Screenshots updated!Monday September 10th, 2001The moment you've all been waiting for has arrived! We've found someone to take over some of the subsections of the site, and get them updated. The first page that's been updated is the Screenshots page. A huge thank you goes out to Michael Hendy who will be maintaining both the screenshots page and the Fetch Builds page, which should be updated later this week. Along with this, we're doubling down on our efforts to post timely news and keep you better informed of what's happening. As part of this effort, we're continuing to work on getting general discussion forums set up, and hope to have that done soon. In other site news, our poll asking you about Mozilla news sites was pulled down today, after having someone skew the results by voting 200 times for one site (us. We know we've been slacking a bit of late, but not that badly :). We'll be working on getting better polling software, and will put a new poll up when that is taken care of. Stay Tuned. I just wanted to say thanks to Hendikins and Kerz and the whole mozillazine.org crew for doing this. It gives a much better impression of Mozilla! Thanks again! -Fabian. Thanks guys for jumping on this. I see you used a couple of my shots ;) While we're discussing the changes to the site I thought I'd mentions some changes I'm testing at the BuildBar comments. I experimented with the strikethrough in bug numbers for fixed bugs but since this time I didn't mention any open bugs the value was lost. I suspect it's not worth the damage to legibility so I'll probably discontinue unless I hear otherwise from you all. Also, I'm thinking about dropping the title= attibute for bug numbers. I added that because I thought people would be happy not having to go to Bugzilla for every number to see what it was but it's the most time consuming part of doing the comments and no one seemed to notice when I added it. If no one is using the bug numbers I can save a lot of time (that translates into how regularly I update the buildbar) by not including actual bug numbers and moving to just briefly describing the fixes. I need to hear some imput to move forward. It's been a year and a half and a lot of updates with very little input from the people that use it. If there is other information you'd like me to include in the comments please let me know. (mozillaZine staff are working on talkback for buildbar so don't ask me for that. it's out of my domain). Thanks also to the few of you that come to IRC with comments. It makes it a lot easier to do the update when people help out. --Asa Please keep the 'tooltips' or whatever it is (you know, the text that pops up when you hover over the bug number). It's very useful. The tool tips are much more useful than the bug numbers. I certainly noticed when you started doing this and thought "Now there's a useful build bar!" For myself, if you can't update every day, something regular like every other day is preferable to long breaks followed by a spurt of updates. Of course I realize this really depends on your time and you have plenty of other things to be doing. I agree that the title attributes are very useful. I've really missed them a few times when they were not there. If it's too time consuming to add them, could it be possible to use bugzilla to generate them? Just open a toolbar bug, add a daily comment with reference to bug numbers which then get their title automatically. You should then be able to just copy and paste the source from the bug comment, and use some kind of search and replace to complete the links. In any case I think there is no doubt that everybody appreciates the work you put into the buildbar and that none of the effort is wasted. ;) I do this sometimes. It's more trouble than it's worth. What we need is for a more generic bug linkify service. If we had another mirror of Bugzilla so it wouln't get bogged down then any websites could call on this service and it could live linkify like Bugzilla does. --Asa I could setup some kind of temporary solution with a perl script so that you could just submit the daily build notes and the script would handle generating static titles from bugzilla. Email me at maxwell@101freeway.com if you're interested. Not to mention this could be used to automatically build the whole build bar page if that's not already being done. Asa, the title tag in the links is invaluable, it increases the value of the build page twofold because I don't have to load up a pile of Bugzilla reports to see what you're talking about... although I often do anyway :-) In fact, the recent build page is a great resource is a great resource, because we all want to know the improvements to Mozilla... hence the complaints when it hasn't been updated in some time ;-) Thanks for your great work. I thought the strikeout style used on the fixed bugs looked ugly too. :-) Sorry for not saying before, but I really like the title="attribute" descriptions and the links to the individual bugs. Normally when I read the build comments I look at most of the bugs that are mentioned but I always look at the tooltip first to filter out bugs that don't interest me (anything beyond my limited technical comprehension, really). Thanks for all the work you do on the buildbar (and Mozilla in general). We all really appreciate it. Alex Whoever voted for MozillaZine 200 times really needs to get out of the house more. What are the odds on it being Mike Angelo? Alex Count me in for keeping the bug comments, I generally browse them before downloading the latest build. However, if you don't have time just put up some quick comments about the build. Also, great work on Mozilla. I've been using it so since v0.6 and it's vastly