Phoenix Nightly Builds Now AvailableThursday September 5th, 2002Nightly builds of Phoenix are now available for download from ftp.mozilla.org. Builds are currently only available for Linux and Windows. Phoenix (formerly known as mozilla/browser) is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component. It is not related to Project Piglet (also previously known as mozilla/browser), which was forked from pre-Phoenix mozilla/browser code. Thanks to Asa Dotzler for the news. UPDATE! Also check out the Phoenix project page which has some more information about the project. looking good, lean and mean ... I love the Preferences Dialog .... a huge improvement. Please note that the preferences dialog is **under construction**. Some prefs don't work at all or properly. The "Navigator" panel is probably temporary (if not, it will certainly be renamed). And all your favorite geeky prefs will be making a comeback in a forthcoming Advanced panel. I _like_ it nice and simple, I hope you guys don't go too nuts in there, the 'normal' mozilla preferences is getting out of control. It will be as simple as it is now (simpler, even, once we have large icons for each panel instead of the current tree). I'm just reassuring others that we intend to keep more prefs, but stick them in the soon-to-be-redesigned Advanced panel (a scrolling tree, like in IE). I just hope you'll be setting them out better than IE. There never seems to be any real sense to IE's long list of advanced prefs, they all just seem to be added in in the order that some programmer thought of them, consequently I always have to scroll up and down the list two or three times to find anything. In a way Moz's tree style for the advanced prefs would be better. ...the old README. "Q8: I don't like the mozilla/browser process! This sucks! I'm never going to contribute to Mozilla again!" "Oh no, please, don't go, whatever shall we do without you." Why does the "Latest Builds" button in Phoenix go to the latest builds for Mozilla and not Phoenix? it's a bookmark, not a button. you're free to change it. --Asa Is any effort going to be made to incorporate the ability of administrators to: * Run Pheonix in a Kiosk Mode * Allow Administrators to modify and lockdown the interface * Ability to disable context menus * Ability to stop downloads to HD * Ability to block installation of additional components With this simplified but logical interface, I can see this having a lot of appeal to people who want to run a Mozilla browser in a kiosk or corporate environment but don't want the bloat of Mozilla [Composer/Editor, Mail/News, etc. - Yes, I know most can be eliminated with a custom install but that's just more hassle]. Plus, Mozilla's interface is impossible to secure without some serious hacking of the code to disable interface elements and features. Even a few simple things like the ability to block access to Preferences and Toolbar Customization would make this almost ready for a kiosk environment. Just wondering. nope. --Asa Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say that no effort is being made at this time? Or is there some reason why no one will ever be allowed to add a kiosk mode to Phoenix? woudn't it be easier to build a new browser (yes another one...) that's just there for Kiosks? The current way is to build a decent browser with many cool features just to turn them all off for Kiosk mode. Why not build a new browser that may be very slim and has just everything that a Kiosk needs? Since Phoenix already strips Mozilla down to just the browser and makes various other improvements, I would think it would be easier to build a new Kiosk browser off of the Phoenix branch than it would to create new branch off of the trunk. Phoenix is not a branch. It is from the trunk. Just as the gtkembed app is from the trunk but a different app than seamonkey. --Asa Sorry for using the wrong terminology. Please allow me to rephrase my previous post : Since Phoenix already strips Mozilla down to just the browser and makes various other improvements, I would think it would be easier to build a new Kiosk browser as an extension of the Phoenix build than it would to create a totally new browser from the trunk without utilizing what Phoenix has already accomplished. Isn't there already a kiosk browser project? Is this just a pet project then? Seriously, there's a definite niche for people who need a good kiosk browser. I currently use K-Meleon, and I work on that project, but I'm always willing to encourage other alternatives and this could be one. But I guess not! I know Phoenix [missed the spelling up there!] is in Bugzilla, are bug reports wanted or is this still a closed project? It's never been a closed project. Either that or you have a pretty funny definition of closed. It's been an open source project since the first checkin. The source is available via CVS and is licensed under MPL/GPL/LGPL. How is that closed? Bug reports are wanted. But only if the bug is specific to Phoenix. If it's a core Mozilla bug that happens to affect Phoenix (like a layout or toolkit bug) then it probably belongs in the appropriate Mozilla component. You can find answers to most questions at the Phoenix project page http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/ or one of the pages linked to from there. --Asa I bet you amutch is referring to this entry in the readme. The operative word is, "invitation", which implies a degree of closedness. Q7: How