Is this great news, or good news, or nothing too exciting? Dunno. It might be interesting to learn how many people read this in another browser, popped over to firefox to update it ... and then returned to their other browser. We may be at the point where browsers are like toilet paper -- lots of brands will do the work, and it's hard to pay much attention to which one is installed.
Firefox 8.0 is Released
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tutorials (and learning material in general) can be found on https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions . This page seem to cover both API (XUL & Jetpack).
I am aware of the page and have written an Extension in the past. I am unclear about the following things a) Is Jetpack the way to go going forward? How much of the XPCom api is available through Jetpack? b) Is there an IDE I can setup that will allow me to get autocompletion for extension development? c) Is there an API browser for XPCom objects listing the objects, the methods available on them and the minimum vers…
Jetpack is preferred because it's easier to write, reduces compatibility problems between versions (because there are fewer "hooks" into deep FF innards), and you don't have to restart to install, uninstall, or reload them. Of course there are limitations, but unless you really need something in XUL that's not available in Jetpack, Jetpack is the way to go.
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Full" version releases? There will be a new release every six weeks. Whatever features are ready to be shipped at that time will be released. There was a discussion about removing the version number from the "About" box but it was left in for debugging purposes. That's all the version number is for now. Since there are no "long-term support" versions, just make sure you're up-to-date and don't give the version numbe…
> There will be a new release every six weeks. The corrollary to this being that releases are no longer news.
Right. New features might be news, but new versions shouldn't be.
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#34Dear Mozilla. Why do you keep doing all these full version releases? Seriously it's just annoying. Just because IE is on version 10. Doesn't mean you have to be. Why are you doing this.... You've gone from 3-8 in a year. That's not right.
I sort of understand their reasoning. It's easier to get people interested in a "full" release, than some 3.0.21 version every three mongths. It also was more wrong to stay on 3.6.* for over two years. A middle road might be to start a year with a full release and then do point-releases doing that year, so in 2013 we would have, for instance: 13, 13.0.1, 13.1, 13.2, 13.2.1, 13.3.
the whole point of this scheme is that there shouldn't be point releases. having them throughout the year is just as bad as any other point release.
the reason behind going to full numbers is that if you don't have the latest version, you have the wrong version. if there is a 13.1 and a 13.2, it makes it seem like people using 13.1 are still using the latest version. they aren't.
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#35Just got the notification, but didn't upgrade because a lot of my very useful extensions for HTML dev weren't compatible. I don't think the new features in 7->8 make up for the lack of my extensions.
As of Firefox 4.0, there is an extension api that is both version-less and allows restarting extensions without restarting the browser. Especially with Firefox's new release schedule, more extension developers should probably make the effort to start using it. https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Bootstrapped_ext...
Unfortunately, there is little documentation. I have looked into adding this for my extensions, and didn't manage to do it. Same documentation issues I had when I first started to port my extensions for Firefox to Fennec: pieces of documentations here and there, but nothing that clearly explains the differences between the 2 platforms.
That said, their extension framework is by far the most powerful of all browsers.
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#36In 5 weeks they are going to be shipping Firefox 13.0.
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#37It would make more sense (to me) that they focused on fixing some of the many bugs filed in the bug tracker. Just saying, but then Chrome is my browser of choice anyway...
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because version numbers are irrelevant, what's important is keeping people on the newest version. "Solving" the problem of large version numbers is like solving the problem 1/0.
At work we have a web application purchased about 18 months ago that officially don't support Firefox above 3.6. There were rendering differences between 3.6 and 4 that were serious enough to enforce that restriction for certain users. Apparently, it has begun working as expected again in FF7 (might have worked in FF6, not sure). The application also uses jQuery 1.2.6 (released May '08) - I guess I'll be the one to Q…
I'm not entirely sure, but I think Mozilla will continue to support Fx 3.6 until they have a better solution for large companies. I'm not sure what that better solution would be, but I believe they're trying to solve the problem.
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#39The add-on thing could be huge, if it works out. I am tired of seeing computers riddled with spybars.
Yep - I was very impressed to see the update installer ask if I want to keep add-ons installed by a third party, with the default option being no.
Re: Firefox 8.0 is Released
#40It would make more sense (to me) that they focused on fixing some of the many bugs filed in the bug tracker. Just saying, but then Chrome is my browser of choice anyway...
You do realize that there were tons of bugs fixed between 7 and 8, right?
It's just that bugfixes never make the news.