improved. I definitely enjoy the title addition to the bug numbers. It won't kill me if you stop adding them, but I will miss them. :) The title= attribute is nice and quite useful, but the bug number (with appropriate link) is, IMHO, essential. It shows how much work is gone to get bugs fixed and that a lot of progress is being done behind the scenes. First, thanks for the build comments they are very useful to decide if a build is worth downloading and using it. And they are a greate source of whats going on with some issues and even which great functions Mozilla has I've never known about ;) And therefore I would miss bugnumbers, cause reading the bugs gives valuable information about many areas....even learning something about managing such a huge project. Of course I cannot tell you how where to spend your time and I'd never dare, I just say it would be nice if you find enough time to keep the comments like they are now :) Here's one more vote for keeping the title=foo summaries :-) When I used to use 4.x more, I used to View Source to read them rather than go to Bugzilla. Gerv I'd definitely join in to add my support and gratitude for all of your hard work, Asa. The main reason I come here to Mozillazine is to check your Build Bar comments, see the progress and decide whether or not to download the latest build. It's even got as far as me not downloading a build unless you've reviewed it here first. The bug numbers and links are so useful, they've given me insights into parts of the project I never would have seen otherwise, and convinced me to take the jump into contributing comments and so on to a few bugs. As well as let me see the issues behind other problems/fixes that I and others may otherwise have ignorantly maoned about, or never even knew existed. When you started doing the TITLE= attributes it was great, it allows me to filter outbugs that I'm not interested in or have no relevance to my platform/configuration without taxing the old modem, and they've definitely been missed the few times when you've missed them out. But I can live without them if they are taking up too much of your valuable time, but please keep the bug numbers in. Thanks for all the hard work, Asa. You have been appreciated, it's just that wiithout a general forum here there's never previously been anywhere to express our gratitude. Asa raised this idea in one of his replies in this thread, and I think it's very interesting. Myself I had to fight with the "linkification" of bugzilla bugs. In the end I decided to use a little DOM and js magic to do it automatically, but it was not very convenient at all, and didn't retrieve the title of the bugs automatically. I don't know if it would be technically possible to do it using a bugzilla mirror, but it would be darn useful. -Fabian. I appreciate the buildbar and the title attribute makes things useful for me if I don't have time to look at each bugzilla bug. Even if I do time to look at all the bugs linked to it's nice to see a summary so I can decide not to click on ones that I have no interest in. With or without these titles it's still a usefull resource but I did think the title attribute makes a useful feature *a lot* more useful I actually loved having the build comments, and the title tips were nice for figuring out which bugs were nice and which were good but didn't garner attention from me. If stopping writing them means you can do more of them, by all means. But I would rather have the bug numbers at least, or if you really need it, bug numbers for new bugs that cropped up in the build. Albert Whoever voted for MozillaZine 200 times really needs to get out of the house more. What are the odds on it being Mike Angelo? Alex Assuming the poll was skewed, is the skewing any worse than creating a poll with no goal other than to unfairly attack a competing website? but what if the perceived attacks are justified, as any attack is when in reference to "mozillaquest" ;-P "but what if the perceived attacks are justified" Then a counter-attack, such as flooding the poll with votes against Mozillazine, is also justified. I thought requiring people to enter a user name and password would prevent people from voting more than once. Are we sure the votes are not legitimate? news.com is a competing website? www.mozilla.org is a competing website? mozillazine.org is a competing website (I'm confused). betanews.com is a competing website? mozillaquest is a competing website (they're trying to be my "source for Mozilla news and _advocacy_")? I don't think you're making much sense. All of these sites publish differnt kinds of information about Mozilla. Sometimes they publish something they call "news". Most of the time it's not news. www.mozilla.org doesn't publish a lot of news. It's mostly information about the project and the technologies with occasional news updates. mozillaquest doesn't publish much news. Most of the time it's editorial content. I think a poll asking folks which of these information sources is doing the best job with news is a fine thing. The only problem is that it tends to be self serving to ask that at your own site. The next best think is to ask which is doing the worst job, especially in light of recent articles at news.com, mozillazine.org and mozillaquest. I see nothing unfair about polling your readership about their views on all of the major Mozilla information outlets. It's only unfair if you redefine fair to something like "you can have opinions but you can't express them". If giving people an oportunity to voice their opinions is unfair I don't want to live in a fair world. I think that maliciously destroying poll data and ruining the oportunity for expression is the unfair bit. I was enjoying