Some Significant Improvements
Saturday December 11th, 1999
M12 is right around the corner, and will boast significant improvements in the responsiveness and layout rendering times of the application.
First, Dave Hyatt has checked in some changes which do "memory recycling of all layout frame objects". This recycling seems to be the cause of significant improvements in the responsiveness of the UI. In #mozillazine, I heard "nearly as fast as 4.x" (on a P90 with 16M ram; I think that it's as fast or faster than Communicator 4.x now, at least on my P2-450). Menus and context menus now respond smoothly and quickly, the sidebar expands and contracts quickly (albeit with some bugs, still), and new windows pop up much faster than before. These improvements have been noticable on Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms, but to different extents. You will just have to try downloading a build for yourself!
Next, Vidur Apparao added changes that allow you to tune the incremental reflow. A number of people complained about how the incremental reflow changes of M11 were a good idea, but they were interfering with UI responsiveness as a page loaded. These tuning options address that problem, but even more improvements are expected after the M12 release. To try out the tuning for yourself, download today's build (December 11), and then follow the instructions on the next page (click "Full Article..." at the end of this news item). These options are only for people who are comfortable editing preference files. If you're not one of those people, these options should be enabled automatically at M12's release, so you'll be able to try it out then.
I would suggest picking up today's build when it's available (December 11), as it should contain a fix for alert-box buttons that you'll want to have. You can get the latest build from our builds page, or the nightly builds directory.
Remember, as always, these builds are not for the casual user. None of the software is guaranteed to do what you expect. MozillaZine makes no guarantees about the stability of these builds. Download at your own risk.
Full Article...
This is the most stablest and most responsive build of mozilla yet. I'm using Dec 10 linux build and Its fast. I haven't gotten it to crash yet. Not even after an hour of browsing. This is definately alpha quality maybe even beta. There are much fewer bugs and mozilla has replaced netscape as the browser I use.
Its still alpha... I loaded it up. Clicked on the buttons on the status bar which don't work. Opened messenger. Checked for email in 2 accounts. Closed the messenger window. crash.
unfortunatly I can't reproduce it when I try it again. A total of 1 minute up.
It's not officially alpha yet, just wait for M12 in a couple days THEN it would be alpha :)
<:3)~~
I didn't delete anything. let me check the database...
Which one did you think was missing?
It was there, then gone, now its back! (the very top post)
I must be losing it..
or your browser is loosing it. ;-)
All I really need out of mozilla is a browser that works correctly. All that other stuff like mail, composer, addressbook are extras and I would rather they not be in mozilla at all. I'm glad mozilla supports all the standards. xml and css. Mozilla renders much better than netscape already. Mozilla also starts alot faster than netscape. I will only be using mozilla from now on.
keep in mind that 'all of that other stuff' in mozilla (mail, news, bookmarks, irc, history, addressbook, whatever) are not large chunks of code. They are built out of the same pieces that the browser is built from (and requires). There is very little code associated with any one component so it's not as if mozilla's mail or any other non-browser functions add bloat to the program. I'm sure someone will make a version of mozilla that is just a browser but about all that will be removed to do this are some .xul, .css and .js files. That and a few changes to the UI (.xul, .css, and .js files) of the browser to remove the menu items for mail, news, etc. will be all that is required and pretty easy to do.
I don't think mail or news are trivial tasks: I suspect they involve quite a lot of code and therefore do add "bloat" (though personally I think the whole "code bloat" thing is an unimportant issue.) Switching some XUL might hide that code, but it won't reduce the download size etc.
(Of course mail/news are not enormous compared to the browser core, but I would expect them to be several hundred kb at the least...?)
--sam
I think the mail and news is a couple hundred k. Its composer which is small. The Mail and News has all sorts of code for handling Mime and all of the other fun stuff that can be sent through email.
In the status updates they used to have the size of M & N listed. Last time I saw it I think (On windows) that it was about 300 000 bytes.
Frame targets aren't working still. I sure hope this is fixed by the 15th.
Also, in the last couple of days, as the page is downloading, it erases the entire screen and paints it again, what is that? I've never seen it before in ANY build.
<http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21287>
Bug 21287, I filed it earlier this week for frame targeting already and they might have a fix checked in this weekend.
<:3)~~
The menus are more responsive with the 3 additional preferences added, but I think Slashdot is less responsive.
Unfortunately, the mail and news client is still way behind the browser in terms of performance. I would use Mozilla everyday if it were not for the badly performing mail and news client.
