First Binary of Composer++ for Windows AvailableSunday May 11th, 2003Daniel Glazman has posted an initial binary package of Composer++ for Windows. This version offers many improvements over the standard Composer, including support for absolute positioning, better resizing, a snap-to-grid option and inline table editing. To get the application to run, you may have to copy the files msvcr70.dll and msvcp70.dll to the folder into which you installed Composer++ (these files may already be on your system; search for them before downloading). Update! A Linux build is now also available. Another Update! The first Mac OS X binary is now available. In addition, new Windows and Linux builds have been released. Now all we need is: Ability to search the source tab - http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76374 Syntax Highlighting - http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58730 Paragraph directionality control UI - http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=96057 Prog. And hopefully some improvements to the UI, including http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=148924 . - MXN This one has been bugging me for a while: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=174361 Retain Source Formatting option in composer doesn't work. Still doesn't. Back to Notepad. Believe me when I say I appreciate all the volunteer builds of Px, Composer, etc., but the page this story links to carries the Mozilla logo on top and makes one think it's hosted on Mozilla.org, which doesn't seem so. An added "Unofficial" in the title of the page would be sufficient and necessary to avoid confusion by newbies. that Glazman will likely be taking over the Composer product, so he could/should say that on top as well. Just think everyone should be consistent. For all I know his decision could've been blessed by mozilla.org, but a little explanation should help. if you look at the link to 'Module Owners' on the front page of mozilla.org you'd see that Daniel Glazman is already the owner of Composer We appreciate *strongly* the work that you do. My disabled friend, whenever we were working on a project would say, "Let's download Composer." My comment would be, "that's ***like*** 30MB.. over a 2.88k connection." BTW, I am disabled too. so don't go talking to me about political correctness please. However, I also was confused--and thought it was not quite square-- to use the Mozilla.org logo when you are not on the Mozilla.org page. Feel free to use Mozilla logos, just not "Mozilla.org"-- or at least say "click here to go to Mozilla.org." also, the name of the composer version was "composer++" which leads people to believe that its third party. Will you maintain compatibility with the tree's implementation, or should I wait? Sam This is the kind of comment that makes me incredibly upset!!! Don't you have anything else to rant about? My code is meant to land into the trunk, and be distributed by Mozilla.org. It will be freely usable, readable, modifiable, ... Binary packages are just a way of providing users like _you_ with the new features without having to wait for the tree to open. Will the dynamic link libraries fail if they are stored in the System32 folder? This is looking like a good year for composer. If things improve fast, I might be able to use it for design full time^^. Or at least to help my friends learn how to do some webpages for themselves. When will these improvements be put into the "regular" composer? I don't think it will incorporated into the Mozilla suite. Mozilla 1.5 will be split into separate apps. Glazman stated that Composer will become an independant application like Firebird that goes on top of the Gecko Runtime Enviroment. Frankly,I like Composer to be a separate app. It will have tighter management and be a lot leaner and meaner. When Composer is part of the mozilla suite, it doesn't get the same attention that it deserves. When will these improvements be put into the "regular" composer? When will these improvements be put into the "regular" composer? This (http://www.fortytwo.uni-oldenburg.de/~philipp/composer+.png) is not normal, right? Running the package with WinXP/SP1, theme is Orbit 3+1 1.2 0.0.7. Correct link: http://www.fortytwo.uni-oldenburg.de/~philipp/composer+.png This seems to be a theme problem. I had similar problems with Pinball and Calendar a while ago. Until Orbit3 supports the new Calendar you should probably go back to Modern or Classic. It great to see a few people actually getting up and really making a difference - (initially) blake with Phoenix, mscott with Thunderbird and now glazou with Composer. I really think standalone Composer has a lot of potential - glazou, you rock! :) Why is it that the first releases of every tool are always targeted to Windows users? I'm sure there's much more insterest in the linux community. Is it just that is easier to develop for windows or what? (This is not intended to be any flames nor trolling. I just never developed anything using mozilla/gecko... so I'm quite interested in knowing about it) Linux build coming. Stay tuned. http://daniel.glazman.free.fr/weblog fine :) ..some day soon we can really wipe out the old Mozilla and get 3 fast apps ;) Linux build now available at http://daniel.glazman.free.fr/composer/composer++.html Dude, this is cool! That huge toolbar is a bit distracting, but i presume you're aware of that :-) Thanks for the Linux build :-) The improvements look absolutely fabulous! I love the new table editing controls, as well as support for absolute positioning. Now we just need support for CSS and XHTML Strict :-) Will the new Composer make use of the GRE in the future? minor issue : [ Mdk 9 ] ./mozilla-bin: /lib/i686/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.3' not found (required by /mozilla/comppp/libmozjs.so) ./mozilla-bin: /lib/i686/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.3' not found (required by /mozilla/comppp/libnspr4.so) I'd like to try the new improved Composer, but can never access the site although I've tried several times. Is there a mirror available? Wow, this verson of Composer is amazing! I have been working with pure CSS (tableless) designs for some time now, and the drag-and-dropability of CSS layers is simply astounding. Here is a screenshot: http://moztips.com/images/composerpp.png Wow! Wow! Wow! Amazing! It is the best new feature in Mozilla I have seen this year. I have put up a copy of Composer ++ at moztips.com, for those of you who cannot reach the original site: http://www.moztips.com/composerpp/ There is only a windows binary, since that is the only one I downloaded. hth, - Jay i really like the approach taken for table editing - you can modify the table structure easily, with single-clicks, and the on-screen controls are unobtrusive enough to not get in your way. It shows that some real thought went into how to make table editing as easy as possible, without resorting to more conventional - but less productive - methods like context menus. what i would really like to see fixed in composer is the moving of data from a range of cells to another range of cells. the intuitive way to do this is to highlight a range, copy, move to another cell, and paste. what this does instead is past the copied cells *inside* the selected cell. even highlighting a similarly-shaped range of cells results in a wacky layout. worst of all, these paste operations can't be undone! you have to fix manually or resort to a previous copy. Can we expect a Mac OS X build, or do we have to wait for the code to land in the tree? |