Independent Status Reports
Friday July 27th, 2001
The status reports have returned! Tony Jordan, like many of us, has been busy with many things, and while he is away, David Boswell of MozDev.org has volunteered to take care of the status reports from projects outside of the main Mozilla tree. Click the Full Article link to check them out.
Full Article...
#1 Good to have you back
by kullenius
Friday July 27th, 2001 3:28 PM
I've missed the reports we where used to get. Good to have you back!
#2 Great News On EuroAdvocate
by TonyG
Friday July 27th, 2001 4:20 PM
Great to see we finally have a European advocate. I can see Tristan being very much in demand.
Mozilla Expo in London. Yay!!
Welcome aboard Tristan.
#3 Mozilla
by Tanyel
Saturday July 28th, 2001 9:49 PM
It needs something that Internet Explorer doesn't have. This has to be something other than an internet protocol. That is the only way people will switch internet things. There should be a forum for discussing what could be added to Mozilla to make it interesting and worthwhile to "normal" people.
#4 Re: Mozilla
by rgelb
Saturday July 28th, 2001 11:00 PM
We can start this forum here. Here is a list of what should be added to Moz that IE doesn't have (or you need an add-on).
1. A way to prevent popups.
2. A way to prevent images from certain domains (i.e doubleclick, etc.)
3. A macro/script language. Since Moz is basically built using one, it shouldn't be difficult to add. The framework would expose events, like WebPage_Requested, WebPage_Loaded, etc... that the programmer would be able to respond to, like, if I get to a certain web site, enter this data into these boxes and the click submit.
4. Right-click on a picture and get a menu item that let's you email the picture. How many times have I had to save it on a disk first and then mail it? I don't even know. This one is really easy.
5. Select some text, right click on it and get a menu to email the text.
6. Have more than 2 usable themes.
#5 File bugs on these...
by Waldo
Sunday July 29th, 2001 2:49 AM
check to see if they exist but if not, some of those are pretty good ideas, and I'm guessing pretty easily added w/XUL/JS.
#6 Re: Re: Mozilla
by kilobug
Sunday July 29th, 2001 3:41 AM
1. can be done by editing preference.js
2. just add a "Add site" button in the "edit... preference... privacy... image..." list.
3. I don't really like this idea. For me the main problem of IE is the IE-specific sctipts and HTML tags. Adding a Moz-specific language won't be a good think for the whole w3.
#14 Re: Re: Re: Mozilla
by stfh
Sunday July 29th, 2001 2:52 PM
Well #3 wouldn't need any extension to the W3C technologies. It could be done using JS, DOM, XML, etc. just like the rest of the Mozilla UI. Besides, we're talking about the functioning of the browser user interface here, not things that will be exposed to web page scripts.
I think it's an idea with a lot of potential, but one that would be much more difficult to implement than it sounds. If an RFE bug is filed on this, be sure to post the bug number here so we can all participate in the discussion.
#7 Re: Re: Mozilla
by ksheka
Sunday July 29th, 2001 4:57 AM
7. When you download a large file ("large" being a pref, of course), it starts a background download that can be stopped when you disconnect from the net and is automatically restarted when you reconnect to the net. If you download more than one large file, it creates a queue and manages the queue to optimize the usage of the connection. (ie: if other applications are using the internet connection, pause all the downloads. If one server is slow, do two downloads at once, etc.)
#8 Another idea
by Rave
Sunday July 29th, 2001 5:24 AM
Have the ability to open back page in new window, would be really nice to see it as an option in the littel history menus in the right corner of the back and forward buttons.
#9 Re: Re: Mozilla
by WillyWonka
Sunday July 29th, 2001 9:15 AM
A lot of these can already be done. Someone just needs to make xul front ends for them.
> 1. A way to prevent popups.
The back end is there. I've used it and it works, but sometimes you click on a link and nothing happens. Moz silently writes a line to the javascript console, but there is no feedback.
> 2. A way to prevent images from certain domains (i.e doubleclick, etc.)
This is also in there. It's very similar to the new window blocking code. Again, all it needs is an easy to use front end programmed in XUL/JavaScript.
> 3. A macro/script language. Since Moz is basically built using one, it shouldn't be difficult to add. The framework would expose events, like WebPage_Requested, WebPage_Loaded, etc...
This is also in there, again, it just needs a friendlier interface. When a page stops loading, the stop button disables. All you have to do is hook into the the page load events in javascript.
