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With this issue the newsletter project is turning 1. We want to thank you for your interest and support during this first year and would like to ask you to let us know what you like or dislike about the newsletter. We know there is plenty of room for improvement and we look forward to offering more in coming months.
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Mozilla Links - English Edition
Issue # 22 - September 6, 2004
_______________________________________
With this issue the newsletter project is turning 1. We want to thank you
for your interest and support during this first year and would like to ask
you to let us know what you like or dislike about the newsletter. We know
there is plenty of room for improvement and we look forward to offering
more in coming months.
We are pleased to announce the availability of a new Italian edition of
Links. To subscribe go to http://nostalsong.com/mozillalinks/it/
As a big crowd of the Mozilla community impatiently waits for Firefox 1.0,
a new roadmap update has been released. The new target release has been
pushed to October 11 for Linux and Windows, with intermediate release
candidates on September 20 and October 4. MacOS X versions will be
released later. Firefox 1.0PR (pre-release) was announced for August 30
and should be going out any moment now. Since our review on our last
issue, last in development versions show new History, Go, Download and New
Tab toolbar button icons, "Work Offline" feature has been removed because
of some bugs that may not get fixed by the expected release date, a new
"Promote Firefox" item has been added to the Help menu, and Livemarks were
renamed to Live Bookmarks.
Some readers have expressed their concerns about the password reminders
the Mozilla Links list server sends the first day of the month in plain
text. We can only advise to avoid using a valuable password (such as from
banking or e-mail accounts) for your newsletter subscription. We will keep
this issue in mind and will try to find out an alternative.
Thanks for reading and please send any comments to
[e-mail:newsletter-feedback@mozilla.org] .
Percy Cabello
Mozilla Links
__________________________________
In this issue:
1. BETTER MOZILLA
- Review: SpellBound 0.3.3
- Review: Scribe 0.2
- Tip: Master Your History
- PowerTip: Save Your Search Plugins
2. NEWS
3. MOZILLA PROJECTS
4. POLL
5. CONTACT INFO
________________________________
1. BETTER MOZILLA
________________________________
Review: SpellBound 0.6
______________________
Developed by Robert Strong
Based on Mozilla Composer spell checker, SpellBound is an extension that
adds spell checking in web forms (like web mail or forum posts composing
screens) capabilites to Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox.
To install, go to http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/#installation select
your operating system (Windows, Linux, MacOS), a dictionary language and
(optionally) a language pack* and click Install SpellBound. In Firefox,
Extension Manager will list
three extensions to be installed. Click "Yes" to proceed and restart
Firefox after installation.
Linux users must perform a two step installation that is also described in
the installation web page.
Once installed, the next time you need to spell check a (specially) long
message, right click on a text area, and select "Check Spelling" to open
the spell check window. It works similar to spell checker found in word
processors like OpenOffice.org Write or Microsoft Word.
In the upper are you will see your text with words not recognized marked
with a red underline. You will have the option to replace an unrecognized
word with a suggested one or another manually entered, ignore it or add it
to your personal dictionary**. To edit your personal directory click the
"Edit..." button.
You can also add another dictionary. Click on the "Language" drop down
menu and select "Download More". You will be taken to
http://dictionaries.mozdev.org where you can choose a dictionary for about
50 languages and regions. Click on the desired language and it will be
installed. It is not required to restart Firefox. Just close and reopen
the Check Spelling window to have the new dictionary listed as an option.
SpellBound website:
http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/
* A language pack is a component that provides a user interface in the
selected language.
** Your personal dictionary entries are stored in your profile folder as
"persdict.dat".
For help finding your personal profile, check Henrik Gemal's Psyched Site
at http://gemal.dk/mozilla/profile.html
Review: Scribe 0.2
__________________
Developed by Jeremiah Golden
"Why doesn't someone develop an extension so it saves your post for you?",
asked Jeremiah Golden, talking about several people he knew who have lost
long forum, blog or web mail posts. "Well, why don't you make it?", was
his wife's answer. So he sat and created Scribe.