do I get involved? By invitation. This is a meritocracy -- those who gain the respect of those in the group will be invited to join the group. See Q6. You will have to understand that it was THEIR idea to start this project, hence they can do whatever they like to do with Phoenix, this is the way they are doing it right now and i can only agree, small teams are more flexible and can make decisisons faster. If they need help from the community, i'm sure they will ask for it. Phoenix is in an early stage of development and Hyatt and Blake (sorry if i missed someone) have good ideas for this beautifull browser, just atke a look at it :) THUMBS UP GUYS!! Well, according to Q3 of the Phoenix Readme page at http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/browser/README.html , it was explicitly stated that bug reports were unwanted. I expect that that is why amutch asked if the developers now wanted bug reports to be submitted. Also I do not think it is unreasonable to say that it has been a "closed project" which IMO is quite different than saying that it has been a "closed source project." Although it has been open source, it has been closed to bug reports or any other participation from anyone not invited to participate. This is very different from the "open project" of Mozilla which invites everyone to participate in submitting bugs and writing patches. Phoenix is asking for participation. If it wasn't then why on earth would people go through the trouble to make _daily_ binaries available for testing? The readme just needs an update saying we are accepting bug reports. You're free to submit a patch to Phoenix as well via Bugzilla. Both of those FAQ answers were written before we had a Bugzilla Product. However, just because a bug or a patch is submitted doesn't mean that it will automatically be accepted. "Although it has been open source, it has been closed to bug reports or any other participation from anyone not invited to participate. This is very different from the "open project" of Mozilla which invites everyone to participate in submitting bugs and writing patches." Yes, and that's by design but calling it "closed" is wrong. Nothing is black or white. Mozilla isn't "open" in that you can't just show up and check into cvs. Phoenix isn't "closed" in that all of the work is completely transparent, you can build it and you can get pre-compiled binaries so you can see what's going on. You can file bugs and you can even offer patches. That's far from "closed". The difference is that everyone and his brother are not going to be allowed to randomly hack on the Phoenix front end just because he happens to have cvs access to cvs.mozilla.org. --Asa "Yes, and that's by design but calling it "closed" is wrong." I do not see how you can say it is WRONG to refer to Phoenix as a "closed project" when Phoenix was not accepting any bugs, or patches, or even user comments. Even now that bugs and patches are being accepted, it is apparent that user comments are still rather unwelcome. I also get the feeling that RFE bugs directed at Phoenix are going to have a high rate of WONTFIX or INVALID status. This is very different from the traditional openness of the Mozilla project. Note that the word "closed" does not only mean "closed source" and it was clear from the context in which amutch said "closed project" that he was not referring to the source code. If it is wrong to have referred to Phoenix as having been a "closed project" then what would you have preferred? Would it have been ok to say that it was a "limited access project" or what? "I do not see how you can say it is WRONG to refer to Phoenix as a "closed project" when Phoenix was not accepting any bugs, or patches, or even user comments. " I can say wrong to all of those. That during the very beginning stages of the project there wasn't a Bugzilla component for bugs or a newsgroup for comments doesn't mean it is a closed project. Why on earth would people go through the trouble of making nightly builds and creating Bugzilla components if Phoenix wasn't accepting bugs? If you're going to call Phoenix a "closed project" then you also have to call Mozilla a "closed project". Access to both of these projects is restricted and some modules within both of these projects are even more restricted. My mom isn't allowed to checkin in to Mozilla and she's not allowed to checkin to Phoenix. Even people that have provided bug reports and patches don't automatically get checkin access to cvs.mozilla.org. And even if you do manage to demonstrate that you deserve cvs _priveleges_ that doesn't mean you get to checkin whatever you want whenever you want. You still have to get reviews and super-reviews (permission from module owners) and even then you don't get to check into some partitions in Mozilla like checkin access to the mozilla/NSPR and mozilla/NSS modules in Mozilla is restricted to a subset of cvs accounts and checkin access to mozilla/browser/ is restricted to a subset of cvs accounts. Your argument is silly. By your definition Mozilla is a "closed project". You're also missing the point that Phoenix is 99% mozilla. If by your definition Mozilla is "open" then 99% of Phoenix is just as open. Phoenix uses all the same layout, style system, dom, security, javascript engine, networking, cache, imagelib, widget, etc. code as Mozilla. For those modules all of the "open" Mozilla restrictions apply (you need cvs access to directly checkin. you need