> 4. Right-click
on a picture and get a menu item that let's you email the picture. How many
times have I had to save it on a disk first and then mail it? I don't even
know. This one is really easy.
Um, right click, select view image. Then go to file->Send Page. I just tried it, it works.
> 5. Select some text, right click on it and get a menu to email the text.
This one is do-able but how often would it be used? It would just clutter up the, already too large, right click menu. Honestly, can't you just select the text, copy it, press ctrl-m, and paste it?
> 6. Have more than 2 usable themes.
This is being done. Click get themes in the view menu in mozilla. I have used the Aqua theme before and there is also another one which I've seen some people using. More themes will come out when mozilla's xul stabalizes (aka mozilla 1.0).
What we need are people to go into the XUL and JavaScript to polish these things off. I've tried, and I can tell you that even though I program in JavaScript all day long and create applications, I still find XUL and the JavaScript commands inside Moz kinda hard to understand. (I tried changing the behavior of /msg in chatzilla but admitted defeat after 3 days)
What we need are people to go in and document how the internals work, so people who can script in JavaScript can go in and add the polish, after reading a couple docs.
#15 Re: Re: Re: Mozilla
by rgelb
Sunday July 29th, 2001 5:27 PM
It's great, that the backend for most of these things is already there. But that doesn't do the user any good.
1. The Prefs need to show a checkbox for this. Also, care must be taken to separate from popups that user initiates and those that pop up without user asking (like at netscape.com and most porn sites).
3. What I meant was a UI much like Visual Basic for Applications, which is bundled with MS Office. Since the backend is already there, why not add this functionality.
4. I understand that it can be done. Why do it in 10 steps when one step will do.
6. Aqua theme is not usable. It is not polished and other than the background has nothing to do with MacOS X. Other themes (except for one or two) on x.themes.org are similarly useless.
#16 Re: Mozilla
by WillyWonka
Sunday July 29th, 2001 6:28 PM
> It's great, that the backend for most of these things is already there. But that doesn't do the user any good.
I know it doesn't. That's why people need to put together docs... so people, like me, can easily go in and add the polish to the interface with minimal fuss.
At the moment, it's increadably hard to do even the simplest things because XUL and the JavaScript behind it is more complex than you'd first think.
> 3.
I would like to see Mozilla v1.0 first.
> 4. Why do it in 10 steps when one step will do.
<lip action="bite" /> :)
> 6. Aqua theme is not usable.
Um, a theme is just different pictures. When I loaded it up it looked fine. If you want a new chrome, well that's a different story. That will probably take a while. When Mozilla 1.0 comes out, you might see one or two alternate interfaces start popping up. But probably not before moz is properly documented.
#17 An "idiot's guide to Mozilla programming" ?
by dipa
Monday July 30th, 2001 1:59 AM
>What we need are people to go in and document how the internals work, so people who can script in JavaScript can go in and add the polish, after reading a couple docs.
Although I find the whole idea of "idiot's guide" books totally ridiculous, I use it here as a figure of speech. If (and only if) Mozilla.org is interested in making individuals submitting patches to the project, there should be such a thorough, easy to understand, step by step documentation.
There are many ui imperfections / missing features (that NS4.x always had) and they are still targetted to future (e.g. the context menu in mail composition window).
Since most wannabe developpers would focus on ui problems, I think that a well written documentation on XUL/JS would be a nice starting point. Otoh, perhaps Mozilla.org is somewhat reluctant to massive individual's participation in programming for the project (tree integrity, review, super review and other q&a resource constraints).
#26 Re: An "idiot's guide to Mozilla programming" ?
by tny
Tuesday July 31st, 2001 7:51 AM
Maybe so, but such an "idiot's guide" would also be useful for those who want to create Mozilla add-ons, so it would be a useful thing. (And I have read a bit of the existing documentation).
#33 Re: An "idiot's guide to Mozilla programming" ?
by asa
Wednesday August 1st, 2001 12:03 PM
XUL Planet http://www.xulplanet.com/tutorials/xultu/index.shtml
--Asa
#10 Re: Mozilla
by TonyG
Sunday July 29th, 2001 10:16 AM
One thing that has always bugged me about Netscape x.x and Mozilla is that right clicking on an image and choosing properites does not display the image dimensions without having to go through a few additional stages. IE displays the dimensions as part of the properties straightaway.
