Major Gecko Announcement!Monday March 20th, 2000Dave Hodder writes, "Yahoo has an article on Netscape 6, headed 'Netscape's Revolutionary Gecko Browser Technologies Adopted by IBM, Intel, Liberate, NetObjects, Nokia, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems'. It also mentions Gecko, XUL and AOL TV." Most of the names on the list shouldn't be a surprise to most Mozilla followers. MozillaZine announced the Nokia/Intel Internet appliance months ago, and there are well known developers from RedHat, Sun, and IBM making major contributions to the codebase. Interesting, however, is the quote from Mitchell Kertzman, President and CEO of Liberate Technologies. Mitchell states, "Netscape Gecko fits well as a key component of our software, helping us create a better interactive TV experience and resulting in greater success for AOL TV and other partners using the Liberate platform". It looks like Mozilla's reach is going beyond the desktop, beyond the "Internet Appliance" and into the set-top arena. That's what surprised me. Here's a quote from the CNet story: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cn/20000320/tc/20000320145.html Netscape Communications today said it will release a test version of a long overdue Web browser update within the next 25 days as the company battles to regain market share lost to Microsoft. That puts it at about April 14th. Didn't we just see a post about Netscape's beta of their branded Mozill by mid May a while back? It looks like either someone misspoke, or Netscape is really putting some steam into development. Frankly, I think this is best for Netscape, to put out Communicator 5/6/whatever as soon as possible. As much as I'm behind Mozilla, I'm still behind Netscape just as much, even after the AOL purchase. Another question though, about the NPL/MPL. CNet's article says: AOL plans to let others license Netscape 6 to create their own branded browsers. Does this mean for free or payment based licensing? You are confusing two topics. Beta 1 is branched, to be shipped in the timeframe mentioned in the article. There was a recent post by Jim Roskind of Netscape saying the feature cut-off date for the NEXT beta is 5/2. After that there is more bugfixing, stability and QA work, maybe 2-4 week's worth. Hard to know what the article meant by the licensing quote. Of course others can use mozilla source to ship something similar to Netscape 6, based on a license AOL (Netscape) created in the past, the MPL/NP. Or maybe it means AOL will make deals for companies to be able to ship the proprietary bits, too. Probably the latter since Netscape has always done that with Navigator. Ok, so this: " 4/4 Tree closes for checkpoint validation 4/11(or sooner) Checkpoint ships, and tree reopens 5/2 Tree closes for checkpoint validation 5/9 (or sooner) Checkpoint ships, and tree reopens 5/30 Tree closes for checkpoint validation ... " means that around 4/11 beta 1 ships, and around 5/9 beta 2 ships? I can follow that, yet later on in the message Roskind says: "Netscape managers are trying to work on a "feature complete" beta based on the above 5/2 checkpoint closure. Netscape is of the belief that we can reach a feature complete status on 5/2." Now mind you, I'm not arguing with you at all. It's just that even in one message we're getting mixed messages from folks inside the fortress. Franklu, I'm more inclined to think that the news story is more accurate, mainly becauuse everyone knows the faster Communicator 6 ships, the better for Netscape and AOL. Of course, a STABLE Comm. 6, that is. As for the license, I'm going to have to re-read it, to see just where payment comes in, and how it's all managed... xPL's tend to get confusing... =-] Disclaimer: I don't work for netscape, or have any inside information other than having been closely following the mailing lists. Having said that, here's my interpretation of jar's post (which may or may not be the *truth*, but it does seem to be consistent and match all the known facts, including yesterday's Cnet and yahoo articles). Jar said (as quoted by you): "4/4 Tree closes for checkpoint validation 4/11(or sooner) Checkpoint ships, and tree reopens 5/2 Tree closes for checkpoint validation 5/9 (or sooner) Checkpoint ships, and tree reopens 5/30 Tree closes for checkpoint validation ... " "Netscape managers are trying to work on a "feature complete" beta based on the above 5/2 checkpoint closure ..." Note the distinction between "Checkpoint" and "beta". My interpretation is that these "Checkpoints" are like the existing "Milestones" - so the dates given would perhaps be for M15 and M16, or M16 and M17. Note too that in a followup posted less than an hour after the original post, Jar clarified that his message was talking about beta2 onwards; so *nothing* in that post can be construed as relating to beta1. We know that the tree has already been closed, and branched, for Beta1. The progress-2-beta page at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/milestones/progress-2-beta.html seems to target March 31, the Moz anniversary, as the release date for beta1. The "release within 25 days" will be this beta (the article even clarifies later on that it *will* be beta). I imagine the 25 days claim is designed to give them plenty of leeway to "miss" the March 31 anniversary. I can't say whether they're on track to make it or miss it, but it's wise to give themselves some flexibility, given how harsh the media can be on a product perceived to be "late". The second beta seems likely to be the "feature complete" beta described in jar's post, released sometime in late May (it takes quite a while from when the "checkpoint ships" to when a beta can be released, judging by the beta1 experience). I'm not definitely ruling out a beta inbetween based on the other "checkpoint", but I've seen nothing to indicate that this is planned. This hypothesis seems to match all the known data points, including the press release on yahoo yesterday and the cnet article based on it; jar's post AND his followup; the progress-2-beta page; comments by netscape people here in MZ such as Dan Veditz' reply in this thread, and a lot of other newsgroup postings that I've seen by other people involved in this process. Hope this helps (and if a NS person would like to chime in and let me know whether my hypotheses seem to match reality, I'd be very grateful). Stuart. "Note too that in a followup posted less than an hour after the original post, Jar clarified that his message was talking about beta2 onwards; so *nothing* in that post can be construed as relating to beta1. " I missed this, so NOW it's clear. Thanks, I never saw this post. Now it makes a lot more sense. =-] At the time of writing, Mozilla is standards compliant to the point of being completly unusable. The DOM1 and DOM2 specs explicitly state that some crucial functionality is not included, and up to the implementor to...well, implement. What's the use of DOM interfaces if I can not: -load XML -load XML from string -save XML to string -POST XML to the web -include XML into the HTML document in an easy way(data islands) Don't get me wrong, I like and use Mozilla on various platforms, but I want to *get* and *use* the *DATA* that is stored as / served up as, XML. If you have data to work with, *then* you can actually start to make use of the great ECMAScript, the HTML DOM, et cetera. I don't think NS should put out the beta until it works properly with most websites. Or at least to the level of functionality of past Netscape betas. For instance, Navigator 3.0 beta was a completely usable product. NS is just gonna alienate users with crashes and mangled web sites, etc... Right off the top of my head, here are a couple of web sites that look like crap: zdnetonebox.com (you actually have to use the mail to see this) lenta.ru vbthunder.com adjudicateinc.com (moving mouse over link duplicates the page) Also, for God's sake, please put a close button on the sidebar. And fix the freaking intellimouse support. Will there be look-ahead typing for URLs? Intellimouse support Works for Me (M14 on WinNT 4). As for the close button on the sidebar, there ought to be a small line midway on the sidebar border. Clicking on that should close the sidebar for you. Geez, but that AdjudicateInc.com bug is *ugly*. Hey, I'm just happy to finally be able to make a 100% standards-compliant website that separates content from presentation, works in both browsers, and still doesn't look like it was made as a professor's class webpage in 1995. I was frustrated with the seeming lack of wheelmouse support for a long time too, but it turns out that if you go into the preferences, under debug, and uncheck "gfx scrollbars" - it works fine. That does work, however not the way it should. Unchecking that box makes mozilla use the standard Windows scrollbars and not the internal mozilla ones that will eventually be the standard. This only provides a temporary fix to a permanant problem. When I depress the mouse wheel, I expect a scroll icon to pop up and let me scroll up and down without pressing any mouse