Gecko Appearing in Compuserve BetasThursday October 18th, 2001AOL today confirmed that Gecko has been embedding into beta versions of CompuServe 7, according to this news.com article. AOL 7 was released yesterday, still with IE as its embedded browser, but because CompuServe's software seems to be much like the AOL software, it's likely that we could also see AOL sporting Gecko as it's browser in the future. trout n/t Slashdot: http://www.slashot.org/ Traditionally/irritatingly, every time a new article is posted there, a horde of idiots rush to get "first post" in the comments. It used to be a status thing: if you had the first post, it was more likely to be read. However, long ago the "prestige" of getting first post overshadowed getting ideas across, and most first posts say something illuminating like "first post", "f1st pr0st", or "I 607s f1r57 p057 j00 sux0rz". I didn't know they are doing it on slashdot and mozillazine. I see it often on Ace's Hardware where there's usually an idiot whose posts always say "word". Somehow I feel there might be some trolls amongst them. Maybe their opportunity is to irritate us enough to respond to them. Precisely what an average psychotic troll needs (i.e. getting attention). I promise I 'll never respond to those posts again :-) #59 Re: Re: Re: Where this idiotic humour comes from ?by AlexBishop Monday October 22nd, 2001 6:38 AM "Somehow I feel there might be some trolls amongst them. Maybe their opportunity is to irritate us enough to respond to them." Ah, but the great thing about Slashdot is that its posts are moderated and scored by other readers. Posts that get less than 1 point aren't displayed by default (if you're a registered Slashdot user you can set this 'threshold' to be higher). Most first posts get moderated down and you don't have to see all the offtopic or flamebait posts. Slashdot's moderation system is very sophisticated (it has to be, they get hiundreds of posts per article) and very interesting - read more about it here: http://slashdot.org/faq/com-mod.shtml Alex #67 Re: Re: Re: Where this idiotic humour comes from ?by johnlar Monday October 22nd, 2001 10:32 AM Yea, if it makes you feel anybetter I've never done a first post before in my life, never really cared much. Just saw the article sit for a while with no comments, and wanted to say something, but had nothing to say. Then the idea of first trout came to me, and I simply couldn't resist. I'm weak!!!!!! I am happy happy. Should AOL 8 use Gecko, it seems to me that AOL 7 is going to ease the transition a little. The color scheme is compatible with Modern's, for one thing, the installer works rather like the NS/Moz installer, and the whole visual effect is more, dare I say, "cross-platform" than has been the case in the past. (It actually looked slightly more XPish to me, installing it on a 98SE system. . . . Hey, look, I've got students who ask me questions about AOL.) Well this is interesting, especially after the news that AOL 7 doesn't use Gecko. I'm wondering if maybe they carefully timed this, similar to the way that the 'Netscape is a media, not a browser, company now' announcement was shortly followed by Netscape 6.1 PR1. I bet MozillaQuest is peeved. Mangelo just went to the trouble of writing (sic) an article stating that "AOL does not seem to have any plans to include the Netscape browser suite in future AOL software releases". Here's a question for you: are all the browser functions of CompuServe (e.g. the networking etc. as well as the rendering engine) currently provided by IE? If so, will they still use these bits of IE or replace them with the equivalent Mozilla components if/when they switch over to Gecko? Also, how many users does CompuServe have? Would the switch have an impact on Netscape/Mozilla's market share? Alex What is the deal with MozillaQuest? Everytime I hear of that site, they're bashing Mozilla. The latest that I heard was how they complained about there being so many bugs that still have to be fixed. I wonder how many of those are simply RFE's or bugs to track the status of something, like the one for shipping Mozilla 1.0. Sorry for the rant, but that site sounds like it's talking out of it's ass to me. blockcipher You're new around here, aren't you? MozillaQuest is always complaining about how many bugs there are in Mozilla (they - well, he, as it's a one-man show - are always saying that each Mozilla release is buggier than the last one when the reverse is true) and publishing other rubbish such as The Mozilla Organization being an AOL Time Warner puppet and Netscape denying that they use Mozilla code. I'm not quite sure as to the reasons why. Maybe he's just deluded. Maybe it's because negative stories like those illustrated above get the attention of sites like Newsforge and Slashdot. Maybe he's fulfilling a psychological need for the Mozilla community to have an 'enemy'. Or maybe it's to distract from his poor quality of writing. The parody site MozillaQuestQuest http://www.mozillaquuestquest.com/ is far more fun. Alex What happens to them? Isn't Mozilla designed in way to make it embedded on other applications? I tested Realone player, 70% IE ... Winamp minibrowser? IE... I know the COmpuserve story and it was posted on Netscape secure news server, Netscape 6 newsgroup about 4 months ago. Not flaming anything but a total new app uses IE as engine, Winamp which its authors aren't on profile to "love IE" uses IE engine. Their installer is open source and used by many opensource authors for example. I think its a matter of integration. Windows provides automatically the ability to add a minibrowser into any app using IE, without having to include any of that browsers software into your app. And as you can assume that almost everybody who is running windows, is running IE, it is a safe bet. If winamp was to use mozilla it would have to include mozilla, into the install. Something which they are not willing to do. Someday, maby but untill mozilla is rock solid, why bother.? Gecko wasn't the engine behind HTML which can be embedded? Realplayer pre 9.0 was OK, since it was built on that way, to be integrated with mshtml.dll . No need to break a working thing. But Realone player is totally browser dependent, e.g. 80% of its features are done with HTML and it depends on IE html engine. OK, lets don't mention Morpheus even, which is sure a guinness record breaker on download numbers, using "licensed" MS HTML engine (reasons can be political even) but an brand new AOL app using IE engine _still_ raises some concerns. Is that Compuserv does not have nearly as many users as AOL (I feel pretty safe so far), and that while AOL would like to use Gecko, they have had concerns about the stability/robustness. I\'d guess that putting Gecko on Compuserv is a way to \"test the waters\" without a major support/pr nightmare if something goes uh-oh. I think you hit the nail on the head. Why? - AOL hasn't been trying to renew their "You put me in Windows, I'll use your brower" deal. - Mozilla has finally become polished/standards compliant/stable enough that they can start considering this. - I'm sure AOL doesn't like the level of control Microsoft has in their product just by controlling the web browser. Dropping Java, dropping embed, and SmartTags anyone? But the first one's the real killer. Without that agreement, and with Gecko as good as it is now, why would they want to continue using IE? And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble. from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31 (Red Letter Edition) I'm as happy as the next guy about this but so far all AOL had done is embed Gecko in a CompuServe 7 beta. AOL's Komodo technology makes it easy to switch browsers, so the final version could end up with IE in it. However, the fact that Gecko is included in the beta shows that AOL want to use it, they just want to be certain their subscribers aren't going to switch to MSN en masse if they do. I'm hopeful that if CompuServe 7 ships with Gecko then AOL will begin moves to embed Gecko in the AOL client. About 7% of Internet users are AOL subscribers, so that would give an immediate boost to the marketshare of Mozilla-based browsers. Alex n/t Hmmm, I'm sure I saw someone claim they had this a couple of months ago (maybe here or in a newsgroup) but they got ignored and I assumed that others already knew about this. Anyway, Its a cool development despite Compuserve's dwindling customer base. BUT are we all agreed that if AOL takes this step now that we aren't going to criticise if it is CRAP? It's as difficult to get as getting a Compuserve account on 6.0 and going to Go word beta. This thing's been out for months (it came out in June, I think). Beta users are under NDA, so they really can't talk here without breaking that. AOL's acknowledgement, though, means we can at least admit it exists, if not actually talk about it. :) too bad about the NDA. I was going to ask how much of "Gecko" is being used, and how is it being used (and how well/bad does it perform). Oh well....
oh! I forgot to add "which build is it based on?", so that we can expect what kind of bugs out of it ;) Time to look at how much it costs to subscribe to compuserve. I'd like to participate in this beta and I hope other readers will consider it too. As long time Mozilla users we'll hopefully be able to give them constructive feedback to make sure that when the release comes out of beta most users won't notice any problems with the new release. We really need to do as much as we can to encourage AOL to use Gecko in Compuserve final releases as that's the first step to getting it in AOL and if it's in AOL then the marketshare is high enough for web designers that are currently too clueless to code to web standards to take mozilla seriously. If Gecko becomes part of Compuserve software and eventually of AOL software too, it will make advocacy and evangelism a lot easier. There is no doubt that all those reluctant webmasters who resist making their web sites work well with Mozilla/Netscape 6.x will have to re-evaluate their positions. Compuserve has over 3 million users that cannot be ignored and if AOL 30-something million members are added to the picture, no ecommerce site, gaming site or banking site will be able to justify shying away from supporting Moz. (-) Can everyone please go to http://beta.msn.com/feedback.ashx using IE and complain about lack of support for Netscape. If they get enough emails they might change thier minds. I check the site in Netscape 6.1 and it came up fine. However in Mozilla, it displays the warning that you must download IE or a variant to see the site. Still, people should let them know that there\\\'s no harm in letting Mozilla users in if they\\\'re already accomodating Netscape 6.1 Strange that everyone seems to have missed this IMPORTANT part of the story: "It's currently being tested as the default browser in the new CompuServe beta," said Cindy Harvey, an AOL spokeswoman, referring to Gecko. There have been "no decisions as to what will be in the final CompuServe client or when that will be." nah, clearly the most important part of this is that moz is being beta tested in a big mom-ready ISP suite at all... weather or not it is released in the final will be news at that point in time. That's not so strange. It's the equivalent of Bushie saying "We have special ops around Afghanistan, but the decision hasn't been made whether or not to use them yet." Standard disclaimer. Even with the disclaimer, everything else is pointing towards AOL jumping off the MS boat. Gecko is in a good enough state to be used in AOL and it's another area for them to compete with Microsoft. At least there is one upside to this 1.0 thing. Once that branch is cut, all the 1.0-gotta-have-it's can go their way and the trunk can return to the aggressive incorporation of innovative idea that made this project so exciting when it started. I miss those days and I'm looking forward to seeing what a post-1.0 Mozilla will morph into :-) A couple of days ago I was reading a thread in one of the Mozilla newsgroups, and noticed a message from somebody at Netscape. A reply had apparently been sent to one of the participants by private email, but that participant responded in public quoting some of the private email's content. The private email was from a Netscape employee and talked about something happening "in time for AOL/Gecko". Today I can't find the message in question; it's possible the newsgroup posting was cancelled, although I have no way to confirm that. My vague recollection is that it was a post regarding the Mozilla 1.0 definition document on n.p.m.seamonkey, but I can't confirm that either. I can only assume that the message was posted publically by mistake, but it's a nice confirmation that there's something to these rumours. I did a search on Google Groups for recent messages containing "AOL" and "Gecko" to see if I could track down that post but I couldn't. I found lots of speculation from many people, including Netscape developers, saying that AOL was "considering" deploying Gecko in its main client (but that's public knowledge anyway) and also speculation that AOL had produced test builds that used Gecko (I don't doubt that for a second - why else would they develop Project Komodo?). But no conclusive proof that AOL is definitely planning a Gecko-based client. Personally, I suspect they plan to switch but haven't decided when to yet. The feedback from the CompuServe beta could be critical in their decision. Alex This post definitely used the exact phrase "AOL/Gecko" and whether something would happen in time for it. It also referred (in other contexts) to the various other familiar keywords such as MachV and eMojo. So I guess if the post isn't found on google, it must have been cancelled. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to cancel it - I thought it seemed strange at the time for it to have been public, and it makes sense that if somebody realized they'd publically posted confidential info that they'd cancel the post. But I'm glad I saw it :) My guess is that either it's definitely in the works for the future or that somebody at Netscape is actively working to make it happen, so that AOL/Gecko is a corporate goal rather than a scheduled release. Stuart. Okay, check this post on a bug for context menus in compose windows: "...this isn't a regression (although it is on the AOL list of issues that they would like resolved, it is a P2/P3 for them). I don't think this is high on the radar for 6.2." Why would AOL have a list of issues and their own priorities unless they were planning on using mozilla? I don't think this is proof. AOL is the parent company of Netscape, and it is no secret that Netscape are producing a mozilla-based browser (no MozQuest comments please). The reference to 6.2 (i.e. the successor to Netscape 6.1) only makes it look more like they are talking about AOL's list of issues for the Netscape release. Besides, you said it was a bug in the email client (but you didn't mention the bug number, which makes me curious why not), and I am pretty sure that AOL won't be using the email part of Mozilla, just the Gecko rendering engine. AOL already have their own email software and (unless it has changed and IIRC) it uses an AOL-only protocol. Earlier versions of AOL (and I believe they still do) included and installed stand-alone versions of IE for people who needed them. So you have AOL using integrated IE client and then you have the regular IE also installed. So they probably won't *integrate* Netscape mail (although they could, seeing as how Netscape mail accesses AOL mail), but they probably would like to see some mail issues resolved for the standard Netscape suite. Reading back on this, I just realized I almost said what you said in a roundabout way. Oh well. :) Then I guess there is potential for Netscape mail to be integrated (although probably not, throwing those confusing terms like POP3 and SMTP might confuse the average person =) Garf Can AOL users use AOL's built in email client to access non-AOL email accounts? If not, then incorporating Mozilla/Netscape's email client into the AOL package would enable AOL users to access their non-AOL email. No, the AOL mail client is tied directly to the AOL mail servers. But you don't seem to understand the whole point of AOL: AOL users usually don't have separate non-AOL email accounts, because AOL's job is to simplify everything for those who are intimidated by the Internet. AOL accounts come with 7 separate identities ("screen names") and thus 7 different email addresses; most AOLites wouldn't see the need for an email account elsewhere (especially as AOL has AOL Anywhere, which lets them access their mail through a web page client). Since AOL and Compuserve use basically the same software, it might be possible to to use Gecko in AOL just by copying a few DLLS. It is already possible to use Gecko in AOL by using IEPatcher from the Mozila ActiveX site. It works except that it usually crashes if more than one browser window is opened. I wanted to submit a bug report concerning cookies. To prevent duplicate bug reports, I searched for existing bug reports concerning cookies. Rather than finding bug reports concerning web browser cookies, I found a bug report from a Netscape employee that said a vending machine was out of cookies. I found it annoying that those hypocrites would complain about bug reporters making their work harder by submitting frivolous bug reports while they are making the bug reporters' work harder by doing the same thing. It's all a little fun ad I don't think it's too much of a problem. The odd joke bug report doesn't cause too much problems but 100 identical or badly written bug reports do take a lot of time to sift through. Bug 59921 http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59921 covers most of the fun bugs. They're the Bugzilla equivalent of Easter egss, really. I agree that they're harmless and could actually make it a little easier for the stressed out engineer to make it through the day. :-) Alex I personally find them to be funny.. it's a good way to destress yourself, and laugh for a few minutes between coding.. hell give them a break.. Expecially funny is this bug http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86314 The best part is it's actually serious, but the responses are great!! *grin*... haha, it's always nice to see people have humor, and expecially in a work ambient.... you have to be relaxed and laugh. cheers --Jed I found the vending machine bug to be more entertaining than the usual bugs too. Still, I had very little time to file the bug report and because of the time required for reading that vending machine bug, I was unable to file a real bug report. While this may be a small problem, I have received some abrasive comments from Mozilla people who complained about people not producing valid Mozilla bug reports. After my considerable efforts to learn the protocols and produce valid Mozilla bug reports, this seems like hypocrisy. The key thing is that if you are are going to file an invalid bug report then it had better be funny. :-) I have seen a few Mozilla people criticize the non-serious bug reports, but usually if a complaint is made about an invalid bug, it is because the person