I know, I've been following that bug.
The frame target bug has just been fixed into today's build. Great job! Just in time for alpha!
<:3)~~
Alright! Downloading the build now :)
The latest Windows build doesn't exhibit the paint problem you mention, as far as I can tell. File a bug regarding it if it's duplicatable -- that's the surest way to get it fixed.
The one thing I have noticed for a very long time on the Win32 builds, is that sometimes there are "cracks" in tables, where the cells don't line up exactly flush, and a 1 pixel line of background color will show through. Go to Slashdot, for instance, and size horizontally, and you will see "cracks" show up in the table rendering. Not really a big deal, but something to smooth out.
The article states that the second setting "sets the time between reflows in microseconds." Just a guess, but I'm thinking that's probably supposed to be milliseconds.
Hence the reason 1000000 = 1 second. :)
I missed wherever it made the correlation between 1000000 = 1 second. I wonder how exact that is, because I know that the standard Windows timer will get you a max precision of, I think, 25 milliseconds.
I don't know what happened on december 8th, but the change in mozilla is striking. I made a post about the linux version of mozilla being unusable and very far from alpha. I take that back. The latest builds are _awesome_ in their improvment, including speed, stability, cleanliness, and useability. I _still_ can't log in to my news server, but that's the only dogfood issue (besides plugin support) that I've come across.
Bravo!
Hyatt checked in the memory recycler last weekend, which improved responsive time.
Vidur checked in the incremental reflow changes around the same time, and says that more adjustments are in the works (including improved table reflow).
Don't you just love them right now?
Yes, this all occurred a week ago Chris decided not to break news of this until this week because there were some regressions that made last weeks builds slightly buggier and crash more, but they seemed to have recovered from that now.
<:3)~~
Hi,
For some reason, Linux's nightly is still Monday. They've been building new ones, just not putting them in the right place. Try here for Dec 11:
<ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub…ightly/1999-12-11-08-M12/>
Hello,
I've been testing Mozilla since... M5 I think. I've made it a habit of pulling down daily builds for Win32 and Linux.
At work, on my 133, 150, and 200 systems, it's pretty solid. The Win version seems a bit better (as of a week ago) but both are great.
But... On my system at home, I launh Moz, walk away for 2 minutes, and it's HISTORY. It ALWAYS dies.
My home system is an SMP Celeron w/ a voodoo3 and 128MB RAM.. I've used RH6, RH6.1, Mandrake 6&6.1 as well as Debian potato (what I'm using today)
The only dif. between my work system, that reliably works for hours at a time, and my home system is that I have an SMP here. Has anyone else had this problem? Do I need to compile it myself?
Thanks for any insight,
Ben
Yeah, I have a dual PII400 system running Windows NT and Mozilla dies without fail within seconds every time I start it.
Likewise. Dual PPro200, Red Hat 6.1 is unstable.
There doesn't seem (although I could have missed it) to be any bug filed on being unable to run Mozilla on certain SMP systems. Considering the comments on this bug, someone who has experienced the problem should file a bug with a detailed description of the hardware on which he/she has problems. (And possibly even post the bug number to this talkback so others could add information.) I say "certain SMP systems" because I think (although I'm not sure) that some of the machines used as on tinderbox
<http://tinderbox.mozilla.org/seamonkey/> and other Netscape machines are SMP systems.
If there's no bug filed, then one must assume that the Mozilla developers don't know the problem exists. If they don't know it exists, they're probably not going to fix it.
I submitted a bug report for Mozilla crashing on my SMP system. It is bug #21666 if anyone cares to examine or add to it.
I just got a report back from <dougt@netscape.com> about Mozilla blowing up on SMP systems and he said that it at least partially appears to be related to bug #18110. This appears to be entirely possible based on the description of the bug which is as follows:
-----------------------------
We are not locking down our hashtables. This needs to be fixed and a total
analysis done on the thread saftey of xpcom/proxy.
------- Additional Comments From <dougt@netscape.com> 11/23/99 01:11 -------
marking as dogfood to get attention. This will bite us soon. We should fix
this asap.
------- Additional Comments From <leger@netscape.com> 11/23/99 17:06 -------
Without a reproducible testcase, cannot put on PDT+. Putting on PDT- for now.
But yes, you have our attention :-)
------- Additional Comments From <dougt@netscape.com> 1999-12-06 22:30 -------
will never make it for m12.
