MozillaZine

Mozilla 1.0 Start Page Draft

Sunday May 26th, 2002

Gervase Markham writes: "The draft of the Mozilla 1.0 Start Page, which will live at http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.0/, is now available, and feedback is requested.

"Comments to the mailing list at 1.0startpage@mozilla.org.uk, please."

The start page is looking pretty cool. Make sure that you hover above the 'Parties' link on the main page. :-)

#1 Very nice Gerv

by PsychoCS

Sunday May 26th, 2002 1:05 PM

Very, very nice!

-Shark D

#2 I like it

by wvw

Sunday May 26th, 2002 1:25 PM

But shouldn't the colors integrate a bit more with the default theme (red versus blue)?

#3 i like it.

by whiprush

Sunday May 26th, 2002 1:34 PM

methinks the background color should be toned down a bit though.

#4 A slightly glaring mistake . . .

by DJGM2002

Sunday May 26th, 2002 1:40 PM

Can anyone spot the glaring mistake in this quote from http://www.mozilla.org.uk/temp/start/1.0/support.html ?

"Netscape Communicator is a commercial distribution of Mozilla for Windows, Linux or Mac."

#5 Re: A slightly glaring mistake . . .

by SmileyBen

Sunday May 26th, 2002 2:26 PM

I spot two: 1) It's not Netscape Communicator - that's NS 3 / 4. 2) It's available for Windows, Linux *and* Mac...

#6 Re: Re: A slightly glaring mistake . . .

by AlexBishop

Sunday May 26th, 2002 2:37 PM

"It's not Netscape Communicator - that's NS 3 / 4."

Nah. Version 4 was Netscape Communicator; version 3 was still Netscape Navigator.

Alex

#7 Comments

by AnonTribble

Sunday May 26th, 2002 3:08 PM

eagle shadow demo is a 404 error. http://www.mozilla.org.uk/temp/start/1.0/demos/eagle-sun.html doesn't exist at time of writing.

In the sticky-note demo, editing existing notes, or deleting them, doesn't seem to work.

Needless to say, if we're trying to show off mozilla, it's nice that our demos work =)

Aside from that, I love that start page. It's clean, functional, well-organized, and it looks good. Great job, Gerv.

#17 Re: Comments

by egoine

Sunday May 26th, 2002 7:36 PM

Agreed. It doesn't look very good.

I've also got that the problems you have seen.

With n7.0b1 DHTML Menu Bar was doing some flicking for me.

MineHunter is cool but the button "new game" is slightly over the texts.

#53 Re: Re: Comments

by erik

Monday May 27th, 2002 3:43 PM

The game was written for Moz 0.7 or something like that... I'll see what I can do to work around the bugs that have crept into it since then

#57 Re: Re: Re: Comments

by erik

Monday May 27th, 2002 4:38 PM

Very weird... The position looks good in both the trunk and IE6. Well, well, I'll have to make it look ok in RC3, trunk and IE6...

#48 Re: Comments

by pirat

Monday May 27th, 2002 12:53 PM

Server was changing its IP last week. And for stickies - every new release of Mozilla breaks them some way ^_^ Even RC3. Help appreciated ^_^

#8 Looking good! Themes however...

by Sander

Sunday May 26th, 2002 3:18 PM

I think the themes link should go to: http://mozilla.org/themes/download/ instead of straight to deskmod. That way when new themes sites come up only one place will have to be edited for this to be reflected, and people who don't like deskmod have a choice to go and get their themes somewhere else. (Besides, themes.mozdev.org offers more useful information anyway.)

Other than that, this looks just great! Particlarly like the nifty parties effect, :) though it might perhaps be made a bit more obvious.

#9 Re:

by PsychoCS

Sunday May 26th, 2002 4:13 PM

It probably will in the future.

#84 Give credits!!!

by prokosch

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 4:01 PM

I think, that linked page should be either:

1. Re-designed to match the default Mozilla.org design 2. Given credit to the Layout Reservoir http://www.bluerobot.com because there is nothing like not giving credit in the Open and Free World

#110 Re: Give credits!!!

by eightlines

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 1:30 PM

I don't get it. I don't see any simillar pages to the Layout Reservoir. Even some of the people involved with the coding didn't use any of the code. Granted there were a bunch of people working on it from what I know, so some of the information could have come from the site. The code used to develop the templates is all CSS compliant code so pretty much anyone can write simillar code if they follow the spec.

#118 Sorry for flaming...:((

by prokosch

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 4:23 PM

... I had better look into the code first - there is credit given in form of a comment in the HTML-code. Sorry, folks....

#10 Another 1.0 Start page

by daavery

Sunday May 26th, 2002 4:30 PM

Dawn Endico posted another 1.0 startpage to #mozilla on 25may

http://qualm.mi.org/mozilla/start/1.0/layout3.html

which i much prefer overall

not as bold , but then i think gerv's page would get very old if you kept it as your start page

more in the style of the rest of mozilla.org

more of a "portal" into mozilla.org

#20 Re: Another 1.0 Start page

by SmileyBen

Monday May 27th, 2002 1:18 AM

Well I certainly *don't* think that on the Mozilla start screen we should be using non-standard CSS properties. Yes, Mozilla curved borders are absolutely lovely - but they aren't standard so shouldn't be there. Otherwise what was all the point in bothering?

Especially since, I suspect, after 1.0 there will be a serious push (at least from me!) to get Moz to restrict internal CSS properties to the interface, and prevent them displaying on webpages...

#33 Re: Re: Another 1.0 Start page

by MXN

Monday May 27th, 2002 9:28 AM

Well, the -moz- properties aren't exactly non-standard, since the W3C thinks it's okay as long as the properties start with a hypen, the vendor name, and another hypen. Plus, the W3C's CSS site uses those properties: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

- mxn

#64 Much better!

by PaulB

Monday May 27th, 2002 7:46 PM

I like Dawn Endico's page much better. I vote for a page much like this one over the Orange page. Dawn's page is much easier on the eyes and conveys the information about Mozilla in a much clearer manner. Also this page could be used as a partal page to the entire Mozilla site with this page recieving occassional updates for faqs and news links. I like this page. I am less sure I like the Orange page at all.

