MozillaZine

Independent Status Reports (12 May, 2005)

Thursday May 12th, 2005

By Brian King

If you are not aware, mozdev.org became a non-profit organisation last year, known officially now as the Mozdev Community Organisation. We are also in the process of getting tax-emempt status. On the face of it this means little to the site visitors and extension developers who use our tools. But actually it has longer term and greater significance. It means we are committed to Mozilla technologies, committed to providing great quality tools and services, and committed to bringing mozdev.org to the next level. The infrastructure is being put in place for mozdev.org to grow. One factor that is important to us growing is donations, so any contributions would be appreciated if you have the resources. This and other initiatives will help us put in place new tools and resources, already in development. If you are interested on how we became a non-profit organisation, read David Boswell's article on the O'Reilly Network.

Note: If anyone has an update that they would like included in the next report, go here, or have any feedback on the reports in general, feel free to contact us.

Previous Reports

openwebfolder — 0.10

(open MS web folder client from Firefox)

  • For: Firefox
  • Platform: Windows

Initial release: "openwebfolder" hooks Microsoft's web folder client to Firefox (by context menu or custom styled HTML links).

Orkut Toolbar — 0.5

(Orkut Toolbar for Firefox)

  • For: Firefox

  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

First official release at mozdev.

Orkut Toolbar helps you to format the text of your posts in the Orkut forums and search for communities and friends.

With Orkut Toolbar all you need is type your entire text without any formatting code and then select the desired parts of text and apply the format using the toolbar buttons. Much like you do in OpenOffice Writer, MS Word or any other text editor.

Main features:

  • Quicklinks to main Orkut sections
  • Easily apply Bold, Italic and Underline to your post
  • Easily change the color of your text
  • Easily Insert a Hyperlink in your post
  • Easy access to all Emoticons
  • Integrated Communities and Friends Search
  • Available in en-US and pt-BR locales
  • Easily Hide the toolbar and Show it again when you need

signature — 0.3.1

(insert custom text into emails and posts (attach a signature))

  • For: Firefox, Thunderbird

    • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

Now on mozdev and update.mozilla.org :) Project started as a hobby, now I've set it up here on mozdev.

What is it?

You can define signatures, then when posting/emailing right-click->insert signature-><my signature> will insert the signature you have saved.

Recent additions

  • Unicode support
  • locales fr, de, it, pl, en
  • random() — Rob Wooley (+keyboard shortcut tb only)
  • default insert from keyboard — tb only

Calendar Help — 0.5

(Help documentation for Calendar and Sunbird)

  • For: Mozilla Suite, Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird
  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

A new installable version with extra content and Help buttons in the dialogs. Starting this month, the experimental online version will begin to include documentation for Sunbird 0.2+, ready for an installable version shortly after its public release.

Notable Highlights

  • Help buttons in all the dialogs (but the F1 or Help key still work the way they always have)
  • Experimental online version contains latest updates (only for Mozilla browsers)

Russ Key — 0.4.4

(Type in phonetic Russian and transform translit into Cyrillic)

  • For: Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird
  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

Now keyboard mapping is externalized as a preference. Transliteration character code map and transliteration regular expressions map are externalized as preferences. The extension now works with FF 1.0.3, it also works better in Thunderbird (message compose window).

Notable Highlights

  • Externalized keyboard layout map.
  • Externalized transliteration character code map.
  • Externalized transliteration regular expression map.
  • Extension works in FF 1.0.3.
  • Fixed Thunderbird messagepane problems.

PasswordMaker — 0.5.1

(One password to rule 'em all!)

  • For: Mozilla, Firefox,
  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

Why use the same password over and over again when there's PasswordMaker? Now you only need to remember a "master" password, but you can generate the same, unique password for any website over and over again using any of 7 hash algorithms and 9 different levels of l33t speak. For added security, nothing is stored anywhere or sent over the internet. There's even an on-line version for when you don't have access to Firefox.

There have been multiple releases since the last Independent Status Report on April 11, 2005.

0.5.1 was released on May 3, 2005.