#11 re: image dimensions
by saberunit02
Sunday July 29th, 2001 10:30 AM
You can choose "page info" from the "view" menu or CTRL + I . Then select the imags tab to see the dimensions. Of course, if there is no alt text for the images and there are alot of images on the page, it would be difficult to distinguish which one is the one you're looking for.
#12 Re: re: image dimensions
by TonyG
Sunday July 29th, 2001 1:00 PM
Like I said originally -I know you can get the info, I just would like to see it easier to get at, as it is in IE
#13 Re: Re: re: image dimensions
by WillyWonka
Sunday July 29th, 2001 1:56 PM
Right Click->View Image. Look at the caption bar. The image dimensions are there.
#18 Re: Re: re: image dimensions
by archen
Monday July 30th, 2001 6:59 AM
I agree, I would also like to know the dimensions... and the size in kilobytes for that matter.
#19 bugs that should be fixed NOW
by shin
Monday July 30th, 2001 9:43 AM
I wonder if I can really advocate Mozilla to my friends when they see form elements, especially textareas, often being larger than the screen; and when they see pages loaded TWICE in the same page.
These are MAJOR rendering bugs that have been there for more than a month, and these are bugs than shouldn't even have been there in 9.2 (and bugs that Netscape surely wouldn't like to see in NS6.1) ...
#20 Re: bugs that should be fixed NOW
by macpeep
Monday July 30th, 2001 10:10 AM
Yeah, I agree. Bugs come in many forms. The problem bugs from an advocacy perspective are the visible "dumb looking" bugs. Bugs like:
Bug 75080 - caret position located in the wrong place until first character is entered
Bug 42821 - position of text in an input[type=text] is off
Bug 89758 - resize corner in the Modern skin should not look like a hole but instead be on the same level as the rest of the status bar
Bug 56876 - Scrollbar thumbs sometimes gets black gap (twips-to-pixel rounding error in widgets)
etc. etc. etc.
#21 Re: Re: bugs that should be fixed NOW
by basic
Monday July 30th, 2001 11:34 PM
heh! Dumb looking bugs? Why don't you give me your list of "dumb looking bugs" and I'll see what I can do about it? ;-)
I'm serious. I've already posted a suggested fix to bug 42821.
#22 Re: Re: Re: bugs that should be fixed NOW
by macpeep
Tuesday July 31st, 2001 12:03 AM
I have no list but basically "dumb looking bugs" are bugs that are very obvious. Inconsistencies and weirdness in the user interface (holes, strange gaps, scrollbars not appearing etc.) but also obvious layout bugs such as form fields being in the wrong place or acting strangely (caret being in the wrong location until you type, one enter-press causing two empty lines in text areas etc.).
It's things like this that the casual end users spot and it's based on these that Mozilla based browsers will get "it just *FELT* bad, of bad quality and unstable"-reviews.
#23 Re: Re: Re: Re: bugs that should be fixed NOW
by basic
Tuesday July 31st, 2001 1:52 AM
Would you mind creating such a list then? ;)
#25 Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: bugs that should be fixed NOW
by macpeep
Tuesday July 31st, 2001 5:56 AM
Not a problem, provided that it will actually do some good. Anyone who wants to help, feel free to email me bugs that they think fit this category. My email address is peppe@peppe.net You can also send fan mail if you want. ;)
#24 but the worse is...
by shin
Tuesday July 31st, 2001 5:50 AM
But the worse in all this, is that we used to have nice form elements, working perfectly. The reason for the regression is unknown to me :|<br />Destructive code landings ?
#27 List of simple bugs
by redking
Tuesday July 31st, 2001 10:31 AM
There seems to me to be quite a few bugs lying around bugzilla that, on the face of it, appear rather simple and quick to fix. An example would be bug 76632, about switching the position of the bookmark and home buttons in the personal toolbar.
Would it be useful to set up a tracking bug for trivial bugs (including "dumb looking bugs" to a certain extent)? Potentially, we could remove a large number of bugs from the database in a short space of time. I tend to come across such examples casually, so it would be a matter of building up the bug dependencies over time.
A good idea do you think, or would we be nagging the developers?!
#28 Re: List of simple bugs
by macpeep
Tuesday July 31st, 2001 12:56 PM
I think that's a great idea! I know I would assist.. I couldn't care less if some CSS3 property is 100% correct but I do care if it takes a double click to open one folder but a single click to open another because I will notice that the second I click and the app doesn't behave like I expected.