who filed the bug did not provide enough info to make the bug useful, or did not check to see if there was already a bug, or something along those lines. Usually in such cases, the bug reports are not funny at all. Note that it is really only hypocritical if the same "abrasive" Mozilla people were creating invalid bug reports themselves. Also, if they were complaining about non-funny invalid bugs and participating in the funny invalid bugs, then that is not really hypocritical either. I did not see anything at http://www.mozilla.org/quality/bug-writing-guidelines.html that said frivolous bugs are okay if they are funny. I will consider this new information if I decide to report another bug. >I did not see anything at http://www.mozilla.org/quality/bug-writing-guidelines.html that said frivolous bugs are okay if they are funny. You should follow this bug guidlines to report a valid bug because many people are reading your bug. The mozillay community must confirm your bug and must query bugzilla if your bug is a dupe. You need many time to do this (~100-200 new bugs every day, 3-10 minutes for every "easy" bug with all needed informations) And there are many "dupes" every day (It seems that a few reporter are not query bugzilla). It's no problem if there is sometimes (!) a funny bug. The "cookie" bug has a clear summary and you should be able to detect that this bug is a funny bug. Where is the problem ? The 1 minute ? > this seems like hypocrisy. And it seems like utter ignorance of you to try to claim that a Netscape employee that makes an abrasive comment is speaking as a representative of every other employee. The person who filed the vending machine bug was pavlov. He is the last person in the world that would care about the quality of people's bug reports. Three words: get a life You are obviously a rancid Mozilla flunky. When people type useless comments like yours, I assume they realize I am right. The rest are still trying to deny that I am right. As soon as you spend even 1% as much time reporting bugs as the people at Netscape do reporting, confirming, and fixing them, then maybe you can start questioning the odd bug report. Until then, and I believe Zach said it best, "get a life". If you think that someone relieving a little stress, caused by working inconceivable hours on this project, by doing something that makes him and his co-workers laugh, is hypocritical, you must lead a very stress-free life. Perhaps at a McDonald's? "...you must lead a very stress-free life. Perhaps at a McDonald's?" I must dispute that. Working at McDonald's is very stressful. Long hours, dealing with hundreds of customers, preparing McFood - it's hard. It's probably far more satisfying to work on a Web browser, but more demanding intellectually. Alex Umm, you know, they get PAID at Netscape... Compensated for their effort. Hell, they may even get paid for their overtime on their "inconceivable hours". "As soon as you spend even 1% as much time reporting bugs as the people at Netscape do reporting, confirming, and fixing them, then maybe you can start questioning the odd bug report." Typical flunky, I did not question the bug report. There is no need for questions because I am right. Maybe when they get more than 1% of "market share," I will try to report 1% of the bugs. "Until then, and I believe Zach said it best, 'get a life'." "Zach" is obviously a treacherous flunky like you. They try to insult me every time they realize I am right, to hide their inadequacy and the shortcomings of their minor deity, Mozilla. Those constant attempts to hide Mozilla's flaws are typical flunky behavior. "If you think that someone relieving a little stress, caused by working inconceivable hours on this project, by doing something that makes him and his co-workers laugh, is hypocritical, you must lead a very stress-free life." Your callous flunky mind has caused you to either misread my typing or intentionally misrepresent me. I did not say relieving stress was hypocritical. I said, complaining about frivolous bug reports and then creating frivolous bug reports, was hypocritical. "Perhaps at a McDonald's?" Perhaps. Perhaps you are an airborne flunky. Perhaps the McDonald's website gets more hits than all Mozilla sites combined. Perhaps I should not file bugs for Mozilla anymore because I can use Internet Explorer. Perhaps Microsoft fills its cookie machines so they do not have to complain about that. Perhaps... "I did not question the bug report." I guess technically you didn't. You didn't ask what it was doing there, you just said that it shouldn't exist. Not questioning per se, but close enough for jazz. "There is no need for questions because I am right." That has to be the most egotistical sentence I've ever read. ""Zach" is obviously a treacherous flunky like you. They try to insult me every time they realize I am right, to hide their inadequacy and the shortcomings of their minor deity, Mozilla." Obviously he is part of the EVIL ANTI-TANYEL CONSPIRACY! "I guess technically you didn't." And "technically" I am right. "You didn't ask what it was doing there, you just said that it shouldn't exist. Not questioning per se, but close enough for jazz." I said there was hypocrisy and I said it was annoying. I was right. "That has to be the most egotistical sentence I've ever read." And I am still right. "Obviously he is part of the EVIL ANTI-TANYEL CONSPIRACY!" Maybe he is. I said he was obviously a treacherous flunky. Maybe we are both right. "I found it annoying that those hypocrites would complain about bug reporters making their work harder by submitting frivolous bug reports" Um, what did I miss? Who was complaining about that? You wasted more time complaining about that bug than you would have just skipping over it. If that was the only bug that came up in your search, then that means that your search was either too narrow, not suited to what you wanted to find, or the bug you were looking for hasn't been reported yet--that's true *any* time the bug you are looking for doesn't appear in your search results. If that joke bug didn't exist, your search results would have returned nothing, instead of a bug you weren't looking for--the bug you wanted wouldn't magically appear in its place; the joke bug isn't "hiding" other bugs that otherwise would be found by the exact same search (as if that was possible). Joke bugs only waste a significant amount of time if everyone who sees them feels