SeaMonkey Trunk Tracker

Add-ons Sync Prefs: A Restartless Add-on for SeaMonkey 2.8

2012-01-27T01:21:00.000+01:00

Ever since I ported Sync to SeaMonkey (2.1), the list of supported engines had been fixed: Bookmarks, History, Passwords, Preferences, and Tabs. With Firefox 11, the Sync developers added a new engine capable of syncing add-ons (or more precisely, which add-ons are installed). Since the Sync back-end is shared code, SeaMonkey 2.8 will include it, too. But while Firefox 11 will include UI for activating the new Add-ons engine, SeaMonkey 2.8 will lack it. This is because the Firefox changes landed pretty close to the l10n freeze so we were not able to port them in time. SeaMonkey 2.9 will include the UI changes, but why wait so long?

On January 31st, SeaMonkey 2.7 will be released (well, that's the plan). A few days later, the first beta of SeaMonkey 2.8 will follow. People like me who are on the beta channel will upgrade directly from 2.7b5 (ETA today) to 2.8b1. This is when my main working environment will be ready for Add-ons Sync.

Now I was wondering what the SeaMonkey developers could do to allow users of SeaMonkey 2.8 (on aurora, beta or release) to enable/disable the Add-ons Sync engine through preferences UI. Well, the answer is simple: Provide an add-on that adds the corresponding option!

I decided early on to give it a try myself and create that add-on. I also felt that users were probably more likely to install such an add-on if it didn't interrupt their work flow (i.e. not require a restart of the application, which in the case of SeaMonkey is often used for both browsing and mail) and took care to not break anything if it was installed on an incompatible version of SeaMonkey (say, 2.7 or 2.9). The first requirement could be solved through writing a restartless add-on, the latter by adding explicit checks to the code.

I quickly found some documentation for restartless add-ons on MDN (though they are called "bootstrapped" there). Unlike classic add-ons (which rely on XUL overlays and usually consist of many files and levels), a restartless add-on can be as simple as two files: The install manifest (install.rdf) and the code, written in JavaScript (bootstrap.js).

I guess for someone new to Mozilla-specific code, starting from scratch like this could be hard. During the development I faced several issues that you would probably not have seen with a classic XUL overlay approach. The Add-ons SDK might have been a better alternative if I had intended to write an add-on for Firefox, but since this one is SeaMonkey-only and given the requirements, there was not much of a choice.

The main issue I faced was actually in shared XBL code (preferences.xml): The constructor and destructor of preference elements throw if the element in question is not inside a preferences element. What is probably always the case with XUL (including overlays) is not true for elements dynamically added or removed through JavaScript (cloneNode/removeChild). In the end I had to replace cloneNode by createElement and stop using removeChild (i.e. the preference element is left in the preferences window until it is closed; if the add-on is disabled while the window is still open, the preference element just gets disabled).

Another surprise was that JavaScript errors inside bootstrap.js are reported as warnings in the Error Console. So if you enable the Errors filter, you won't see these warnings and assume everything is alright, while in fact the add-on does not work at all! Brilliant. :-(

Anyway, I was finally able to finish the add-on (with friendly help from Neil Rashbrook), upload it to AMO, and get it fully reviewed. :-) Here it is.

Now of course none of this would have been possible without…

the Toolkit add-ons back-end developers
the MDN authors (in addition to the above linked pages, I valued most: Using nsIXULAppInfo, nsIVersionComparator, Services.jsm, nsIPrefBranch, window and window, prefpane)
Mark Finkle (his blog post was very helpful for getting started!)
MXR (development is just no fun without it!)

Note: If you look at the source code you might see that the prefs handling (user vs. default prefs) is not perfect yet. This is something that both Neil and Kris Maglione (AMO reviewer) pointed out, but which I deliberately disregarded for the first version of the add-on.

SeaMonkey 2.7 Beta 1 is Compatible by Default

2011-12-24T17:22:00.000+01:00

Today, on Christmas Eve (local time), SeaMonkey 2.7 Beta 1 will be released. This version features something that will probably make a huge difference to ordinary users: Compatible-by-default add-ons (called CBD in the following). This is basically a change of opinion regarding add-on compatibility: Instead of assuming that an add-on is not compatible with a new application version, we will henceforth assume that it is, which should better reflect reality. Switching to a faster release cycle (with less ground-breaking, incompatible changes per release) certainly helped this come true.

So far, support channels have seen many complaints from users who didn't want to upgrade to a new version of SeaMonkey because their favorite add-ons didn't work with it (yet). Sometimes people only upgraded later, or only when they were told how to override compatibility checks (e.g. using the ACR).

Unlike Firefox add-ons, SeaMonkey add-ons did never benefit from automatic compatibility bumps on AMO. Thus as far as SeaMonkey was concerned, if the add-on developers didn't do the bump themselves, it was up to each individual user to take measures if they wanted to keep their add-ons active. And of course they did. Finding no UI option for that, they asked on the support channels, delayed the update, or gave up.

Now if you take a look at the SeaMonkey Add-on Compatibility Tracking page, you'll easily see that about half the add-ons listed under the AMO category are not marked compatible with the current stable version of SeaMonkey (or better). Add-on authors generally got better at bumping compatibility, but it's still a manual task as far as SeaMonkey is concerned.

So what's different with the new CBD feature? Simply put, almost all of that other half from above will be compatible with SeaMonkey 2.7 Beta 1. Automatically. Without any end-user having to change or install anything in addition. That's what I call a UX win! :-) [1]

So, why not all add-ons from the above list? Because some restrictions apply. For CBD to take effect for a SeaMonkey add-on, the following requirements need to be met:

The add-on is compatible with at least SeaMonkey 2.1 or Toolkit 2.0 (the matching Firefox version is 4.0, which is also their lower bound for CBD). This makes sense since that was when fully SeaMonkey adopted the Places back-end (formerly use for history only, then for bookmarks, too) and added Sync support. [2]
The add-on does not contain binary components (this rules out popular add-ons like Lightning and Enigmail).
The add-on does not claim to only support a later version of SeaMonkey than the one that is currently running the check (in other words: the add-on minVersion must not be larger than the app version).
The add-on did not opt out of CBD (by setting the strictCompatibility flag in install.rdf or on AMO).

From my experience, the majority of frequently used SeaMonkey add-ons pass all of these checks. So instead of instructing all users with add-on compatibility issues to install the ACR, we can now limit that advice to those who want to test and give feedback for Beta, Aurora and trunk builds. With CBD, the ACR cannot be used to enable old (pre-2.1) add-ons anymore anyway.

That's it for our next beta, but there's more! In early 2012, when SeaMonkey 2.9 hits Beta, users on that channel will be able to have Sync distribute their installed add-ons across multiple instances of SeaMonkey (provided the add-ons are available from AMO). Note that Firefox will ship the new feature one release earlier (it landed very close to the Aurora uplift, which is the cut-off for changes that affect localization), but that's not too bad since this feature doesn't work across applications anyway.

Now what's left to say? Merry Christmas everyone! Let there be peace on earth.

[1]: Thanks to everyone who worked on this feature! I know you primarily have Firefox on multiple platforms in mind when you develop things in Toolkit, but still.

