2.1 Beta 1 Roundup

Here we go again! After three alphas, the first of two betas of SeaMonkey 2.1 is just around the corner (ETA next week). As always, the Mozilla platform progressed at a fast pace (I stopped counting the Firefox 4 betas a while ago already, but they are close to shipping another one of those as well from what I can tell). In addition to better HTML5, CSS and WebM support, faster JavaScript and Add-on Manager improvements, some attention was paid to details like adding the ability to cancel modal dialog loops, too.

The list of improvements made to SeaMonkey is also quite noteworthy, though. Robert Kaiser (KaiRo) has been especially busy, bringing both the new Data Manager (which will replace the various password and permission managers in the next beta), OpenSearch support and a fast bookmarking icon in the location bar (similar to the star icon in Firefox) to SeaMonkey. And that is on top of the Places-based bookmarks integration and support for lightweight themes (Personas) that he added during the alpha period!

In a joint effort together with the Thunderbird developers, support for building SeaMonkey with libxul was added (and is now the default) which was a prerequisite for enabling plugin crash recovery (OOPP). Firefox features this since version 3.6, and now we do, too.

One of the biggest problems users have had with SeaMonkey was websites that rendered incorrectly, were inaccessible or otherwise misbehaved. In many cases this could be traced back to poor browser detection, a.k.a. User Agent sniffing. KaiRo has blogged about the issue multiple times in the past (e.g. in Web Discrimination Or Browser Racism?) and even proposed a possible solution. Unfortunately no-one accepted the challenge. Time went by, but no solution was found. In the end, the SeaMonkey Council faced the truth and opted for enabling a new pref by default that makes SeaMonkey appear like Firefox to websites that use User Agent sniffing to detect browsers. Starting with 2.1 Beta 1, SeaMonkey users should have no need to fake their User Agent string anymore. Ideally, websites should work just as well as in Firefox now.

Some smaller changes include a new pref for opening new tabs relative to the current one and a Paste and Go option in the location bar. The "Report a Broken Website" functionality has been removed, mostly because it suggested that someone would take care of the reports when in fact that was not the case.

According to current plans, the only major feature left to be implemented for SeaMonkey 2.1 (scheduled for Beta 2 and having some larger impact on l10n) is the integration of Sync (f.k.a. Weave). This will be very similar to what is already included in Minefield (Firefox trunk nightlies), but available from both the browser and MailNews component, paving the way for future extensions (e.g. MailNews Sync, see Harini's Webspace).

Before we come to the list of notable changes between SeaMonkey 2.1 Alpha 3 and Beta 1 (see below), one more good news: The next version of the Add-on Compatibility Reporter will be compatible with SeaMonkey! Once it becomes available at AMO, give it a try and report your findings!

Progress:

• split mail_help.xhtml to several files: almost done (Bug 246405)
• doorhangers instead of notification bars: preliminary support (login manager) (Bug 595810)
• Sync integration: get Tabs sync to work for SeaMonkey (Bug 567583)

MailNews:

• add In-Reply-To or References header when forwarding a message (Bug 583587)
• auto sync newly added messages more quickly (Bug 562115)
• add account name to POP3 status message (Bug 66860)
• do not crash while copying IMAP folder (Bug 531568)
• stop partially downloaded messages from getting into the offline store (Bug 572974)
• implement getBrowser() in MailNews windows (Bug 588895)
• make the Account Manager window resizable on all platforms (Bug 591649)
• use internationalized date for printing (Bug 294356)
• do not scan plugin directories unnecessarily while loading messages (Bug 599119)
• do not crash right after startup (Bug 573071)
• show inserted images during composition if new mail started through external mailto: call (Bug 531437)
• allow sending mail to postmaster (do not violate RFCs 821 and 2821) (Bug 383739)
• add icons to MailNews tabs list (Bug 593944)
• allow to import vCards (Bug 79709)
• make all header fields tabbable, not just "Subject" and "Date" (Bug 479579)

Address Book:

• remove "Check online presence (AOL)" from Address Book Tools menu (Bug 594081)
• fix LDAP searching (Bug 585917)

Bookmarks:

• show special icon for Unsorted Bookmarks entry in menu of Bookmarks button in Personal Toolbar (Bug 586056)
• provide a fast bookmarking button in the location bar (Bug 589601)

Download Manager:

• make Pause button work in Download Manager (Bug 588351)
• prevent downloads from being stored in the cache (Bug 55307)
• internationalize decimal separator in Download Manager (Bug 597852)

Help:

• update Help for the new location of the 'Check for Updates' menu item (Bug 597172)

Audio/Video:

• support Audio Data API: Get, Manipulate, Play & Save (Bug 490705)
• do not assume first WebM track is video (Bug 596111)
• implement buffered support for WebM (Bug 570904)

Troubleshooting Information:

• add User Agent to about:support (Bug 591776)
• add the ability for a DOM window to tell when it is accelerated and show that in about:support (Bug 590841)
• expose Graphics feature status block reason in about:support (Bug 600620)