morally obligated to whine about them on Mozillazine, like yourself, rather than simply skipping over them. "If that was the only bug that came up in your search, then that means that your search was either too narrow, not suited to what you wanted to find, or the bug you were looking for hasn't been reported yet--that's true *any* time the bug you are looking for doesn't appear in your search results." The bug had not been reported. "If that joke bug didn't exist, your search results would have returned nothing, instead of a bug you weren't looking for--the bug you wanted wouldn't magically appear in its place; the joke bug isn't "hiding" other bugs that otherwise would be found by the exact same search (as if that was possible)." You are obviously an unaware Mozilla flunky. You apparently think I said I was unable to find a bug. My problem was more the opposite. "Joke bugs only waste a significant amount of time if everyone who sees them feels morally obligated to whine about them on Mozillazine, like yourself, rather than simply skipping over them" That comment illustrates your obvious flunky nature. Joke bugs waste a significant amount of time when people assume the bug reports are serious because of years of Mozilla flunkies moaning about how serious they are and how frivolous bugs have no place in Bugzilla. "You are obviously an unaware Mozilla flunky. You apparently think I said I was unable to find a bug. My problem was more the opposite." Same difference. You searched to see if there weren't any relevant bug report, and your search came back with an irrelevant bug report. Most people above the age of 5 are capable of making the logical deduction that in that case there probably isn't a relevant bug report. "Joke bugs waste a significant amount of time when people assume the bug reports are serious because of years of Mozilla flunkies moaning about how serious they are and how frivolous bugs have no place in Bugzilla." Let me get this straight. You saw a bug titled "Vending machine out of cookies" or something like that and you thought it was a *serious bug*? "You searched to see if there weren't any relevant bug report, and your search came back with an irrelevant bug report. Most people above the age of 5 are capable of making the logical deduction that in that case there probably isn't a relevant bug report." How does this concern me? "Let me get this straight. You saw a bug titled "Vending machine out of cookies" or something like that and you thought it was a *serious bug*?" Yes, in a project where people frequently discuss sea monkeys and eating dog food as part of their work, a report of a vending machine being out of cookies could seem serious. Also, this would not have been the first case in which there was a relevant bug with a useless title. > I found it annoying I find you annoying. Stop bitching, get a sense of humor and maybe a life if they sell them there. I was given a url for a site that had some nice DHTML widgets on it. I was shown the site in IE and thought I would access it in Moz to see how well he had acommodated our favorite browser. Here is the link BTW http://www.3fingeredsalute.com/ Normally you expect something to work but what I got instead was a redirect to a page with the following message: We're very, very sorry. But, your browser is crap. Well, maybe not crap, but it ain't Internet Explorer. *Which*, if you hadn't already figured, has many hidden treasures for us Web Developer types to make a decent site with, but we're constantly having to "downgrade" or double our work (or in a certain browser's case quadruple) to make you few poor unfortunate souls happy. Well, rubbish, frankly. At present the one, yes, ONE person designing, developing, administering, marketing and paying for this site is not fussed about dealing with the unlimited idiosyncracies of NETSCAPE so.... Get out the dark ages. Microsoft Internet Explorer http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ Sigh - I know some "web Developers" have scars from NS4 but this sort of mentality is so prevalent now that its kinda depressing. Looking at his site I see only one thing that cannot be done in Mozilla - the colored scrollbars - and there is an enhancement bug listed for that. The rest could be done with very, very little or no browser specific forks. I will raise an advocacy bug as soon as I get home. In the meanwhile, what *is* to be done? I don't want to comment such a foolish attitude. A simple solution would be the implementation of the enhancement request "[RFE] GUI for multiple User-Agent prefs like in Opera", see bugzilla following http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46029 ...and then all the webmasters will think we're all happily using IE and will not change their practices. It's a bad idea. Perhaps spoof a user-agent for a particular site that you must access (e.g. a bank site) - and email that site to say that you're dissatisfied with their browser policies. But if all Mozilla users start setting their browsers to spoof IE then it's not gonna help Mozilla's market share so you could say it would be a victory for IE. > But if all Mozilla users start setting their browsers to spoof IE then it's not gonna help Mozilla's market share so you could say it would be a victory for IE. I would suggest spoofing as IE only on site basis, as a temporary solution. That should be the sole purpose of this feature. Most users wouldn't even understand what user-agent string is, so Mozilla/NS6 market share wouldn't be noticeably affected. There are many web designers who don't give a dime for standards. They will be forced to change attitude when all major sites comply to W3C specs. But until then, user-agent spoof might be a useful hack. >There are many web designers who don't give a dime for standards. They will be forced to change attitude when all major sites comply to W3C specs. But until then, user-agent spoof might be a useful hack. But this "until then" will probably be later and later the more people cheat their user-agent string so I think to just write an email to the site and probably reporting an evangelism bug at Bugzilla would be better, as the more emails they get the higher is the chance that they change their policy. On the long run this would be the better solution. There is a "useragent toolbar" made for Mozilla, that allows you to change your UA.. It's pretty cool.. once you change your UA, just open a new