Alpha 3 Roundup

It's been a while... again. I know this is not exactly Release Early, Release Often but on the other hand it gives me the opportunity to present you the full (as in "in one go", not as in "all-embracing") list of changes between Alpha 2 and Alpha 3.

A lot happened since Alpha 2. First to appear was the new Places-based history (now using SQLite instead of being Mork-based), including the new location bar which now uses the frecency algorithm to determine which addresses to show in the drop down menu depending on what you type (it searches the history of visited pages, URL and title by default).



Next the new Password Manager (and FF3-compatible backend) was implemented including searchability, notification bars replacing modal login dialogs, and always encrypting instead of (by default) merely obscuring passwords. [BTW the Cookie Manager is still lacking searchability but I hope to change that through Bug 476175 real soon now.]



Then finally Navigator toolbars were made customizable like in Firefox, i.e. icons (alternatively text) can now be dragged around, regrouped and added/removed from the Navigator toolbars, including those from third parties (Add-ons). Later support for customizing Navigator menubars was added, too.



Towards the end of the development cycle one of the most anticipated features made it into the application: Session restore (crash recovery). Now, when SeaMonkey crashes all your browser windows and tabs will be restored automatically or on request (including form data!).



You can also tell SeaMonkey to always restore your previous session in addition to crash recovery. Restoring closed tabs is not working yet (probably just a matter of time, Bug 478707 tracks this issue) but on the positive side the author of the Session Manager extension already adapted his dev version to support SeaMonkey 2 Alpha 3 which allows you to handle multiple sessions.



Progress

• switch to Toolkit password manager: add SMTP protocol handlers (Bug 469807), do not lose newsgroup username/password information when migrating from signons.txt (Bug 470439), let promptPassword unescape user names before use (Bug 472824), main part (use LoginManager, remove Wallet) (Bug 390025), also fixes: If stored SMTP password is incorrect, no prompt is made for correct one (Bug 155172)
• @font-face support: implement downloadable font support on Linux (Mac and Windows have already been addressed in bug 441473) (Bug 458169), implement @font-face { src:local() } on Linux (Bug 468218), enable downloadable .otf fonts on Windows (Bug 458160), improve handling of format hints for downloadable fonts (Bug 465452)
• remove old Mork-based form history backend (Bug 466414)
• Toolbar customization: Navigator part 2 (real customizability for browser toolbars on Linux+Windows) (Bug 471372), use sheet popup instead of popup window on Mac OS X (Bug 406780), make menubars customizable (without grippied on Mac OS X) (Bug 475920)
• enable installer to get directory path for directories immediately under some symlinks: uninstall part pending (Bug 476106)