buttons. Mozilla doesn't do that with or without gfx scrollbars. I that the problem really can be fixed within Mozilla, but... I've got a Logitech Mouseman+ wheel and its drivers allow the wheel to be used with almost any scrollbar (including Mozilla's "GFX scrollbars"). I can even do an "autoscroll" by pressing on the wheel... however it's not "smooth" scrolling like in MSOffice or Internet Exploiter. Perhaps there is similar software that works with other scroll mice. I also remember my old MS mouse's wheel working in Mozilla too, but I don't remember having any special drivers. I'd say set-tops are info appliances, if not Internet appliances. Anyhow, bring on beta. Those who talk about pages looking horrible, remember that many of these are because many pages use old, broken standards and those pages WILL look like crap. The designers will just HAVE to change the HTML or continue to have broken pages. Remember that all previous versions of Netscape were broken, too, meaning that of course they'd be more usable with broken code. Re: the UI, the Netscape UI will be much different from the current one. It has to be. The fact that the UI hasn't changed at all in appearance since the last time it changed should clue you in to the fact that Netscape is keeping the branded UI under wraps. They certainly aren't going to start in on it at the very last minute, so they must be polishing it up now. Here's another story at CNET. Aside from the moronic analyst they quote towards the bottom, it's a FAIRLY positive Netscape article. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1576572.html?tag=st.ne.1002.bgif.1005-200-1576572 About the UI: I hope Netscape takes some clues from the Aphrodite UI, i'm really digging that interface. Something similar to Aphrodite with a working sidebar would be really nice. About broken standards: Of course you are right, but there is no surer way to insite the anger of many people than telling them that all their web pages and all the current web browsers are "broken". I don't think it will be as bad as all that. Some pages that are poorly written or contain Netscape/IE specific cludges may not look the way they were expected to in Mozilla, but in most cases what is "broken" is easily fixed, producing a page that looks consistent in Mozilla and IE ( though cludges may be needed if you want it to be ass-backwards compatible with netscape 4.X ) As for the topic at hand: Go Mozilla! I disagree. I've seen lots of changes since it changed. Of course, since those changes were more recent than the other change, they're realy the last change, so I guess it HASN'T changed since it last changed after all. Unless you count that change to the other change, in which case, the whole thing has changed, and has thus not changed since the last change. Are you seeing just how poorly you worded that sentence yet? =-] Sorry, I don't take the time when posting to try and win a pulitzer. The main Mozilla UI has changed ONCE, so anyone who's followed it knows what I mean. No, there haven't been any significant changes. It's been two shades of blue for as long as I can remember. Other than a tweak here and there, it's the same UI. you expect it to go through many major transformations? The fact that it did go through such a massive one last October is fairly unique. It seems foolish to me to keep reinventing numerous, muddy wheels when it would be more prudent to stick to one thing and polish it. Other than a vague change here and there, like the functioning Search button, the UI still needs SERIOUS help to look like Communicator. For one thing, the component bar looks horrible in two color, and the buttons are STILL hanging off in a very unsightly fashion. Further, there aren't enough buttons, there seems to be no room for more buttons (you think AOL's gonna give up that Shopping button so easily?), and the ones that are up aren't colorful and nifty looking like they should be. As a mozilla UI it's okay, but as Netscape's standard UI it is lacking quite a bit. The 4.x looks much more professional and colorful. That BETTER not be the final UI for Communicator. I'd be depressed. Anyway, they don't seem to be polishing ANYTHING, really, aside from the search button and the tabs in the sidebar which really aren't a part of the main UI anyhow. I just happen to think (hope) Netscape will come with its own UI and that Netscape won't show it to us until beta. The appearance of the "official" Mozilla or Netscape UI is not really going to matter that much. There are soon going to being zillions of