ones right off...search in the builds forum.

@HatesThemeChange - first of all, can someone clarify the exact details of this theme change, is it for Windows only, which theme to which theme, etc?

On the Clear Private Data, well thats a big improvement I wasn't aware of. I'm on 1.0.6 now, decided to ditch DP A2 as quite a few extensions weren't compatible/working correctly.

Still I think CLEAR ALL PRIVACY is far superior, more obvious, clear, and user friendly. The word PRIVACY for me has to be in there to be obvious. It is a master CLEAR ALL PRIVACY - for the entire PRIVACY tab. So that has to be made obvious to all users, especially the most brief, novice ones.

CLEAR Yes! ALL because it emphasises and makes clearer that it clears the entire section, and PRIVACY because its the name of that entire section. (user has also just clicked on PRIVACY to be there, so being presented with a button with PRIVACY on makes completely clear its a button for the entire section, maximising awareness and usage. CLEAR ALL PRIVACY Comments, idea's who to put this too, Asa, anyone?

@HatesThemeChange:

I disabled all extensions and it didn't help. I also noticed in Task Manager that the Firefox process is still running after I close it. This beta doesn't seem very stable.

comment here?
very simple:

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S !!!

Fix for the ugly menus: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_windows_classic

Fix for today's security issue: Disable IDN support (toggle network.enableIDN in about:config).

I notice you rarely follow up/answer questions on your blog, Asa, but I hope you will here or somewhere. It has to do w/ the UI changes. Print Preview was functional in 1.0.6 and before but it almost completely broken in 1.5, hardly any buttons work and in page setup they mostly don't work also. Why is that? Is it expected to work in the official release? If not, is it related to the changes made in the UI (new layout in options, moving feed button, etc.)? And if that's the case, why was the UI changed (security issues?)? Thanks.

Asa,

Google's home page is still broken in firefox. It appears to work, but the javascript console is spammed with many, many warnings and errors. So, I consider it to be broken, at least from a web developer's point of view, because the javascript errors look as if they are a result of a bug or a too-strict standard compliance demand from Firefox 1.5b1. One of the things it complained about was the customary practice of putting // --> before </style> tag (it was expecting a CSS selector and barfed, and said it was ignoring the entire style because of it).

I reported this before (on your blog) and it still is broken like it was.

Asa,

Another bug -- print preview looks broken to me, when I tried it against your blog page. Namely the zoom button does nothing and it screwed up the window appearance by shifting the scrollbar to the left and leaving a large gray area in the preview window.

To reproduce, just select "Print Preview" on this blog, then zoom to 30%, zoom to 200%, etc. It gets messed up and stops working.

The "Clear private data when closing Firefox" option works properly after you disable Adblock and restart Firefox several times. Adblock should have been marked as incompatible with Firefox 1.4.

Also, the user-chrome solution for Classic menus did the trick for me. I still don't understand why chrome CSS can't be automatically adjusted based on OS & theme. Is it a lot of work?

> Greasemonkey?
The current release doesn't work (0.5.something). The mailing list has a pointer to greasemonkey-0.6.1-0001.bin, said to work. It's not in .XPI form, unpacks into a folder with files named "install.js" and "install.rdf" and folders named "Chrome" and "Components" -- dunno what to do with those, OSX doesn't seem to recognize them as installable.

I'm using
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050909 Firefox/1.4

Oddity, with this 1.5 beta 1, I notice:

When I have one window open but minimized, and Firefox still the top application, I can't open either a New Window or "About" -- the top menu item just hilights and stays that way.

Once I maximize the one window I had minimized, the top menu still shows the stuck hilight, but it can be clicked and works to open a New Window or About.

@Peter: Heh, that was funny. And true. :)

@Leo

It's not "broken", it's just that Firefox 1.5 now reports CSS errors as well as JavaScript errors in the console, that's why you're seeing the errors on Google's homepage.

p.s. //--> might be considered standard practice by you and Google but // is not a comment in CSS only in JS (/**/ is used for comments in CSS).

comment removed. poster banned.

@Leo, FP: I've never seen anyone suggest using //--> in CSS, only in JavaScript. And I started experimenting with it when the only CSS-capable browser was IE3!

It was always just an ordinary comment, in all the tutorials I used -- and in all the sites I've built since then.

@kelson
http://ie3.istheshit.net/ :P

Shame the Mac version is still crashy. And those focus bugs...