#65 (typo) "partal page" should be "portal page" n/t

by PaulB

Monday May 27th, 2002 7:48 PM

.

#72 Too much clutter

by bandido

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 5:13 AM

Dawn's page suffers from too much clutter and it reminds me Mirabilis (ICQ) page. On the other hand, Gerv's page is simpler and with the right information for an opening page (the entire page fits on my screen (17" monitor at 1024 x 768 resolution). I appreciate not having to scroll the page to see all of it. The fireworks are cute. Gerv's page need a "Dowload Mozilla" menu on the opening page.

#11 Icons and splash

by techn9ne

Sunday May 26th, 2002 5:01 PM

After searching around I found some brand new icons for mozilla and a cool splash screen from bugzilla. 1.0 should should use some more modern icons and splash screen so it isn't so darn ugly.

#12 Icons and splash

by techn9ne

Sunday May 26th, 2002 5:01 PM

They should update the splash screen and icons. There is plenty available on bugzilla and around the web.

#13 FAQs doesn't work with Style>dynamic

by RB_

Sunday May 26th, 2002 5:54 PM

The FAQs section has a "dynamic" style, and when I used it earlier today it worked fine, opening instantly the answer to the question I clicked. Doesn't work any more, has something changed, or is it a problem with my browser (Linux 2002051809 1.0rc3) ?

#15 Re: FAQs doesn't work with Style>dynamic

by DavidGerard

Sunday May 26th, 2002 6:28 PM

"The FAQs section has a "dynamic" style, and when I used it earlier today it worked fine, opening instantly the answer to the question I clicked. Doesn't work any more, has something changed, or is it a problem with my browser (Linux 2002051809 1.0rc3) ?"

It didn't work properly or consistently, so now it's flat files. A pity, but maybe later.

#14 MathML Demo

by chrajohn

Sunday May 26th, 2002 6:07 PM

Since MathML isn't supported on all platforms, there should be some note to that effect on the demos page.

#16 Uh ... public relations disaster coming.

by DavidGerard

Sunday May 26th, 2002 6:30 PM

We would be profoundly foolish to assume the 1.0 Start Page will not be widely linked by people (news sites, Slashdot and so on) as the intro page for the new browser. Which it is.

Just imagine a pile of Slashdot readers going to the 1.0 Start Page in IE, and seeing this:

http://velvet.net/~fun/mozilla/ie5.0.png

Transparent PNGs are indeed l33t, but, uh ... "graceful degradation", guys.

#21 Transparent PNGs

by SmileyBen

Monday May 27th, 2002 1:25 AM

You're right that we don't want an image heavy website, so as to avoid slashdotting - but what would be wrong with transparent PNGs? This page is *specifically* for Mozilla, and highlighting its standards support. So what if people go to the page in IE and think 'ugh, that's ugly', when, going to it in a proper browser, they see the sort of effects you just can't achieve with IE. I'd be all for alpha-channel transparency PNGs, myself! ;-)

#25 Re: Transparent PNGs

by c960657

Monday May 27th, 2002 2:29 AM

I suggest that the page is written so that it looks nice in most browsers, even those that are not fully standards compliant.

When I am writing web pages, I want them to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible - unless I am lazy and don't want to make workarounds for particular browsers. Standards compliance is the mean, not the goal itself.

I am sure that it is possible to write a 100% standards compliant webpage that would look wrong in Mozilla or even crash the browser. But you would usually make a workaround to make it work in Mozilla. Likewise with IE - by triggering IE bugs you annoy quite a big percentage of the potential users of your page.

I agree that the page is primarely for Mozilla users, but some people might visit the page *before* they download and install Mozilla - and I think the page should like nice and professional to those as well.

By making it look bad in IE you might scare away some users that hence never will disdover Mozilla's better support for transparent PNG's.

:o)

#26 BTW ...

by c960657

Monday May 27th, 2002 2:30 AM

I love the lizard's tail in the bottom of the page :-)

#37 Re: Transparent PNGs

by DavidGerard

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:38 AM

"his page is *specifically* for Mozilla, and highlighting its standards support. So what if people go to the page in IE and think 'ugh, that's ugly'"

Because this sort of attitude would completely torpedo our own evangelism efforts elsewhere. If that's mozilla.org's attitude, why should people bother doing things for our browser to work with them?

Deliberately breaking the competition is a Microsoft tactic. It's beneath us.

To show how EASY it would be to get something at least tolerable, here's the same page with GIFs instead of PNGs. Note, that's the ONLY change. http://velvet.net/~fun/mozilla/ie5.0working.png

We're currently on track to kick major arse, after four years' long, hard work. Please, let's not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

#38 GIFs

by SmileyBen

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:42 AM

And have you paid the patent owners to create those GIFs and display them? Nope - didn't think so. Then that page is illegal.

Whereas, of course, PNG is an *open* standard, and you can do what you like with it. Kinda what Mozilla stands for, you know?

#45 Re: GIFs

by c960657

Monday May 27th, 2002 12:42 PM

GIFs are patented in far from all countries. In Denmark (where I come from) as well as most other European countries the GIF patent does apply.

#50 re: GIFs

by jsgremlin

Monday May 27th, 2002 1:36 PM

I didn't make the GIF alternatives, but if I had, even as a U.S. citizen, they would have been legal, since I use Paint Shop Pro for my graphics creation, which has licensed the GIF compression algorithm. Ditto Photoshop and probably nearly all commercial graphics software. You need no further license. What's excluded is free image libraries and programs, like my image generation in PHP or making GIFs in Gimp.