Mozilla chromes / skins popping up all over the web. Example: look at all the (wasted?) talent that went into producing the thousands of skins for Winamp. Wait till those people get their hands on XUL. If you think the current UI is ugly (who doesn't?), try Aphrodite. Or get a head start on the crowd and start rolling your own XUL. But the main point is, DON'T WORRY. I like the Netscape brand. I don't want it polluted with a putrid UI. I personally think Netscape wastes a ton of opportunity in branding capabilities, hopefully they'll remedy that soon. Probably their coolest graphics are the rarest seen (see Keyword Netscape at AOL (the window that comes up) and the Navigator 4.0 standalone splash screen). Anyway, I don't think the beta should be ugly, it should resemble the Netscape product in all but stability if at all possible. As for Aphrodite, I see the snapshot and it seems that they've turned the current UI gray, from the shot. And? Lack of color makes a great UI? Don't see it. I tried to download Aphrodite anyhow, but WinZip had about 8 errors unzipping it. Also, when will it not be a pain in the ass to install a skin? With M8 you could just click a link, now you have to go to your DOS prompt? Regression's a bitch, I guess. With the push to appliances I hope to see Mozilla on the PS2 and the Dreamcast. That would make my PS2 a nearly complete pc replacement. Mostly all I do on my stupid pc is surf, and play games. :) Then I would just need someone to port a telnet or ssh client to it. :) Mmmmm, yeah - I would totally love to see a port of Mozilla/NS 6 useable within a ps2 or Dreamcast. :) I can see this happening very soon too, especially as Sega, Sony prep their consoles for Internet use. AdamH. I agree! Many people and children in Japan have PS2 or Dreamcast.Dreamcast is known as easy-internet device. Dreamcast uses SuperH 4 (made by HITACHI) and PS/2 uses its original CPU(I have heard it is the extention of the MIPS).Softoware could developped by C,so i have an expectation that someone would port mozilla on it. but, sony have make a contact with spyglass... http://www.spyglass.com/newsflash/releases/030200sony.html and current DC browser is Netfront of the access http://www.access.co.jp/top.html What about the Nintendo offering. Why does no one ever mention it? I Nintendo that far gone? People aren't talking about Dolphin because Nintendo isn't talking about Dolphin. I beleive they'll showcase it at the Space World show in Japan. I don't know the date, however. Mike S. So it will be called Netscape 6.0 or is this wrong? It'd be nice to know if this is for sure or if this is just what it's being called until then. Well I got the Netscape CCK Survey a few weeks ago, and one of the questions was along the lines of "Are you aware that the upcoming Netscape 6.0 will support skins" Just saw this on webstandards mailing list... Subj: [Standards] Opera 4.0 beta 1 Date: 3/21/00 6:44:05 AM Pacific Standard Time From: bvoven@baan.nl (Barry van Oven) Sender: standards-admin@webstandards.org To: standards@webstandards.org (Standards (E-mail)) Hello all! I just discovered that Opera's latest beta (4.0 beta 1) supports XML, in addition to HTTP 1.1, CSS 2.0, ECMAScript, JavaScript 1.3. I tried some simple things and was amazed at the speed and accuracy of Opera's rendering engine. Let me hear what your experiences are. Barry van Oven Webmaster Technical support Knowledge Development Baan Development _______________________________________________ Standards mailing list Standards@webstandards.org http://www.webstandards.org/mailman/listinfo/standards Could someone explain to me why does mozillazine always mess up the formatting unless I do double spacing? :-( Has anyone tested it yet? How is its CSS and XML support? I've downloaded it to take a look, but I'm no CSS/XML expert. It's fassst!!! Will moz be able to beat this?... Basic Eventually, yes. The nature of Open Source projects is such that they tend to start slow and then snowball. If Opera's standard support is solid, then they'll have full CSS2 before Mozilla. Mozilla will lead in JavaScript support(1.5 to 1.3). Eventually, I expect that Mozilla will gain and maintain the lead, as a larger community of developers begins to contribute. That these guys think they can charge for a browser is beyond my comprehension, especially once Mozilla really hits home this year. They'll fold. That's just like Amiga browsers, AWeb, IBrowse, etc. don't support Java or even proper layout but charge over $50 and $35 apiece! Wish we could get some support on