[2]: Toolkit/AOM Bug 680845 still applies, i.e. if an add-on is marked as compatible with SeaMonkey on AMO, installation will fail if the add-on's install.rdf doesn't list SeaMonkey.

Note to self: Contact the developers of the add-ons listed under 2.0x since these will not benefit from CBD as-is, though at least some of them still work with current SeaMonkey version for sure, e.g. Nostalgy. If anyone reads this and shares my concerns, feel free to help (e.g. using the ACR to give feedback), it is surely appreciated!

11-12-13

2011-12-13T00:36:00.000+01:00

[Note: This post is quite different from those I made in the past. Long story short: Due to time constraints I will hardly ever be able to revive the old SeaMonkey Trunk Tracker style of release updates or even complete the missing ones. That's not too bad, though, since I'm now responsible for the SeaMonkey website, which includes the list of changes per release (of which we have more now, as you know). This allows me to re-focus this blog on what it is actually about: tracking trunk development. The below is probably a good example of what is still to come.]

Welcome back! It's 11-12-13 now (at least in my timezone) and I feel this is the perfect time to share something with you that just landed on trunk.

If you are building SeaMonkey or Thunderbird on Windows, you can now finally replace this:

make -f client.mk

or this:

autoconf-2.13
cd mozilla
autoconf-2.13
cd js/src
autoconf-2.13
mkdir -p $MOZ_OBJDIR
cd $MOZ_OBJDIR
../comm-central/configure
time python -O ../comm-central/mozilla/build/pymake/make.py

by this:

time python -OO mozilla/build/pymake/make.py -f client.mk

and replace this:

mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=/e/mozilla-src/comm-central-build

by this:

mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=e:/mozilla-src/comm-central-build

and add back this:

mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS=-j8

in your .mozconfig and there you'll have it: Parallelized building on Windows, using pymake! On a fast PC like mine (i7) you can get a full debug build done from scratch in only about 25 minutes now, without the fear of experiencing intermittent hangs. :-)

Thanks go to all the people who worked on pymake and especially the ones who fixed the last issue on comm-central (Bug 706905).

BTW: AFAICS the comm-central client.mk is still missing some pymake-related fixes that were recently made to the mozilla-central equivalent, especially Bug 707512 and Bug 643167. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

In the next issue I'm going to talk about compatible-by-default extensions (a.k.a. add-ons) and the implications for SeaMonkey. Stay tuned!

2.1 Beta 2 Roundup

2011-03-12T19:12:00.003+01:00

Welcome back! It's been a while, and this time I'm especially late since Beta 2 already shipped a month ago. But fear not, there's also news to tell: On trunk, both Venkman (JavaScript Debugger) and ChatZilla are finally working again, which means they'll also do in the upcoming (and last) Beta 3. Additionally, SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3 will show download progress in the Windows 7 taskbar, display plugins in MailNews feeds and allow to add a search bar (as in Firefox) to the browser (including suggestions and engine management).

For Beta 2, the biggest part was the integration of Sync. All in all it took more than four months of review and dozens of iterations to get to the point where it could land on trunk. Of course none of that would have been possible without the effort of the original Weave and Firefox Sync developers in the first place, who built a product that is both easy to use and secure by design. The implementation as of Beta 2 is not complete yet; on trunk the Preferences dialog has already been redesigned and further changes are about to happen (mainly porting the easy setup screen for adding devices).

Highlights:

Add a Keyword for this Search
Add-on Manager improvements
Data Manager final integration
Deferred Session Restore
Delete news messages from local storage
DoNotTrack header
DOM Inspector Enhanced Box Model Viewer
Doorhangers
HTML5 Forms API
Lightweight themes (Personas) on Address Book, Composer and MailNews
Remember page zoom per site
Mac PPC dropped, 64-bit added for 10.6 Snow Leopard
Omnijar
OpenType improvements
Scrollable browser tab bar and All Tabs button
Sync
WebGL and D3D

MailNews:

Do not stop copy to IMAP folder action without any error message (handle errors trying to stream next message) (Bug 601900)
Add support for retrieving new mail by time delay or during startup to Unix Mailspool account type (Bug 480945)
Make attachment code for apple encode 64-bit compatible (Bug 537900)
Let user choose signature separator (new mail.identity.default.suppress_signature_separator pref) (Bug 58406)
Replace server-based archiving prefs by identity-based ones (mail.identity.default.archive_granularity, mail.identity.default.archive_keep_folder_structure) (Bug 517514)
Prevent copying messages/folders from local to IMAP from failing due to virus checker interfering with temp file handling (Bug 601900)
Do not automatically mark IMAP Draft messages as read (Bug 470746)
Make sure default alert sound plays on Mac when new email arrives (Bug 594355)
Fix new mail icon for libxul builds (Bug 598942)
Make lightweight themes / Personas work in the Composer window (Bug 579739)
Make lightweight themes / Personas work in the MailNews window (Bug 579738)
Do not use disk cache if storing the message in the offline store (Bug 531033)
Remove unused prefs from mailnews.js (Bug 610289)
Remove unused mailnews.use_received_date pref (Bug 607265)
Remove unused pref mail.imap.mime_parts_on_demand_max_depth (Bug 623685)
Expand single or last message ID in headers display by default (Bug 611738)
Support IMAP AUTH EXTERNAL with TLS and given client certificate (Bug 286581)
Introduce deletion of newsgroup messages, differentiating between Cancel and Delete (Bug 250141)
Fix parsing and compaction of local folders > 4 GB (Bug 608449)
Polish the MailNews search dialog on Mac and fix some obsolete styles for all OSs (Bug 613358)
Support balloon notifications for new messages on Windows (pref: mail.biff.show_balloon) (Bug 605972)
Fix handling of forwarded flag on IMAP servers that do not support the flag (Bug 561292)
Detect corrupt offline store and disk cache entries for IMAP messages (Bug 531033)
Fix some cases of copies of messages ending up in offline store (Bug 609683)
Do not try to open appledouble attachments as appledouble and do not make attachments disappear when appledouble is registered (Bug 579682)
Open links from Address Cards like links from MailNews (Bug 116114)
Do not open selected message in new tab for middle click on scrollbar (Bug 518545)
Port several composeStartup fixes from Thunderbird (e.g. for attachment file names passed in from the command line, support accents and encoding) (Bug 617011)
Improve print format of attachment file names (remove content-type and content-encoding) (Bug 544984)
Fix opening messages found with Advanced Search by double click (Bug 545420)
Use folder semaphore to prevent IMAP offline store corruption (Bug 531033)
Make sure bottom signature does not appear inside the quotation (Bug 614949)
Make sure deleting a message from a collapsed thread does not cause all other messages to disappear from the subject pane (Bug 593525)
Reduce wake up frequency of IMAP threads for possibly lower power consumption (Bug 613184)
Make sure import from Apple Mail.app does not break messages or causes data loss (Bug 531245)
Make the "count the size of attachments" feature work for .eml attachments (Bug 606699)
Show correct message for error saving to Drafts folder, and retry saves to Sent folder (Bug 257735)
Set forwarded flag on messages forwarded inline by message filters (Bug 624337)
Keep IMAP offline stores up-to-date when messages are moved/copied (including fcc/save as draft) (Bug 574441)
Show size in attachment list (Bug 26517)
Correct the attachment header for inline text attachments (Bug 609992)
Make Ctrl+F4 work in tabmail (but not on Mac OS X) and add better keyboard Tab navigation on Mac (Bug 628918)
Make Print Preview work in viewsource and MailNews again (Bug 629900)
Make -compose command line options like bcc work if they are the first or only argument (Bug 627999)
Improve message composition logic performance (especially for forwarding many messages as attachments) (Bug 293100)
Prevent empty news articles when selecting during download from news server (Bug 540288)
Make F5 reload the view as in the browser (Bug 79397)
Add ability to detach grandchildren with MIME multipart/alternative (Bug 351224)
Add check for > 4 GB folder when appending to local Sent/Drafts folder (Bug 598104)
Add ability to drag feed URL from header pane (Bug 606992)
Convert composition security options for encrypt into a single menu item (with checkbox) like signing (Bug 537219)
Make Select Thread work in cross folder virtual/saved searched/unified folders again (Bug 544983)
Fix text field context menu (Bug 623590)
Fix renaming folders (Bug 588006)
Do not show disabled menu items (like Insert/Format in MailNews Compose) as enabled on hover (Bug 609422)
Fix mail reply painting issue (prevent documents loaded in mail editors to set up their own editors using the designMode or contentEditable APIs) (Bug 616590)
Fix collapsed folders appearing without children in MailNews subscription manager (Bug 592633)