#42 Re: Re: Transparent PNGs

by DavidGerard

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:50 AM

BTW, I lifted the preceding argument pretty much directly from Grayrest's post to n.p.m.general on the subject :-)

#54 Use 1-bit PNG Transparency

by lucx

Monday May 27th, 2002 3:52 PM

A prettier solution would be to antialias the edge against the background color (This removes the jaggies from David Gerard’s example) and use a *1-bit* PNG transparency (or GIF if you’re so inclined). They’ve done this with the bottom edge of the tail but oddly, not the top. This method is more of a hassle to implement and inconvienent to update. so why not save the trouble and keep the background opaque since it's not overlapping anything?

#82 How about this

by afree87

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 2:25 PM

Instead of giving transparent PNGs straight-out, how about a Javascript that prints "Your browser does not fully support PNG, so this page may not display correctly" for IE users?

#46 Re: Transparent PNGs

by thegoldenear

Monday May 27th, 2002 12:47 PM

"go to the page in IE and think 'ugh, that's ugly', when, going to it in a proper browser"

I think that misses the reality of the situation. most people won't go to it in a "proper browser" because all they have is IE. their system comes to them with what they're led to believe is The Browser. if the site for The Other Browser (or the technology at the heart of The Other Browser) looks broken, they'll just think we're a bunch of losers and move on - if we can't even make a web page that works then how can we be trusted to build a browser they can rely on? why would they give their time to help development after having that emotion?

#52 Opera

by skeeter

Monday May 27th, 2002 2:47 PM

Mozilla is my daily browser

However on this ping thing, checked it in Opera (windows) and it sees eye to eye with Mozilla on this one.

#18 Boasting about speed = Credibility damaged

by xtc

Sunday May 26th, 2002 8:02 PM

"This is Mozilla, an open source/free software internet client suite designed for standards compliance, speed and portability."

Er, boasting about speed? Really? Is that wise? I'm afraid a lot of people are going to fall out of their seats in a fit of laughter and possibly injure themselves when they read that; especially after the obligatory 30-second start-up. Let's be honest, "speed" is _not_ a word that springs to mind when using Mozilla on the average system...

#23 Re: Boasting about speed = Credibility damaged

by dipa

Monday May 27th, 2002 2:10 AM

Perhaps you're trolling? You throw an ad-hoc "30 sec start-up" number, without telling anything about your system configuration (os, ram, usage of quicklaunch feature, cpu, hdd etc). In the future, please check the integrity of your comments before posting. My 400MHz, 192MB, 5100rpm hdd, Win2k/Win98 system does start in about 10 sec or less (cold startup, i.e. no disk cache involved, no quicklaunch). And I consider my system slower than the average one.

#24 Re: Boasting about speed = Credibility damaged

by zreo2

Monday May 27th, 2002 2:20 AM

Well I do agree... there are faster browsers available. Both when it comes to browsing and the startup time. But it's stille faster then Netscape 4 so it has todo what you compare it with. Lynx or Netscape 4 ?!

I think Netscape used the same text-line when they introduced version 6... and hm.. dont think they convinced anyone about the speed :/ There is a big difference now compared to Mozilla 0.8 when it comes to start up time etc..!

#47 Re: Re: Boasting about speed = Credibility damaged

by thegoldenear

Monday May 27th, 2002 12:49 PM

yeah, I tried M18 recently and compared with Mozilla's usual 7 seconds or so it loaded in an instant!

#71 Re: Re: Boasting about speed = Credibility damaged

by jsebrech

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 4:14 AM

Actually, when you look at the numbers NN4 is still faster than moz in quite a lot of ways. Moz is the slowest browser out there, just admit it. It was a deliberate choice you know. Get it right first, make it fast later. However, that means 1.0 is shipping with the wrong dinosaur as logo. It should have one of those slow planteaters, instead of the fast meateaters.

That a newer version of moz is faster than a previous version is hardly an argument when you're trying to sway an IE user (remember, almost nobody is actually using netscape/mozilla right now). IE is usable on a p75 with 48 megs of ram, and fast on a p233 with 96 megs of ram. For mozilla to seem "better" it has to at least come close to that level of performance.

I agree that browsing of static pages and loading times in windows both have gotten better in the 0.9.x series. However, everything else in the browser (javascript, UI, mail-news, ...) is still slow. With slow being the operative word here.

And mozilla is my main browser, so I'm not a moz-bashing IE user. I just happen to use IE every once in a while and am amazed at how fast the damn thing manages to run in an OS that's so slow.

#55 Moz is fast on Fast Machines

by lucx

Monday May 27th, 2002 4:17 PM

Of course it's going to be speedy on a 2 GHz machine with a billion GIGs of RAM. Use it on a machine with the minimum requirements and the speed disappears.

For example: a 4-year old Pentium 233 with 128MB RAM running Windows98: startup time is reasonable, about on par with Navigator 4, around 20 seconds. The XUL interface is slow, menus lags behind the mouse cursor. When on a broadband connection (and even on a modem connection), the UI will freeze for a few seconds when rendering any page: you can’t scroll, can’t switch to another Moz window, can’t switch tabs. Page load is 2X slower than as IE, possibly due to all the XUL overhead: there’s a noticeable delay from pressing enter (or the go button) until the throbber starts throbbing. Memory requirements are pretty good as there is no swapping to disk.

Moz is usable with minimum requirements if you’re willing to be patient. On a Pentium 75 (yes, I still use one of these), it’s too laggy, but IE runs just fine and dandy. I also have a Pentium 4 1.5GHz and not surprisingly, Moz isn’t not slow. Boasting about the speed of Mozilla is like saying WindowsXP is as fast as Windows95 on a Pentium 4.

#78 Moz is fast on Fast Machines

by zevious

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 8:53 AM

So? Use IE on the old machine. As time goes on, more and more people WILL have faster machines. I don't see the point in worrying about the small percentage of people still running accient technology. Obviously, XUL has some overhead that doesn't work well on slow, low memory machines. My assumption is that Mozilla is targetted to people with newer hardware. Besides, it seems to me that most people who are still running older machines are obviously afraid to move into the latest technology and hence probably won't venture out of IE to try Mozilla anyhow. I'm sure there are still computers out there with DOS 6.2 on them, should Mozilla support that as well?