review. you need super-review. you need approval and you need someone with access to restricted partitions to checkin patches for you.) "If it is wrong to have referred to Phoenix as having been a "closed project" then what would you have preferred? Would it have been ok to say that it was a "limited access project" or what?" Both Mozilla and Phoenix are limited access. --Asa "Why on earth would people go through the trouble of making nightly builds and creating Bugzilla components if Phoenix wasn't accepting bugs? " Why would the Phoenix README say that they were not accepting bugs, if they were in fact accepting bugs? "Both Mozilla and Phoenix are limited access." When Phoenix was not accepting bugs, it was a definitely a whole lot more limited than Mozilla and the original mozilla/browser announcement certainly indicated that the project was closed to outsiders. "Why would the Phoenix README say that they were not accepting bugs" Because I was too busy trying to make nightly builds happen and forgot to update the readme when I created the Bugzilla components. "When Phoenix was not accepting bugs, it was a definitely a whole lot more limited than Mozilla" That's just silly. I said that Mozilla and Phoenix both have "limited access". You don't get to check in without cvs access. You don't get to check in to some modules even if you do have cvs access. You don't get to check in to some files without review or super review. You said that Phoenix was "a lot more limited than Mozilla". I disagree. You have _always_ been able to file and fix bugs on the overwhelming majority of Phoenix code. Because developers weren't interested in bugs (or patches) for a small handful of files doesn't make Phoenix "a whole lot more limited than Mozilla." I'll buy that access to participate in Phoenix development and testing was trivially more limited than access to participate in Mozilla but to say "a whole lot more" is a bit overboard and ignores that Phoenix is, and has been since day one, made up of mostly Mozilla code. But yes, in a way you are correct. I'm just not happy with the language you've used to describe your position. Phoenix was not soliciting tesing or development help during the very early stages (and it is still in the early stages). Now Phoenix is soliciting testing help. There isn't much point in making binaries and creating Bugzilla components if you don't want people to use them. --Asa "By your definition Mozilla is a "closed project". You're also missing the point that Phoenix is 99% mozilla." No, you are forgetting that the reference to Phoenix being a "closed project" was about when Phoenix was not accepting bugs. No one is saying that Phoenix is a closed project now. Also, it is absurd to suggest that I am not aware that Phoenix is 99% Mozilla; you know me better than that. The only reason that I am ignoring that "point" is because it is irrelevant. As you surely know, it is quite possible to have a closed project that is 99% Mozilla. This is getting silly but for silly's sake: "As you surely know, it is quite possible to have a closed project that is 99% Mozilla." Not at all. You have a project, call it RebelZilla, and it lives in CVS (like Phoenix). To make RebelZilla you pull Mozilla and you pull a different throbber. The only file that distinguishes RebelZilla from Mozilla is the throbber. If you do not accept patches, or bugs or restrict cvs access to the RebelZilla throbber I can still impact your project in a very big way. The overwhelming majority of your project is as open to me as Mozilla. I have cvs access that lets me change anything in Mozilla and those changes will affect RebelZilla with exactly the same impact as Mozilla. Your project may be "closed" by some your definition but it's not really closed if I can rewrite 99% of it with or without your consent, is it? I don't believe that it is possible to have a 'closed' project that is licensed under the MPL (and friends), lives in cvs and is 99% comprised of Mozilla code. That is, unless you define 'closed' to mean "not 100% open to 100% of the people". And if you define closed like that then Mozilla is surely closed too. But that's not really the point. Phoenix is the better example than RebelZilla. Phoenix was never closed. One tiny part of Phoenix, the front end, was being developed under open source licenses in public and participation was not being actively solicited for that tiny piece while they got it up and running. There have been over 400 people, since Phoenix's first day of existence, with cvs access to the overwhelming majority of Phoenix's code. There is a public Bugzilla where you have been able to report bugs against the overwhelming majority of Phoenix's functionality. There are public newsgroups where you could discuss almost everything that is phoenix. The only thing that didn't have Bugzilla component and wasn't open to every cvs account holder was the Phoenix front end. And the Phoenix front end wasn't ready for review and participation. Now it's almost ready and the Phoenix folks will start to solicit bug reports and have already been soliciting more developer involvement. But even if they weren't asking for bug reports (and they are. that the readme didn't get updated as soon as I found the time to create some Bugzilla components was an oversight.) even if they weren't asking for bug reports Phoenix would still be an open project. Mozilla isn't closed because someone working on a patch to the layout