Scribe is extension that allows to save a web form to an XHTML file and
load it back later. Once installed, to save a form click on the "File"
menu and select "Save entry as...", enter a name for the file to be saved
and you are done.
When you go back to the web form, open the "File" menu, select "Open
Entry..", browse for the file you saved and all the saved information will
be loaded back. It proves to be useful also for helping others fill a web
form. You can fill the "hard" fields (like in loan applications), save the
form and e-mail the file to your troubled pal to complete the missing
ones.
I have read some reports about problems handling long files, however in my
tests Scribe handled 100KB+ entries with no glitch.
According to Golden, A new release, 0.3 is very close to release with
better support for Gmail and international character sets. Auto-save and
save on close can be expected in future releases also.
Try Scribe here:
http://prismicspiral.com/scribe/
Tip: Master Your History
_________________________
Contributed by Percy Cabello
As you very probably know, the History is a browser feature that keeps a
record of all web pages you have visited. It becomes very handy for
example when you just visited a useful website and didn't have the chance
to bookmark it. So, you just press Ctrl + H and the "History" sidebar will
appear.
By default, visited websites will be listed sorted "by date", grouped in
folders named Today, Yesterday, Last week, and so on. But there are other
sorting options you may find useful at other times:
- By Date and Site, in addition to grouping by day visited, it will group
by domain name (the part of a web address before the first "/")
- By Site, grouped by domain name only
- By Most Visited
- By Last Visited, most useful if for example you just accidentally closed
a tab with a just found web page
To change between different sort options, press the "View" button and
select accordingly.
Additionally, you can look for some word in the titles of visited web
pages, type some words in the "Search" textbox and press Enter.
By default, Firefox will "remember"the sites you visited in the last 9
days. If you want to change it, go to the "Tools" menu, select
"Options..." and then the "Privacy" page. Click on "History" and enter the
desired number of days in "Remember
visited pages for the last __ days".
PowerTip: Save Your Search Plugins
__________________________________
Contributed by Percy Cabello
If you have a large collection of search plugin, you may want to save them
before installing a new release of Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox to avoid
having to reinstall them.
To do so, go to the "searchplugins" folder in your installation directory
(tipically, "C:Program FilesMozilla Firefoxsearchplugins" in Windows).
For each plugin you have installed you will see a couple of files with the
same name. One
with a SRC extension (a text file with the required definitions for the
search engine) and the other is the logo image with an extension like PNG,
GIF or JPG.
Copy all the files to a backup location out of the "Mozilla Firefox"
folder. To restore the plugins later, just copy them back from the backup
location to the "searchplugins" folder.
________________________________
Check http://www.mozillatips.com for more fun tips for your favorite browser.
________________________________
2. NEWS
________________________________
Mozilla Based Encyclopedia Released by Hachette Multimedia
__________________________________________________________
On July 26, Hachette Multimedia announced (through AFJV, French
Association for Video Game) the availability of Hachette Multimedia
Encyclopedia 2005. Developed by IDM (http://www.idm.fr/) and published by
Hachette Multimedia, the electronic
encyclopedia is a stand-alone application based on Mozilla 1.2.1. "It's a
very old version, but we were obliged to use this one to be able to use
scriptable Flash plugin on MacOS X, and for historical reasons also"
commented Damien Krotkine, an
IDM project leader of the product. "IDM has some experience with Mozilla
based products. With this experience, it took IDM 6 months to develop
entirely the product, once the product design were decided and
specifications written", he added.
Currently, the product is only available in French but Hachette
Multimedia's Eric Kalasz let us know they are open to work with foreign
publishers in localized editions.
Hachette Multimedia Encyclopedia Press Release (in french, with some
screenshots):
http://www.afjv.com/press0407/040722_encyclopedie_hachette_multimedia.htm
Nvu 0.41 Released
_________________
On August 10, Disruptive Innovations and Linspire, Inc. released version
0.4 of Nvu, a Gecko-based web site authoring tool. Based on Mozilla 1.7
code, it features new horizontal and vertical rulers allowing to resize
all element with the mouse,
including table columns and rows.
