Easy Firefox

Archive for April, 2010

We’re happy to announce the release of Jetpack SDK 0.3, the third in our regular series of releases of the add-on SDK we’re incubating for integration with Firefox.

This version includes the first two high-level APIs we’re building to enable simple and powerful add-on development:

This version of the SDK also includes a number of bug fixes and other enhancements.

Get Started

• Browse the documentation.
• Download the SDK as a tarball or ZIP archive.
• Read the release notes.
• For more information, check out the blog post introducing the SDK and the FAQ.

Participate

• Visit the Jetpack website.
• Submit a bug report.
• Grab the source code and fix a bug or add a feature.
• Discuss, debate, and get help in the discussion forum.
• Chat via IRC in #jetpack on irc.mozilla.org.

- Myk, on behalf of Team Jetpack

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The Bespin team has just released Bespin 0.7.3, a minor update to the Bespin server and Bespin Embedded packages. We’ve made a whole bunch of improvements since the release of 0.7.2.

From a day-to-day usability perspective, my favorite new feature in Bespin 0.7.3 is the new file completion for the “open” command (which, incidentally, is now available via cmd-O/ctrl-O). Take a look at the screen shot below:

After typing “open pldev/com”, you can see that Bespin found two files that match: commands.js in the “plugindev” directory and commands.js in the “bespin_server” directory. Those two match because those letters that I typed can be found in that order in both names. The one in plugindev (which is the one I was looking for) was a better match, so it appears at the top. You can see that in faint letters Bespin is showing the full path for the top hit. This is what I get if I hit <tab>. Also convenient is that I can press <alt-2> to select the second match in the list from the keyboard. I could also click on one of the choices with the mouse. Joe put in a good deal of work to make this slick and usable, and I expect we’ll be adding a lot more useful completions to the command line over time.

With this release, we’ve knocked off 3 of the items requested via our feedback forum (thanks for submitting and voting on the items there!). The preview command is back, you can now log in using your email address (assuming you only have 1 account associated with that address). The “I forgot my password” feature also returns in this release. Thanks to Julian and Patrick for a bunch of fixes in 0.7.3.

Plugins

Plugin development has also gotten easier, with the addition of the “ep” and “plugin info” commands. These commands provide you with a bunch of information about what’s available in Bespin.

On the topic of plugins, the first plugin has landed in the plugin gallery! It’s an experimental PHP syntax highlighter by Scott Teglasi. You can install it by running “plugin install php”. You can also download it from https://bespin.mozillalabs.com/plugin/download/php/current/. Thanks, Scott!

Add to this a bunch of bug fixes, and I think we’ve got a nice, but minor, update for you.  We’re planning for a meatier release for our next one (codenamed “Theora”).

Docs

The Bespin wiki was very out of date. I salvaged what I could, and moved more docs into our Mercurial repository. Those docs are visible at https://bespin.mozillalabs.com/docs/. A generic wiki is really a bad tool for software documentation, so we’ll be sticking with having the main docs in Mercurial for the time being.

Embedded

Bespin 0.7.3 has goodies for Bespin Embedded users as well. In addition to the general fixes made, there are now a bunch of new methods available on the bespin object for working with the text that the user is editing. These are documented in the Embedders’ Guide.

Pick up the latest Bespin Embedded release in its usual home: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/labs/bespin/Embedded/

Thanks for all of the feedback and activity! Between now and the “Theora” release of Bespin, keep an eye on this space for some new tutorials.

– Kevin Dangoor, on behalf of the Bespin team

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Since the release of the first study last September, we have had quite a few user feedback to ask if they can save their own data after it has been submitted to us:

         “I like the ‘Life of a browser’ test. Interesting stats. I hope much of the stats will stay forever.”

         “Can I get my data somewhere? I also wanted to play with it and visualize it and learn processing.js during the process.”

Currently, all users test data are removed from their devices when it was submitted to us. Mozilla takes user privacy very seriously. Our intention is to provide ways to avoid any potential damage to users private data while we collecting meaningful data for product research. Meanwhile, Mozilla is also an open source community that aims to creates an open, participatory and transparent environment for the community members to grow knowledge. After a long discussion, we decide that if users wish to keep their own data for research interests or as a way to know themselves better, we should be gladly helping them make uses of their own data.

To accommodate this request, while not having data remain indefinitely, we have decided that we will support users to export their data after it is submitted. We will not delete your test data from your computer for 7 days after you submit it. For those who wish to keep your test data, please ensure you save it during this 7-day window.

If you decide not to save the test data after submission, it will be removed from your devices 7 days after the submission. This new “export my data” feature will be released with the Test Pilot 1.0 final version.