the talkback threads that resulted from that poll and some idiot ruined that by destroying the integrity of the discussion (I think I know who it is. He half admitted it) and causing the removal of that discussion. That's my definition of unfair. BTW, I voted for news.com as the worst. I don't consider mozillaquest to be a news site. --Asa "news.com is a competing website? www.mozilla.org is a competing website? mozillazine.org is a competing website" Mozillaquest is a competing website. I believe the other websites were included to mask the attack but it does not matter. "I'm confused" I will try to be more simple for you in the future. I suggest you use an American English dictionary if you do not understand my words individually. "(they're trying to be my 'source for Mozilla news and _advocacy_')? I don't think you're making much sense." Get the dictionary. Find the definitions for "competition." Competition is opposition. If Mozillazine is attempting to advocate Mozilla and offer accurate news, then a site that is not advocating Mozilla and offering inaccurate news is competition. Find the definitions for "competitors." Competitors are entities, which are all attempting to achieve a single goal that cannot be shared. Mozillazine and Mozillaquest are both attempting to attract website visitors who are interested in Mozilla. They are also both affecting public opinion of Mozilla. That would make them competitors. Compete is the base word of competitor and competition. "I think a poll asking folks which of these information sources is doing the best job with news is a fine thing. The only problem is that it tends to be self serving to ask that at your own site. The next best think is to ask which is doing the worst job, especially in light of recent articles at news.com, mozillazine.org and mozillaquest." Asking which site is doing the worst job is also self-serving. If there were a poll on the official homepage of Internet Explorer, asking which is the worst web browser, would you think it was fair? Would you think it was not self-serving? "I see nothing unfair about polling your readership about their views on all of the major Mozilla information outlets." Was the goal to gain aggregate information, or to make it seem that many people thought Mozillaquest was the worst Mozilla site? "It's only unfair if you redefine fair to something like 'you can have opinions but you can't express them'." I think removing poll results when you disagree with them can fit that definition. I do not mind you telling me why you think it was necessary to remove the poll. It would be bad if you thought that invalidated my statements. "If giving people an oportunity to voice their opinions is unfair I don't want to live in a fair world." Tell that to the flunkies who suggested that I should be ignored. "I think that maliciously destroying poll data and ruining the oportunity for expression is the unfair bit." I think that is unfair too. "I was enjoying the talkback threads that resulted from that poll and some idiot ruined that by destroying the integrity of the discussion (I think I know who it is. He half admitted it) and causing the removal of that discussion. That's my definition of unfair." I enjoy the conversation too. I think you underestimate my personal efforts to support Mozilla and even Mozillazine. "I voted for news.com as the worst. I don't consider mozillaquest to be a news site." I voted for Mozillazine.org. I only voted once. > I think removing poll results when you disagree with them I haven't followed the poll, but I think you can clearly see when the number of votes for one alternative suddenly increases by hundreds. This is an obvious indication that the results have been manipulated, and it is not the first time that this happened. IIRC, the poll for the name of the mozilla mail/news client was facing a similar problem. As far as the poll goes, we did it for both fun, and feedback. Clearly the fun is gone, since someone had to go and muck with the results. That much is clear. If you're really that interested, I can share with you the poll data, showing it was rigged. Anyways. So you voted for MozillaZine. I know we were running second in the poll. I'm also not afraid to admit we've been doing a bad job of keeping things up to date, and I'm at fault. I have a job, and the site has to come second to that, as that's what pays the bills. On to the topic at hand. I've been working all day to actually get feedback on why people think we're doing poorly, and what we can do to improve. Here's what I have so far: Updating subsections of the site, more timely news, and open forums for people to create topics of interest that aren't worthy of a front page story. You tell me, what am I missing? Well, another thing that is "missing" is just talk about Mozilla on various issues. I'm not talking about a general forum.. What I mean is.. right now, there are the actual *news* stories. X released, Y updated. But in addition to that and just general forums, I'm looking for articles about Mozilla. "The making of the UI", "30000 feet view of the architecture" etc. Those kinds of things. I know that requires a lot of effort, but that's fine as long as I'm not doing it. ;) I never thought Mozillazine was bad. Mozillazine is an advocacy site. That makes it biased. News sites are not supposed to be biased. I think that is the reason Mozillazine received the second highest number of votes. I think your three planned improvements are good. I noticed the "Independent Status Reports" and "Bug Day" are recurring topics, but they do not seem to generate many posts. This makes people seem uninterested in them even though people may be interested, but not have anything