Version 0.41 is a minor release that fixes a problem in the Publishing
settings and adds a Fonts preference panel.
Download Nvu 0.41: http://www.nvu.com/download.html
Mozilla Foundation, Novell and IBM to Implement XForms 1.0 in Mozilla
_____________________________________________________________________
On August 10, the Mozilla Foundation announced the formation of a project
to implement W3C's XForms 1.0. W3C (for World Wide Web Consortium) gathers
some 350 organizations around the world to review, approve and promote
common protocols for
the web evolution. XForms allows more powerful web forms with validation
capabilities and connection to web services, that could mean for example,
less data exchange with a server and faster and more correct forms
filling.
Mozilla Foundation press release:
http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2004-08-10.html
User Friendly Cartoon on Mozilla Security Bugs Bounty Program
_____________________________________________________________
On August 11, User Friendly, a tech oriented cartoon by J.D. "Illiad"
Frazer, released another Mozilla related strip. In this case, related to
Mozilla Security Bugs Bounty Program.
Take a look and a smile at http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20040811
AOL Released Netscape 7.2
_________________________
On August 17, improved popup control (it now blocks popup windows raised
when moving the mouse over certain objects in web pages), support for
electronic business cards (vCard), improved Palm synchronization and
faster startup and rendering speed since it's based on the latest Mozilla
1.7.
Get it here: http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp
Camino 0.8.1 Released
_____________________
On August 15, a security update for Camino, Mozilla's MacOS native
interface browser was released. Besides fixing these vulnerabilities, it
is based in Mozilla 1.7.2 and provides better support for localization.
Get Camino 0.8.1 here: http://www.mozilla.org/products/camino/
Mozilla 1.8 Alpha 3 Released
____________________________
Featuring improvements for Eudora import, support for opening a new tab
with Ctrl + Click or Middle-Click, an option to disable style definitions
(CSS) and several other minor enhancements were unveiled with the release
of Mozilla 1.8 Alpha 3 on August 18.
Mozilla 1.8a3 Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.8a3/
Mozilla Japan Launched
______________________
On August 18, 2004, the Mozilla Foundation announced the launch of Mozilla
Japan, the second international affiliate, following Mozilla Europe launch
earlier this year. It's initial board of directors is led by Hideo Aiso
(President of the Tokyo University of Technology), and includes Professor
Hideyuki Tokuda (Keio University), Nobuo Kita (CEO of Ten Art-ni
Corporation), Satoko Takita (formerly of AOL/Netscape Japan), and Motohiro
Egota (of Ten Art-ni). Ten Art-ni is a publicly traded provider of open
source solutions in Japan.
Press release: http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2004-08-18.html
Mozilla Foundation, OpenOffice.org To Join Forces
_________________________________________________
On August 26, OpenOffice.Org's Daniel Carrera announced Ryan Singer from
OOo marketing project has been in conversations with the Mozilla
Foundation to forge an alliance between the two projects. As a start,
future Mozilla CDs would include
OpenOffice.org software.
OpenOffice.org is a successful open source project for the development of
a suite of office applications including Text (word processor), Calc
(spreadsheet) and Impress(presentations). This story couldn't be confirmed
on the Mozilla side, but could very well represent the most requested and
strategic move in the open source side of the industry.
Daniel Carrera's post at [e-mail:discuss@openoffice.org] mailing list:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=40842
MacOS Versions of Firefox, Mozilla Suite and Netscape Affected By Java
Vulnerability
____________________________________________________________________________________
On August 27, Secunia released a security advisory for MacOS versions of
Firefox, Mozilla Suite and Netscape. "The problem is caused due to errors
in the displaying of Java applets in a window when multiple tabs are used.