MailNews

• make changing radio button for "Place a copy in" stick (Bug 463470)
• show pretty name for non-ASCII or localized IMAP folder names immediately, not only when logged in (Bug 450754)
• apply correct RFC 2047 encoding and decoding: treat encoded words as atoms within headers (make parsing sender address containing commas not assume multiple addresses) (Bug 254519)
• make Download Now button on IMAP folder Offline properties work again (Bug 468155)
• make NNTP use socket type and msgIncomingServer.isSecure readonly (replace "Use secure connection (SSL)" checkbox by "SSL" radio option in news server settings) (Bug 463096)
• do not crash in POP code (IncorporateComplete, e.g. when deleting an account) (Bug 313234)
• do not crash in POP code (AbortMailDelivery) (Bug 472022)
• unfork Account Manager Security Preferences (add Manage Certificates and Security Devices buttons) (Bug 455310)
• make definitions for protocols' default ports constants (DEFAULT_(protocol)_PORT) and accessible from script (Bug 468444)
• implement Undo Mark All Read (Bug 65775)
• improve Return Receipt prompt button labels (Send Receipt/Ignore Request instead of OK/Cancel) (Bug 249684)
• make Space key not scroll the page if something other than a link is focused in it (Bug 465721)
• implement new notification type (NewMailReceived) for cases where biff hasn't cleared but new mail arrives (Bug 465381)
• fix Get All New Messages and make it also check RSS accounts (Bug 259212)
• improve IMAP auto sync by downloading new mail for current folder even if other folders of the same account are scheduled for download (but haven't started yet) (Bug 467041)
• improve IMAP auto sync by giving higher priority to folders opened by the user (Bug 470447)
• don't allow more than N open NNTP connections to a server (Bug 66150)
• do not change port if TLS is active and mail.server.serverN.port pref is not set (Bug 470067)
• change default for mail search and filters from "any" (OR) to "all" (AND) (Bug 125631)
• close .msf files after updating counts for newsgroups (Bug 470219)
• remove References from news postings forwarded inline (Bug 464782)
• respect personal namespace when trying to creating root IMAP folder (e.g. create under INBOX) (Bug 470269)
• make AltGr/Ctrl+Alt/Alt not trigger email address selection from the contacts autocomplete suggestion list (Bug 464914)
• check if destination folder exists when playing back offline IMAP operations (Bug 470011)
• make setting SeaMonkey as default news application work (Bug 468379)
• make sure "Automatically mark message as read After displaying for x seconds" always affects correct message (Bug 313227)
• update flags (e.g. Read) for cross folder views when flags are changed outside the view (e.g. Mark Folder Read) (Bug 472137)
• do not crash on "Edit Draft" when mail is encrypted (Bug 472028)
• fix setting SeaMonkey as default mail/news client in the Windows start menu (Bug 470913)
• make sure Local Folders is translated in fresh profiles (Bug 464425)
• improve compact all folders popup (allow to disable it permanently, change button texts) (Bug 433619)
• add ability to always keep flagged messages to retention policy (Disk Space settings, active by default) (Bug 324147)
• add support for IMAP Archives folders (backend and Account Settings configurability) (Bug 451995)
• make Archives folder sort towards top of folder pane (Bug 473493)
• change Check Spelling shortcut to Ctrl+Shift+P (Ctrl+Shift+K clashes with Discontinue Link) (Bug 461317)
• implement backend changes for MailNews transfer from wallet to login manager (Bug 433316)
• do not delete text in compose window when opening attachment (Bug 468740)
• make importing Outlook Express settings from identity not named 'Main Identity' work (Bug 466753)
• improve "Edit Draft..." button (add to stand-alone windows, remove when switching from Drafts folder to saved search folder) (Bug 472386)
• always save SMTP passwords (remove option to save temporarily) (Bug 474288)
• support localizing Archives folder (Bug 473529)
• do not crash if thread index for newly inserted header couldn't be found (e.g. when clicking on newsgroup) (Bug 460036)
• do not crash getting Trash folder for account deferred to itself when quitting application (Bug 422907)
• fix Archives folder picker identity manager (Bug 474848)
• make Junk controls work in standalone message window (Bug 475200)
• rename TLS to STARTTLS in user preferences (IMAP/POP3), use a dropdown and hide "if available" option unless it is active (Bug 350314)
• explicitly state in Disk Space account settings that messages are also deleted on the server for IMAP and POP accounts (Bug 410597)
• bring back missing Outbox icon to folder pane (Bug 466261)
• fix local mail summary file (.msf) getting out of date by doing a flush after copying messages (Bug 471682)
• fix opening/saving file attachments with a '#' (hash, pound sign) in the name from IMAP folders (Bug 370951)
• add keyboard shortcuts to Message Filters dialog (Space: toggle, Delete: delete, Enter: edit) (Bug 392529)
• make sure message status Replied is not ORed with other filter terms if the condition is AND (Bug 474315)
• do not show account wizard when reopening MailNews after clicking on bad newsgroup link (Bug 476135)
• do not show an alert if IMAP server (e.g. Zimbra) answers NO to LIST command (Bug 417285)
• do not crash when shutting down (IMAP) (Bug 464419)
• fix Outlook Express POP3 import settings; import NNTP settings (Bug 470725)
• use strict/correct threading by default (i.e. do not thread by subject) (Bug 449821)
• make sure invalid .msf files do not cause slow scrolling in folder pane (Bug 469448)
• make sure new message headers arriving in folders are displayed by caching threads they are part of (Bug 469231)
• move message to Inbox if user marks a message in Junk folder as Not Junk (adds hidden pref mail.spam.markAsNotJunkMarksUnRead) (Bug 208197)
• make sure messages marked as junk and moved to trash folder do not lose junk status if IMAP server does not support user-defined keywords (Bug 359339)
• do not lose message flags (read, answered, forwarded etc.) when importing mail from Outlook Express (Bug 160027)
• allow to add more recipients after changing account (sender identity with Reply-To set) from drop down menu (Bug 464448)
• use receive date when mails imported from Outlook Express have no Date header (previously date was displayed as e.g. year 2101) (Bug 216613)
• make File/Compact Folders compact all folders of the selected folder's account (Bug 477394)
• make Mark Folder Read clear read state indications on collapsed threads (Bug 465939)
• handle IMAP folders containing a # sign in the name (Bug 115091)
• allow to re-attempt Send Unsent Messages if the first try fails (Bug 477588)
• enable tagging message with digits on shifted top row of (e.g. Belgian) AZERTY keyboard (Bug 448289)
• fix broken Help buttons (e.g. in Message Filters dialog) (Bug 478913)
• do not let IMAP hang the UI (e.g. when resuming from standby) (Bug 476960)
• disable JS for message content (mail and news, making javascript.allow.mailnews pref stop working), enable it for non-message content by default (Bug 374577)
• allow localizers to specify default value for mailnews.localizedRe (non-standard reply prefixes) (Bug 319037)