I can't tell a significant boost in Mac performance from a week ago, although the preferences dialog looks a lot better, I thought for a second I was using Communicator's. One thing that has happened recently is that when I use the Mozilla Installer app to convert my NS 4.61 profile, it converts it but then says there is an illegal character in the Mozilla User Preferences and the profile is unusable. This is strange because it converted the same profile about a week and a half ago fine.
Also, is the Preferences->Appearence->Themes function supposed to be working. I can't see any changes.
Finally, ANY developers out there PLEASE, PLEASE add a keyboard shortcut for View Page Source (Like Apple-U). This is something that has been missing for a while. If a big feature of IE 5.5 is "Print Preview" you could probably put a new version number on Mozilla if you add this feature!
Michael
I've noticed performance gains on the iMacs at my work. They are still slow (because that's with only 32 megs of RAM) but performance is improved.
None of the hot-keys work (maybe except for copy/cut/past but even that is a quirky sometimes) yet so don't panic, they will be added in time, no one has completely forgotten them.
<:3)~~
Yesterday's Mac build looked more stable. It didn't crash on launch, it opened a few web pages, and only crashed when I opened the bookmark menu. The appearance is still terribly amateurish, though. The widget set looks terrible -- buttons are just rectangles with labels in the application font, radio buttons are tiny and don't include the text label in the hit area, text reflows over borders, etc. And I notice the thing is still a thousand files wide in a deep-nested folder tree, instead of a single application file, with no intent to change that in sight. There's a real lack of understanding of the expectations and critical sensibilities of Mac users there. I'm sure this looks spiffy to Linux users, from whom most of the positive comments seem to come, but there's no way it could fly in the Mac market without major improvements.
"There's a real lack of understanding of the expectations and
critical sensibilities of Mac users there."
Don't worry :) First we walk, then we run. The UI is still in development then, you aren't looking at the final product yet. Those things will come in due time.
-Brent
The one thing that is continually irksome is when people critique pre-shipping products as though they were retail. I don't like the car on the assembly line because it doesn't have headlights yet, but I recognize that someday it will. That's a different attitude than condemning it because it simply doesn't have headlights.
It's the app being installed that are similar to a car in the assembly line. Moz being installed may not have headlights till the installation completes, but if it's designed with no headlights it's a big problem. And folks have their freedom to point it to designers IMO.
When Mozilla is released it will be more customized towards each OS. But that's not being done now because it's not critical in fixing bugs and improving stability, which is a much higher priority right now.
Just give some time, I'm not satisfied about the widgets either (on the platforms I've tested Mozilla on) but I'm much more interested in seeing them fix bugs.
<:3)~~
Yes there are still a lot of bugs. Yes the UI is not what Mac users expect. Yes the prefs aren't all working. These issues will be fixed.
But, if you have been following the process, you would hopefully realize the great progress that has been achieved lately. With the incremental reflow prefs activated, I find the 12/11 build to be very useful and much faster at loading complex pages than recent builds. Once all the 'niceties' are added I am convinced the browser will be a joy to use.... as long as the RAM requirements can be lowered and the startup time cut down significantly.
Chris
Remember this is pre-alpha, not beta. The bugs and features you mentioned are known ones. The more critical bugs (crash/leak/formatting the hardisk... kidding! ;-) ) are being fixed right now. When that is done, more attention will be given to the bugs and features you mentioned.
Basic
I was pleased to find that my wheel mouse suddenly started working. I can not scroll up and down several lines at a time. However, it still doesn't do quite everything I have Netscape configured to do. When I hit control-up/down, it moves by screenfuls; when I do meta-up/down it moves forward/back in my history list (like the green arrows). Does anyone know if it's possible to configure things that way, or if the developers are planning it?
That "I can not" should of course be "I can now". Stupid fingers....
This beings up a question I've had for awhile. Does Mozilla (or netscape v5) plan on support of the ms wheelmouse? (including the "press and scroll" as well as "click and scroll") If not I'd like to err register a complaint :) .. sadly it was one of my favorite features in IE 4 over Netscape 4...
Search bugzilla for it, if you don't find it, file an enhancement bug and get lots of people to vote for it.
(I'd do it, but I promised myself not to search bugzilla for at least a week. Been doing too many searches at bugzilla, starting to dream in bugzilla. Not a good sign.) :-(
Take a look at these bugs:
<http://bugzilla.mozilla.o…ce%22&form_name=query>
See if they cover what you want. If not file a new bug asking for all the wheel-mouse functions you want! (I'd love to do it but I'm not familiar with the wheel-mouse, and don't have one handy)
Basic
(Broke promise to self. Will regret this.)