#80 Fine, If moz is fast, then Netscape is slow

by lucx

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 12:28 PM

Would it make any difference if I replaced all instances of "Mozilla" with "Netscape 7" in my last comment? Think about it, some poor student with an old but otherwise perfectly suitable computer tries to run Netscape 7 with minimum system requirements sees it's unacceptably slow, dumps it, thinks Netscape loses all credibility when saying it is fast.

The point of this topic remains the same: Netscape/Mozilla shouldn't boasts about speed.

#81 Re: Netscape is slow

by bzbarsky

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 2:23 PM

Well.... we are fast at some things. Slow at some others.

Startup is slow. New window is pretty slow. Rendering is fast (esp on mac, compared to IE). A lot of DOM manipulation is faster than IE (and a lot is slower).

#86 Re: Fine, If moz is fast, then Netscape is slow

by dipa

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 4:44 PM

"The point of this topic remains the same: Netscape/Mozilla shouldn't boasts about speed."

The point is misleading (and off topic, imo). Boris spoke clearly. There are things where Mozilla is fast and things were it is still slow. Saying (as you essentially do so) that it's slow *everywhere* is plain wrong.

#90 Yes, Mozilla is Slow everywhere

by lucx

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 8:07 PM

I'm sorry for harping on this issue, but no one seems to realize just how slow Netsape/Mozilla and the Gecko engine is on minimum requirements especially when IE is really fast on the same configuration. Everyone seems to agree XUL is slow on a Pentium 200 (with plenty of RAM). But Gecko isn't that fast either, espeically with the previously mentioned freeze during page rendering. This freeze occurs on embedded clients like Kmeleon and the Winamp3 Minibrowser and all windows become useless for several seconds while Gecko renders.

I havn't tried Gecko in AOL but I can't imagine what people will think if the whole app freezed everytime a page loads. Some parts of Gecko are faster than IE, but overall, it is slower. So yes, I am saying it is slow *everywhere*.

#93 Re; Yes, Mozilla is Slow everywhere

by SubtleRebel

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 8:32 PM

So by "everywhere" you mean "everywhere on the Windows platform" or are you just not aware that there are non-Windows versions of Mozilla?

I am on a Mac using OS X and I definitely do not think that IE is faster than Mozilla on my machines (mostly G3 systems in the 300-350Mhz range).

#99 Semantics

by lucx

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 9:40 PM

I've used IE5 on a Mac G3 and yes, it is abysmally slow. I'm sure Mozilla is fast, no make that *not slow* on a Mac.

A while ago Hyatt said on the newsgroups that the slower your computer is, the more noticable the speed differences are. He said it had something to do with timers, unfortunetely, he didn't provide a bug number.

Since I seem to be the only one championing a fast Moz on [really] low end machines, I'll point you to Bug 91643: All Mozilla windows frozen during some stages of loading a page http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91643 . This is an architectural problem so it's not going to get fixed any time soon.

#19 Sticky Notes

by zipo13

Monday May 27th, 2002 12:41 AM

Under the Demo section there is a sticky notes demo. I can't seem to delete or edit them - only add new ones. Can anyone elese see this problem? I'm using RC3 Win2k.

#49 Re: Sticky Notes

by pirat

Monday May 27th, 2002 1:09 PM

Even the original demo (which is btw part of the XBL 1.0 specification) doesn't work anymore. And RC3 broke it even more. It is there only if anyone can help to make it work, I've already tried a lot of hacks with only partial success.

#22 Eewww! Super-ugly colors!

by Slapstick

Monday May 27th, 2002 1:55 AM

The theme is ok, but maaan, the colors are extremely ugly. Please provide another style with different colors!

#36 Re: Eewww! Super-ugly colors!

by turrican

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:36 AM

confirming ... I really hate the backgound!!! Maybe something more discrete. I would enjoy, if it joins more with the modern mozilla-theme. And I think, all the borders are too thick. Also be sure to visit this page with opera 5, netscape 4.7x ;-)

#89 These colors are SWEET!

by blazerw

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 7:58 PM

Opinions differ. I like the colors. My opinion is better, FYI.

#27 another vote to change the colours

by bitshifter

Monday May 27th, 2002 4:00 AM

they totally clash with the modern theme darling

#28 Very nice.

by leafdigital

Monday May 27th, 2002 5:02 AM

I think the fact that the transparent PNGs screw up on IE PC is *good*. It doesn't stop you using the page perfectly well, and it immediately highlights one of the feature differences, too.

The tail is really, really cool. Apart from that the visual design is also good - basically Mozilla standard. I don't know whether it 'clashes with Modern theme' (I'm using GrayModern, it looked fine) - if so then that is a problem with Modern theme and not this page since it'll have to display *all* Web sites, whatever colour they are. :)

Overall great. Parties thing is lame but hey.

--sam

#67 My take.

by PaulB

Monday May 27th, 2002 8:16 PM

"I think the fact that the transparent PNGs screw up on IE PC is *good*. It doesn't stop you using the page perfectly well, and it immediately highlights one of the feature differences, too."

Another take users could conclude is, "D*nm! Aonther Mozilla/Netscape release that refuses to follow standards/ work correctly." They will leave and not bother downloading Mozilla to find out how good it is. Is this the impression we want to provide people who visit this page? I hope not. Fix the page so it works in most browsers currently in use, even if this means replacing PGN's with GIF's. Pleasde don't let people conclude that pages design for Mozilla cannot be displayed correctly in other browsers. This will only prove to those who visit this page that they are correct in only designing for IE.

#29 Transparent PNG problem on IE is *BAD*

by johann_p

Monday May 27th, 2002 8:05 AM

People, what makes you think that IE users who browse the site and see something ugly will immediately know it is the fault of IE? They will just think that the site sucks and probably generalize it to the software that is promoted there. I think it would be a good idea to make *spicific* pages that point out what Mozilla can do and what IE cant, but dont do it implicitly in the start page!

