Ahh... now I see what you mean.

To sort permanently, you should:

1) Goto Bookmark Manager

2) Right click on the folder you want to sort.

3) Click "Sort Folder by Name" to sort just the selected folder by name non-recursively. "Sort Folder..." gives you more options (sort by, sort order, sort folders first, sort recursively).

IMO this is the correct behaviour and clicking on the column headers should affect just the current view.

It would probably be better to call the sort options in the edit menu 'reorder' or something similar, to separate it from the sort functionality in the rest of Mozilla.

I'd patch it myself, however I'd rather not barge in if someone else is busy patching bookmarks at the moment as it might conflict with their plans.

The difference here is that 1.7, like 1.4 and 1.0 (which had the same kind of overlap), requires more rounds of testing, because it's intended for a wider audience. 1.8 development is totally separate (obviously some of the developers overlap, but 1.7 fixes generally don't take too much time because so few are approved), so it moves along while 1.7 is being stabilized. Does that mean that 1.7 final should, in a perfect world, come out before 1.8 alpha? Perhaps. However, the question comes down to: if you are ready for an alpha release of the next version, is it better to wait until the final release just because of minimizing confusion? Perhaps on a schedule that is dictated by certain features being in certain versions (meaning dates are flexible). However, Mozilla's dates are generally inflexible (minus padding time for last-minute stabilization and holidays and such), whereas features can be bumped. Hence, 1.8 alpha 1 comes out before 1.7 final because 1.8 alpha 1 was scheduled to come out at that certain time and 1.7 final wasn't done yet. My company works much the same way (although we don't have 6 week cycles; we have 3 month cycles, so it tends to not overlap).

The problem here is that the cycle for 1.7 was streched by about a month or more very late in the process, due to the late decision to make 1.7 the next stable release (and not 1.8). So, while the development of 1.8 is quite on schedule (I think), the development/stabilzing of 1.7 isn't in respect to the original plan. If 1.7 was still a "normal" release, the final would already be out a couple of weeks.

Does all this mean, that 1.8 development should have been delayed or at least the release of the Alpha 1 ?

No. Who cares a shit for people who can get confused so easily. "Normal users" wouldn't use RC or even Alpha builds anyway. Anybody who cares enough to download regularly Mozilla Alpha, Beta, RC or even Nighly builds on its own should be bright enough, to understand the development process/cycle.

Maybe this leads to a little bit less 1.7 RC1/2 testing, but I cannot remember 1.7 to crash on me (leading to a crash report) even once, anyway. Those who had or verified crashes (and care enough) will probably go on testing new Nighlies until those crashes are fixed.

Just my 0.02$

Harald Henkel

P.S. To all the Mozilla developers: keep up the brilliant work.