window (CTRL-N) and it works.. PLEASE don't permanatly change your UA.. as we need people to see we are using mozilla... but it is good for getting into sites that are ie only (www.msn.com), to prove they work fine on Mozilla. (for msn.com login as IE5 for Mac, and it loads very similar to ie6, as ns6.1 you can also get it, but MS makes it look like crap... hmmm conspiracy??? haha). UserAgent ToolBar http://www.illsley.org/useragent.shtml Please USE WISELY!! Cheers --Jedbro is that this person and many others are probably professional web designers, these people should know how to write proper standards compliant HTML and code to web standards. Real coders have to obey the syntax laws of their language, writers have to use correct english, but HTML weenies often write anything and class it as valid if it works in IE rather than testing it properly. I had some sympathy when Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x used entirely different DOM's but now Netscape 6.x/Mozilla is W3C standards compliant and IE5+ supports most of the important W3C standards, they have no excuse. If these people think that Netscape 6.x is just another Netscape 4 and Mozilla is this weird open source thing so it must only work on Linux (yes I've heard people say that) then they shouldn't be in the web design industry. Hopefully AOL will adopt Gecko soon and then they'll be forced to change their ways. >> What's depressing is that this person and many others are probably professional web designers, these people should know how to write proper standards compliant HTML and code to web standards. << You can't do serious client-side interactivity within the web standards. The W3C standards are created by academics who have no grasp of the needs of actual developers. That's why Mozilla has had to adopt non-standard IE-isms like "innerHTML." IMHO they shouldn't stop there. >> Real coders have to obey the syntax laws of their language, << Are you a real coder? If so, you know that almost all development environments have their own extensions and that most coders working on real-world projects take advantage of them. >> writers have to use correct english, << Not even slightly true. What century is this, anyway? >> but HTML weenies often write anything and class it as valid if it works in IE rather than testing it properly. << "Testing it properly" apparently means making sure it works on Mozilla, even though Mozilla is still not ready for prime time. I had a pretty typical experience of this a couple of weeks ago, when the DHTML guy at the next desk was complaining that he had to make his project work on Netscape 6. He was running into bugs at every twist and turn, and practically cursing up a storm at how long it had taken the project to deliver practically nothing. We web developers are very daunted by the prospect of having to weave in and out of thousands of remaining bugs and spend our days and long nights coming up with elaborate workarounds for them. We already had much more of that than we could stand with Netscape 4.x, which is why we dumped the platform for the most part. This is not meant to be inflammatory, just to inform people what the actual situation is for web developers. The bug-riddled nature of Mozilla hurts us more than anyone, and it is not a dream, not a hoax, and not an imaginary tale. I've found supporting Mozilla to be easier. I've got more workarounds for IE than for Moz. In fact, I have none for Mozilla, just NS 4.7, and when it fails it fails gracefully. IE 5.x has a serious bug with downloads, that was only fixed in 5.5 sp2. >> I've found supporting Mozilla to be easier. << The web site listed in your profile, http://www.gate.net/~casper/ , does not do any significant client-side interactivity. Do you have an example of an advanced web page which was easier to do under Mozilla than IE? "You can't do serious client-side interactivity within the web standards." Like... for example, what can't you do? I seem to be doing just fine withing the standards. >> Like... for example, what can't you do? << Like... create custom widget libraries and do GUI-level programming. You constantly run into things like Mozilla not supporting the onScroll event, which was reported in April 2000 and never fixed. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35011 >> I seem to be doing just fine withing the standards. << http://eds.org/~joschi does not do any significant client-side interactivity. Custom widget libraries and gui level programming... like... XUL? I'd like to see you do as much with ie as you can with moz AND have it run without recompile on a dozen platforms. And no, my _personal home page_ is not a client side interactive gui application, congratulations for making that great discovery :) in fact, i do write standards compliant dhtml sites as a consultant for internal sites at major corperations, so fuck you for insinuating otherwise. XUL's not a web standard. In fact it's not even distributed. It requires a client-side install. You've dodged the whole question of DHTML development in a buggy and feature-incomplete browser. As for your insults, you should work on your maturity -- or failing that, at least on your creativity. > XUL's not a web standard. In fact it's not even distributed. It requires > a client-side install. XUL is a great example of what open web standards have brought us as it is implemented using established web standards like XML, XSL, CSS and the DOM. > You've dodged the whole question of DHTML development in a buggy and > feature-incomplete browser. Mozilla is by far the most featureful and stable browser _I_ use on a regular basis. It simply does not crash as often as the buggy and feature-incomplete browser known as IE, and when it does it doesn't bring down my whole OS. Not to mention it is the nicest dhtml development environment out there with its intergrated javascript console and debugger. Testing pages in ie is just a nightmare. I know you are just a Troll so i shouldn't bother trying to argue on logic, but you still have yet to say anything that you cannot do with the standards supported in Mozilla. > As for your insults, you should work on your maturity -- or failing > that, at least on your creativity. Straus, you reap what you sew. If you start throwing mud, expect a little to come back your way. strauss>> XUL's not a web standard. In fact it's not even distributed. It requires a client-side install. << joschi>> XUL is