#30 Re: Transparent PNG problem on IE is *BAD*

by daavery

Monday May 27th, 2002 9:09 AM

this page is only linked to from the mozilla 1.0 show on start internal link. there is no likely way for IE users to see it

#34 best viewed with mozilla:))))))

by billi_kid

Monday May 27th, 2002 10:23 AM

mozilla will needs to be bigger marketing monster than MS, to promote this way... but mozilla can't ... and everybody will see that this thing(mozilla) don't work again:))))))) very bad :(((((((

#41 Re: Re: Mac OS 9.x: Cursor Problem

by Kirby

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:48 AM

Wait until Slashdot or whatever post a link to that page.

#31 Transparent PNGs in IE

by tack

Monday May 27th, 2002 9:11 AM

IE actually can render transparent PNGs just fine. You just have to use an IE-proprietary filter called AlphaImageLoader. With a little bit of PHP it's not a great deal difficult to make transparent PNGs work under both IE and Mozilla. I explain the process here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=30703&cid=3300805

Jason.

#32 Re: Transparent PNG problem on IE is *BAD*

by flacco

Monday May 27th, 2002 9:17 AM

"People, what makes you think that IE users who browse the site and see something ugly will immediately know it is the fault of IE?"

Put a big banner that says "If this looks like crap, you're probably using an inferior browser like Internet Explorer. Download Mozilla here." ... ?

#44 no that is the MS way to do it ...

by johann_p

Monday May 27th, 2002 12:04 PM

and I hope mozilla will not imitate it

#51 Re: no that is the MS way to do it ...

by skeeter

Monday May 27th, 2002 2:40 PM

Here, Here. Let's don't copy bad taste

Cheers

#66 It works though

by SubtleRebel

Monday May 27th, 2002 8:09 PM

How do you suggest that we demonstrate that Mozilla is better without pointing out that Mozilla can do things that IE cannot?

If we make the page look the same in both IE and Mozilla then it has less impact on the viewer. If we show them that IE does it wrong then they will know because they saw it for themselves.

The "Microsoft way" in this case works very well. There is nothing immoral about it. We are just using standards that Microsoft does not comply to.

Who are you afraid of chasing away? If someone looks at the page in IE and is told that the site can not be viewed properly with IE then they have a choice to either check out Mozilla or not. If they view the site in IE and it looks fine then they have the choice to check out Mozilla or not. The difference is that in the first scenario we have increased their curiousity about how the page is supposed to look..

#69 As I said in my original post

by johann_p

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 12:13 AM

I fully agree to demonstrate this in a separate set of pages, that is dedicated to this task and explains what is happening to the user within the page, so no misunderstanding is possible. The start page is not the place to put any explanations of that kind in and should work well with non-Mozilla browsers. As it has been pointed out, the start page is a nice page that will soon be linked to from all kinds of places and thus attract users who use all kinds of browsers.

The Microsoft way works for MS because MS has the power to piss off users as they please.

#94 The Microsoft way

by SubtleRebel

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 8:35 PM

The Microsoft way worked for Microsoft before they ever had any power.

Note the success of Windows 1.0 which never even existed.

#107 Re: The Microsoft way

by macpeep

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 9:05 AM

"Note the success of Windows 1.0 which never even existed."

http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/windows.htm

#121 Windows 1.01

by SubtleRebel

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 8:17 PM

I believe that is Windows 1.01, not Windows 1.0 which had been deceptively demoed to vendors during the previous year. IIRC, the demos of Windows 1.0 were rigged to make it look like it worked when it really did not.

#56 Re: Transparent PNG problem on IE is *BAD*

by lucx

Monday May 27th, 2002 4:27 PM

"People, what makes you think that IE users who browse the site and see something ugly will immediately know it is the fault of IE?"

Indeed. When I first visited the draft for the 1.0 FAQ using IE (http://velvet.net/~fun/mozilla/faq2/), I saw the ugly gray background and thought it was some silly mistake. I didn’t know that that it was a transparent PNG, and I was too lazy to figure that out.

#79 Clarification fix proposed

by arsa

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 10:30 AM

http://www.geocities.com/newarsa/im.htm?drawings/ietest2.png (ietest.png for white background if you want to use that image)

Here's how it looks like in IE: http://www.geocities.com/newarsa/im.htm?drawings/ietest-screen.png

Basicaly, have image where transparent part has text telling you that your browser is not compatible. And the other parts of the image should match background color of the page.

That way that text is not visible in browsers that support PNG Alpha.

#100 Sounds good to me

by SubtleRebel

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 10:38 PM

I like that

#35 Plugins, page QuickTime

by skeeter

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:12 AM

Hi

How many .dlls? "To manually install the plugin if QuickTime is already installed, copy the following files to your Mozilla plugins folder: npqtplugin.dll, npqtplugin2.dll, npqtplugin3.dll, npqtplugin4.dll, npqtplugin5.dll"

I've got QT 5X Pro and only the first .dll exists on my machine. 'npqtplugin.dll' QT works fine in my Mozilla but there is more more file that is needed I believe---QuickTimePlugin.class

What all those other numbers are, haven't a clue.

#91 Re: Plugins, page QuickTime

by kujo

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 8:07 PM

All the different numbered files are plugins that support different file types. For example I leave out number 4 and 5, because with them in it will display png's, mpg's, etc using QuickTime, and not my desired program.

Just to see exactly what plugin does what, put all five plugins in your plugin directory, start moz and then type 'about:plugins' in the URL bar. It will list each QT plugin describing what each one does.

#128 ????

by skeeter

Saturday June 1st, 2002 1:45 AM

Hi Little confused here. Do you mean take the same .dll, copy and rename it and put these in the plugin folder?

I'm using QT 5.0.2 Pro on Windows and only the one .dll mentioned is on my machine, plus it (QT) works on everything that I've found including QTVR.

#133 Re: ????

by kujo

Saturday June 1st, 2002 5:36 PM

When I installed Quick Time on my computer it put the following files in my netscape plugin folder: -QuickTimePlugin.class -npqtplugin.dll -npqtplugin2.dll -npqtplugin3.dll -npqtplugin4.dll -npqtplugin5.dll

I simply copied them to my Mozilla plugin folder and it worked. However each of the dlls make QT support different media (ex. .mpg, .mov, .png, .etc). So you may not want all of the dlls in your plugin folder. I, for example deleted npqtplugin4.dll and npqtplugin5.dll, because these dlls will make QT the default viewer for pngs and mpg, not what I want.