Preferences:

• add pref (mailnews.ui.deleteMarksRead) to allow restoring old behavior of Move to Trash (do not mark as read) (Bug 465116)
• allow to configure whether to open tabs relative to the current one (browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent pref) (Bug 588122)
• remove support for appending arbitrary data to the User Agent string via general.useragent.extra.* prefs (Bug 581008)
• add pref (gfx.direct2d.disabled) to unconditionally disable Direct2D (Bug 590335)
• add pref (layers.prefer-opengl) to enable OpenGL on Windows (Bug 593093)
• remove general.useragent.extra User Agent pref, add UI for general.useragent.compatMode.firefox and turn it on by default (Bug 591327)
• support signed updates in SeaMonkey (new prefs, e.g. app.update.log) (Bug 593135)
• enable WebGL by default (pref webgl.enabled_for_all_sites), excluding Linux x64 for now (Bug 596720)
• turn on Direct3D accelerated layers (layers.accelerate-all pref) by default on Windows (Bug 581212)
• allow turning on Direct3D 10 layers through a pref (layers.use-d3d10) (Bug 546514)
• adjust IPC prefs for PPC/i386 universal build (new prefix is dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.i386) (Bug 600378)
• disable SSL false start (security.ssl.enable_false_start pref) by default (Bug 591523)
• ignore middlemouse.contentLoadURL if general.autoScroll is true (middle-clicking to stop autoscroll should not activate clipboard address loading) (Bug 534248)
• if dom.disable_window_flip pref is true, block .blur() and .focus() if opener is different from the caller (Bug 369306)
• allow applications to specify the first update timer interval via a pref (app.update.timerFirstInterval) (Bug 594986)

Add-ons:

• integrate Add-on Manager with browser session history (Bug 562797)
• update compatibility information for installed add-ons when the application is upgraded (Bug 557956)
• add install button to the Add-on Manager (Bug 567127)
• visually differentiate between installed add-ons and available add-ons in list of search results (Bug 581084)
• allow undo of uninstalling disabled add-ons (Bug 585339)
• expose outdated plugins in Add-on Manager (Bug 563135)
• do not report add-ons as incompatible if they are already incompatible with the current version (Bug 592785)
• add context-related state change entries to context menu of add-ons (Bug 591465)
• do not extract extensions into profile directory, but install/store as XPI file (Bug 533038)
• remove the "Check for Updates Automatically" menu item from the Add-on Manager (Bug 595744)
• add loading and error states to the Get Add-ons view (Bug 601143)
• allow installing add-ons from FTP servers (Bug 599158)
• do not show the compatibility dialog for new profiles (Bug 588440)
• rename the Themes pane to Appearance (Bug 565300)
• support specifying an XPI hash through the initial HTTPS request such that redirects to HTTP can be followed securely (Bug 591070)
• allow installs and updates from non-built in certificate (Bug 435743)
• provide ability "Update all now" within 'Available Updates' screen (Bug 587970)
• show thumbnails instead of full screenshot in detail view (Bug 593217)
• make installTrigger function available in IFRAMEs (Bug 589598)
• make Remove buttons easier to discover in list view (Bug 590201)

CSS:

• implement the CSS3 pseudo-classes :required and :optional for HTML (Bug 506554)
• change valid/invalid form elements state to use CSS3 pseudo-classes :valid and :invalid (Bug 558788)
• add support for calc() to 'vertical-align', 'text-indent', '{margin,padding}-{top,right,bottom,left}' and '-moz-margin-{start,end}', -moz-border-radius and -moz-outline-radius properties (Bug 585715)
• add calc() support for outline-width and column-gap (Bug 363249)
• support calc() on background-position, background-size, -moz-transform-origin, and background-image gradient stop positions. (Bug 594934)
• remove support for min() and max() in calc() (Bug 363249)
• implement :-moz-submit-invalid pseudo-class applying on submit buttons when the form is invalid (Bug 580575)
• rename -moz-box-shadow to box-shadow (Bug 590039)
• add -moz-device-pixel-ratio media query (Bug 474356)
• change -moz-border-radius* properties to css3-background names (Bug 451134)

HTML5:

• implement list attribute (Bug 556007)
• implement datalist element (Bug 555840)
• implement formaction for input and button elements (Bug 566160)
• implement input type="email" (Bug 555559)
• implement pattern attribute for input elements (Bug 345512)
• implement input type="url" (Bug 344615)
• implement required attribute (Bug 345822)
• implement HTML 5's Constraint Validation API (Bug 345624)
• implement formtarget for input and button which override form target attribute (Bug 566064)
• implement @formmethod and @formenctype (Bug 582412)
• implement form attribute (Bug 588683)
• implement formnovalidate attribute for submit controls (Bug 589696)
• implement fieldset element disabled attribute (Bug 557087)
• implement novalidate attribute for form elements (Bug 556013)
• filter items shown in list dropdown with current field value by default; use mozNoFilter attribute to disable (Bug 595067)
• remove PUT and DELETE form methods (Bug 600813)
• add UI for invalidformsubmit (Bug 599745)