Address Book:

Make lightweight themes/Personas work in the Address Book window (Bug 608966)
Add placeholdeer to Bookmarks and Address Book sidebars' search fields (Bug 610517)
Use GTK theme settings for background and text color in Address Book Output Panel (Bug 616699)

Bookmarks:

Improve Places File Bookmark (Ctrl+D) dialog (Bug 586947)
Turn bookmarks panel into an arrow panel (Bug 590105)
Add missing treelines to bookmarks sidebar and manager (Bug 620531)
Improve speed of managing multiple bookmarks in the Bookmarks Manager (Bug 613034)
Prevent bookmarks initialization locking with the first visit addition (Bug 620068)
Make the primary bookmarked indicator asynchronous (Bug 620066)
Initially import bookmarks from resource: scheme for Omnijar compatibility (Bug 628079)
Update bookmark tag list when manually adding, renaming, or deleting (Bug 627416)
Make sure tags of bookmarks are not lost when using undo after a cut or delete (Bug 597995)

Download Manager:

Make sure downloading of a file from a password protected directory does not fail (Bug 607560)
Remove all files left behind when a download is canceled (Bug 593815)
Make sure automatic updates do not get stalled when installed version is newer than a downloaded update restored using Windows system restore (Bug 601701)

Help:

Split mail_help.xhtml to several files (Bug 246405)
Clarify and update Help for Copies & Folders Account Settings (Bug 608152)
Document option "Only check for new mail after opening Mail & Newsgroups" (Bug 525973)
Document MailNews Default Account (Bug 227152)
Document shortcuts for Text Viewing, Navigation and Selection (Bug 232063)

Locales:

Add Finnish (fi) locale (Bug 609883)

Audio/Video:

Turn on OpenGL LayerManager for fullscreen video (Bug 556547)
Never play audio/video automatically in an editor (Bug 601881)
Work around alsa-pulse bug that causes hangs after resuming audio from pause (Bug 573924)
Ensure video controls don't show when we can't load a resource (Bug 595009)
Ensure video controls resize correctly when showing and hiding status overlay (Bug 604885)
Do not initiate media buffering before decode hits the end of downloaded data (Bug 623637)
Create media cache temp files with correct permissions and remove stray ones after 30s of idle time on Windows (initial wait time 3min) (Bug 572579)
Restore playback statistics to enable more accurate media buffering duration calculation (Bug 623637)
Add support for StereoMode element (Bug 584259)
Adjust ALSA start threshold to reduce the chance of deadlocking when recovering from under-run (Bug 615134)

Add-ons:

Fix installer for trunk builds (after Omnijar) so extensions are also installed (Bug 629037)
Add keyboard Ctrl+Shift+A shortcut to open Add-on Manager (and change MailNews Select Thread to Alt+Shift+A) (Bug 591483)
Do not lose pending installs/upgrades when upgrading to the new Add-on Manager (Bug 568251)
Update the UI with the new add-on details when bootstrapped add-ons are upgraded (Bug 596336)
Clear XUL fastload when new extensions are installed (Bug 606076)
Make revealing and hiding bootstrapped add-ons in non-profile install locations work correctly (Bug 553017)
Add final visual style and graphics to Add-on Manager (Bug 601022)
Allow upgrading an add-on to an add-on with a different ID (Bug 412819)
Make Get Add-ons tab the default selection in a new profile (Bug 610764)
Accelerate building the add-on lists (Bug 614416)
Allow add-ons to opt out of metadata collection (Bug 603409)
Add loading and error states to the Get Add-ons view (Bug 601143)
Ignore removed add-ons during update check (Bug 616457)
Support paid results in the add-ons search result (Bug 562790)
Pass Addon object to custom about dialogs (Bug 610661)
Recover gracefully from a broken extensions.bootstrappedAddon (Bug 619607)
Hide the disable button for add-ons that are waiting to install (Bug 616620)
Default Search to searching for available add-ons (Bug 611459)
Remove Disable item from context menu for already disabled extensions and plugins (Bug 616633)
Automatically install add-ons distributed with the application into the user's profile (Bug 474289)
Remove last updated date and sorting bar from Add-on Manager list view (Bug 623207)
Group add-ons in list view according to their status (enabled, disabled, etc.) (Bug 624808)
Remove add-on author name and link from Add-on Manager list view (Bug 623211)
Allow the tab key to only move to the items relevant to the selected extension (Bug 563912)
Download metadata for new add-ons when installed (Bug 595915)
Allow restarting extension downloads after failure (Bug 593535)
Make sure failed extension downloads can be resumed (Bug 593535)
Prevent multiple add-on entries in list view when downloading an update (Bug 618760)
Remove Pause button and make Cancel button work on download progress widget (Bug 581361)
Use InstallTrigger for XPI links (Bug 593025)
Rollback updates when file operations fail (Bug 587088)
Throw an exception if illegal arguments are passed to InstallTrigger.install (Bug 608680)
Support no contribution amount (Bug 617493)
Only show Available Updates pane when pending updates are available (Bug 591024)
Do not show hidden pane when clicking a few pixels down from Plugins (Bug 612053)
Fix display for long descriptions in detail view (Bug 624175)
Hide version numbers for lightweight themes (Personas) (Bug 580298)

Session Store:

Support form restore for securely transmitted sites (HTTPS) (Bug 603090)
Use Deferred Session Restore (Bug 614220)

Preferences:

Update Cache preferences panel for new cache size heuristic (Bug 594744)
Add preference for accessibility.blockautorefresh and Hardware Acceleration (Bug 465303)
Change the "No Proxy for" list UI from a textbox to a textarea (Bug 613198)
Update hardware acceleration preference for layer prefs tri-state (Bug 625318)
Add preference for link diversion restrictions (Bug 583625)
Add preference for do-not-track HTTP header (Bug 630270)

Sync:

Port Sync UI to SeaMonkey (Bug 576970)
Update Modern for Sync UI and fix about:sync-tabs theming (Bug 612172)
Hide context menu separator if about:sync-tabs is empty (Bug 628163)
Add a pref (services.sync.log.appender.debugLog.enabled) to control Sync back-end logging (Bug 599928)

DOM Inspector:

Make sure Inspect Contained Document followed by View Stylesheets works correctly (Bug 112674)
Prevent "Error: getSelectedItem is not defined" when switching from jsObject viewer to DOM viewer in document pane (Bug 617053)
Allow selecting/scrolling properties tree in CSS Rules viewer after undoing a deletion (Bug 620149)
Allow to watch a11y events for the whole application (Bug 551404)
Make the DOM Nodes viewer currentIndex-clean and do more intelligent rebuilding (Bug 589299)
Add Inspect in New Window to the Edit menu and give it a shortcut (Bug 588071)
Add Inspect in New Window to the stylesheets viewer (Bug 606821)
Disable DOM Nodes viewer's context menu's Paste and Insert menus if no items are enabled (Bug 589300)
Add Copy URI and View File to stylesheets viewer's context menu (Bug 607080)
Add tooltips to Inspect menus (Bug 612333)
Add Copy URI and View File to XBL Bindings Viewer (Bug 613718)
Allow navigating DOM Inspector mouselessly (Bug 256244)
Add Enhanced Box Model Viewer, showing all data at once and with bold style for significant data (value!=0) (Bug 615156)

HTML5:

Add support for the track element to the HTML5 parser (Bug 620664)
Add :-moz-ui-invalid pseudo-class (Bug 605124)

Graphics:

Handle device removal when using D3D10 (Bug 604271)
Block D3D9 on Windows 2000 (Bug 603204)
Enable GL shadow layer (Bug 602428)
Enable D3D10 layers by default (new layers.prefer-d3d9 pref replaces layers.use-d3d10) (Bug 605547)
Fix anti-aliasing problem of D2D (Bug 548964)
Turn the layer acceleration prefs into a tri-state (removes layers.accelerate-all and layers.accelerate-none and adds layers.acceleration.disabled and layers.acceleration.force-enabled) (Bug 623446)
Add 3D Vision stereoscopic rendering support to D3D10 layers (Bug 617220)
Disable OpenGL layers by default on Mac OS 10.5 (Bug 583499)
Honor the gfx.color_management.force_srgb pref when it is set as a default pref in addition to being set as a user pref (Bug 608030)
Block WebGL on OpenGL on Intel cards on Windows (Bug 625118)
Only white-list Intel, NVIDIA and ATI, but block old drivers for ATI and NVIDIA older than June 2010 (Bug 623338)
Rename webgl.prefer_gl pref to webgl.prefer-native-gl and introduce webgl.force-enabled and webgl.disabled prefs (Bug 628403)
Do not enable OpenGL on Mac OS 10.6 before minor version 3 (Bug 629016)
Re-enable WebGL on Linux (bug 578877)
Create prefs (one per nsIGfxInfo feature) that override the built-in blacklist if set (pref branch gfx.blacklist. suffixes: direct2d, layers.direct3d9, layers.direct3d10, layers.direct3d10-1, layers.opengl, webgl.opengl, webgl.angle) (Bug 625160)
Reset animations when .src is changed (Bug 594771)
Stop animated GIFs looping too often (Bug 222176)
Fix GIFs not animating on page reload (Bug 601723)

Linux:

Make F5 reload on other platforms than Windows (enable it for Linux/Unix only, since we don't want it on Mac) (Bug 509954)
Make Helper Applications panel in Preferences window usable on a non-Gnome system (Bug 606998)

Mac:

Set minimum required OS version for Mac builds (Bug 604666)
Style the Findbar (Bug 605586)
Enable full screen mode on Mac (Bug 606297)
Adjust default IPC prefs for Mac 64-bit support and dropping PPC (Bug 614231)
Polish the Edit Filter dialog on Mac and fix some obsolete styles (all OSs) (Bug 614382)
Use RTL-friendly scrollbuttons (Bug 624161)
Adopt CSS for click-through (Bug 611857)
Improve MailNews (tab)scrollbox arrows/buttons (Bug 602568)
Use a better focus ring color in the MailNews search dialog (Bug 620797)
Style the bookmarks arrow panel (Bug 620132)
Do not open two windows when opening external links on Mac (Bug 531552)

Compiling:

Add --enable-profiling configure option (Bug 604871)
Adapt PYTHON_VERSION check (Bug 613811)
Transition LDAP SDKs to Mercurial (pull the LDAP c-sdk from Mercurial rather than CVS) (Bug 506601)
Require SP1 of VC8 EE to build successfully, obsolete VC7.1 and VC8 without its SP1 (Bug 610936)
Update required Cairo version to 1.10 (Bug 608484)
Require system libpng to be at version 1.4.1 or later (Bug 608483)
Provide an intelligible error when switching from gmake to pymake or vice versa on an absolutely configured objdir (Bug 608173)
Support startup timeline (Bug 604849)
Allow to build GConf and GnomeVFS/GIO support independently (Bug 545343)
Link 32-bit Windows builds with LARGEADDRESSAWARE (Bug 556382)
Require GTK+ 2.4.0 or later for compilation (bug 621962)
Enable crashreporter on Win64 (Bug 580623)
Remove MSVC 6 support (Bug 508760)
Fix DirectX SDK platform detection (Bug 622158)
Require SP1 of VC8 EE to build (successfully); Obsolete VC7.1 and VC8 without its SP1 (Bug 610936)
Disable ctypes on x86/MSVC if MASM is unavailable (Bug 551724)
Add --enable-profiling configure option (Bug 592923)

General:

Fix Undo Close Tab for tabs that are only in the bfundo cache (Bug 597637)
Accept middle-click for the new tab button (Bug 603095)
Make findbar appear above content and style it properly (Bug 605622)
Remove Bloglines from the feed reader options (Bug 603132)
Focus on content for Tools/Search the Web or clicking the search button (Bug 606858)
Make full screen window controls, bookmark overflow chevron and tab/sidebar close button more visible against dark lightweight themes (Bug 610408)
Do not ignore "Always use Google to subscribe to feeds" setting (Bug 612265)
Add Firefox Sidebar API to SeaMonkey Sidebar (Bug 399310)
Make removing entries in Data Manager trees select the next entry (Bug 597994)
Fix accessibility.typeaheadfind.usefindbar=false for View Source and Help windows (Bug 626985)
Do not hide the invalid form popup if the user types in an invalid form control (Bug 620079)
Notify when installing a lightweight theme but e.g. Modern is current which means that a restart is needed (Bug 594776)
Use doorhangers for geolocation, login manager, application/add-on installations, indexedDB and other notifications (Bug 595810)
Deal with saved POST data in functions loading entries e.g. from Places (Bug 553459)
Add ability to open Data Manager to a specific domain (and panel) (Bug 588418)
Add an icon to the Data Manager tab (Bug 615014)
Decode IDN punycode in Data Manager (Bug 591324)
Switch SeaMonkey UI to open Data Manager instead of other windows (Bug 588419)
Make Esc key cancel Forget tab in Data Manager (Bug 613087)
Make DEL key set permission tab entry back to default in Data Manager (Bug 613086)
Add ability to add permissions in Data Manager (Bug 588417)
Add a possibility to Data Manager to only list domains of a certain data type (Bug 613795)
Switch to relevant tab for first domain with data in Data Manager when managing Permissions/Passwords (Bug 619098)
Fix Domain search in Data Manager with IDN (Bug 629678)
Remember zoom value on a site-specific basis (using Toolkit ZoomManager) (Bug 386363)
Give life to SeaMonkey (Bug 616874)
Warn people on startup if they run an old build with updates disabled (Bug 581319)
Update status bar correctly after switching tabs (and add support for the onUpdateCurrentBrowser notification) (Bug 583317)
Make SeaMonkey tab bar scrollable to cope with tab overflow (Bug 484968)
Support arrow panels in Modern and turn doorhangers into arrow panels (Bug 617661)
Make doorhanger menulist display correctly in Modern (Bug 617661)
Prevent clicking miscellaneous Location Bar icons from selecting the text (Bug 619309)
Provide screen reader accessibility for doorhanger notifications (Bug 617333)
Add "Add a Keyword for this Search" to websites' search fields (Bug 332538)
Switch SeaMonkey to Omnijar (Bug 588067)
Update right pane tree of Bookmark Manager when deleting a selected folder in the left pane tree (Bug 627408)
Enable the window resizer when the status bar is turned off (Bug 627755)
Prevent Sidebar from opening by default in new profiles (Bug 630124)
Prevent Location Bar from remembering invalid (Server not found) URLs (Bug 627416)
Fail to load with invalid port number instead of using default port (Bug 537381)
Implement File.slice (Bug 575946)
Truncate long text when pasting text that is longer than maxlength of text control (Bug 603556)
Add support for app.support.vendor, show it on about:support and remove support for general.useragent.vendor and vendorSub (Bug 591573)
Disable OOPP for Java on Windows (Bug 603417)
Do not hide doorhanger text when lightweight themes (Personas) are installed (Bug 604464)
Fix lightweight themes (Personas) chrome painting when entering/exiting full screen mode (Bug 604318)
Do not crash on closing print preview with iframe, position:fixed and input (Bug 595337)
Prevent browser from stalling with connections left hanging in TCP close wait state (Bug 606719)
Let build system provide an intelligible error when switching from gmake to pymake or vice-versa on an absolutely configured objdir (Bug 608173)
Do not handle files being dropped in an editable area (Bug 512717)
Ctrl+clicking on a text control border followed by an editing operation (e.g. paste) removes the table cell from a non-editable (Bug 424627)
Make sure pressing Enter in a paragraph with an id attribute does not create a second paragraph of same ID (Bug 607584)
Make sure caret is available when an iframe is put into design mode when it already has focus (Bug 542317)
Make sure bottom of spellchecker underline is painted in input element with certain fonts (Bug 548964)
Make ui.trackpoint_hack.enabled pref update live and add ui.window_class_override pref (Bug 594977)
Install Updates only installs the first update in the list (Bug 597397)
Recover from a corrupt database or incorrect schema after startup (Bug 602577)
Show four rows for select multiple by default (Bug 603141)
Do not crash when FIPS softtoken checksum verification fails (Bug 521849)
Recover from a corrupt database or incorrect schema after startup (Bug 602577)
Make installer add OOPP process plugin-container.exe to ShimInclusionList to prevent Windows Media Player from falling back to version 6.4 (Bug 609106)
Make the More Encodings sub menus non-localizable Bug 610638
Insert image files dropped onto editable areas as data: URI image (Bug 609632)
Make dropping arbitrary image files on editable areas actually work (Bug 609632)
Add pref (notification.disabled) to disable desktop notifications (Bug 605370)
Try to lock the main exe multiple times before giving up updating the application on Windows (Bug 611186)
Allow updating when files to be patched are in use on Windows (Bug 466778)
Start in Safe Mode if Shift is pressed during application startup on Windows (Bug 602562)
Do not truncate print job name to only 30 characters (Bug 531606)
Always strip leading "?" from keyword search (Bug 608198)
Only rewrite pluginreg.dat upon plugins list construction if there were changes (Bug 613679)
Accelerate TCP connection retries in HTTP (Bug 592284)
Add a pref (dom.allowXULXBL_for_file) to enable XUL and XBL for file: scheme (Bug 595397)
Use proper escaping in form submission names and values and treat textareas with an empty name the way that IE handles them (Bug 448611)
Do not make an element invalid if the value length is higher than the maxlength value (Bug 613021)
Make invalid output element block form submission (Bug 613113)
Scroll the whole selection into view, not just the focus point when finding on a page (Bug 559993)
Keep trying to scroll content into view even if it is clipped out (Bug 539949)
Fire reorder event on XUL tree when treeview is changed (Bug 614552)
Improve support for "Vary: Cookie" header (Bug 468426)
Only show "Available Updates" pane when pending updates are available (Bug 591024)
Do not treat body of HTTP 304 response as a HTTP/0.9 response to subsequent HTTP request (Bug 363109)
File fragmentation on update fix for partial updates which are by far the worst culprit (Bug 570058) - investigate small writes
HTTP Cache: use directory tree to store cache file (Bug 597224)
Disable WebSockets by default (pref network.websocket.override-security-block) (Bug 616733)
Disable accelerated SYN retry (workaround for bug 614677 and bug 613977)
Add architecture and list of invalid plugins to pluginreg (Bug 616271)
Only check plugin validity once (Bug 616271)
IndexedDB: Notifications should auto-dismiss in some circumstances (Bug 595253)
File size of pluginreg.dat increases steadily (Bug 620114)
Shift key for safe mode conflicts with Windows shortcut key (Bug 619866)
Fix editor's handling of surrogate-pair combining marks with backspace (Bug 332636)
Report some memory information with Windows crash reports (Bug 493779)
Autoscroll stops unintentionally while page is scrolling (Bug 605127)
Disable navigator.mozNotification by default (notification.feature.enabled pref) (Bug 607860)
Do not strip LFs following a pre or textarea (Bug 620267)
Prevent partially themed UI on first run after upgrade while using third-party theme (Bug 621475)
Fix View By Date and Site sorting for History sidebar (Bug 621843)
Fix alignment of common dialog icon and text (Bug 608604)
Make arrow panels use the direction of the anchor (Bug 619223)
Remove the possibility of other components breaking application update where possible (Bug 595078)
Display DirectWrite version in about:support (Bug 624970)
Present error page when someone tries to access remote XUL (Bug 623482)
Make the DOM timeout clamp a pref (dom.min_timeout_value) and enforce that it is non-negative (Bug 625256)
Show correct last modified time for local files (fix DST/UTC handling) (Bug 377307)
Prevent FTP list parse error when list returns double space between date and file name (Bug 543805)
Evaluate the graphics blacklist and set the per-feature "cache" prefs based on the results (Bug 625160)
Display non-customizable menubars correctly when a lightweight theme (Persona) is applied (Bug 617578)
Improve the position of the arrow for arrow panels (Bug 626605)
Detect corrupt places.sqlite and replace it on next startup (Bug 609286)
Make sure drag and drop is not disabled when a plugin is open in another tab on Linux (Bug 626157)
Disable hinting when printing (bug 490475)
Implement do-not-track HTTP header to express user intent to halt tracking across sites (Bug 628197)
Accelerate adding and removing lines in big textareas (Bug 597627)
Add font cache size info to about:support (Bug 629611)
Fix preference locking by reading defaults/autoconfig/* from Omnijar as appropriate (Bug 595522)
Do not strip characters when using Copy Link Location (Bug 377392)
Do not close pop-ups when a window is lowered while dragging (prevent Bookmarks menu from closing) (Bug 618248)
Create focus styles for split menu buttons in pop-up (doorhanger) notifications (Bug 595271)
Fix page context menu after dismissing notification bar (Bug 614152)
Make Password Manager work with input[type=email] (Bug 600551)