#134 Interesting

by skeeter

Sunday June 2nd, 2002 2:49 AM

Thanks for the info. I supect this must have something to do with NS4.X in that when I do a search under Windows only npqtplugin.dll shows up.

Perhaps the files you and the plugin page mention is how QT becomes default for this and that. Here is a link to a very good QTVR-Flash tour of the Sydney Opera House: http://www.soh.nsw.gov.au/virtual_tour/vrtour2.html and it runs great in a Mozilla that only has the npqtplugin.dll. I also used to watch mpg at CNN (before they made the deal with REAL and their RealOnePlayer) with QT.

Anyway thanks for your time and response.

#39 Umm... Well... the colors .... uh...

by SLH

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:42 AM

No offense, and please take this in the most constructive light, but, ... Oh my. '70's kitchen appliance burnt orange? I must chime in with the other who are looking askance at the choice of color.

But the DHTML fiz is nicely understated!

#40 Umm... Well... the colors .... uh...

by SLH

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:44 AM

No offense, and please take this in the most constructive light, but, ... Oh my. '70's kitchen appliance burnt orange? I must chime in with the other who are looking askance at the choice of color.

But the DHTML fiz is nicely understated!

#43 Colour scheme

by SmileyBen

Monday May 27th, 2002 11:58 AM

Well, I think the colour scheme is *great*, myself! ;-)

Currently torn between this and the lovely modular sidebar-y page, though...

#58 Wow

by hwaara

Monday May 27th, 2002 4:47 PM

This looks awesome! Now, if only the Moz Zope project people would hire whoever had the graphical skills to design this, and have him/her design the new mozilla.org too. :-)

#68 Re: Wow

by KDPJE

Monday May 27th, 2002 9:05 PM

How about also applying the style of this new Start Page to the 'about' page ? (http://home.zonnet.nl/p.duijm/mozilla/MozillaAbout.html)

Personally I really think the red star should be dropped and we should just stick to the red dino only....

M2C

#75 Seconded!

by SmileyBen

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 6:39 AM

Yes, definitely! That looks great - much better than the current about: page...

#96 New about page

by SubtleRebel

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 9:18 PM

I like the new "about" page except for one thing.

Whereas the new start page has a bold line at the base of the Mozilla dragon's neck so it looks like he is behind the text window, the new "about" box does not have that bold line and thus he appears to have been decapitated.

Fix that and I am all for the change. Has anyone openned a bug on the issue?

http://home.zonnet.nl/p.duijm/mozilla/MozillaAbout.html <http://home.zonnet.nl/p.duijm/mozilla/MozillaAbout.html>

#97 Mozillazine Link issue

by SubtleRebel

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 9:20 PM

Why is it that the article Talkback forums handle links differently than regular forums section of Mozillazine?

#102 Re: About page and splash in 'Gerv' style ?

by KDPJE

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 2:20 AM

As stated I think it would be good if the 'about' page reflected the same style as the new Mozilla 1.0 Start page that Gervase Markham is working on... I had indeed changed the border line around the 'about' box to make it a tad bit thinner and only last night noticed the problem with dino's head. That is fixed now.

There has of course been a lot (and I mean A LOT) of talk about the splash screen of Mozilla. Some like the current one others don't, some want the green lizard others the red dino, some want the star on it others don't and of course the seemingly complicated issue of copyrights. This whole rights issue is taking ridiculously long IMO and with all the time spent on that perhaps a new logo could have been designed to reflect Mozilla. But of course kinda complicated and late in the game now as the red dino is bing used in various places..

Anyway to just add a bit to this endless stuff about the splash screen, why not also apply the Start page desing to the splash... I just love consistency :-)

The About page : http://home.zonnet.nl/p.duijm/mozilla/MozillaAbout.html

The Splash : http://home.zonnet.nl/p.duijm/mozilla/Moz10rc3.png

#122 Splash screen squashes Mozilla

by SubtleRebel

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 8:24 PM

Not to be picking nits, but that guy has got to be uncomfortable on the splash screen. :)

Perhaps a slightly scaled down head and tail would be better? As it is, his unseen body must be almost totally folded over on itself.

The About page looks great now though and I really hope that these changes get incorporated into 1.0.1 if not 1.0

#59 MathML demo not working on OSX Mozilla

by Waldo

Monday May 27th, 2002 5:42 PM

XML Parsing Error: undefined entity Location: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/mathml/demo/basics.xhtml Line Number 190, Column 15: <mo>&LeftFloor;</mo> --------------^

That's what happened to me on my OS X mozilla when i tried looking at the MathML demo...

W

#77 Re: MathML demo not working on OSX Mozilla

by FrodoB

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 8:49 AM

Well, there's a good reason for that.... MathML is not implemented on the Mac yet.

#60 UA String updated on the branch

by grayrest

Monday May 27th, 2002 6:09 PM

http://grayrest.com/moz

#61 Plugins for Mac OS X

by PaulB

Monday May 27th, 2002 7:20 PM

Is tHere an omission for OS X under Plugins in the faq sheet? There is only information for OS 8.x/9.x. Are plugins not supported for OS X? Maybe the developers are waiting until the Mach-O build replaces the CFM build so that some of the UNIX builds and OS X can share their Plugins.

#62 FAQs Colour scheme/ Mozilla Dragon

by PaulB

Monday May 27th, 2002 7:34 PM

Please take this as a critique and not a criticism: the colour scheme used on the FAQ sheet looks like some horrible late 60s/early 70s kitchen decorating colour scheme. Ugggh. Please reconsider the colours before the arrival of 1.0. Rather than reds and oranges how about blues and greens? Please at least mute the intensity of the backgroung. If it helps I am viewing the page on a Mac using OS X. Probably too late in the game, but could the "Mozilla Dragon" be drawn with a less angry expesssion and in another colour than red. The Mozilla Dragon looks as if he is out to "Kill" all competition/opposition. Is this the Mozilla message we want portrayed? I would far rather have a friendly looking Mozilla Dragon which would portray Mozilla as an organization ready to cooperate with the internet rahter than conquer it. Isn't cooperation on the internet the point of the W3C standards support built into Mozilla? Shouldn't Mozilla's logo/mascott be drawn to represent this cooperation?