a great example of what open web standards have brought us as it is implemented using established web standards like XML, XSL, CSS and the DOM. << That's nice, but you haven't answered the basic issue. XUL content does not distribute over the web like a web page. It requires an installation step on the client. So it's not particularly useful for ASP-model developers. Like me. >> It simply does not crash as often as the buggy and feature-incomplete browser known as IE, and when it does it doesn't bring down my whole OS. << It crashes much more often than IE on the Mac or Windows for me. IE on Windows simply doesn't crash, while IE on Mac only rarely crashes (and usually only after a network configuration change or laptop wakeup -- I think it's really an Open Transport problem). Mozilla crashed within a few hours of use last time I tried it, losing me a half-hour's worth of data in progress, bringing my whole system down, and then refusing to start up (and again crashing my whole system) next time I tried to start it. >> Not to mention it is the nicest dhtml development environment out there with its intergrated javascript console and debugger. Testing pages in ie is just a nightmare. << Microsoft Script Debugger works pretty well for me on Windows. It's not 100% but it lets me quickly find the cause of almost all script problems. Occasionally it flakes out. I haven't tried the JS debugger on Mozilla but if it works well on the Mac then that would be a win for Mozilla. However, that win would be more than offset by the general instability of Mozilla on the Mac. >> you still have yet to say anything that you cannot do with the standards supported in Mozilla. << Yes, I have. How about onscroll to start? Look upthread if your memory fails you. >That's nice, but you haven't answered the basic issue. XUL content does not distribute over the web like a web page. It requires an installation step on the client. So >it's not particularly useful for ASP-model developers. Like me. I think that's just plain wrong. When I go at http://www.nrr.co.uk/xulmine/xulmine.xul I get a cool Minesweeper clone written in XUL/JS so I think XUL can work just like any webpage :) >It crashes much more often than IE on the Mac or Windows for me. IE on Windows simply doesn't crash, while IE on Mac only rarely crashes (and usually only after a network >configuration change or laptop wakeup -- I think it's really an Open Transport problem). Mozilla crashed within a few hours of use last time I tried it, losing me a >half-hour's worth of data in progress, bringing my whole system down, and then refusing to start up (and again crashing my whole system) next time I tried to start it. Than you've had really bad luck. It seems like for some people Mozilla is really crashy. For others like me it runs rocksolid the hole day with many Windows with Tabs, and MailNews open without any crash while I don't dare to start IE cause of it crashing my system far too often. >Microsoft Script Debugger works pretty well for me on Windows. It's not 100% but it lets me quickly find the cause of almost all script problems. Occasionally it flakes >out. I haven't tried the JS debugger on Mozilla but if it works well on the Mac then that would be a win for Mozilla. However, that win would be more than offset by the >general instability of Mozilla on the Mac. Microsoft products have only two major problems for me: the costs, and that they alway try to make me using MS only technologies when equal open standards are available. And what I as a user really hate about IE: it's useless Javascript Error Dialogs which should probably show for developers but definitely not for users. This leads to getting an JavaScript error whan the embedded IE can't load a banner in applications like GetRight Re XUL over the web: It shouldn't be doing that, accoring to the security requirements at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/components/design.html . I keep hearing from the /. crowd and so forth about how crashy Windows and IE are. I'm sorry, but that's just not my experience. Are you running really old versions or something? I haven't had a BSOD in years, I think. From /. comments you'd think they happened every hour. As for costs, Microsoft Script Debugger and Microsoft Internet Explorer are both free downloads. You're definitely right about MS trying to create lockin through proprietary extensions, though. This was all over the trials, when documents came out in which they internally referred to their Java strategy as one of "pollution." Their DHTML extensions somewhat serve the same purpose, and we should be skeptical about them for that reason. However, the fact is that many of them are really good extensions. How am I going to prevent the user from accidentally losing unsaved data without the onbeforeunload event, for instance? And setting innerText on a span rather than creating and inserting a text node is a no-brainer -- it's much cleaner. There are quite a lot of these improvements. I wish the W3C would pick them up. i wish Mozilla would emulate them. Sigh. Strauss, what version of Windows are you using? I've found NTs (2K, XP) perfectly stable with IE, but 9xs (SE, ME) very, very unstable with IE - and with IE6, SE is a dog. Far more so than even OS 9 (which is crash prone). If you're using an NT every day, that would certainly explain your better opinion of MS products. To give the devil his due, XUL is not a standard. So saying "why do a page in DHTML when you can do it in XUL" is not an argument. The point is to make pages work no matter which browser (within reason), not to make them work in Mozilla and not in IE. Yep, W2K, last year's Windows version. Agreed on your closing point. It doesn't make much sense to tout standards-based development and XUL-based development in the same breath. "Don't use their non-standard extensions, use our non-standard interface language!" I'm likely to have a much easier time porting to Mozilla from an IE DHTML base than I would porting to IE from a XUL base.... >Re XUL over the web: It shouldn't be doing that, accoring to the security requirements at (LINK). After reading that I'm not sure if it should. There is the line "* No web-based XUL" but then it is explained as that web content shouldn't have any access to the browser XUL. I think that this means just that webcontent shouldn't be able to manipulate the browser GUI. After all the Sidebar tabs are XUL either and