Well just to let you guys know, there are known problems with Logitech mice wheels under Mozilla. The quick work around is under Preferences, Debug, and uncheck gtk scroll bars and restart Mozilla. You'll end up with native scroll bars instead of the ones that come with the skin but the Logitech mouse wheel, such as mine, will work with it.
The bug filed on this issue is <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20618>
<:3)~~
I upgraded the logitech mouse drivers to 8.6 or whatever the latest is and I have the DllHook registry entry entered (As the bug report talks about)
Now the mouse wheel works in mozilla but it stops working in programs, such as Quake 3 - and we can't have that. Games are so much more important than work. :)
Incremental reflow is a very important feature. Now I would like mozilla to download and display all the text before any graphics.
I thought there was a bug filed on this. Could someone check the status on this?
Yes, it does look interesting. I will download this build right now, while I have lunch.
... the Golden Age of Mozilla.
Usabilty-wise it may have taken a while to get going, but based trivialness of most of the above complaints/requests (no offense to any of these posters, this is a good thing), I would say mozilla is doing pretty good. When your biggest usabilty concerns are all interface related, blue skies are in sight. I can't wait to make all the IE fans at school eat their words with a shovel.
Owwww man im loving this. A while back the question was asked, what do you think could be a show stopper for the alpha release. Now i know alpha means big bad bugs, and i was more then willing to live with that, the performance however was a showstopper for me. The new releases however are more then up to speed! they could use some optimasations im sure, but its acceptable already for me!
Great going mozilla team! your doing one hell of a job
Is the proxy working yet? Because otherwise, I can't try it at work.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't proxy been working for months now? I don't mean working in the regular preferences, but working by manually inputting the lines into the pref.js file.
<:3)~~
Is M12 going to tie in proxies fully
into the Preferences dialog box at
long last ? Whilst we technofreaks are
happy editing preference files with
a text editor, Joe Public, who may be
seeing Mozilla for the first time,
certainly won't be. They'll try the
browser, find they can't configure
their proxies via the browser and
give up :-(
OK, I could download a nightly build
and find out the answer, but only
do that at work and it's the weekend
now :-)
Well that's why alpha isn't designed towards your average Dick and Jane, and there should be an appropriate warning attached. But we all know nothing is going to prevent people from trying Mozilla and think its complete crap while we remind them that it's only alpha and they're rushing to conclusion.
sigh
<:3)~~
Apart from only a few of the nightly builds, you have been able to use the Proxy for month via editing prefs.js. However I know as a fact that at least on build 199121208 (Win NT), you can use the preferences to changes your proxy settings. You may however need to restart Mozilla. (I'm getting inconsistant results on when it kicks in).
I tried to edit the prefs, and Mozilla still blew up on start up.
Then, I downloaded the Installer version (for NT). Installed, converted existing profile, came right up.
What's the difference between mozilla-win32-installer.exe and mozilla-win32.zip? (Other than the obvious, that one's an executable and a lot smaller...)
Thanks.
The win32.zip is the standard zipped package with all the stuff you're used to seeing in a mozilla nightly build. The installer.exe is a self extracting build of mozilla that has a fairly standard installer (like netscape communicator install wizard). The installer will let you select the directory and program group name and location and adds a start menu shortcut. It will also let you install the browser without mail-news (or mail-news without the browser I presume). Another note: the installer is smaller because while it has the added code to automate installation it does not have many of the ..test.exe programs and files.
Hope that helps clear it up a little.
Asa
They are the exact same build, but the installer doesn't have the test programs that the zip file has, which explains why it is much smaller.
The installer installs it for you and the zip you do it yourself, but I still prefer the zip method way over the installer method.
<:3)~~
I'm still having problems with news authentication for linux. The login/password prompt comes up briefly, then it disappears and it says "authentication failed." I would put this in bugzilla but I don't have a password. Is anyone else in linux getting this?
it says "authentication required," not "failed".
And mozilla needs a "refresh" (not to be confused with "reload") button!
Thanks for the explanation -- that's kind of what I'd figured, but I appreciate having my assumptions verified. I'm used to the zips, so that's what I downloaded, but maybe next time I'll give the installer a go.