#63 Re: FAQs Colour scheme/ Mozilla Dragon

by AlexBishop

Monday May 27th, 2002 7:43 PM

"Probably too late in the game, but could the 'Mozilla Dragon' be drawn with a less angry expesssion and in another colour than red. The Mozilla Dragon looks as if he is out to 'Kill' all competition/opposition."

He looks like he's smiling to me. He's a nice friendly dragon. But not as smiley and friendly as Green Mozilla.

Alex

#70 Provide a link to go back to the start page

by johann_p

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 12:26 AM

I would suggest to provide some means to go back to the start page from the "chapter" pages: I already saw people directly linking to the chapter pages and then it would be nice to be able to go the the start page. I would suggest to make all the images at the top (the lizard and the "mozilla 1.0" do this job.

#108 Yes and Yes!

by foamy

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 11:52 AM

I am continually amazed that people who design high profile web pages (like *cough* mozillazine *cough*) completely forget about basic navigation.

I agree with you 100% that the Mozilla 1.0 graphic should link back to the main page at all times.

As for Mozillazine, why on earth does the large graphic at the top of the page not link back to the homepage?

#125 Re: Yes and Yes!

by WillyWonka

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 9:52 PM

The one on the right does. :P

#127 Not good enough

by foamy

Thursday May 30th, 2002 1:19 PM

Still doesn't excuse the fact that the giganitc image across the top of the screen doesn't link back to the main page :o)

#130 Re: Not good enough

by WillyWonka

Saturday June 1st, 2002 8:57 AM

1) It's not a gigantic image. 2) There are reasons why it doesn't link back to the main page. :/

#73 Colours and other comments

by Gerv

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 5:30 AM

I don't have time to respond to each item in each thread individually, but:

- If people want to see different colours, send us some alternative stylesheets. I personally like the current ones. - MacOS X Plugins: Talk to plugindoc.mozdev.org, and give them the info they need - MathML Demo. If you tell us what platforms it's restricted to, we'll add a note - IE users. We are making some allowances, but there will also be a revealed div which says something like "You aren't using a Gecko-based browser. This page is done in web standards, but your browser might not get it right. To see it correctly, please upgrade." This is fair, given the target audience of the page. - Sticky notes is mostly fixed. If you can fix it some more, please do, and send us diffs.

Gerv

#74 Target audience.

by SmileyBen

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 6:39 AM

Well quite. It's a bit rich to complain that it doesn't work in other browsers when it's the start page. So why not say that? Just say 'This page is intended as the start page for mozilla, and is intended to showcase the standards that work so well in this browser' or something?

#76 hmm...

by volkris

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 6:56 AM

I didn't catch his phrasing as complaining. I think it was about right on towards the goal of informing without hassling.

#85 Re: Colours and other comments

by marsje

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 4:01 PM

Having different alternate style sheets would be cool especially if people find out you can easily switch with View -> Use style. It would be even better if there would be a small note somewhere on the start page to tell the user about that.

Marcel

#88 Re: Re: Colours and other comments

by MXN

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 4:51 PM

Better yet, why don't we have a popup that displays a random tip that can be used on the start page? Kinda like the Did You Know? dialog in M$ Windows 95. Or maybe we could have a Tip of the Day tab in the Sidebar, like Netscape 6/7 does.

- mxn

#92 Tip of the Day Popup

by SubtleRebel

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 8:26 PM

Today's Tip of the Day Popup Message : "To prevent unwanted popup windows..."

:)

#83 Mozilla 1.0's Target Audience

by stu42j

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 2:35 PM

I'm not sure what the current official policy is towards end users for Moz1.0 but the main start page should at least alude to this issue, rather than leaving it to the 'Support' and 'FAQ' pages which are a little inconsistant and slightly confusing.

#87 MultiZilla is missing on the Add-on list

by bugs4hj

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 4:51 PM

Very weird, MultiZilla is missing on the Add-on list. I like to know why. Both mozilla and Netscape are using my idea of tabbed UI, so why is it missing?

/HJ

#95 Re: MultiZilla is missing on the Add-on list

by DavidGerard

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 8:42 PM

Lots of things are missing. The Add-on list is just an intro, not a copy of the mozdev directory page :-)

#101 MultiZilla is missing on the Add-on list

by bugs4hj

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 10:49 PM

I can understand that adding all project isn't posible, but this, the tabbed UI, is listed as one of the biggest advantages for mozilla users. So we're don't need an exact list. Or do you say that 300.000 downloads is just yet another project on the list? Or the fact that both mozilla and Netscape copied my idea, that isn't good for you? Or the fact that editors really love the way it works in mozilla. If all this isn't good for you, than I ask you: "What does?"

#104 Question about MultiZilla

by zreo2

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 4:50 AM

Hm... isn't the browser tab support in Mozilla and Netscape MultiZilla ??? So did they copy your idea or did they implement your project ?

#106 MultiZilla is missing on the Add-on list

by bugs4hj

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 8:01 AM

We had hacks all over the place to get it working, we had to because of lack of mozilla/netscape support. We also had a partly working widget called <tabbedbrowser> I asked Hyatt questions on IRC #mozilla for help, I have logged all our conversations for the record, and than at once, bang, David Hyatt basically copied my idea by writing an XBL widget called <tabbrowser> He did this after we had 45.000 downloads of a specific version and this conversation on #mozilla

<hyatt> HJ: do you have a patent claim or does anyone else? <HJ> hyatt: No I don't and I'm not aware of other claims <hyatt> HJ: well it doesn't matter <steve> hyatt: when can we expect this to go into the three, I really like multizilla <HJ> steve: it's MultiZilla <steve> nod

But now it looks as if we're braindead or something. And I don't thing that's fair to us and all MultiZilla users. Remember, people still use 0.9.5 because of our MultiZilla version for it, think about that!