the Amiga port, but likely it won't be until the NGAmigaOS comes out. How can Win9x users scream and stamp their feet about "MouseWheel" support? I had a mouse with THREE (count them) buttons for YEARS before Bill finally noticed that everyone has four fingers and a thumb, his OS barely worked with TWO of those buttons. So now he wants to sell hardware and he HARDWIRES support for a special rolling dingus into his Web browser and you're all treating it like the second coming... Why should a cross-platform browser hack in support for an abitrary selection of input devices based on Bill's opinion from Redmond? Should we listen to some illiterate Bum in Cleveland too, and remove all the pretty-much identical alphanumeric keys? This is a "nice to have", and if you're so obsessed by scrolling mice, get Bill to write an OS (not a browser, though he has the two confused) which provides what you want. Very handy. And not just for browsing. I wish it worked in Linux, because I'm hitting it thinking it works. I'm not a Linux braniac, but I use it for testing of pages and fooling around, but I'm used to the wheel. Any window with a scroll bar, I can scroll with a click or with a roll of my finger. Plus, it rocks in Quake 3 Arena, so it's not just some kludge. I agree that Billy has whims, but just because MS came up with the wheel on a mouse doesn't mean it's bad. The Intellimouse, now THAT'S bad. Can't move too fast or it looses tracking... #42 Excuse me, but MS and BG didn't invent mouse wheelby olsonbw Wednesday March 22nd, 2000 12:00 PM Microsoft and Bill Gates did not invent the mouse wheel. A small company (mouse systems "3d mouse") invented it. MajorSuck (MS) was the first company to "popularize" the "wheel mouse". Please get the facts straight. MS invents nothing. MS creates nothing. They "borrow" everything from somewhere else. BG wouldn't know the difference between his ass hole and a hole in the ground if he didn't have a book or video explaining it. Just because someone you don't like invented it, doesn't mean it isn't valid. So stop being a moron and get with the times. Or go back to ride a buggy. BTW, i have a logitech wheelmouse. I've had the opportunity to extensively play around with opera 4 beta, mozilla, and ie5 and test their standards compliance with all kinds of html/css stuff over the last two days. Opera has made substantial progress in its standards compliance, but it still fails to implement a number of things from HTML 4 and CSS1. For instance, it still fails to recognize the rules and frames attribute for table tags, also the fieldset and legend tags, list-style-images (CSS), and various other things. <br><br>On the upside, they have implemented a:hover and dynamic background and font changes, although this is still buggy. Opera also renders CSS border stuff (border styles, colors) better than IE 5, and is on par with Mozilla here.<br><br> All in all, it still lags behind Mozilla in standards compliance. I don't think I found more than one area it did more accurately than Mozilla. In fact, though it is beta and Mozilla isn't (quite yet), it has more scrolling/redraw problems than Mozilla. <br><br>There is one thing I really like about Opera, though...keyboard shortcuts for everything! Maybe this can be added to Mozilla later. I haven't looked at Opera 4 beta, but Opera 3.6X is quite nice, despite its silly Win 3.1-style "desktop" (this is a massive user interface mistake !) and the bizarre trait of putting the Location: field at the bottom of the window (is this the only browser in the universe to do this and how come other people never mention this when talking about Opera ?). However, two drawbacks about Opera: 1. (Obvious) You have to pay for it. With the huge momentum towards the free IE and Mozilla/Netscape, Opera will remain a fringe player whilst you still have to pay for it (our org hosts over 1,000 sites and all the access logs on them have Opera barely registering on them). 