1999121208/Windows is awesome -- I can't believe how much faster it is! :)
Will Java be enabled in the alpha? I just installed the JRE and ran a program using it, but mozilla still shows a gray box labelled Applet in the banner ad space. It should be showing the monkeys bouncing around (I don't mind the fact that, that particular banner ad didn't display, but I would like to see some Java working in the builds)
I'll assume, by the sheer number of bug reports on the one subject and the length of each bug report, that its not going to make the alpha. :)
I'm using windows. Its not crashing on me at all like the bug reports are talking about... its just not doing anything.
A few people I know of said they had java working about a month ago, unless they're pulling my leg.
I know Java has been working since late August, but heard that it's tricky to get it working sometimes. I haven't tried it myself.
<:3)~~
A co-worker of mine got Java 1.3 Early Access to work with Mozilla under Windows 2000 RC3 (might work on other OS's, but we haven't tried it).
The only "trick" is to copy the np*.dll files from the C:\Program Files\JavaSoft\JRE\1.3\bin directory to a "plugins" directory under Mozilla's bin directory.
You'll probably have to create the plugins directory yourself.
Mozilla DOES REQUIRE Java 1.3 because this is the only release of Java that supports the OJI (Open Java Interface) specification.
Last I heard, Java 1.3 is scheduled for official release in January.
Which version of JRE are you using? I tried using JRE 1.3 beta a week ago and it worked (sort of). But it was so unstable that I had to remove it. I know that JRE 1.2 does not work with Mozilla. Not sure about the earlier versions though.
Basic
Is Java working under linux. If so how would someone go about getting it to work.
I'm using the nightly build for linux to post this. It's looking really good. Most of the bugs are UI funkynes, it's only blown up on me a couple of times when i tried to preview some Chrome or something. And it is FAST. Can't wait to try out the next milestone build. Congratulations to the Mozilla team. Looks like you're going to have an awesome browser. Which is something linux desperately needs. Did i mention it's really REALLY fast?
Actually the build in latest was from a week ago. I got the real new one, and even the UI weirdness is gone. Now i'll try to make it crash...
(just love replying to myself)
Running the latest build for linux, watching the resident memory size for mozilla. Starts at 60 megs and goes up and up. Got all the way to 120 megs before i had to put it in it's place. BAD MOZILLA! Down boy!
It'll be interesting to see how much the performance goes up when they fix that.
I took a look at the source code and was astonished to find that they are still using naive manual new/delete conventions throughout, which are known to cause more than half the bugs in software that use them, and which are certainly responsible for your memory leaks.
No smart pointers, no exception handling -- what year is this, anyway?
Heck, what DECADE is it?
Actually, the nsCOMPtrs used quite extensively through the product are "smart", as you put it (they do their own refcounting).
I think exception handling is not in use because compilers for some platforms have trouble with it (a good deal of the better C++ features have to be omitted in Mozilla for this reason).
I trullly doubt mozilla is taking up 60MB.
top and gtop will see threads as taking up memory space and will add them up. so if you have 4 threads on a 15 MB program then it will show 60MB.
Ok, so to calculate memory usage using gtop would you divide the total memory shown for all processes named mozilla-bin by the number of processes named mozilla-bin??(in this case 4)
Still this doesn't explain the gradual increase as it just sits there.
Mozilla leaks memory.
It's bad that it does that. All I was saying was that mozilla doesn't take up
60MB of ram. That would be insane.
I broke out laughing thinking about the system requirements of a fictitious 60 MB RAM-sucking Mozilla running on Win2K. Minimum system requirements: Athlon 700 with 256 MB 200 MHz SDRAM. :)
That is probably what Windows 2000 will need to play Solitaire.
So when is Mozilla going to be complete enough for me to use it without having to edit preference files or delete files?
Actually, I heard from somebody (a friend, works in networking department of a large company) who's been extensively testing Win2K: he says that it's both faster and more stable than NT4.
However, I've heard that the recommended memory will be either 128 or 256 MB, so you might technically need 256 to run Solitaire :) [In practice I don't think it needs much more than NT4.]
On systems with all that memory, the small matter of a 60 MB web browser wouldn't cause any problems :) Dead memory should eventually get swapped out anyway, so...
--sam
In my previous post I implied that mozilla was taking up way more memory than it actually was. This was because of my misinterprentation of the output of a program that displays memory usage and my lack of understanding of the concept of threads. In short, don't believe anything i say.
