Releases from Mozilla [LWN.net]

Mozilla 1.5 is out; see the release notes for details. Among other things, this release includes a built-in spelling checker, some tabbed browsing improvements, improved performance, and more. Also released is Mozilla Firebird 0.7 (with new auto download and web panel features) and version 0.3 of the Thunderbird mail application. The Mozilla Foundation is also offering CDs for those who don't want to download all that stuff; see mozilla.org for more information.

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Watch out for your fonts with Firebird 0.7

Posted Oct 15, 2003 14:55 UTC (Wed) by TheOneKEA (guest, #615) [Link] (2 responses)

I installed Firebird 0.7 after saving the contents of my ~/.phoenix directory, and found that my font settings were horrible under the new browser. I don't know if it was my settings or the way I installed it, but if you use the mozilla.org binary builds, watch out!

Watch out for your fonts with Firebird 0.7

Posted Oct 15, 2003 15:21 UTC (Wed) by proski (guest, #104) [Link]

Perhaps your were using a build without antialiasing support and and the new build has it enabled. I don't know the reason, but I cannot get any of the "new" fonts display just like good old Helvetica (i.e. lines 1 pixel wide without being too small) on Red Hat 9. However, the same nightly build of Firebird looks just excellent on Debian unstable with the same font settings. Most likely it has to do with versions of font support libraries.

You may want to switch to serif fonts. Alternatively, Bitstream Vera Sans looks not bad, it just takes some time to get used to it. Increasing monitor resolution can help too.

Watch out for your fonts with Firebird 0.7

Posted Oct 16, 2003 1:06 UTC (Thu) by jonathanbearak (guest, #8861) [Link]

don't download the binaries linked on the mozilla website. their ftp seems unresponsive right now so i can't find the link, but get the gtk2 build. i think the url was something like ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firebird/releases/0.7/firebird-blablabla-gtk-xft

Releases from Mozilla

Posted Oct 15, 2003 16:09 UTC (Wed) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] (3 responses)

... and MNG support is still not restored. Pity.

Releases from Mozilla

Posted Oct 15, 2003 18:15 UTC (Wed) by bdw (guest, #16047) [Link] (1 responses)

Pffft, who cares...

Releases from Mozilla

Posted Oct 15, 2003 18:29 UTC (Wed) by proski (guest, #104) [Link]

Adoption of any format begins when it becomes supported by major software. It's not like everybody will use MNG once Mozilla supports it, but that's the point when the clock will start ticking. Formats get more respect if they have been supported for some time.

Releases from Mozilla

Posted Oct 16, 2003 18:31 UTC (Thu) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]

Well, MNG thingy is/was a very lengthy discussion in Mozilla land. Look at mngzilla.sf.net to see where this all is leading today. Actually, that all might even end in libmng being much better and Mozilla having a streamlined, better support of it then ever. Eventually it might end in MNG being a dead cow. We'll see what this lengthy topic leads to.

Releases from Mozilla

Posted Oct 15, 2003 17:11 UTC (Wed) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

What cames on this site gives a lot of ideas for "WHY A LINUX FOUNDATION":

http://www.mozilla.org/website-beta/press/mozilla-10.15.03.html

What better support and expertize would be, than the original kernel developers themselfes, for all those projects that require special modifications to the kernel sources; from drivers, clusters, to 32, 64, 128 way parallel monsters.

Yes like the mozilla foundation, a Linux foundation could "sell"(not the right word), not by it self has a non profit organization, but coordinate the "availability" of services from their original code developers.

There are a lot of payed full time jobs, and possible payed special projects (which drivers are the least) around Linux. Why not make it to general availability to all kernel developers that apply, by the way of a LINUX FOUNDATION

By their very restrict area of expertize they (Linux Foundation Developers), could and should be made to not compete with Distros and other sellers but be a help to them in achiving a better support state.

A Linux Foundation could also hold the trademark, embody a fund for litigation against possible "nasty LinkSys type" abusers in behalf of the developers, old the domain and phisical servers for all the sources of kernels,..., and many more...

NOW LET SCO TELL THAT THERE IS NO POSSIBLE BUSINESS AROUND LINUX ?

Mozilla vs Firebird

Posted Oct 15, 2003 21:27 UTC (Wed) by alspnost (guest, #2763) [Link] (2 responses)

Great work from the Mozilla Foundation. Moz is still my favourite open source application by a fair margin, because it's inarguably better than any propietary counterparts. And also, a decent browser is the most important tool I need day to day.

Anyway, I recently tried Firebird, and I'm still not sure what all the hype is about. Sure, it's wonderfully fast and clean-feeling, but the interface is uncomfortably similar to IE's, and it drops a lot of Mozilla's most advanced features. Perhaps they'll reappear as Firebird heads towards 1.0?

Most important of all: where's the sidebar gone? I mean the customisable, tabbed sidebar, not just the history and bookmarks things. I find it hard to live without that in Firebird. Oh well, choice, choice, choice I guess....

Mozilla vs Firebird

Posted Oct 16, 2003 18:37 UTC (Thu) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link] (1 responses)

Heh, that's why we, the "Seamonkey lovers", are still a big power in the Mozilla project. We know that the good old browser application suite (codenamed "Seamonkey") still has quite a bunch of offers in terms of functionality and UI features that Firebird still can not fill out.

We're sure that Seamonkey application suite and the application bundle of Firebird, Thunderbird etc. will co-exist at least until the new small apps can be up to the task of taking over virtually everything the Seamonkey can do now.

Mozilla vs Firebird

Posted Oct 16, 2003 23:55 UTC (Thu) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link]

This is one of my favorite gripes.
Seamonkey rocks. Alongside OpenOffice, everything
for an office worker is there. It's all there.

Oddly, the "other" apps, mail/news, address book, calendar
and such get nearly no press at all.
The whole netscape approach I thought was much
better than the outlook/exchange approach way
back then. I still believe it is today.
But still, the press space goes to the
Outlook work-alikes. (nice work there, truly.
But some of us don't WANT outlook)

Now, there seems to be a lot of momentum on
breaking seamonkey up. I'd like to see
tighter integration, like being able to
run EVERYTHING in tabs (yeah, you can
do it with a chrome:// hack, but it doesn't
work well) rather than have half a dozen separate
apps to just clog up my users desktops.

Keep up the good work Mozilla team, we love you!