2.1 Beta 1 Roundup

2010-10-14T00:05:00.002+02:00

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)

2.1 Alpha 3 Roundup

2010-08-27T00:44:00.002+02:00

Here it is, with a small delay: The SeaMonkey 2.1 Alpha 3 Roundup.

Since the last alpha, some major changes appeared on trunk. KaiRo was especially busy, landing both Places-based bookmarks and Lightweight Themes (Personas) support for the browser, and his Data Manager integration has already gone through several reviews. As always, the SeaMonkey 2.1 features page gives a good impression of the overall progress.

Developers will surely appreciate that the JavaScript Debugger (Venkman) is usable again after the XPCOM components registration changes broke it.

For the platform changes, have a look at the Firefox Beta release notes (b2, b3, b4).

Progress:

use out-of-process plugins (OOPP) framework in SeaMonkey (Bug 545716): convert MailNews to the external API (Bug 377319)
split mail_help.xhtml to several files (Bug 246405): Preferences, Account Settings, Working Offline
expose camera functionality to web content (Bug 451674): add camera button to file input elements (Bug 567323)
enable Bookmarks with the Sync add-on (Bug 585845): the bookmarks system has been reworked to use the Places framework shared with Firefox (Bug 498596)
enable Tabs with the Sync add-on (Bug 567583): implemented methods of the Firefox TabBrowser API (Bug 558614, Bug 558673, Bug 579845)
port Sync UI to SeaMonkey (Bug 576970): landed (Bug 571902) and enabled (Bug 571896) on Firefox trunk
make SeaMonkey build with libxul (Bug 394502): build xpfe autocomplete from comm-central build.mk files instead of mozilla/ (Bug 450781)
implement Indexed Database API (Bug 553412): asynchronous API implemented
Direct2D (D2D) support: enabled in nightlies (Bug 549116), status exposed to about:support (Bug 587102)

MailNews:

set correct file permissions when saving or detaching an attachment (Bug 533976)
if SMTP server doesn't advertise auth mechanisms, try to send mail directly (Bug 534158)
add option to keep the folders structure when archiving (no configuration UI yet, pref example: mail.server.server1.archive_keep_folder_structure) (Bug 573392)
do not display return receipt notification bar for local mail after the first time the user responds to the request (Bug 558543)
fix pasting images into the Compose window (Bug 572637)
make sure clicking Get Mail for POP twice or during startup (while first round not finished) does not show alert "This folder is being processed. Please wait until processing is complete to get messages." (Bug 392680)
make sure setting POP/IMAP port to the default value for the security setting that is not selected does not get reset (Bug 580764)
make sure importing HTML mail from Outlook does not import emails as plain text (Bug 250878)
fix loading multipart/mixed messages from the memory/disk cache (non-offline IMAP) (Bug 565852)
do not fetch audio parts inline when doing IMAP mime parts on demand (Bug 584523)
make sure title value of HTML signature file does not show up in signature (Bug 572290)
make sure imported Japanese email from Outlook does not show as garbled text (Bug 547119)
make sure to display multipart/alternative messages with inline part and text/plain part (when name of Content-Type and/or filename of Content-Disposition: inline is specified for mail body part with text/xxx in multipart/alternative) (Bug 551698)
fix handling of stat errors and do not stat noselect folders when checking individual folders for new messages (Bug 581707)
fix saving authentication method "normal password" as a preference (Bug 580270)

Address Book:

make Address Book toolbars customizable (Bug 575956)

Bookmarks:

remove old bookmarks system code (Bug 580663)
add management UI for Places-based bookmarks (Bug 580662)
switch browser UI to Places-based bookmarks (Bug 580660)
initialize and migrate Places-based bookmarks (Bug 580658)
add new Places core for bookmarks (and history) (Bug 580656)
make the Modern theme work nicely with Places-based bookmarks (Bug 584752)
remove double separator in menu of Bookmarks button in the Personal Toolbar (Bug 586050)

Download Manager:

make sure executing files via the Download Manager causes Win7 compatibility mode to apply to the downloaded file and not the application (Bug 567497)

Help:

update Help for new Link Behavior preference panel (Bug 574609)
remove references to nonexistent IDs from Help (excluding those of two follow-up bugs) (Bug 582710)

DOM Inspector:

fix menu bar keyboard navigation issue (Bug 346725)
make strings in the XBL Bindings viewer easier to read (Bug 586149)

JavaScript Debugger (Venkman):

load script source for files loaded by mozIJSSubScriptLoader.loadSubScript (Bug 449673)
update for the new component registration world (Bug 576869)
fix Display Profile Data to actually show something (Bug 460633)
display array elements in sequence when an array is expanded (Bug 213494)
exclude add-on components when excluding chrome files (Bug 356267)

Audio/Video:

implement the accept attribute for audio/*, video/* (Bug 565272)
buffer non-autobuffer videos upon first playback to ensure smooth playback (Bug 543769)
send correct Accept header when requesting video and audio resources (Bug 489071)
fix sound output via libesd if no esound daemon is running (Bug 579877)
add Ogg support for HTMLMediaElement.buffered (Bug 462957)
add WAV support for HTMLMediaElement.buffered (Bug 462957)
add on* event handler property support for media events (Bug 569301)

Preferences:

move the Link Behaviour preferences from the tabs pane to a separate pane (Bug 570970)
remove redundant pref-offline UI which was commented out since 2001 (Bug 577514)
perform case-insensitive comparison in the Add Languages dialog (e.g. find match between "en-US", set via intl.accept_languages, and "en-us") (Bug 370387)

Add-on Manager:

show Language category if there are no locale packs installed but some are pending install (Bug 572561)
place Preferences button for add-ons in the entry of the digest view (Bug 562890)
show version number in the list view for all types of add-ons (Bug 562052)
make ratings display-only (Bug 567131)
notify the application when add-on installs triggered by webpages fail or complete (Bug 552965, Bug 553455)
add support for searching add-ons on AMO via the search bar (Bug 558287)
do not show Add-on Manager multiple times (Bug 566593)
support multi-package XPIs in the new add-ons manager (Bug 552742)
implement the automatic vs. manual update design mockup (Bug 562622)

Linux:

make dragging the menubar drag the window on GTK themes where that should work (and also fix GTK resize drags to initialize drag better) (Bug 566480)
add a scriptable interface to operating-system performance measurement APIs (Linux only for now) (Bug 568863)