I just downloaded build 1999121314 for Win32 and I have found Mozilla loading pages so quickly that I thought it was raiding my NC cache *grinz*
Ah Well, I haven't had time to test stability, but I've never had stability problems in the past :)
only annoyance is that I can't use the arrow keys in text entry boxes (like this one) - is this a known bug as I don't have a bugzilla account yet :P
Good Work Guys :)
Yes, the non-functional arrow keys is a recent bug while I filed, but I think someone may have filed it before I did so now it has twice the attention :)
<:3)~~
No arrow keys, no Page UP/DOWN. But damn it's fast. And looks better too. :-)
so I see, and I have already voted for it :-) (I just got a BugZilla account :)
Layers need some work, but Slashdot loads as fast as a bullet.
Are you talking about layers as in the tag LAYERS? I think it's a proprietary tag so it won't make it to Mozilla since DIV can perform similar things.
Does anyone have M1 and M2 (win32) lying around somewhere?
I'm interested in comparing all the milestones.
Basic
I checked the Mozilla FTP server, they don't seem to exist. The earliest build is Milestone 3. Maybe they used Milestones 1 and 2 as "target goals" but never released them formally until Milestone 3. ::shrugs:: Just speculation, I don't know, anyone care to jump in and answer?
<:3)~~
How about Mozilla Classic? Does anyone still have Mozilla Classic hanging around?
Basic
Has anyone else seen the download dialog box display:
Percentage downloaded: 105%
Also, I've noticed some dancing text boxes When Javascript is used to tally up quantities in online stores.
(It doesn't draw the text boxes in the correct place at first, and then you see them move. When the javascript is polling, it keeps redrawing the text boxes the same way)
hehe, there are other bugs like that. I haven't seen it myself, since I can't get news working for some reason, but there's a well known but where news will state that it had just downloaded 20 news headers of 19.
<:3)~~
I get stuff like that all the time. If you leave the messages on the server, the inbox count gets all messed up over time. It says that there are 9 messages on the server but it doesn't realize that you already have 6 of those, so the total is off by 6.
I was unable to get M11 to launch on my Mac so in preperation of M12, which sounds like it's much improved over anything before it, I want to prepare my system to maximize my success rate.
I know that certain files like the Mozilla registry and users folder should be removed but just to make sure I didn't overlook something can someone please tell me anything I should look for an rid myself of?
Any pref files, aside from Mozilla Registry? How about the Netscape Registry? Any hidden files that may have not been deleted for whatever reason I should look for? Folders?
I just want to cover the bases. Any Netscape files that can cause trouble with Mozilla? I've got the latest Communicator.
Thanks.
Mike, someone on the netscape.public. mozilla.mac wrote a little applescript program that clears out yer shit (preferences, etc.) automatically...
Here's a link that MIGHT work:
<news://news.mozilla.org/3…B%40netscape.com?part=1.2>
Otherwise, the subject was:
Re: apple script that removes your "Mozilla Registry" and your "Users50" directory
and it was posted Dec 10 by Seth Spitzer. Use the news.mozilla.org nntp server.
W
Rest assured, Communicator will have no affect on Mozilla.
<:3)~~
According to the mozilla.org schedule page <http://www.mozilla.org/pr…key/milestones/index.html> M12 will be "on the wire" today (12/15, that's 15/12 for europeans). What does that mean as far as when we will be actually able to download builds? Today, or just "real soon now"? I haven't been following the schedule of previous milestones, so I was just wondering...
Thanks,
Stuart.
Stuart, this is a total stab in the dark but from things I've heard and read I would guess that we might see m12 (alpha?) released in about a week or so. Again, this is a total guess based on the number of M12 bugs left, the rate that they are fixing them, and a whole bunch of the wish/hope factor thrown in for good measure Anyone who thinks that they have a better grip on reality than me, plase chime in. :)
posted from mozilla win32-12/14
Asa
Usually a draft of the release notes are up just days before a milestone release, which hasn't happened yet :'(
<:3)~~
Damn, that means I owe someone a lunch
Damn you mozilla!!!
You placed a bet on Mozilla?
<:3)~~
Yeah, I was telling people that it would be alpha on the 15th a couple months ago... they didn't believe me. They were right :)
Yet another computer program which doesn't make the release date... oh well, what else is new.
Also previous Mozilla Milestones were late one week or even more, it's nothing unsusual....
Maybe they should set the release dates to 10 days earlier than they actually hope to release the milestones.