Address Book

• use all conditions in Advanced Address Book Search (Bug 467809)
• drop "Card for:" on contact preview panes and use company/organization as a fallback if no name exists (Bug 126491)
• do not collect outgoing email addresses that are present in OS X address book (Bug 474259)
• include Screen Name field in import/export to/from text files (CSV, TAB) (Bug 261882)

Bookmarks

• remove ability to hide search bar in Bookmark Manager now that it is a search box (Bug 467570)
• make Bookmark Sidebar's Manage button bring existing Bookmark Manager to front if present (Bug 203400)
• limit favicons in Bookmarks sidebar and Bookmark Manager to 16x16 pixels (Bug 476740)

History

• use Places backend for SeaMonkey history (including location bar) (Bug 382187)
• remove old history backend (Bug 448729)
• reimplement grouping in the main History window (Bug 468809)
• make new Places-based History sorting stick (Bug 470195)
• use better Last Visited format in Places-based history (Bug 470543)
• add UI prefs for new Places history functionality (Bug 468326)
• improve sorting in grouped view for Places-based history (Bug 470544)
• reimplement delete history for site or domain (Bug 473007)
• improve Places history window context menu (Bug 477150)

Audio/Video

• do not allow Wave decoder to seek past the end of the file (don't crash) (Bug 466598)
• add prefs to disable audio/video support (media.ogg|wave.enabled) (Bug 448600)
• add support for audio tag (Bug 449149)
• improve video control fade in/out animation (Bug 461680)
• make video tag audio playback not stop after some seconds with ALSA backend playing via PulseAudio (Bug 463627)
• do not stop audio when navigating away from a page (Bug 470636)
• allow playing a standalone Wave after it plays once through (Bug 468992)
• fix length calculation for 8-bit Wave files (Bug 469628)
• keep aspect ratio when scaling video to fit inside its box (Bug 449142)
• make audio tag src="a.wav" work (implement media type switching) (Bug 464158)
• make clickable area of video controls respect borders and padding (Bug 470596)
• update video tag control icons (Bug 460155)
• display video controls right from the start (do not require initial mouse over) (Bug 469211)
• suspend video download when leaving the page (Bug 460738)
• update libtheora to 1.0 release version (Bug 462082)
• use filename for window title when displaying OGG audio/video files (Bug 463830)
• implement progress bar/scrubber for video controls (Bug 462113)
• do not crash while shutting down ogg decoder (Bug 464007)
• convert little-endian Wave data to native endinaness on big-endian machines (e.g. PPC) (Bug 469698)
• ensure that YUV to RGB conversion puts bytes in the right order for big-endian machines (e.g. PPC) (Bug 452698)
• make sure clicking video control's scrubber line causes appropriately large position change (Bug 475861)
• support X-Content-Duration header (Bug 469923)

Preferences

• add preferences options for popup and missing plugin notification bars (Bug 467174)
• display notification bar checkbox enabled even if pref is set to not block popups (Bug 469338)
• use a separate pref (browser.urlbar.default.behavior) instead of empty restrict/match values to specify location bar matching defaults (Bug 463459)
• check pref urlbar.autocomplete.enabled again (Bug 471903)
• replace browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped pref by browser.urlbar.restrict.typed "~" and browser.urlbar.default.behavior value 32 (Bug 473734)

Certificates

• show expanded technical details on SSL error pages when expert mode is active (Bug 471075)
• check all security modules (tokens) for certificate for update site (fixes app/add-on updates when Danish government browser extension is installed) (Bug 401292)