#29 Re: Re: List of simple bugs
by klee
Tuesday July 31st, 2001 3:41 PM
Just filed bug 92997 http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92997 for this. Feel free to add your dependencies (and to work on the bugs of course ...).
#34 Re: Re: Re: List of simple bugs
by macpeep
Wednesday August 1st, 2001 2:26 PM
It's not as easy as you'd think. Some people have serious attitude problems. I added a bug with a dependency to this and that causes this reaction:
(John Morrison marking it as INVALID as "revenge" for associating it with the "dumb bugs" tracking bug):
------- Additional Comments From John Morrison 2001-08-01 13:10 -------
Fine.
------- Additional Comments From Petrus Lundqvist 2001-08-01 13:14 -------
Invalid? How is this *invalid*? What do you want? A screenshot? It's a very
obvious bug.. Can you point me to a duplicate or show me that it doesn't occur
or what? How can you just mark it as invalid without at least asking for more
info first?
------- Additional Comments From John Morrison 2001-08-01 13:19 -------
Okay, it's the world's most trivial, pointless bug.
#36 Re: Re: Re: Re: List of simple bugs
by gwalla
Wednesday August 1st, 2001 10:44 PM
A number for that bug would help...
#37 Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: List of simple bugs
by macpeep
Wednesday August 1st, 2001 11:29 PM
#35 Re: List of simple bugs
by fab
Wednesday August 1st, 2001 3:12 PM
Some bugs are easy to fix but require a decision that cannot be easily taken, or it's a bug that has dependencies. For example the bookmarks bug you noted, mpt has been screaming that the home button should not be on the personal toolbar but in the navigation toolbar instead. So why fix the bug if it has to go away anyway. Besides that bug was already fixed some time ago but it automagically regressed. Trivial, really easy to fix bugs aren't common. Sometimes you say, oh, easy, and when you have to code it, you're like "what the hell did I get myself into" and you scream around for help. I know it because I lived it.
Just my two euro cents,
Fabian.
#30 Another IE Feature Required (IMHO)
by TonyG
Wednesday August 1st, 2001 6:23 AM
Damn. I am in the middle of a massive fight within my company about browser support. The company is on the verge of dropping all support for non IE browsers. The merits/demerits of that aside, one interesting thing that has emerged is the fact that Mozilla has a major diadvantage in its lack of support for NTLM authentication. Therefore, this bug http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23679
should get a major attention injection. It is a potentially big win situation for Moz. I can name dozens of companies that don't use NS because of no NTLM support. I for one am going to try and get involved with this bug...
#31 Re: Another IE Feature Required (IMHO)
by basic
Wednesday August 1st, 2001 9:17 AM
want to help implement it? I'd like to help, but don't know where to start (or even how NTLM works ;o) ). If you could help in any way ( i.e. pointing to resources, giving tips how to do it, write up a list of things needed, get someone to implement it ;-) , implement it yourself...)
I'd be willing to take a stab at it but I doubt I'll get very far.
#32 Re: Another IE Feature Required (IMHO)
by KaiRo
Wednesday August 1st, 2001 11:44 AM
I propose you add a mozilla0.9.3 or mozilla0.9.4 keyword to this bug, so that it gets on people's bug radar. you also should add a comment that there is a patch that almost works, and the parts it seems to need are also in the code, but the patch developer didn't knew how to access the needed modules...
#38 Re: Re: Another IE Feature Required (IMHO)
by TonyG
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 3:22 AM
I tried to add a keyword but was stopped as I do not have high enough access rights.
#45 Re: Another IE Feature Required (IMHO)
by jcf76
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 1:16 PM
I'm not sure, but I think only the people working on a certain bug are supposed to add keywords. I could be wrong though.
#48 Re: Re: Another IE Feature Required (IMHO)
by AlexBishop
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 7:27 PM
To add keywords you just need to have the necessary privileges. I'm not sure exactly what the different privilege levels are (I myself have "Can edit all aspects of any bug" and "Can confirm a bug", which seems to let me do more or less anything), but I do know that you can often edit more of the fields of bugs you filed yourself than regular bugs (specifically you can reopen bugs you reported even if you can't reopen other bugs). I would add the mozilla0.9.4 keyword but it looks like someone has already done that. :-)
Alex
#39 Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by TonyG
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 6:26 AM
I am at home preparing a presentation as a last ditach attempt to get my company to stop a complete move to IE only with no care about how things look in Mozilla or Netscape 6.
I am having to trawl quite a few sites for info and guess what? It is a f**king joke.