I tried the forum at <http://www.animeondvd.com> (which didn't work with the 1202 build I tried last time due to some problem w/ cookies or something weird) and it now does work... almost. At least, it now remembers my login, unfortunately whenever I try to post I get "Posting error - please contact your admin" (this is an http page sent out by the forum software, not a Mozilla error).
Anyway, it's looking a lot more like usable now, once they fix the obvious keyboard-control problems (arrows in forms and tab).
--sam
>>"Anyway, it's looking a lot more like usable now, once they fix the obvious keyboard-control problems (arrows in forms and tab)."
Looks like the arrow problem should be fixed in the daily builds today:
<http://cvs-mirror.mozilla…e=&cvsroot=%2Fcvsroot>
I investigated the forum problem a bit further and filed a bug, if anybody cares. The problem seems to affect the "DCForum" message board software.
<http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21794>
I'm surprised to say that when/if they fix that one (I realise it might be a low priority but I check that forum like 5 times a day so for me it's essential), I might switch to using Mozilla most of the time... it's pretty good now and hasn't crashed once today - a better record than 4.7...
--sam
wow so many posts-and no anon posters! m'zine is doing quite well
There is much less criticism of Mozilla too. The messages all seem to be either bug reports or praise.
...hmm, dont tell me that we got moderated since there was crtiticsm?
Reason for no criticsm is that people signup (fairly complicated) because they are interested in the project... you dont really see bashing from people who support it...If I didnt like it, I sure wouldnt take 30 min of my time to sign up and post the comment :)
If you look at the title of the front page you will see that this site is intended as a Mozilla advocacy and news site. If you don't like Mozilla and won't take the time to become a member then most people visiting this site don't really give a shit what you have to say.
Don't get me wrong. I value criticism and one of the reasons that I come to MozillaZine is to read and contribute criticism. What I don't come here for and what I don't think the creators and participants of this forum intended is an ongoing battle between those who want Mozilla to succeed and those who don't. This is a forum for _advocates_! This is a place to discuss how to make Mozilla better and to read about Mozilla's progress. For these reasons I support 100% the decision to disallow anon posting at MozillaZine and by the quality and quantitiy of posts since the member requirements were instituted, I'd say that lots of people agree with me.
posted with mozilla win32_12/15
Asa
I'd call it remediation. Removing anonymous postings isn't a panacea for people wanting to eliminate criticism -- note the forums on Ain't It Cool News, which also disallows anonymous posting. That wasn't the purpose behind removing anonymous posting. It does tie comments to a specific name, but that hasn't stopped people who have had criticisms (at least not as far as I can tell). One effect it probably *has* had, however, is cutting down the back-and-forth flaming, because people seem to be ignoring the least constructive critics, or at least not responding in kind. If there is any moderation going in, it's occurring only in the heads of forum participants. That's good. It means we might be able to avoid actual moderation down the line.
Removing anon posting virtually eliminates imposters. We've had two imposters in our forums who passed themselves off as well-known people (people who were mentioned in our articles, for example). In one case, one of these people mentioned in an article was *actually* in our forums, and his post was replied to, and an imposter did the followup to the reply. I'd like to avoid that kind of childish crap, if possible, and requiring membership is a simple solution to that problem.
Posted this using Mozilla. This works really well now, but I can't wait for the keybinding fix today. Tabbing between fields will also be handy - hint, hint.
Hmm, Setup the proxy in prefereneces. Didn't save the first time. Second time it did save. Verified in \user50\pref.js
Restarted Mozilla as it didn't pick up the change till boot.
Problem is I get...
Error 407Invalid Userid/Password,please try again!
Argh!
Also, can't shop via Mozzila very annoying!
Speed is GREAT!
Debian just put out an M12-pre package, and the most noticeable things (apart from the cool responsive page-loading, still punctuated by some annoying pauses for reflow, though:( ) are some regressions since M11 - there seem to be some issues with transparency causing the toolbar and MozZine's header to look ugly (are they working on getting true alpha support? That would be WORTH graphics corruption... wow). It looks like when there's a transparent image over an image background, the background is replaced by random stuff.
Other observations... I noticed a theme selector in the preferences dialog... not yet implemented but that will be *cool*. The editor has funny behavior the first time it's clicked, although that was the same in M11. Arrow keys in forms seem to work although backspace sometimes deletes the wrong character... however, it does feel a lot more *solid* than M11 - stability and responsiveness are way up.
Way to go mozilla team!