engine isn't ready for review and super review (feedback) yet. Mozilla isn't closed because someone's working on an experimental branch and not ready for bug reports. Mozilla isn't closed because someone says the work they have in their tree isn't ready to be a part of any binary yet. Mozilla isn't closed because only some of the people with CVS are allowed to check into NSPR. It seems to me that Phoenix wasn't ready for feedback the day it was started. No patch is. No feature is. No product is. The code was made available the second the first patch was checked into the tree. Now it's progressed far enough that it's (almost) ready for bug reports. It does contain some files for which cvs access is restricted to a small group of people (so does the Mozilla browser you've been using all this time) but that number has been increasing since day 1. The project is just starting. Give it some time. --Asa You are right, this has become far too silly. I think the following excerpts sum all of the worthwhile parts. This thread started when amutch said : "I know Phoenix [missed the spelling up there!] is in Bugzilla, are bug reports wanted or is this still a closed project?" Asa responded : "It's never been a closed project." and "Bug reports are wanted." I responded : "Well, according to Q3 of the Phoenix Readme page at (LINK) , it was explicitly stated that bug reports were unwanted." and "Also I do not think it is unreasonable to say that it has been a 'closed project' which IMO is quite different than saying that it has been a 'closed source project.'" Asa responded : "The readme just needs an update saying we are accepting bug reports." and "Yes, and that's by design but calling it "closed" is wrong." I responded : "I do not see how you can say it is WRONG to refer to Phoenix as a 'closed project' when Phoenix was not accepting any bugs, or patches, or even user comments." Then a few posts later Asa responded : "But yes, in a way you are correct. I'm just not happy with the language you've used to describe your position. Phoenix was not soliciting tesing or development help during the very early stages (and it is still in the early stages). Now Phoenix is soliciting testing help. " The reason that I entered the conversation was because I felt that the initial response to amutch's question was unfairly critical of his use of the word "closed." He was correct that Phoenix had previously not accepted bugs and he had a very valid question since the README still indicated that bugs were not being accepted. "The reason that I entered the conversation was because I felt that the initial response to amutch's question was unfairly critical of his use of the word "closed." He was correct that Phoenix had previously not accepted bugs and he had a very valid question since the README still indicated that bugs were not being accepted." He was correct that there was a time when phoenix developers were't soliciting bug reports for the Phoenix UI. This was because bug reports wouldn't have been useful. There was never a time when bug reports on the vast majority of phoenix code weren't being solicited. There were a few files among tens of thousands in Phoenix where bug reports and other participation wasn't being solicited. Equating that with "closed" and the following suggestions that Phoenix was a "closed" project is something that I don't accept and I said so. Phoenix, from the moment of the first checkin was more open than almost any software project on the planet. --Asa Apparently you just have a very closed mind regarding the word closed. "He was correct that there was a time when phoenix developers were't soliciting bug reports for the Phoenix UI. This was because bug reports wouldn't have been useful." The reason _why_ they closed the door on receiving bug reports is irrelevant; the fact remains that that door was closed. All amutch did was ask if that door had been openned. "There were a few files among tens of thousands in Phoenix where bug reports and other participation wasn't being solicited. " Those few "limited access" files were all that made it Phoenix instead of Mozilla; the other "tens of thousands" of files were the foundation that the Phoenix project was being built on. As I said before, you can build a closed project that is 99% Mozilla. Your argument that changes to Mozilla automatically affect any project built from Mozilla is simply not true; if my project removed the Tools menu and you checked in code to add an item to the Tools menu, my project would not be affected. Also if you made a change to Mozilla that I did not want in my project then all I have to do is make a patch to my project that overrides your code. Or at any point I can make my own branch off of Mozilla so that no new Mozilla patches would have any affect on my project. I would have absolute control over what did and did not go into my project regardless of the fact that it was based upon open source; because I would have that control, I think it would be fair for someone to say that my project is closed to outsiders. There all kinds of way that a project can be closed, but for some reason you seem to believe that the only way that saying "closed project" is the same thing as saying "closed source project." Personally I think that the extra word adds extra meaning. Regardless I am done with this discussion. "You can find answers to most questions at the Phoenix project page http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/ or one of the pages linked to from there." There's a Phoenix project page?! I didn't know that. Thanks, I'll add it to the article. Alex phoenix rocks... thank blake, hyatt all others involved. one question, why the hell wasnt the everthing split into different apps when the rewrite was started all thoes years ago??? ben I agree, it's just fantastic ! This is how the browser should have been written from the start. This is what the people want!!! In the future, I see people shifting from mozilla to phoenix, just as people shifted from netscape to mozilla. Great job guys. If you select Phoenix as your default browser Mozilla will not start. To me that is not a problem, as I have never used anything like Communicator or Outlook, I just surf on over to wherever I think I have mail. Phoenix is what many people would want in a browser. I have tried Beowulf and was not impressed, and I cannot see why it would ever appeal to mums and dads, let alone grandads like me. Once I said Mozilla rules, but I think Phoenix does instead. Now all it needs is an icon. ...is it part of mozilla? Will the phoenix changes go into 1.2 or will it be a separate app? I like mozilla much more, BUT the customizable toolbar is great, when is this going to be implemtented into mozilla?? Thanks PS: is it possible to set a proxy for pheonix? I haven't found an option for changing this.... The option to set proxy config isn't there yet, but you can copy you proxy settings from your mozilla profile -in the file prefs.js, looks for the lines user_pref("network.proxy.blah", "blah"); and copy those into the prefs.js of the phoenix profile (in Application Data\MozBrowser) - make sure phoenix isn't running at the time otherwise your changes will be overwritten. Anybody ? http://www.mamata.com.br/mozilla/phoenix-screenshot-1.png http://www.mamata.com.br/mozilla/phoenix-screenshot-2.png http://www.mamata.com.br/mozilla/phoenix-screenshot-3.png So, can I run Phoenix and Mozilla side-by-side without worrying about my profile getting stomped? Yes, It would appear so. Phoenix stores it's profile in Application Data\MozBrowser instead of \Mozilla - also noticed that netscape 7 now uses \MozillaNS The option to set proxy config isn't there yet, but you can copy you proxy settings from your mozilla profile -in the file prefs.js, looks for the lines user_pref("network.proxy.blah", "blah"); and copy those into the prefs.js of the phoenix profile (in Application Data\MozBrowser) - make sure phoenix isn't running at the time otherwise your changes will be overwritten. My request to the phoenix folks would be to re-instate the password manager, it's a pain typing the proxy password every time I start the browser! Suppose what they need for that is the time to do the work.. Phoenix is lean but buggy, slightly cleaner than kmeleon with approximately the same amount of functionality -after a while it just feels like your using plain mozilla (with more bugs), which I suppose you more or less are. Should be good to watch it evolve but to get the support it needs netscape will have to eventually adopt it as it's version 8 (mozilla 2?) browser, otherwise you would assume that moz and phoenix will become increasingly out of sync. Judging by the fact that there are currently only 15 Phoenix specific bug on bugzilla and 428 Chimera Bugs it would appear that netscape are (or have been) focusing more on Chimera (the new iBrowser?) than Phoenix, but then phoenix appears to still be a grassroots pet project rather than a large scale re-write initiative within netscape. Time will tell but it's fun to watch! How difficult would it be to split up the mozilla app into separate processes, so the browser becomes unbundled? And would it really offer an advantage from an architectural point of view? I've been advocating Mozilla to the people I work with for the last year, and actually got a number of them interested in trying the browser at home. Should I drop this and get them to go towards pheonix? Are the changes going to be introduced into Mozilla? (Basically the skin and the ability to alter the UI on a more fine basis?) For some reasons Mozilla/Phoenix shows site icons where ordinary Mozilla doesn’t. How come? My Mozilla (1.1) shows site icons no problem. Be sure it's enabled in your Preferences (under Appearance, "Show Web Site icons") I guess Mozilla assumed it was one of the fields for sending username/password information for Mozillazine and memorized it from a previous post. I have this settings OK. The point was that Phoenix shows site icons im MORE cases than ordinary Mozilla 1.1. Here are site examples where Mozilla 1.1 does not show icons but Phoenix does: http://java.sun.com, http://www.ibm.com, http://www.quest.com, http://www.powerquest.com, http://www.corsairmicro.com. In Mozilla, you have to put this line in your prefs.js to see Favicons (which are different from Web Site icons) user_pref("browser.chrome.favicons",true); I guess this option is ON by default in Phoenix builds. How come the option in the prefs menu doesn't enable it? Is it broken? This fixed my problems with favicons too. From the 0.9.8 release notes... "* Mozilla no longer reads /favicon.ico images by default although Mozilla still reads page icons defined with the <link> tag. Set the following pref to turn the feature back on. user_pref("browser.chrome.favicons",true);" the Show Web Sites icons pref in the menu only allows icons defined with the link tag... |