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A look at the Firefox 2 Beta 2 browser
The beta 2 release of version 2 of the Firefox web browser,
aka Bon Echo,
has been announced, it is the fifth developer milestone for Firefox 2.
This early release is aimed at developers and testers, not end users.
The Bon Echo Alpha 2 release was
tested here last May.
![[Firefox]](/images/ns/firefoxlogo2.png)
New features in Firefox 2 beta 2 include:
The Firefox 2 beta 2 release notes page looks at the new features in more detail and the Bon Echo Planning Center explains what to expect in upcoming Firefox releases. Firefox 2 beta 2 is available for download here. Testers should familiarize themselves with the known issues section of the release notes, as well as the Firefox System Requirements document. Your editor gave this version of Firefox a quick spin, it started up with a few NS_ERROR_FAILURE messages, but continued working anyway. The multiple tab features look useful, in addition to the left and right tab extender buttons, there is also a down arrow that shows a list of all of the open tabs. All but the currently used tab are now displayed with a lower contrast view. The tab changes to a medium contrast when the mouse move on top, then goes to a high contrast when clicked on, this may take some getting used to. Several times, the left most tab disappeared from the screen after submitting changes on a web entry form, this appears to be a bug. The back and forward buttons are now split, and have an additional down arrow that brings up a list of recently viewed pages. In previous versions of Firefox, this was all done with the single arrow buttons. Additionally, there is a similar down arrow next to the current URL display. This appears to your editor as the addition of unnecessary features and screen clutter, remember this old axiom: simpler is better. All of the errors encountered in the Bon Echo Alpha One release appear to have been fixed. Firefox 2 appears to be getting more stable, although it is probably best to wait for the official release before relying on it for critical work. (Log in to post comments)
A look at the Firefox 2 Beta 2 browser Posted Sep 7, 2006 9:43 UTC (Thu) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] Wow, wizzy graphical spellcheck in the edit box, but it still can'tlaunch an external editor (a feature requested in the first month of the mozilla project). How hard is fork(), exactly?
A look at the Firefox 2 Beta 2 browser Posted Sep 7, 2006 10:58 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] You can do this with the ViewSourceWith extension. Details at <http://www.swaroopch.info/text/How_to_use_Vim_with_Firefox>. And/or the External Editor extension: <https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1195/>
A look at the Firefox 2 Beta 2 browser Posted Sep 7, 2006 13:59 UTC (Thu) by im14u2c (subscriber, #5246) [Link] Firefox extensions have lead to a somewhat interesting circumstance. It's almost a bit of the "Worse is Better" phenomenon, applied in the best possible way. The browser itself can focus on just being "pretty good" in terms of features, with fairly high QC on those features. Meanwhile, extensions can provide the "missing features," without necessarily requiring the same broad appeal needed to bring them into the baseline browser or the full QC that the browser itself requires. Over time, as some extensions prove their broad acceptance and usefulness, they can move into the baseline browser. And those that trigger religious wars? They can stay as extensions.
I've seen this happen with a few things, such as various extensions to tabbed browsing. The ability to reorder tabs was previously provided by an extension. It's now part of 1.5. Focusing the last selected tab, however, triggered something of a religious war. So, it continues as an extension.
A look at the Firefox 2 Beta 2 browser Posted Sep 8, 2006 11:15 UTC (Fri) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link] Tool bar buttons that glow when the mouse hovers over them. Thank God that made it in and they skipped the trivial fluff like prompting before throwing away my last 2 hours of typing. That sort of stuff is best left to the real professionals of the editing world like eh... Notepad.exe and eh... every other editor I've ever used.
A look at the Firefox 2 Beta 2 browser Posted Sep 10, 2006 12:47 UTC (Sun) by job (guest, #670) [Link] You might want to try Konqueror.
A look at the Firefox 2 Beta 2 browser Posted Sep 10, 2006 15:16 UTC (Sun) by fergal (subscriber, #602) [Link] Thanks. I'm posting this from it and it does prompt before throwing myposting away. I'm unlikely to switch browsers just for this... However, I can go make some noise on a firefox list!
JavaScript 1.7^WPython Posted Sep 14, 2006 6:22 UTC (Thu) by ringerc (guest, #3071) [Link] I like the new language features - a lot - but what about the ECMA JavaScript spec? MSIE compatibility? I realise one must explicitly opt to use the 1.7 features, so it's not going to accidentally "leak" into general web use, but it'd be nice to see at least a nod to compatibility issues. Even if that nod is just "use only in Mozilla-specific code".
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