Linux:

• reformat x86-on-x86_64 part of Linux User Agent string (Bug 590258)
• implement bilinear filtering of upscaled images for Linux (Bug 422179)
• scrollboxes should use native scroll arrow (Default theme) (Bug 585935)

Mac:

• allow to open Bookmark Manager if all windows are closed on Mac (Bug 586363)
• allow to open Add-on Manager if all windows are closed on Mac (Bug 586360)

Compiling:

• require version 2.5 of python (Bug 550959)
• end-of-life Python 2.4 for build support (Bug 599743)
• automatically set TOPSRCDIR and MOZ_OBJDIR when using pymake (Bug 592575)
• add -s (silent) support to pymake (Bug 542582)
• remove options from configure (e.g. --disable-view-source, --disable-jsloader and --disable-inspector-apis) (Bug 546177)
• let build system honor --disable-printing (Bug 362455)
• let client.mk define MOZ_OBJDIR if it is not set (Bug 589507)
• use YASM to compile libvpx on Windows (Bug 583849)
• error out on packaging if not using libxul (Bug 598644)
• remove wifi scanning code on Windows for versions less than XP SP3 (Bug 600235)

General:

• implement a Data Manager unifying cookie, permission, password, and form data management (Bug 569341)
• add OpenSearch support (Bug 410613)
• add "Paste and Go" to the context menu of the location bar (Bug 599833)
• allow deselecting optional installer components (Bug 590575)
• make Find Again work when Find As You Type isn't using the find bar (Bug 97023)
• reuse empty tabs for loading content (Bug 589659)
• make Alt+Home keyboard shortcut work again (Bug 587398)
• make keywords matching case insensitive again (Bug 590081)
• remove Reporter from SeaMonkey (Bug 590102)
• remove compreg/xpti.dat at the right location (Bug 594571)
• do not crash if source profile is not available during migration (Bug 601347)
• support linking application components into libxul (Bug 597465)
• switch to a default configuration of libxul with all comm-central libs being linked into libxul (Bug 394502)
• use out-of-process-plugins (OOPP) framework in SeaMonkey (Bug 545716)
• link JS staticially for libxul builds, only currently supported on non-Windows platforms (Bug 601128)
• make notifications from sidebar documents work again (Bug 589910)
  
• make clearing cache on shutdown work again (Bug 580892)
• make drop down menus for back and forward buttons middle-/Ctrl-clickable (Bug 529240)
• save media resources when doing 'Save As' on a page (Bug 449141)
• display external URIs correctly while they load (Bug 586340)
• show new prefs in about:config while a filter is applied (Bug 251431)
• show the default cursor for disabled splitters (Default theme) (Bug 589570)
• disable XUL for pages, unless user specifically opts in for domain (Bug 546857)
• implement moz-device: protocol handler (Bug 507749)
• enable basic stereoscopic rendering support for Direct3D 9 layers with 3D Vision (Bug 584255)
  
• implement Strict-Transport-Security (was: ForceTLS) to allow sites to specify HTTPS-only connections (Bug 495115, Bug 590825)
• make sure restart after closing application from fullscreen mode displays fullscreen UI (Bug 575195)
• allow file input .click() to bring up filepicker (Bug 36619)
• notify user when the certificate attribute check fails during application update (Bug 583408)
• after several background update check failures, notify user that check for new version should be done manually (Bug 595455)
• rework Windows installer for 64 bit (install into 'Program Files', write to 64 bit registry hives, etc.) (Bug 568949)
• disable hardware acceleration in Safe Mode (Bug 591139)
• lower threshold for large cache entry eviction: set max cache entry size to be MIN(5MB, 1/8 cache capacity) (was: 64 MB/2) (Bug 81640)
• skip caching if Content-Length is greater than eviction size (Bug 588507)
• raise cookies per basedomain limit to 150 (was: 50) (Bug 590611)
• make SSL pages work when using NTLM proxy (Bug 592197)
• make running application with "-profile /tmp/newdir" work again (Bug 581182)
• make -1 as port number fail to load instead of causing default port to be used (Bug 537381)
• make disabled selects with size and multiple still look disabled (Bug 594737)
• give users a way out of inifinite modal dialog loops (Bug 61098)
  
• port duplicateTabIn function (Bug 595483)
• apply Persona/lwtheme correctly to sidebar headers (Bug 581382)
• fix some missed issues regarding Personas and sidebar (Bug 599621)
• make it possible to undo close tab synchronously after closing tab (Bug 528582)
• do not insert non-breaking spaces when multiple spaces typed in pre-wrap-styled text (Bug 592592)
• make maxlength in textarea prevent newline characters from being inserted (Bug 590554)
• add ability to paste HTML as plain text (shortcut Cmd+Option+Shift+V on Mac) in contenteditable areas (Bug 410986)