The Inside Track on Firefox Development.
« August 2004 | Main | October 2004 »
September 27, 2004
Off Topic: Feijoas in Bay Area?
I'm posting this here since more people read it...
Where in the San Francisco Bay Area might I (and Scott MacGregor) be able to find Feijoas (Pineapple Guava)... ? Has anyone seen them at their local supermarket/whole foods/greengrocer?
If you know of where, send me an email at ben at bengoodger dot com.
Posted by ben at 1:39 PM
September 26, 2004
Back in California
... after an interesting trip. All the standard contact info now applies.
This week, we're going to try and get the 1.0 blocker bug list on bugs that actually *block* 1.0 - i.e. bugs that if we were to ship a release with, we'd have to hide in shame. There are a lot of polish bugs that are being cut from this list, and that will seem very sad to a lot of people (including myself!) but this is an effort to focus development energies on the most important bugs before 1.0... if we end up with lots of spare time we can always go back and re-+ polish bugs. I think everyone would agree it's most important to have a non-crashy, non-datalossy, non-regressy app! We've really come a long way, thanks to the efforts of hundrends and thousands of volunteers, and we're at the point where, as Bart told me yesterday, many people consider the "last remaining bug to be that it isn't called 1.0" ... so let's get there!
Posted by ben at 1:21 PM
September 18, 2004
Live Bookmarks
Some people have said that Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature is "weak" - that they lack the capabilities of a true RSS reader. Hopefully this blog will clarify a few things...
Live Bookmarks (which I refer to affectionately as "our dinky little RSS impl" - I'm sure Vlad loves me) were never intended to be an answer to the power RSS readers or a comprehensive solution to hardcore RSS/news junkies. There are plenty of software packages out there (including Thunderbird) that do a better job. Firefox's RSS capabilities are designed to expose as much of RSS to regular people as makes sense for light news reading/dynamic content. The intent is to allow the user to have a Live Bookmark on her toolbar and be fed the newest headlines daily, the latest bargains, the latest posts on some topic, etc. Our goals do not stretch much farther beyond this.
Some things we definitely do want:
- Better auto-discovery of feeds, especially where a <link> tag is not used (although we hope more sites will start using the <link> tag - sites that do, please give your feeds meaningful title attributes! I hate seeing "Subscribe to 'RSS'" in the popup menu!
- Highlighting of read vs. non-read items
Hyatt noted our lack of sophisticated aggregation support. Guilty - but is it such a crime? I find Feedster to be a dandy aggregation engine - and their search results pages are syndicated via RSS. So as I said in a column last week, go to Feedster (we could help here by adding a search plugin or a keyword), run a search on a topic you're interested in and subscribe to the results, adding the Live Bookmark to your toolbar. Easy aggregation - doesn't get much simpler than that. Now I'm sure there is lots of scope for new and innovative apps using Feedster and our RSS engine as a search and subscription tool, I can even think of a few myself - but until they're prototyped and we're testing them (as extensions), we won't know if they're real benefits or just geek toys. So, to the keyboards!
Posted by ben at 4:25 AM
September 17, 2004
Market Dominance
Netscape had it by being first.
Microsoft has it by being everywhere.
Firefox will have it by being best.
We're coming.
Posted by ben at 9:19 PM
September 16, 2004
SiliconValley.com Rocks
Posted by ben at 5:33 PM
September 14, 2004
Firefox Tips
Here are some tips/tricks...
Smart Keywords
Say you search on a lot of different things - corporate phonebook, imdb, etc... wouldn't it be handy to have convenient aliases to all these searches? You bet it would be.- Go to the page that has the search box on it, right click on it and choose "Add a Keyword for this Search..."
- In the "Add Bookmark" dialog that appears enter a name and a short "keyword" and save the Bookmark...
Now you can type "kw search string" in the URL, e.g. "pb Janet Robinson" for a quick phonebook lookup. I can't live without my keywords. Oh, and it handles POST forms too, unlike most other browsers!
Links Pushed To Your Toolbar
Feedster syndicates its search results pages in RSS. If you're interested in a particular topic (be it Politics, Science, Cars, or Firefox like me)...- Go to Feedster, and run a search on the topic you're interested in.
- On the Search Results page click the orange "RSS" icon in the bottom left of the Firefox window
- Add the Live Bookmark to your Bookmarks Toolbar.
Now you'll be fed new articles about that topic - fresh articles every day!
Rearrange Your Toolbars
Get more room for web page content -- Go to View->Toolbars->Customize Toolbars...
- Click in the blank space between the "Help" menu item and the throbber on the right side of the menu bar and drag the empty space into the toolbar palette. The throbber will move over left by the Help Menu Item
- Now drag the Bookmarks Toolbar items up off the Bookmarks Toolbar in between the Help Menu item and the Throbber.
- Click "Done" on the Customize Toolbar window
- Now go to View->Toolbars->Bookmarks Toolbar to turn off the empty Bookmarks Toolbar.
You're left with something that looks like this. More space for web pages!
Posted by ben at 10:41 PM
From One Tree Hill to Greenlane
Firefox Preview Release is out! Go Get Firefox now!
Posted by ben at 2:09 PM
September 11, 2004
Geeky?
There have been a number of discussions going on in the blogosphere in the past week or two about Firefox and a perceived "geek" factor. No software is perfect, and Firefox has its share of rough edges and power user features - but fundamentally it is simple, usable software.
Before going on about how geeky Firefox is, try disabling all your extensions, your user stylesheet additions and return to the default state. A relatively simple, clean UI with less clutter than a number of other major browsers - a UI that my mother, other people's mothers, pastors, accountants, doctors, children and other non-technical people use. So before condemning Firefox as a geek toy, step back and ask yourself: did you make it that way?
Posted by ben at 1:23 AM
September 10, 2004
Firefox on Linux Install Instructions
- Double click the .tar.gz file
- Fight with File Roller for ten minutes
- Give up and reboot to Windows
:D
Posted by ben at 4:54 PM
September 8, 2004
Help Test for 1.0PreviewRelease
We're heading into a 1.0Preview Release early-mid next week. We don't have Release Candidates ready yet (maybe by Friday), but do take a look at the latest nightlies if you want to help test.
Posted by ben at 2:20 AM
©1997-2006 Ben Goodger. All Rights Reserved.
Opinions expressed here are my own, and not those of any organization that I may be affiliated with.
Reload icon is © Stephen Horlander;
Firefox logo is by
Jon Hicks, and is a
trademark of The Mozilla Foundation.
GetFirefox buttons are from rakaz