What’s New in the Privacy Policy

This change is also reflected in our privacy policy. Here is the new section on retention of data in the Privacy Policy:

“All Test Data will be made anonymous and aggregated, and made available to the general public in the form of aggregate data. These aggregate data do not personally identify any test participants. Test Pilot is designed to remove the Test Data from the local database in your Firefox browser when (1) when you choose to opt out of Test Pilot or the test; (2) 7 days after you choose to submit Test Data to Mozilla, or (3) when you choose not to submit the Test Data when requested at the end of the test. Some users have told us they want to keep their Test Data after submitting it to us. This is why we will not delete it from your browser for 7 days after you submit. For those who wish to keep their Test Data, please ensure you save it during this 7-day window.”

The Test Pilot program may change its policy from time to time upon user requests or the change of our research scope. All changes will always follow our guiding principles:

• You Opt-In.
• You Grant Permission.
• You’re Anonymous.
• You’re in Control.

In order to make people aware of the changes on privacy policy, we also update the session of Policy Changes:

“Mozilla may change this Policy from time to time. Any and all changes will be reflected on this page. When Mozilla changes this Policy in a material way, a notice will be posted on a Mozilla Labs webpage, such as on the TestPilot blog. Substantive changes may also be announced through the standard mechanisms by which Mozilla communicates with its users and community, including Mozilla’s “announce” mailing list and newsgroup. It is your responsibility to ensure that you understand the terms of this Policy. You should periodically check this page for any changes to the current policy.Data collected will be governed by the Policy in effect at the time the data was submitted to Mozilla”

We have also clarified this policy update in the Mozilla:Goverance forum .

Get Involved

As an organization dedicated to the public good, Mozilla treats user privacy and security with the utmost importance.

1. Let us know your feedback on this policy update in our Test Pilot discussion forum.
2. Let us know your general feedback about Test Pilot via Twitter.
3. Download and try out the latest Test Pilot extension if you haven’t.

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Earlier today we announced that the Account Manager feature we’ve been working on is graduating from Labs into the Firefox team.

The current Account Manager team will continue to help with the specification and implementation, and we’re now adding a new member to the team: Gavin Sharp, rock star Firefox hacker will be joining us to get Account Manager up to the (very high!) Firefox standards. Welcome Gavin!

We’re incredibly excited that one of our recent projects is now firmly on the path to being on a Firefox release, and look forward to working with the Firefox team and the wider Web community to make the Web better for everyone.

Check out the announcement, and the new Account Manager feature page. And of course, we’re still looking for feedback on Account Manager, let us know what you think on our forums.

– Dan Mills, on behalf of the Account Manager team

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Looking for a theme that is new, stylish and one of a kind?  This type a theme comes too few an far between these days.  So with that said, let us all enjoy the Metal 3D theme.

These days, a lot of the new Firefox themes coming out are not that pretty, or are not really reinventing the wheel when it comes to innovation.  The Metal 3D theme for Firefox is different though.  I really like the dark (but not black) background, and the brown in the navigation toolbar just looks, “classy” to me.

So how do you feel about it?  Are you in love with the Metal 3D theme, or have you seen better?  I think it is a winner, and you can pick it up for yourself on the Firefox Add-ons web site (Windows-only for now).

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

 
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Recently, I needed to use Firefox in full screen mode, but ran into an annoyance you might have seen.  While the presentation was nice, seeing the web page stretch across my entire monitor when I hit the F11 key, I did not want the address bar and tab bar to disappear. 

So, now the question I needed to answer is how can I always show the navigation toolbar and the tabs toolbar when browsing in full screen mode in Firefox?

The answer was simple, and probably overlooked by many.  When in full screen mode, simply right-click the navigation toolbar and un-check “Hide Toolbars”. 

That is all you need to do.  There is no need for an about:config tweak or add-on to download.  Just an often overlooked and simple solution to a Firefox browsing preference.  Hope this comes in handy for all of you out there.  It just goes to show you sometimes the most simple Firefox fixes are right under your nose.

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

 
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Last weekend I had an extra half day in San Diego while waiting for a gymnastics meet (entry level boys competition) to start. I had an experience that makes me feel even more strongly that we should be telling everyone we touch that Mozilla is a public benefit organization, existing to build the Internet as a global resource; open, accessible and “hackable” by all. I’d like to see most or all Mozilla websites make this clear, and I’d like to see our products make this very clear as well.

At the hotel I saw a brochure for “Quail Botanical Gardens” in a rack with brochures featuring San Diego’s many visitor attractions. I love gardens so I took a look. It sounded potentially interesting but I was also wary of finding a “tourist trap” where someone has planted a few basic plants and is trying to find newbies who will pay to see them. So I went poking around their web site.

The first thing I noticed after the photos was the statement, “The mission of the Garden is to inspire people of all ages to connect with plants and nature.”

“Hmm,” I thought, “that sounds a lot like a non-profit mission statement.” It soon became clear that this is the case – the garden is a non-profit organization. My worry about the tourist trap immediately decreased, and I felt better about the chances of something worthwhile coming of a visit. Non-profit organizations can make mistakes. They can be boring and ineffective just like anything else. But the chance that the whole thing was just something dumb designed to get people there to extract money felt much, much lower.