Mac:

make lightweight themes / Personas work with the browser on Mac (Bug 579737)
fix query icon for new Places UI (Bug 586026)
add toggletoolbar=true to the windows that should have a Mac toolbar toggle pill (Bug 536904)

Compiling:

add --disable-webm besides --disable-wave and --disable-ogg to configure for non-audio environment (Bug 572635)
add -r/--rev option to control tag/revision to pull in client.py (Bug 556394)
make it even easier to build with pymake (set MOZ_OBJDIR and detect TOPSRCDIR automatically) (Bug 572529)
add configure option (--with-ccache) to use ccache (Bug 577636)
make --with-ccache more powerful (add ability to detect ccache automatically) (Bug 579704)
require yasm for architectures where we have code for it (Bug 582955)
add jemalloc support for Windows x64 build (VC 2005/2008) (Bug 572937)
use showIncludes for a substantial build perf win with pymake (Bug 518136)

General:

default to tabbed browsing (Bug 505311)
change Restart dialog button labels from Cancel/Restart to Restart Later/Now (Bug 561176)
make lightweight themes / Personas work with the browser window (Bug 563261)
make the tab bar look better in the default theme, including lightweight themes (Bug 579732)
improve the security button look in the default theme (Bug 579731)
default to Find toolbar instead of inline FAYT/Find dialog (Bug 97023)
focus FAYT/Find on correct tab so that it returns correct results (Bug 584630)
make sure making changes in Page Info Permissions take effect on HTTPS sites (Bug 579747)
draw Page Info tabs correctly (Bug 581686)
remove gopher references from SeaMonkey code (Bug 572389)
make about: link the SeaMonkey website and release notes, override Toolkit's about: (Bug 555939)
make tabbrowser tell Gecko which tab is active and which is not (Bug 585264)
load favicon images into faviconService when allowed to (Bug 585515)
make sure favicons are set on the right tab (Bug 585511)

Platform:

add error console logging for missing/incorrect command-line handlers (Bug 579497)
use GDI shaper by default on Windows XP and handle bitmap fonts better (Bug 561304)
ignore 'www.' when searching in the location bar (strip out www. from found URLs and the query after already stripping off http:// etc. (Bug 461483)
make sure windows are never movable in fullscreen mode (Bug 574861)
bump Gecko version to 2.0x (Bug 570022)
switch back to the default theme if the previous theme is made incompatible by an application update (Bug 565064)
remove xpti.dat caching which harms us in runtime and code complexity (Bug 570488)
make about:cache and about:cache-entry pretty (Bug 538813)
do not send the useless crypto token in the UA string (Bug 572668)
remove the UI language from the UA string and navigator.appVersion (Bug 572656)
remove "Windows;" from the UA string (Bug 581783)
a tag with target attribute and window.open('foo', 'bar') should not be treated identically by browser.link.restriction (Bug 351235)
change -moz-resize to resize (Bug 553576)
do not create temporary moz-screenshot.jpg when pasting images into rich text editors (Bug 490879)
do not hard code get_discard_timer_ms, use a pref (image.mem.min_discard_timeout_ms) instead (Bug 478398)
implement -moz-font-feature-settings and -moz-font-language-override in CSS (Bug 511339)
reorder size and position events in nsXULWindow so windows are positioned before they are shown (Bug 574690)
implement the SVG load event in text/html, make the SVG load event in XML async and only supported on svg tag (Bug 552938)
check X-Frame-Options header and redirect to about:blank if need be (Bug 475530)
split about:memory reporting into more detailed sections for SQLite (Bug 575667)
speed up createElement() (Bug 566466)
support undo uninstall for restartless and already disabled add-ons (Bug 553494)
implement -moz-appearance: button-arrow-up/down/next/previous (Bug 412773)
support TrueType kerning in the harfbuzz font shaper back-end (Bug 575695)
support a.text as defined in HTML5 (Bug 573258)
add support for signed AUS update snippet (Bug 544442)
implement the HTML5 hidden attribute (Bug 567663)
add experimental MozTouch events (Bug 508906)
do not trigger multiple Master Password prompts when filling form logins in multiple tab (Bug 499233)
make InstallTrigger support cross-process communication (asynchronous with an optional callback) (Bug 550936)
enable TLS false start by default and add a pref (security.ssl.enable_false_start) to disable it (Bug 583908)
prevent a body-less window (title bar only) from appearing at the upper left corner of the screen (Bug 579421)
prevent toolbar elements from losing the command attribute when removing and reinserting them (Bug 540838)
enable WebGL shader validation and remove obsolete texture API (Bug 584815)
add ANGLE/D3D WebGL support (Bug 583838)
add pref (accessibility.mouse_focuses_formcontrol) to allow form elements to be focused when clicked (Bug 577316)
make pc, in, mm and cm be a fixed number of CSS pixels (Bug 537890)

2.1 Alpha 2 Roundup

2010-07-12T01:46:00.001+02:00

So, now that the distraction has come to an end (congratulations, Spain!), back to business. SeaMonkey (and Thunderbird) trunk has been broken for the last week or so due to the XPCOM components registration changes. The tree is still closed, but it looks much better now than in the past few days. Time to add some more SeaMonkey 2.1 features!

Upcoming:

Otherwise, SeaMonkey 2.1 Alpha 2 has been released. The following is an overview of noteworthy changes contained in that release. Also have a look at the Firefox 4 Beta 1 release notes for some more platform changes.

Notable Changes:

The Add-on Manager has been rewritten and now opens within a new tab or browser window. Read Mossop's blog for more information.
The video back-end now supports WebM/VP8 (use yasm if compiling on Linux!).
The Troubleshooting Information page (about:support), which features a short-hand for accessing your profile folder, can now be opened from the Help menu (not the Tools menu, as mentioned in the 2.1 Alpha 1 Roundup).
The Download Manager now allows your to drag files and URLs to and from it, e.g. to the desktop or Explorer window.
The View Source window includes a Find Bar now, like the one in the Help viewer and Firefox, but at the top of the window.
The MailNews components now supports saving multiple messages as individual files in a directory.
The MailNews thread pane and other trees now feature alternating backgrounds on Mac and Linux.
The MailNews Search toolbar is gone, in favor of elements that can be used in customizable toolbars. The bar might eventually return (cf. Thunderbird's Quick Filter bar), but for now its elements have been moved to an own, full-sized toolbar (which can of course be disabled and all its elements be moved to other toolbars).
The Search and Go browser buttons are customizable now, too.
Gopher is gone.