Notable Highlights

  • Created the much-requested basic and advanced options. The basic options are displayed by default, but one can switch to advanced options by clicking the new Advanced Options button. There is a corresponding button on the when viewing the advanced options to switch back to the basic options. PasswordMaker remembers which options you last used and continues to show it when invoked.
  • Removed the Apply button; all changes are now applied immediately as they are typed.
  • Added 53 more second-level domains to the Special Domains list from 6 different countries.
  • If Mask Generated Password is checked, you are prompted for the master password before it can be unchecked. This is a security feature to prevent others from viewing generated passwords. Alternatively, you can clear the Master Password textbox (thereby changing generated passwords) and then uncheck Mask Generated Password without being prompted.
  • Removed the Reset Master Password button; since all changes are now applied immediately when typed, resetting the master password is as simple as clearing the master password textbox.

Deepest Sender — 0.6.4

(LiveJournal for Mozlla)

  • For: Mozilla, Firefox
  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

After nearly a year of virtually no work being done on Deepest Sender, I decided to get stuck into it again, and rewrote the whole thing. The interface remains the same, but there have been a massive amount of bugfixes and improvements. If you intend to upgrade from 0.5.3 or below, please read the instructions on the installation page, or you'll be stuck with an unusable Firefox until you uninstall Deepest Sender in safe mode.

Changes since 0.5.3

  • Coding has undergone a rewrite — still messy, but more manageable.
  • Started separating certain bits, for easier re-use when supporting other blogging protocols in the future.
  • "New Account Wizard" makes it simple to set up a LiveJournal account for use with Deepest Sender.
  • You can now easily use multiple accounts.
  • Now uses challenge/response to authenticate, instead of just a hashed password. Looking to move this to cookie authentication in the future.
  • Spellchecking now works properly if Spellbound is installed in Firefox.
  • Current music detection is much easier — you have the choice of either getting the current song info from FoxyTunes, digging it out of the registry (on Windows), or using the tried-and-true text file method.
  • LiveJournal-specific tags should now work 100% of the time, and no longer occasionally mess up your entries.
  • You can now view/delete posts directly from the calendar.
  • Calendar/edit windows are no longer modal, so you can work on multiple posts at once.
  • A bunch of text formatting bugs have been fixed.
  • Automatically saves a draft of the post you're working on every two minutes, plus whenever you close the window, for those times when Firefox crashes, or you accidentally quit everything.
  • Lots of other small fixes.

fireFTP — 0.88

(FTP Client for Mozilla Firefox)

  • For: Firefox
  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

This version is an overhaul of the code that I wrote months ago. It should run faster, better, and with less problems.

Notable Highlights

  • Code Restructuring
  • Fixed many, many bugs

AIMfire — 0.1

(Instant messaging client for Firefox)

  • For: Firefox
  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

This is the initial release of the AIMfire project. It is an AOL instant messaging client that features built-in Audioscrobbler support.

Googlebar — 0.9.12.02

(Emulating the IE Google search toolbar in Mozilla and Firefox)

  • For: Mozilla, Firefox
  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

Googlebar has even more features! Along with an unusual load of bugfixes. (Lots! :) In what we call the experimental release by tradition, we have added a load of cool features.

Now in the late beta stage

  • A massive code rewrite, hopefully means more reliability, and better coexistence with other extensions and themes.
  • The list of new features includes:
    • Google Desktop Searching.
    • A cool GMail Inbox checker with auto-login capability and a dropdown showing any new message subjects
    • Google Video Searching
    • Google Maps searching
    • Image Thumbnails on Google Search Results (which are also disabled by default)
  • Available from our installation page, look for the experimental version for your browser. If you do run into problems... heaven forbid!, there is now a Googlebar Forum item to use on the "little g" dropdown menu.

XulApp — 0.1.2

(XulApp an IDE for developing XUL applications.)

  • For: Firefox
  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

The XulApp prototype now runs in Firefox 1.0.

The redesign of the XulApp prototype is progressing well. Please note that for the time being, the redesign is only available via CVS.

Notable Highlights

  • XulApp is now targeting Firefox 1.1.
  • The tool extensions architecture is designed and working using the new document.loadOverlay function.
  • Conversion of a first draft of the Xul Form Designer is nearly complete.
  • XaLib, a new utility library, is being developed. This includes a SPARQL query engine for accessing RDF data.
  • XulRunner is being investigated as a possible alternative platform

Previous Reports

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