Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

Uh...

1. Microsoft introduces 'activities'
2. Mr. Kapley writes an extension mimicking Microsoft's work
3. Mr. Dotzler pretends Microsoft has derived this feature from Mozilla's features.

Right.

By the way, "activities" looks like something Opera has implemented for approximately five years.

JMP, what I'm seeing is this:

1. Microsoft indroduces "activities" using microformats.
2. Mr. Kapley says, "Hey, that looks like what I've been talking about doing with microformats" and adapts his work to make an extension.
3. Mr. Dotzler points this out.
4. Commenters assume he's lying because, well, he's Asa, and then post the requisite "Opera already does this" without actually looking at the capability in question.

Jere, does Opera automatically recognize street addresses and give you the ability to open them in a map? 'Cause I don't see that capability in the latest 9.5 build even with a marked-up address, so I'd be seriously surprised if it's been built-in for the past 5 years.

"Activities" also looks like something that the Humanized crew (authors of Enso) would be working on. Of course, they're now part of Mozilla Labs... http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/01/15/mozilla-hires-developers-from-humanized

Re: JMP

Hmm Operator Version 0.5 was released December 15, 2006. If I remember right that's about the time IE 7 came out.

His latest version just supports MS format for "activities" that used to be called "user scripts" in Operator.

There should be a "for instance" on the address-to-map issue. The point isn't maps specifically, but that it's recognizing types of data (addresses, business cards, etc.) and providing context-specific services for each, rather than offering the same set of services (translation, search, send in mail) for each.

Hope this helps:

Operator, is a Firefox extension that enables microformats detection and interaction with declared web services: click on a geo microformated page element and you can send it to either Yahoo! Maps or Google maps. The same can be done with hCard (vCard microformat) or hCal (an event). Operator has done this for about a year and a half.

Activities is similar to this but not as refined. You just select some text and pass it to a declared web service. Events, addresses and contact info get all the same treatment unlike microformats/Operator.

After Activities, Mike wrote a second extensions, Microsoft Activities, that supports OSD files (for web service definitions) and provides some UI for using it.

I see Activities as an easy (hence limited) approach to the "browser as information broker" concept Firefox is pushing.

Firefox 3 can identify certain microformats (not sure if the "web cards"name stuck) out of the box but doesn't provide any UI to interact with them as far as I know, so an extension like Operator is still necessary to use them and extend its capabilities.

Hope this helps:

Operator, is a Firefox extension that enables microformats detection and interaction with declared web services: click on a geo microformated page element and you can send it to either Yahoo! Maps or Google maps. The same can be done with hCard (vCard microformat) or hCal (an event). Operator has done this for about a year and a half.

Activities is similar to this but not as refined. You just select some text and pass it to a declared web service. Events, addresses and contact info get all the same treatment unlike microformats/Operator.

After Activities, Mike wrote a second extensions, Microsoft Activities, that supports OSD files (for web service definitions) and provides some UI for using it.

I see Activities as an easy (hence limited) approach to the "browser as information broker" concept Firefox is pushing.

Firefox 3 can identify certain microformats (not sure if the "web cards"name stuck) out of the box but doesn't provide any UI to interact with them as far as I know, so an extension like Operator is still necessary to use them and extend its capabilities.

Imitation is a form of flattery you might say. Why was microformat UI canceled in Firefox 3 (it was listed in the feature roadmap half a year ago or so)? It's a good idea and some of the later versions of operator are quite usable.

Another good idea that was canceled was openid integration. Just now, OpenID is starting to become very big and Firefox 3 release was excellent timing for releasing a browser that supports it (thus improving the web, as still is the mission I understand).

Jilles, what is "OpenID integration"? I really am serious here. How would you implement this in Firefox? What would it look like? How would it be used?

- A

Hi Asa,

A key concern with openid is of course usability and phishing. So, I really like the verisign seatbelt extension for firefox 2. It provides really good phishing protection and makes signing into openid capable websites dead easy. Features like that make the web both more secure and usable. The fact that it is an extension keeps it out of the hands of those who would most need such a feature (novice users who don't install extensions).

So when openid showed up in the requirements posted on the wiki, I was assuming something like this would be part of firefox 3.

Otherwise, great work BTW. I'm really happy with how v3 is shaping up.