This can be exploited to
spoof the content of a HTML document from another HTML document being in a
different tab.", reads the security bulletin.
And adds, "It has been reported that this issue relates to a known
behaviour in Apple's implementation of Java. Therefore, only applications
using the Apple Java plugin [are] affected by this vulnerability.
Netscape 7.2, Firefox 0.9.3, Mozilla Suite 1.7.2 and Thunderbird 0.7.3 on
Mac OS X 10.3.5 are all reported to be affected. As a temporary
workaround, you may either disable Java support or open untrusted sites in
separate windows instead of tabs.
Netscape Security Bulletin: http://secunia.com/advisories/12392/
Mozilla Suite and Firefox Security Bulletin:
http://secunia.com/advisories/12403/
New mozilla.org Website
_______________________
On August 31, a new face for mozilla.org was released. Developed by the
Mozilla Visual Identity Team, the new style named Cavendish is dark blue
and highlights better all Mozilla products, and experimentally, Mozilla
people blog posts.
Mozilla Visual Identity team is formed in large part by contributing
people from Canada-based web design firm silverorange. In the past they
have been resposible for important Mozilla design improvements like the
Firefox and Thunderbird logos and
Firefox's Winstripe default theme.
Steven Garrity's announcement:
http://actsofvolition.com/archives/2004/august/newmozillaorg
The new look: http://www.mozilla.org
________________________________
3. MOZILLA PROJECTS
________________________________
Contributed by Brian King
The independent status reports include news and updates from Mozilla
application and extension projects hosted on mozdev.org and elsewhere in
the Mozilla community.
There is an enormous push at the moment on the grassroots level in
co-ordination with mozilla.org to increase the number of
Firefox/Thunderbird downloads and get folks to switch from other browsers
and email clients. This push includes one
thousand reviews of Firefox on the download.com product listing page
(http://www.download.com/Mozilla-Firefox/3000-2356-10299359.html?tag=lst-0-1),
compiling a list of 2000 sites that should have Get Firefox buttons but
don't have them yet, and fortherecord
(http://www.blakeross.com/archives/000234.html) -- an attempt to recruit
people to help Mozilla to
get more press coverage.
Some websites have sprung up to encourage and inform users on making the
switch. All don't focus exclusively on swithing to Mozilla clients, but
they are included. See zillivisation (http://studer.tv/zillivisation/),
Browse Happy (http://browsehappy.com/), Switch2Firefox
(http://www.switch2firefox.com/), and FirefoxIE (http://firefoxie.net/).
And of course, one of the best reasons for switching is the great choice
and quality of extensions available. Enjoy these latest reports from some
of the projects!
LookAhead - v0.7, which uses Google web service to fetch URLs in multiple
tabs.
For: Firefox
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX
Notable recent highlights are:
- Added dialog to configure usage
- Added context menu with selected text for LookAheading
- Added dialog to enter Google key
- Fixed broken interaction with SearchButton
To come is a fix interaction with "WebSearch" and to create "application"
for identifying new Google results for search
strings (like "GoogleAlert" Jr.?
http://lookahead.mozdev.org/
Autofill - V0.2, a Firefox extension to automatically fill in forms.
For: Mozilla, Firefox
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX
Released V0.2 on 8/24
New Features included support for credit card attributes, validation of
credit card numbers against Prefix, length, and LUHN Algorithm, and
support for form field recognition based on labels. There are numerous bug
fixes including:
- Preferences Profile fields enabled on failed profile add
- Fixed tab select behaviour to properly enable/disable autofill button
when witching between tabs
- Fixed options dialog popping up on top left of screen (now centered in
opening window)
- Fixed how add profile works to be more intuitive and less error prone
http://autofill.mozdev.org/
3iempost - v0.3, a Firefox extension for posting a webpage to 3iem.net.
For: Firefox 0.9+
Platform: Platform independent
Version 0.3 has been released. New options added, and auto post url into
forum added.