Mac

• add roundness to context menus for Mac OS X 10.5 (Bug 391984)
• make sure Print/Page Setup Menu items are not grayed out after printing a page using File/Print (Bug 425844)
• do not crash if page puts up an alert while trying to save the page (Bug 468393)
• do not beep when closing preferences window with Cmd+w (Bug 476226)
• make Growl notifications tell number of new messages and their senders (Bug 460287)
• allow multiple Growl alerts happening at the same time (Bug 459484)

GTK/Linux

• do not crash on quit on Linux (Bug 448512)
• disable fast filter for downscaling images to prevent pixelation (Bug 463938)
• add support for GNOME's sounds (Bug 419275)

Printing

• Make 'width', 'height' and 'aspect-ratio' features use the page size when printing (Bug 466559)
• use better kerning in print output if hinting is set to "medium" or "full" (Bug 403513)
• do not crash when closing Print Preview (Bug 468645)

Compiling

• make SeaMonkey compile on x86-64 static (fix relocation issues) (Bug 469999)
• make building in srcdir not fail (Bug 468915)
• remove pulling of wallet from client.py (Bug 473827)
• remove --enable-system-lcms build option [bug also includes other changes] (Bug 475111)

Locales

• add gl (Galician) to source locales (Bug 467977)
• add ja/ja-JP-mac (Japanese) to source locales (Bug 467597)
• add ro (Romanian) to source locales (Bug 453100)
• add es-AR (Argentinian Spanish) to source locales (Bug 475851)

General

• turn on SSE2 pixman optimizations (Bug 461202)
• fix spell checking in case the document contains only a div (Bug 366682)
• only use LD_LIBRARY_PATH on Solaris if the shared libraries are symlinks (Bug 259945)
• prefer password-only login (if present) for password-only forms (Bug 444968)
• consolidate UNIX start scripts (one central mozilla.in) (Bug 461542)
• add support for Windows sounds to menus (Bug 83056)
• add support for Windows sounds to opening message boxes (alert/confirm/prompt etc.) (Bug 463209)
• prevent tooltips from appearing during a drag (Bug 312852)
• remove "What's Related" sidebar/module (Bug 468337)
• make run-mozilla.sh md5sum core files (Bug 467638)
• make View Source read from the cache again (Bug 472632)
• recreate the SeaMonkey throbber as APNG (with real transparency) (Bug 468103)
• create separate log file for Windows shortcuts (Bug 470182)
• update Windows installer for Unicode support and locale verification (Bug 470452)
• disable JIT in Safe Mode (Bug 453642)
• linkify only "safe" URLs in View Source (Bug 467852)
• display images instead of text/binary for links to images in View Source (Bug 464339)
• add keyboard shortcut to open Error Console (Bug 473665)
• add various accesskeys to the main interface and prefs (Bug 322247)
• improve Help Viewer sidebar (add back grippy, open upon search, stop jumping when resizing) (Bug 406552)
• make view-source link-browsing decode entities (Bug 464314)
• improve Satchel (form manager) upgrade/downgrade logic (Bug 472064)
• use margin and padding CSS rules independent of UI direction (LTR or RTL) (Bug 474807)
• improving finding/using some typical OS/2 fonts (Bug 467250)
• reverse sort arrow direction in tree header cells on Windows (Classic theme) (Bug 93772)
• use brand name instead of hard-coded SeaMonkey in updater (Bug 472796)
• make sure dial-up login is initiated when using Internet Connection Sharing (Bug 465158)
• do not open two windows when clicking a local html file or internet shortcut on Windows 2000 (Bug 461501)
• synchronize history/cache when issuing a GET on an already POST-ed form in View Source window (Bug 477451)
• make sure tree lines are rendered correctly in RTL mode (Bug 476346)
• make tree cell content honor RTL tree direction (Bug 140759)
• bump cookie limit from 1000 to 3000 to reduce occurrence of cookie purges (Bug 444600)
• auto-save open windows and tabs for later restoration in event of crash (session restore) (Bug 36810)
• use an error page (about:sessionrestore) for session restore prompt (Bug 459550)
• accelerate file uploads (HTTP POST) on Windows by increasing TCP send window size from 8KB to 128KB (parity with other browsers and OSs) (Bug 454990)
• point Ctrl+Alt+F shortcut to new Fishcam site (Bug 454847)
• cleanup SeaMonkey sessionstore code (use native JSON) (Bug 478470)
• make use of emptytext attribute in search textboxes (replace label by text inside textbox) (Bug 460694)
• decode non-ASCII characters in the urlbar (like in FF3) (Bug 425480)