It's just fair to say that our version was the first tabbed browser UI for mozilla and netscape, and that our version worked so well that they implemented parts of it, and that's a fact. They simply removed this sepecific part of text from a prior draft, for crying out load.

#111 Re: MultiZilla is missing on the Add-on list

by DavidGerard

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 1:35 PM

FAQ #2.3. It even calls you 'more sophisticated'.

#98 K-Meleon

by amutch

Tuesday May 28th, 2002 9:30 PM

Please change the K-Meleon link to:

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

Thanks!

#103 New Versions Posted

by Gerv

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 3:52 AM

The start page draft is being continuously updated; it now has some JS which tries to fix IE a bit, and also nag messages to persuade you to upgrade older Mozillas.

Please test widely, and report feedback to 1.0startpage@mozilla.org.uk .

Thanks :-)

Gerv

#105 Different style links under the lizard: great!

by johann_p

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 4:50 AM

I really like this - personally I like the blue scheme better, but thats probably because I am a bit colour blind (I wont therefore contribute any own styles, sorry Gerv :) ). I hope you are prepared to get seriously slashdotted, once 1.0 comes out and this gets official? ;)

#109 great styles! (*blue*) ...but where's the tail?

by rockstiff

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 12:04 PM

when i change the scheme (to, say, the blue one), the tail of the dragon disappears... even when i go back to the orange one! I have to refresh the page, using orange, to see the *beautiful* tail again. refresh using the other schemes, the blue and the plain, doesn't do anything... no tail as far as the eye can see. :( am i the only one seeing this? can it be fixed?

#112 Re: great styles! (*blue*) ...but where's the tail

by DavidGerard

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 1:35 PM

Bug. The current in-development version (which I won't list here) is fixed.

#113 Re: Re: great styles! (*blue*) ...but where's the

by DavidGerard

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 1:37 PM

That is to say, the tail comes back when you go back to orange. The tail is not present in the blue version.

(We're showing off, after all ;-)

The style switching links don't work in Opera 6, even though they're written to standards. Anyone know a workaround?

#114 Re: Re: Re: great styles! (*blue*) ...but where's

by rockstiff

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 2:47 PM

I tried to go back to orange (only god knows why :) ) and it seems like the change only apply to the first page... the faq and everything else is still using the blue style... it's like, after switching once, the style-switching only apply to the first page now.

#115 update

by rockstiff

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 2:57 PM

ok, sorry about that! it's *only* the faq that doesn't apply to the style changes! is this as it should be, and if so, is the blue style the defaut style for the faq?

...again, sorry about me posting without doing a proper check first!

#117 update (again)

by rockstiff

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 3:03 PM

the page gives me two cookies... one for the whole site, and a separate one for the faq.

#124 Re: update (again)

by WillyWonka

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 9:50 PM

Blame me for that one. You're going to need to nuke the 2 cookies for that site before you look at the fixed version.

I was accidently writing the cookie every time you went to a sub page. Since the faq is in a directory it was writing to a new cookie because you aren't allowed to write to a cookie in the root directory from a sub directory. (If that makes any sense to you)

#116 Where are Sticky Notes?

by RB_

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 3:00 PM

The Sticky Notes demo has disappeared, only the title is visible. An accident, I suppose.

#119 Security bug warning - wrong detection?

by lacostej

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 5:04 PM

I use Debian woody on one of my servers. It is loaded with Mozilla 0.9.9 patched by the Debian team. 0.9.9 has several flaws but I am not sure that Debian will upload the latest upstream version to fix them. They may just patch their own version.

What I mean is that a build tagged 0.9.9 can be patched against the security problems if it is not coming directly from mozilla.

So perhaps the comment about the security problems is not applicable to all browsers whose Build ID is lower than a certain day. The sentence should perhaps be changed from

"Warning! Your copy of Mozilla is vulnerable to a security bug. You should fix this problem by downloading and installing the latest Mozilla build, Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 3."

to

"Warning! Your copy of Mozilla is probably/may be vulnerable to a security bug. ????"

#120 Re: Security bug warning - wrong detection?

by lacostej

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 5:05 PM

forgot to put a link onto the security bug as handled in Debian: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=146338&repeatmerged=yes

#123 Re: Security bug warning - wrong detection?

by WillyWonka

Wednesday May 29th, 2002 9:45 PM

We're working on a way to weed out gecko based non-mozilla.org browsers.

k-meleon and Galeon have made the challenge, um, interesting. All I can say is /^Mozilla\/5\.0.*rv:[0-9a-zA-Z.+]+[\)].*Gecko\/[0-9]+$/ :)

Once that is done debian users shouldn't see the message. Could you post your user agent so I can be sure to test against it?

#126 Re: Security bug warning - wrong detection?

by lacostej

Thursday May 30th, 2002 1:30 AM

Yep sure! From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.9) Gecko/20020412 Debian/0.9.9-6 BuildID: 20020404

#132 But debian's 0.9.9 is not patched

by jsebrech

Saturday June 1st, 2002 2:25 PM

Let's be clear here though. The woody 0.9.9-6 version is not patched against the security bug. It will be before woody is released though, and most likely by moving to mozilla 1.0 (or rc2/3 if they can't make 1.0).

They're going to have to do something about that release process. I'm running a machine here that's mostly potato, with some woody libraries, and sprinkles of sid where it fits (like mozilla from sid). If debian could just get their release process working decently then maybe they could get some more people actually running the distro for a change.

#129 Langpack

by sebol

Saturday June 1st, 2002 2:55 AM

can we have "langpack" at the startpage? linked to http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp_status.html#moz_1.0

thanks in advanced

#131 Re: Langpack

by WillyWonka

Saturday June 1st, 2002 8:59 AM

Look in the Add-Ons page. It's the first item in the list.