2. Opera isn't open source and has nowhere near as cross-platform as Mozilla. Sure, they've had the stop- start "Project Magic" going for a while, but on the UNIX side they're only releasing on Linux at the moment (surprising some of the "biggies" like Solaris, AIX, HP-UX and Irix aren't being simul-ported to). Still, Opera is indeed a nice browser, it's just that it's not significantly enough better (or even *any* better ?) than Mozilla to justify charging for it. > 1. (Obvious) You have to pay for it. Well if they do a good job, they might get paid putting it in one of those new game consoles... > 2. Opera isn't open source and has > nowhere near as cross-platform as Mozilla. > Sure, they've had the stop- start "Project Magic" going for a while, but on the > UNIX side they're only releasing on Linux at the moment (surprising some of the > "biggies" like Solaris, AIX, HP-UX and Irix aren't being simul-ported to). Well as you say, they are "not" open source as you say, how are they going to simul-port? > Still, Opera is indeed a nice browser, it's just that it's not significantly enough better (or even >*any* better ?) than Mozilla to justify charging for it. It's faster! On low mem machines, doesn't have a too big memory footprint to do basic browsing. I hope Moz will be able to cut down to that level ( or even lower!). Basic At first I found the win3.1 thing a little odd, but it really isn't as bad as it seems at first. It has advantages and disadvantages... Some good points are that it is faster and has less of a memory footprint. Since it isn't opening up a whole new window with its own buttons and everything. It also doesn't open up 20 windows on your desktop if you have a lot of sites open. Also you don't have to close one to get to another or use the menu. You can flip through the pages by hitting the 1 and 2 keys above the letters. Sometimes it is less convenient and might have to open the window menu to remember exactly what's open. Actually, I think it'd be nice if you could choose which way you wanted it to work. Don't know how much they'd have to rewrite to do that though... I do agree about the paying and no source code being problems. I can't seeing it being widely adopted either. No one complains about the location bar being on the bottom because you can just change the preferences to have it on the top like any other browser. As for what is better than other browsers, the speed and memory helps, especially on my 100mhz. But to tell you the truth, the configuration and keyboard commands are what keep me using it. It is so nice in just day to day browsing... Personally I turned off the scroll bars in my opera since I never use them and they take up a lot of room. Makes frames look cleaner too... I like how a window comes up every time you add a bookmark, so you can name it, etc. And the easy ways of putting them in certain categories. My main annoyance with the version I have is that it is constantly loosing the history or something. It is annoying because I read a lot of boards and am never sure what I've already read... I hope they fixed that in the new betas... Shawn > There is one thing I really like about Opera, though...keyboard shortcuts for everything! >Maybe this can be added to Mozilla later. Hey! That would be a god idea for a new chrome/skin! I'll try to make an attempt at it. basic I was talking about Netscape 6 and Mozilla at another forum when someone posted a message saying that Netscape 6 has no relation to "the failed open source Mozilla project" aside from Gecko. (note: I don't share that foolish quoted opinion) They claimed Netscape 6 was being kept a secret. Now, from what I understand a great deal of Mozilla was/is being done by Netscape engineers and I find it difficult to beleive that they'd be working on two code bases simultaniously. Since I don't follow the project as closely as many of you do could you please clarify what Netscape 6 is exactly? Is it a Netscape branded and styleized Mozilla or something completely different using Gecko? Mike S. Netscape 6 is Mozilla, with a Netscape branded UI, and soem of the goodies of the current Communicator, like Winamp, the Shopping stuff, etc etc... As for calling this project "failed" I'd have to say they're probably just another MS junkie. Now, I'm not saying this as an MS hater (although I am generally more fond of poisonous snakes than MS) but as an pbservation. It is either too early to tell if Mozilla is a failure, or it's ignorance of the facts. Mozilla has not yet produced a final product. Close, but just not yet. So from that perspective, it's just flat out too early to say it's ANYTHING except under development. BUT, Mozilla as a PROJECT has drawn a LOT of interest from many of the largest companies in the technology world, such as Intel, IBM, Nokia, Red Hat, and other companies looking to expand it into the set-top market, hald held markets, info appliance market, and on and on. From this perspectve, of a technology and a of a project, it's been a smashing success. For now, we have to wait and see. Six months from now, the guy from whatever forum you were in, he'll eat his words. |