Back to Camino, I guess

When I opened the extensions list for the very first time, it started out the wrong size. Screenshot here http://www.camendesign.com/kroc/stuff/ff15b1_Extensions.png (the scrollbar cannot be seen). Also, I can drag the corner and make the extension window too small, why is this? Surely it should have a minimum width to prevent people making it so small it's no longer usable?

Sorry, more complaints from me. The print preview is in a bad state.

* If you scroll the mouse wheel, the page stops moving half way down the first page, and you have to abandon the wheel and use the scrollbar.

* Ctrl+Scroll changes the text size in the document, is this a feature? I'd expect the page to zoom.

* The landscape buttons doesn't work at all X_X

* White page on white background? What about the Application Workspace system colour value? If I tick on the "Print Background Pictures and Colours" in print settings, the Application Workspace colour appears again! It seems your CSS has leaked into your chrome or something.

* :hover effects still work on the print preview O_o

* Making the page draggable like in Acrobat Reader would be nice. Since you can't click on anything in the page anyway and also since the scrollwheel is unreliable.

Glad to see that the pressing F5 bug is fixed. That ended up killing my wbrowser several times.

Wierd thing here, the extensions window shows adblock v0.5 d2 nightly* build 39 as enabled (it was not disabled when I installed Beta 1.5 as the other extensions were) but the extensions will not remove any ads. I know this is a problem with the extension, but if it is not compatable with 1.5 beta why is it being shown as enabled?

I thought this was a bug at first: the control-c / control-v copy and paste doesn't work by default and has to be enabled. This is a little bizarre. It should be on by default, IMHO. Why should this be inconsistent with nearly every other windows program in the universe?

There also seems to be an issue with my left arrow key not working consistently in forms (and it's a new keyboard, thank you very much), but I haven't been able to replicate the bug consistently. It happens a couple times a day. Very strange.

Otherwise, fabulous browser. Natch.

here doesnt seem to be a way to have my homepage load when I open the browser, it defaults to http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.435c0b5cc7bd0ae7015d9510c3921509/?vgnextoid=69c0197a484f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD">http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.435c0b5cc7bd0ae7015d9510c3921509/?vgnextoid=69c0197a484f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD">http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.435c0b5cc7bd0ae7015d9510c3921509/?vgnextoid=69c0197a484f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD

Is there a way to change this?

I have done several googles on this topic and can't find an answer. I hope this is the right place to ask this question:

After being alerted to and then installing updates to 1.5 beta 1 ... and as FF restarts, my firewall tells me that a new something-or-other has been loaded by "www.effectivebrand.com" (and do I want to approve this).

I have always said "yes" but I am wondering... is this a part of FF 1.5 beta 1 or am I letting something happen that I should not ?

Thanks!

Lawrence
Ithaca, NY

Lawrence, nothing from mozilla comes from a domain that doesn't have "mozilla" at the root. That "effectivebrand" thing is certainly not from mozilla.

- A

Thanks, Asa :)

Lawrence
Ithaca, NY

"I have done several googles on this topic and can't find an answer. I hope this is the right place to ask this question:

After being alerted to and then installing updates to 1.5 beta 1 ... and as FF restarts, my firewall tells me that a new something-or-other has been loaded by "www.effectivebrand.com" (and do I want to approve this).

I have always said "yes" but I am wondering... is this a part of FF 1.5 beta 1 or am I letting something happen that I should not ?

Thanks!

Lawrence
Ithaca, NY"

This is the result of a spyware program. I am not sure where it came from but I had the same problem after downloading and running 1.5 Beta 1. It didnt show up in either 1.0.6 or 1.0.7 but everytime I tried to run 1.5 beta I was redirected to another web site instead of my "Home Page". I ran Spybot S&D and it showed 6 spyware entries. I had to run Spybot in Windows "Safe Mode" to get rid of them.

I'm still trying to get the Talkback extension working in 1.5b1 (Mac OS X, 10.3.9). I see a comment above about the extension being broken in 1.5b1, but I haven't seen anything in reply. I also took a look in the most obvious forums, etc., and in the extensionroom, but haven't found anything. I've had a number of crashes on OS X that I'd like to report, but I need to get TB working to do it properly. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

HJ

Yeah, those Luna menus really look awful for Windows Classic users. Let's hope that the Firefox folks choose to show classic-style menus when they should, because it makes the whole application feel cheap and plastic-y.

Other than the menus, though, great release. The performance improvements are really noticable.

"Incompatible Extension or Extension No Longer Available" Firevox is not god! how kids safe from internet. Firebox extention security files are not incompatible.