Have you tried the latest nightly build? If it still exist in the nightly build, file a bug <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/>
Basic
My problem is that my Mozilla is all installed by the debian packages that install it automatically. I don't know how to install Moz by hand, and especially, I don't know how to do it without f-ing up the package-based installation that was done for me. The problem could also be in the packaging of this version. I'll wait and see when M12 itself comes out, and if it still exists, *then* I'll file a bug.
Stuart.
AFAIK, the transparency/background problem is known.
Check out my personal link pages at <http://www.unet.univie.ac…a9805220/links/links.html>
Is it the same problem as there? (look at the iframe in the bottom right corner) Could it be bug #4209 <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4209> ?
Sorry! Mozilla (win32-1999-12-14-08) filled in the title of the message from where I saved mozine password...
Don't know why that happened!
BTW, it's no iframe. It's only a <div> with position:fixed in it's CSS class what you see in the bottom at the right corner...
(wow, tabbing between form elements works! cool!)
Anyway... I didn't see a problem on that page, but it does sound like the bug you refered to from the bugzilla comments. The only thing is, it's happening to the XUL of the toolbar! Instead of the slick-looking blue-and-green striped background the toolbar used to have, it's now random junk (currently grey with flecks of gold and black, but it varies, of course). I haven't seen this problem in any other builds, and presumably other people aren't seeing it (it's hard to miss) so I'll assume it was just a transient problem when this package was put together - unless it happens in M12 too.
Stuart (waiting eagerly... :) )
For the the last several days I've been having problems dowbloading the nightly builds. At the end of a download (several bytes short of being complete) the process halts, and the file ends up being invalid zip file. I am using an NT system to download win32 builds. It happens regardless what machine and browser I use, so that makes me think the problem is on the mozilla.org's side.
I'm not sure what it is tht you're experiencing but I do not think that there is anything wrong with the builds themselves or the server that they sit on. Have you tried to download the installer.exe This is a self-extracting and installing (an install wizard that will set up program group and start menu shortcut, etc). This version is also smaller because while it has the install wizard, it does not have many of teh test executables and other such junk. Good luck.
posted with mozilla
Asa
I am now running apprunner for the first time on FreeBSD since pre M10.
I am a very happy camper.
I am submitting this via mozilla!
yea baby!
But various things about hte keyboard remain hosed ... (Alt-V to paste selects _V_iew on the menu. Arrow keys don't work and paging with PgUp PgDwn appears broken. Emacs keys (Ctrl-A , Ctrl-E, etc) and mouse selection don't work yet or any more either.
But it's much more stable and renders faster.
This CGI (AnyURL) is doing strange things for me (the POSTed data doesn't get flushed or something)
<http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/AnyURL.html>
I think the problem with Alt-V bringing up the menu instead of paste is because that is what alt-v is supposed to do. You may be confusing it with Control-V which is paste. Alt-any letter should bring up the corresponding menus which have the accesskeys set in the toolbar.
It depends which operating system he's on. The standard for unix is alt I believe. Windows uses control and the mac uses the apple key.
i'm sorry i can't remember where is the post in the newsgroups (netscape.public.mozilla.???) of a mozilla.org team member who announced that platform specific keyboard bindings will be checked in in the future...
for now, you can modify one file to get this working.
so, don't worry ! you will have your emacs bindings (this is necessary, IMO)
(posted with mozilla, of course ;)
--
Hervé
Keep in mind that milestones are really just a sort of checkpoint. The goal of a milestone is to pause just long enough to see what you really have. Development on M12 is pretty much wrapped up. I think that M12 is branched and in a "clean-up" phase and M13 work will begin today (I may be wrong, feel free to correct me if you have better information.) So if you grab a nightly M12 build from today or yesterday, you're probably getting a very close approximation of what will be called the official M12 release (note: the morning windows build from the 15th and the evening windows build from the 16th are pretty solid). But if you're like me and you need to be on the bleeding edge (and you don't mind spending 30 minutes to download a build that may not work) you'll be grabbing that first M13 nightly.
posted with mozilla win32_121508
Asa
Mozillas perfomance has improved a lot, so I decided to use mozilla from now on as my everyday browser.
Even if already said a hundred times here, the most important stoppers are still:
- paint errors (Linux),
- slow typing (and navigating in forms/mails)
- slow mail/news
- memleaks (not everybody has 2 Gigs RAM)
Keep up, the good work
Don't know if you noticed, but the nightly build of 16/12 has much less memory leaks than M11.
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