The amount of sites that now openly and unashamedly ONLY work on IE is growing exponentially.
My company is going to drop all non IE browser support and they are going to do this without any announcement because they believe "no one will either notice or care"!!!!
And you know what? They are bloody well right!
Things are getting bad. Mozilla and/or Netscape is getting buried through inaction. AOL are doing zip to raise its profile - something you have to do if you do not want to lose the vote of the most important group of all - developers.
So, whats to be done?
1). Give up and join the chorus that says standards compliant = works in IE
2). Keep pretending all will change when Mozilla EVER gets released
3). Wait for AOL to get of their corpulent fat arses and bundle NS with AOL
4). None of the above.
I am seriously thinking of setting up a site - calling it something like www.mozillazone.org and using it another advocacy site. I say another as mozillazine is doing a great job and without it I personally feel Mozilla would be in a lot more trouble. Respect to all involved.
This "other" site would have a slightly different focus.
In a nutshell the site would contain articles or references to articles on Zvon, moziila, YASD etc, that promote and exemplify the basics of producing cross browser sites.
Thats the solution, now the problem. The site would also publicise and therefore criticise sites that are IE only or basically either block/deny access to standards browsers.
Thirdly, the site will have open forums for discussion of solutions, advocacy and any other thing useful to promote Mozilla and its offspring.
What ya reckon?
#47 Re: Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by tny
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 2:19 PM
I take it they've never heard of Palm?
IE only is a great way to get yourself shut out of the top end of the market.
#52 Re: Re: Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by macpeep
Friday August 3rd, 2001 12:35 AM
Palm? As in.. Palm Pilots? As in AvantGO and pdQsuite / (now known as Eudora Internet Suite)? Those are both JOKES! Have you ever tried Pocket Internet Explorer on WinCE / Pocket PC? It supports JavaScript, frames, 128 bit SSL, forms and a lot more. Palm and the crappy browsers available for it are in the kiddy league.
Have you ever tried coding for Palm OS? Do you know how little runtime memory you have to work with and what kind of joke the GUI toolkit is? That they ever got AvantGo to be even what it is now is a miracle.
Complaining about no IE on Palm is like complaining about no Mozilla on Palm.. or no IE & Mozilla on a Commodore 64.
Maybe with Palm OS 5 in a year or two and the new ARM CPU's Palm is going to use, they might get their platform to something that you could imagine running a real web browser on. Right now, it's not even worth researching.
#55 Re: Re: Re: Sick to death of No Mozilla here websi
by tny
Friday August 3rd, 2001 1:26 PM
Do you actually put any thought into your postings, MacPeep, or do you just use them like a Rorschach test to start you off on one of your little rants? My point was that content should be available to those using AvantGo, considering how many of them there are. Of course, you probably do your coding during recess, so ideas like marketing and expanding audience reach are likely foreign to you . . .
A webmaster whose pages don't gracefully degrade for all clients (IE, Mozilla, AvantGo, Blazer, and even that silly little IE3 clone on CE3) doesn't deserve the name.
There's more to the world than bloatware. Stop using every excuse you can find to flog MS products.
#54 Re: Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by klee
Friday August 3rd, 2001 4:40 AM
#40 Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by TonyG
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 6:31 AM
I am at home preparing a presentation as a last ditach attempt to get my company to stop a complete move to IE only with no care about how things look in Mozilla or Netscape 6.
I am having to trawl quite a few sites for info and guess what? It is a f**king joke.
The amount of sites that now openly and unashamedly ONLY work on IE is growing exponentially.
My company is going to drop all non IE browser support and they are going to do this without any announcement because they believe "no one will either notice or care"!!!!
And you know what? They are bloody well right!
Things are getting bad. Mozilla and/or Netscape is getting buried through inaction. AOL are doing zip to raise its profile - something you have to do if you do not want to lose the vote of the most important group of all - developers.
So, whats to be done?
1). Give up and join the chorus that says standards compliant = works in IE
2). Keep pretending all will change when Mozilla EVER gets released
3). Wait for AOL to get of their corpulent fat arses and bundle NS with AOL
4). None of the above.
I am seriously thinking of setting up a site - calling it something like www.mozillazone.org and using it another advocacy site. I say another as mozillazine is doing a great job and without it I personally feel Mozilla would be in a lot more trouble. Respect to all involved.
This "other" site would have a slightly different focus.
In a nutshell the site would contain articles or references to articles on Zvon, moziila, YASD etc, that promote and exemplify the basics of producing cross browser sites.