to say about them. So they should be presented in another way, rather than representing them as news items. I think you should make a separate webpage for the independent projects, placing a link to the independent project reports underneath the mozdev.org link. That way, they can get the attention they deserve without cluttering the news area until they produce something newsworthy. If there are any independent projects that actually work, maybe you should place links to them under the mozdev.org link too. I think you should place something under the Bugzilla link that notifies people of the date of the next bug day. Maybe it could be dynamic so when bug day has arrived, the date would change to "today." Maybe it could also be a link to a page that explains bug day. You should get counseling for Asa. It would be good if people could rate the nightly builds, assuming you find less vulnerable polling software. I still think the "mozillaZine" label at the top left of the website should be a hyperlink to the homepage. Regardless of what criticism I may receive, I still think it would be good to make use of Internet Explorer's ability to make the scrollbars match the color scheme. That would not affect the Netscape and Opera users, and the Internet Explorer users probably would not complain if the colors looked right. I do not know if they would look right. The page at http://www.mozillazine.org/about/ contains very little information. I think that page should have more content. I think the contact information should be moved to where the "about" link is currently. The e-mail address should be displayed on the webpage because a mail link that says "Mail Mozillazine" is useless to somebody whose web browser does not support e-mail. Finally, I think you should make a greater effort to draw editorials from Mozillazine members to supplement the news. Some of them might have something good to say. One more thank you to all the Mozillazine crew. You guys rock! I have a question about the translated pages, though. I know they are volunteer efforts, but does it make sense to link to pages that haven't been updated in months? Here are the last update dates for the translated pages: French: September 5th Japanese: December 24, 2000? Chinese: July 27th German: June 24th - an easier way to submit new ones? (I can't find any. Hrm) - screenshots of other themes to demonstrate how flexible the skinning engine is - shots of alternate UIs even? Eg Ultra Classic chrome on x.themes.org to show that the interface can be hacked easily I think Mozillazine is progressing nicely. It may be bad to ask its designers for more so soon, especially if they are as tense as Asa. I just got the 2001091022 rpm build on Linux, and it rocks my world. It's been about 5 days since I've tested the builds, and I can't quite describe it quantitatively, but something is definitely a lot faster. Page loading and scrolling in particular feels less jerky. In fact, I would go so far as to say it kicks the ass of any other browser I've tried on my machine: Netscape 4.7, IE 5.5 and 6 under Windows ME. It's not a particularly high end machine either. AMD k6-2 450, 128 MB RAM. I would probably attribute the speed ups to memory leak fixes and other tuning. Thanks guys.. :) Submissions are welcome, just upload somewhere and send me a link via e-mail :) That way I don't always have to tax my sub-28.8k connection pulling down screenshots. Happy to add bits and pieces to the mix if I can get hold of them :) -- Michael Hendy nobandwidth@bigpond.com I'll update fetchBuilds when 0.9.4 hits. Just saves doing it twice. -- Michael Hendy nobandwidth@bigpond.com Why not just scrap the fetchBuilds section as the front page of mozilla.org lists all you need to know about the latest milestone and nightly releases. The front page of mozilla.org will always be upto date, so why risk fetchBuilds getting out of date again if you can't update in the future when you can just link to mozilla.org Looking at the screenshots, I noticed that the vertical splitter grippy is now left aligned rather than centered like it used to be. The horizontal splitter grippy, on the other hand, is centered vertically. Is this intentional or is it a regression from XUL syntax change or something similar? I couldn't find a filed bug on this... I think you should put screen shots from other OS, like Linux and MacOS, to show that Mozilla is X-platform. Only windows screenshot is not a good choice IMHO. #39 Then submit them (nobandwidth@bigpond.com) (n/t)by Hendikins Tuesday September 11th, 2001 1:33 PM n/t Why do you bother coming here? Don't you have anything better to do than to put the Mozilla project and staff down? I must say that I don't agree that everything posted should just be pro-Mozilla but I don't see the purpose in you coming here when you obviously have nothing positive to say about the project. I don't think you even use the product or ever intend to? Why don't you just go to microsoft.com and stop wasting your time and my bandwidth? He's always been polite and willing to engage in intellectual debate. Whether he's right or not is another story (and I'm not saying he is, nor am I saying he isn't). But he doesn't resort to calling people names or making unwarranted personal attacks. He attempts to engage in objective debate. In terms of such "Queensbury rules" he's exhibited more gentlemanly behaviour than others he's tried to argue against, and, as a seemingly friendly chap, he'd be one of the people I'd take out to the pub for a pint. Just being exasperated by what somebody says is no reason to put them down personally. Just say you don't agree and move on. Or just ignore him if you don't feel like having a discussion. |