As it turns out, the garden is great. Lots of bamboo, subtropical fruit, cactus and other fun items, and I’ll go back next time I am in the San Diego area.

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Have you ever been punished for using Firefox?  This student was…

How scary is that Foxfire.exe?  I will leave this one up for debate – sound off and let me know what you think about this in the comments.

Also, as a side note – I do apologize for the lack of updates here recently.  I’ve got some big changes coming in the future and just about everything has been sorted out – just wanted to make sure I thanked all of you for sticking it out with me, and we will be getting back to more regularly scheduled blogging very soon.

Make sure you subscribe to Firefox Facts via RSS!  It is easy to do, totally free and that way you will never miss out on any Firefox tips, add-on suggestions or theme reviews that get posted here.  Thanks!

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

 
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Release 0.3 of Firefox Contacts is now live – you can download it here.

In this release, we’ve added support for Yahoo! and Facebook contacts, put people into the AwesomeBar, and enhanced Contacts’ ability to find information about people by asking around the web.

As part of this release, we’ve added experimental support for “person:” URLs. You can look up people in your contacts list, or anybody on the web, using this technique. Firefox will combine information found from your local address book with web-based information to create a profile page about the person. For example, try “person:mhanson@gmail.com” or “person:http://facebook.com/btaylor”. Mike has written a detailed explanation of how auto-discovery works, if you are curious or want to experiment with it.

Viewing a person: URL that combines data from multiple web sources

As always, we welcome your feedback on our discussion list.

Release Notes

• Support for Yahoo! import. You will need to log in and retrieve a security code from Yahoo! to enable the importer.
• Support for Facebook import and discovery. When you connect to Facebook you will need to authorize Firefox Contacts to access your account. This integration is using the brand-new Facebook Graph API, and may still have some hiccups. You may need to Refresh your connection to Facebook on occasion to make it work properly.
• Support for “person:” addresses, and auto-completion of people in the AwesomeBar. Just start typing a contact’s name in the location bar and it will automatically suggest completions.
• Support for autocompletion of HTML5 input fields with type “email” and “tel”. (Try it on the demo page)
• Much-enhanced people search capabilities. The installed discovery modules will run automatically when you view a contact. Discovery modules for Webfinger, HCard import, Google Social Graph, Facebook, Gravatar, Yelp, Amazon, and Flickr are included.
• Automatic combination of data discovered through discovery. Firefox will load “profile pages” that it finds and combine their information into the contact. Because it is being run on the client, Firefox can access protected pages that are not visible to web-crawler-type systems; for example, it can access a Gowalla location trace from a friend, or a Facebook birthday, because it is already logged in as you. Note that this only works with sites that support standard automatic discovery mechanisms like HCard, RSS, and ActivityStreams.
• Support for non-contact people in the AwesomeBar. You may enter “person:xxx”, where xxx is any email address or URL, and Firefox will do what it can to display information about that person. Information from your local address book (if any) will be combined with information that can be discovered from sources on the web.

And, as always, the source is available at:

http://hg.mozilla.org/labs/people

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I joined Mozilla Labs recently to lead the team’s product marketing initiatives.  By coincidence, in my first team meeting we discussed what it meant to be “open”.  This led to a broader debate about how Labs is and should live up to its fundamental principles: openness, innovation, transparency, community participation and accelerated product development.

As one of my first projects, I’m evaluating areas where Mozilla Labs can further live up to its brand and ensure that it is doing its part to push the boundaries of the web experience.  To avoid developing this in a black hole, I wanted to open up the conversation to get your ideas.

To kick it off, let’s explore the concept of open ideation.  By “open ideation”, I mean providing a place for the community to post and present their ideas.  The goal is for the community to discuss and identify the ideas which should be developed into prototypes and, based on results, potentially be incorporated into Firefox and/or the web browsing platform.  But what is the most effective way for Mozilla Labs to accomplish this?

• How can Mozilla Labs promote open ideation but still be able to drill down to a subset of ideas which will continue onto the prototype phase?  What should be the criteria and/or mechanism deployed for funneling the ideas?
• If you posted your idea to Mozilla Labs what kind of feedback would be useful to you?
• How much guidance would you want Mozilla Labs to provide around what ideas to discuss e.g., no guidance, general themes, specific questions, etc.?
• Are there particular topics that you want to see Mozilla Labs discussing/blogging about more?
• What are examples of organizations that are doing a great job in promoting and deploying open ideation with the broader community?

I look forward to your insights – leave your comments either on this blog or head over to our discussion group. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting a series of blog posts which address the areas needing the most input to further evolve Mozilla Labs.

- Mayumi on behalf of the Mozilla Labs team

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