Notable Highlights:
- Post a webpage to 3iem.net with one click
- Options to customize posting
http://3iempost.mozdev.org/
bioFOX - v0.2, a bioinformatics tools on Mozilla browsers.
For: Mozilla, Firefox
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX
Notable Highlights:
- Fixed blastn, blastp URLs
- Fixed frame bug
http://biofox.mozdev.org/
biobar - v1.2, a power browsing toolbar for bioinformatics database searches.
For: Mozilla, Firefox
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, All platforms where mozilla/firefox
compiled Biobar is a toolbar for biologists and bioinformaticians. Version
1.2 of biobar allows searching for information from 26 different
biological databases from EBI,
NCBI, plant, animal, scientific literature, functional and genomic
collections.
Notable Highlights
- New Options menu
- Choice of specifying default database
- Allows dynamic control of search database list
- NCBI Library Linkout for customizing literature searches
- Choice of mirrors for ExPASy, OCA, Flybase and RCSB databases
- List of Databases, searchable using biobar
http://biobar.mozdev.org/
MozManual - v1+, a Mozilla Manual - Introduction to Mozilla.
For: Mozilla
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX
New translations are available!
Notable Highlights:
- Dutch Version 1.0 is now available
- French version 1.35 (some minor corrections)
- Web version 1.1 (some minor corrections)
http://mozmanual.mozdev.org/
Habari Xenu - v0.8, a Cool XUL News Aggregator.
For: Mozilla
Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX
Parses most syntactically correct feeds.
Notable Highlights:
- Improved parsing of feeds
- Supports RSS, RDF and Atom news feeds
- Improved UI
http://habarixenu.mozdev.org/
ConQuery - v1.1, a context sensitive web query extension.
For: Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird
Platform: All
Notable Highlights:
- FireFox 0.9 - 1.0 compatible, on-line update supported;
- Thunderbird 0.6 - 0.7+ compatible (plugins with GET method only);
http://conquery.mozdev.org/
Read more about each of these projects in the full report at
http://www.mozdev.org/status/2004-08-30-status.html
________________________________
4. POLL
________________________________
On our last issue, we asked if you have got some people to switch to a
Mozilla
product. Here are the results:
Yes, more than 20 8.85%
Yes, more than 10 10.03%
Yes, more than 5 27.43%
Yes, less than 5 43.66%
Nope, I am selfish and evil 10.03%
This issue poll: Have you participated of some of the Marketing
initiatives weeks yet?
Yes, all of them
Yes, some of them
None, I told you I am selfish and evil
Let your voice be counted at http://newsletter.mozdev.org
________________________________
ADVERTISEMENT
________________________________
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0.9 and
Thunderbird 0.7, get it at $14.95. Mozilla CD: $5.95; Mozilla 1.7 Guide
$12.95.
Mozilla T-shirts and polo shirts from US$ 16.95 and the Firefox plush at
US$ 15.95
(yes, you can finally hug it!).
Visit: http://store.mozilla.org
****
Donate your old cell phone to the Wireless Foundation. Proceeds from the
sale of
phones help fund agencies that fight domestic violence. Other phones are
refurbished
and become lifelines for domestic violence victims. Your donation (you
value it) is
tax deductible.
http://www.wirelessfoundation.org/CalltoProtect/index.cfm
****
Feel techie? Check DevLinks, the newsletter for Mozilla developers:
http://newsletter.mozdev.org/devlinks
****
Your ad can be here! Visit http://newsletter.mozdev.org/mlsp.html for more
details
on how to reach our 8000+ worldwide subscribers!
________________________________
5. CONTACT INFO
________________________________
Mozilla Links(TM) is a monthly electronic newsletter published by the Mozilla
Newsletter project.
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COMMENTS AND COLLABORATIONS : [e-mail:newsletter-feedback@mozilla.org]
Mozilla Links is currently translated into Traditional Chinese, Czech,
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Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
Copyright 2004 by the Mozilla Links Contributors.
The Mozilla Links Newsletter is released under the Creative Commons
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