they come from theweb. >As for costs, Microsoft Script Debugger and Microsoft Internet Explorer are both free downloads. Okay I thought you were referencing something like the Visual Studio >There are quite a lot of these improvements. I wish the W3C would pick them up. i wish Mozilla would emulate them. Sigh. Actually at least the innerHTML is emulated like you often told. So maybe the W3C will add useful functions to the standards if they are needed, we can only hope. #103 Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's depressby strauss Tuesday October 23rd, 2001 7:24 PM I've never been able to get a straight answer here on whether web-based XUL is in or out. The security paper does say clearly enough "No web-based XUL." Going through Bugzilla I found bugs that said different things. > It requires a client-side install. Wrong. You can serve XUL from a remote site with no problems. Eg the google sidebar (which can be loaded in the main browser window just as well). There are plenty of other examples. >>You can't do serious client-side interactivity within the web standards.<< Sure you can. It's a little harder, yes, but the methods are more robust and powerful. >>The W3C standards are created by academics who have no grasp of the needs of actual developers.<< Microsoft, Netscape, Apple... sure, no grasp whatsoever of actual developers. Right. >>That's why Mozilla has had to adopt non-standard IE-isms like "innerHTML." IMHO they shouldn't stop there.<< No, Mozilla had to adopt that due to consumer demand. But it is not necessary. Everything that innerHTML can do, the DOM can do, and do it in a more robust manner which isn't limited to HTML only. OK, it's a little trickier to learn. OH, THE HORROR!!! You mean Web developers have to actually _learn_ something? >>Are you a real coder?<< Actually, yes. I don't work on Mozilla itself, though. >>If so, you know that almost all development environments have their own extensions and that most coders working on real-world projects take advantage of them.<< You're mistaking development environments for application frameworks. You're also ignoring the fact that more and more "real-world" developers are turning their eye to portability nowadays. You can't have portability without standards. >>The bug-riddled nature of Mozilla hurts us more than anyone<< And the even more bug-riddled nature of IE doesn't? My friend, you're the one who's dreaming. Congratulate them on having such a profitable business that they can afford to turn away 10% of their potential customers. Many of us have friends who are professional web developers. To get more support for Mozilla out there, we should work on getting our friends to support it. I have two web developer buddies who are IE-only type guys. But now, with Mozilla finally being better than IE, I think I might be able to get them to switch to Mozilla themselves. And if they do that, they are likely to support it on their sites. In addition, many of us have friends or family who look to us as their tech support. "Can you come over and set up my new computer?" Sure I can - and I'll install Mozilla (or N6.1) while I'm at it. I recently moved my Mom over to Netscape 6.1 (she was using Netscape 4 before). I removed the Netscape 4 and IE icons; she just uses what I give her and doesn't even think to question it. Next time I'm over at my best friend's house, I'm going to show him why he ought to dump Netscape 4 for Mozilla, Moz being much better. Little by little, these types of efforts will increase Mozilla's market share and get developers to write for it. Sorry, the title of my previous post should be something like "what's needed to get more support for mozilla." My Mozilla password manager saved the subject a long time ago in a post I made and keeps using it if I don't pay attention. Some interesting responses so far in this thread. In the past Mozilla has been very daunting to code DHTML against. 0.95+ though is a lot better, to the extent that its not so hard anymore to do non trivial DHTML with little or no code forking. I think it would help if the IE-only brigade and other naysayers had a few sites to look at that showed how achievable IE/Mozilla cross browser coding can be. There a few isolated examples about such as Eric Meyers site, the few examples on DevEdge and myNetscape. I have been working for a while on various dhtml "widgets" and am putting an internet site together that has several of these features in place, such as a dynamic menu, floating windows, tabbed panes, drag drop content (a la MSDN), and a collapsible threaded discussion forum. I have already done the code, just need to get off my lazy arse and put them online. If we had a few showcases it might goad developers into giving Mozilla another look. Well, I went there in IE myself, and hit the "Contact Us" button, and gave them a piece of my mind. FKNG snide MF bastards. James Note that I was much nicer than I was in my post above. I was venting HERE, not at them. Sorry for the foulness. JR #65 completely off topic (user stylesheet question)by caseyperkins Monday October 22nd, 2001 10:24 AM Mozilla has a Use StyleSheet option under the view menu; where do I need to put my stylesheet to get it to show up there? My eyes can't handle all this blaring white on most web pages anymore. Thanks. #75 Re: completely off topic (user stylesheet question)by bzbarsky Monday October 22nd, 2001 1:39 PM Put the stylesheet in chrome/userContent.css in your profile directory. It is currently not dynamically switchable. The Use Stylesheet menu allows selection from among several different stylesheets that site may offer (see <a href="http://web.mit.edu/bzbarsky/www/">my web page</a> for an example #76 Re: Re: completely off topic (user stylesheet question)by bzbarsky Monday October 22nd, 2001 1:40 PM corrected url: http://web.mit.edu/bzbarsky/www/ I've written an e-mail to the webmaster and promptly got a response. Quoting from his reply: In any case, thanks for your comments, I appreciate feedback, my "insulting" redirect page was put up in the early days, and I have thus updated it to reflect the more accurate reason for the site's supported platforms. Here's the direct http://www.3fingeredsalute.com/StaticPages/Info/BadBrowserPage.asp to that page. And I have to say, it's much better ;-). I understand his reasons even though I think that a guy like him could learn in a no-time to create standards-compliant web-pages. |