Thats the solution, now the problem. The site would also publicise and therefore criticise sites that are IE only or basically either block/deny access to standards browsers.
Thirdly, the site will have open forums for discussion of solutions, advocacy and any other thing useful to promote Mozilla and its offspring.
What ya reckon?
#41 Re: Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by eiseli
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 6:51 AM
Hey! That's a good idea. Every Mozilla advocacy website has its reason to be. Every additional site is of course a raindrop in the ocean, but that's exactly why we have to get more and more such sites.
I'm teaching webdesign at a school and believe it or not, it's not easy to pass the message "cross-browser compatibility". But I will continue doing this. Also a raindrop in the ocean, but at least I did my part.
Advocacy is a tough job. And people are just damn lazy and stubborn. So get them where the clicking finger hurts. Show them how this or that is possible in mozilla with one click and IE needs 3 clicks. Show them how JavaScript debugging messages are much clearer in Mozilla than in IE. Show them facts if they don't care about standards.
#43 Re: Mozilla's JavaScript Console
by WillyWonka
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 8:12 AM
> Show them how JavaScript debugging messages are much clearer in Mozilla than in IE.
Heh, I know this too well. I'm designing a web app for my company which only needs to work in IE, but I find I keep launching it up in Mozilla every time I get a JavaScript error, because it tells me where the error is. :)
#49 Re: Re: Mozilla's JavaScript Console
by Tanyel
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 9:07 PM
I found Mozilla to be more useful than Internet Explorer even while I was creating Active Server Pages. Mozilla would display error messages from the server while Internet Explorer displayed "Friendly HTTP Error Messages." Apparently they think removing all of the critical information is friendly.
#50 Re: Re: Re: Mozilla's JavaScript Console
by macpeep
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 11:43 PM
Of course you can disable the friendly HTTP messages in the options screen. Also, IE will tell you the row and column of the JavaScript errors. If needed, you can even fire it up into VisualStudio and get a complete debugging environment for your script if you're doing something more major.
#42 Re: Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by macpeep
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 6:52 AM
Personally, I've given up on believing in that Mozilla will ever be able to compete with IE as far as market share goes. I'm just hoping that one day Mozilla would be a great web browser that me and a handful (in a proportional sense) of other people on the net can use if they don't want / can use IE.
As far as the browser wars against IE.. it was over even before JWZ left. I hope I'm wrong but the stats seem to support me on this one.
#46 Re: Re: Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by strauss
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 2:02 PM
Oh, didn't you hear? It's open source, so that means no need to worry about pesky things like schedule, defect curve, or market share. Those are for those awful commercial developers, not the Church of Latter-Day Stallmans.
We don't care whether anyone uses it or not! After all, it's not like there's money involved!
#44 Re: Sick to death of No Mozilla here websites
by illsleydc
Thursday August 2nd, 2001 10:56 AM
Several things:
1) Another mozilla advocacy/evangelism site would be great. Really the netscape one is quite good (from a web developer standpoint), just not well enough known (http://devedge.netscape.com/evangelism)
2) Lots of sites can be written to standards and work in both. There are not that many things which you can do in IE and not in mozilla, just things which are incompatible(document.all) but can be easily canged to work seamlessly in both browsers
David
#51 What Mozilla Needs
by hubick
Friday August 3rd, 2001 12:33 AM
What the world needs is a better validator.
I think half the reason people use things like document.all is because they don't know they are being non-standard. Right now, I just suggest everyone validate their HTML online, which helps a great deal in some departments. Recently, there are validators which are starting to do CSS as well. I think it would be a very good idea if there was on validator which could check the HTML, CSS, and DOM and ECMA script code as well. A good project would be to create a standalone build of SpiderMonkey suitable for use in such a validator.
What the advocacy community needs is a good tool which can be /downloaded/ for /free/ to validate the HTML, CSS, and script on all pages for a site. And something that is ASP, PHP, JSP aware etc as well. That way we could just tell everyone "if this thing doesn't validate your pages, don't put them on the net". It would also need to suggest correct alternatives for common mistakes such as document.all.
This needs to be something easy to use. Something accessible to the Frontpage jockeys, but also good for the advanced users.
It's a very non-trivial project.
#53 Re: What Mozilla Needs
by hubick
Friday August 3rd, 2001 12:36 AM
Oh, and in case people don't know about these:
http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/
http://validator.w3.org/
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/csscheck/
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