Progress:

OOPP prerequisite: Convert mailnews to frozen/external linkages (Bug 377319)
Windows 7 taskbar support prerequisite: Support setting AppUserModelID per top level window (Bug 560846)

MailNews:

Process attachments with "Content-Type:" line containing a line break properly (Bug 543813)
Fix reordering of newsgroups using drag & drop: Port d&d code from TB, introducing Services.jsm to SeaMonkey MailNews (Bug 556887)
Fix getting POP3 mail after resuming from sleep mode (Bug 466933)
Format large numbers in main window message size (Bug 516787)
Do not retry IMAP move copies since that most likely will result in duplicates (Bug 403603)
Make sure HTML editor does not delete lines below Return on certain emails composed in Outlook 2003 (Bug 554806)
Make sure irregular message updates header pane on message view ('undisclosed-recipients' should show up) (Bug 549931)
Fix crash when POP3 server closed connection while trying to show a password prompt (Bug 556249)
Fix saving IMAP drafts offline on Windows (Bug 397910)
Fix accessing third account and local mail (Bug 397744)
Add ability to save multiple messages as individual files in directory (Bug 555972)
Use custom icon for Go -> Local Folders -> Outbox (Bug 475509)
Make Search, Folder Location and Views widgets for MailNews customizable toolbars (Bug 521927)
Prompt for client certificate password when making TLS connection to IMAP server (Bug 568929)
Make message copy action to IMAP on incoming POP3 mail succeed with quarantining turned on for antivirus (Bug 387361)
Make replay of offline IMAP operations succeed if the network connection is down when going online (Bug 567773)
Make sure signature of previously selected account is removed when switching between accounts (Bug 566825)
Remove duplicate certificate in chain from S/MIME signed emails (Bug 354273)
Use correct date for mail imported from Outlook Sent folder (avoid timezone confusion) (Bug 309932)
Make the internal archiving code work for any set of messages, thus being nicer to extensions (Bug 570578)
Make archiving of read-only folders do a copy, not a move (Bug 573278)
Rename "Unsent Messages" to "Outbox" (Bug 475511)
Alert undoing IMAP delete (Bug 571800)
Do not crash when subscribed to IMAP folder '/' (Bug 562104)
Restore ability to save or detach IMAP attachments (Bug 572065)
Add ability to open mork DBs asynchronously (Bug 570582)
Handle multiline subject headers that contain CR+HTAB instead of CR+SPC correctly (Bug 460443)

Address Book:

Make Mailing List dialog resizable (Bug 534831)
Use instead of spacers to align the labels in the Mailing List dialog header sections (Bug 555452)

Download Manager:

Make downloads work if temporary directory is encrypted on Windows (Bug 199473)
Add possibility to drag URL/file to/from SeaMonkey's Download Manager (copy/move to desktop/folder) (Bug 192728)
Make downloads list honor Always Remember Helper Application (Bug 569898)
Avoid disk cache overflow when downloading large files (Bug 443067)
Honor browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone pref (Windows policy settings integration) (Bug 569204)

Audio/Video:

Update Modern theme for HTML5 video controls CSS transition (Bug 558746)
Add libvpx VP8 decoding library / WebM (Bug 566247)
Add HTMLMediaElement.canPlayType support for WebM (Bug 566245)
Implement a raw video decoder (Bug 508082)
Increase the default media cache size from 50MB to 500MB (Bug 572235)

Session Store:

Do not write sessionstore.js to disk for read-only events (Bug 558646)
Restore windows at the saved position without moving them around on the screen (Bug 558641)
Allow 3rd party cookies for session only (Bug 565475)
Change default to allow third party session cookies (Bug 570630)
Make sure that the Location Bar does not stop working and not allow any input (Bug 567655)
Make sure no tabs are stuck in zombie mode (Bug 558996)

Preferences:

Replace "Download retention" with "Download history" in Browser preferences [ (Bug 566484)
Add new Add-on Manager UI preferences (Bug 554007, Bug 561600)
Remove extensions.getMore* preferences (Bug 530102)
Add a pref to disable accelerated layers by force (Bug 565387)

Linux:

Show jemalloc stats in about:memory on Linux (Bug 557935)
Make changes to the GTK widget to support GL accelerated rendering (Bug 565833)
Implement OpenType font shaping using HarfBuzz and provide a pref to use this or platform back-end (Bug 449292)

Mac:

Remove splitter cursor overrides (Bug 558668)

Certificates:

Disable the Get Certificate button on the Certificate exception dialog when the certificate is being retrieved in the background (Bug 523742)

Compiling:

Add build option "--with-debug-label" (Bug 565191)
Allow a single option to control tag/revision to pull in client.py (Bug 556394)
Require system libpng to be at version 1.4.1 or later (Bug 551438)
Add jemalloc support for Windows x64 build (VC 2005 / 2008) (Bug 521193)

HTML5:

Implement input type="tel" (Bug 557620)
Implement input type="search" (Bug 456229)
Implement autofocus attribute (Bug 546995)
Implement control attribute for label element (Bug 562932)
Implement the accept attribute for the form and file upload controls form "image/*" (Bug 377624)
Let select size default to 4 when 'multiple' attribute is present (Bug 551846)
Remove support for table@align=abscenter/absmiddle/middle (Bug 559834)
Enable Web Sockets (Bug 472529)

CSS:

Rename -moz-background-size to background-size. (Bug 549809)
Add support for background-clip and background-origin in the background shorthand (Bug 549809)
Add -moz-background-clip: content (Bug 549809)
Remove -moz- prefix from (-moz-background-origin|-moz-background-clip|-moz-background-size) (Bug 570939)

General:

Make site icons work in Places (History window for now, bookmarks once switched) (Bug 554908)
Highlight odd tree rows in trees with multiple columns in Gnomestripe and Pinstripe themes. Implement and use ::-moz-tree-row(multicol) (Bug 282127)
Implement new Add-on Manager UI for SeaMonkey (about:addons) (Bug 561600)
Add notification bar hook for new Add-on Manager (Bug 561600)
Make notification bars open the Add-on Manager in browser rather than its own window (Bug 572049)
Catch and handle nicely 'malformed URI sequence' when migrating passwords from the legacy storage to the new (Bug 530079)
Open the Add-on Manager in a tab (Bug 566905)
Add about:support (Troubleshooting Information page), including Help menu item (Bug 545110)
Use D3D9 layers back-end as the preferred hardware back-end for Windows (Bug 546515)
Do not copy elements with visibility:hidden, visibility:collapse, or display:none to the clipboard (Bug 39098)
Enable Cleartype content rendering by default on Windows XP (Bug 504698)
Overlay Suite features onto Toolkit View Source window and use that instead of an own implementation (Bug 411754)
Make View Source optionally open in text/plain helper application (ExternalViewSource) (Bug 8589)
Disable forcing on Cleartype for system fonts for now (Bug 504698)
Make sure non-ASCII characters are decoded correctly after using Customize on a toolbar (Bug 479107)
Implement Unicode Ideographic Variation Sequence (IVS) support in Windows font back-end (Bug 552460)
Increase the maximum number of disk cache entries from 8192 to 16384 (Bug 175600)
Implement core support for RFC-2597/2598/3168 Quality-of-Service (DSCP) marking (Bug 529921)
Enable relimit (JavaScript RegExp-related) by default and find out if it breaks the Web (Bug 452451)
Port GetDefaultFeedReader to SeaMonkey shell service (Bug 471346)
Do not show website favicon during toolbar customisation (Bug 569318)
Remove navigator.preference (Bug 568059)
Make sure a web page generated by POST is not retried as GET when Save Frame As is used and the page is no longer in the cache (Bug 485196)
Add support for STIX Fonts 1.0 to MathML (Bug 569195)
Make sure carret does not disappear when clicking in an empty contenteditable element that has focus (Bug 550434)
Allow listing directories on Sysax FTP server (Bug 523127)
Deliver a better English language dictionary (Bug 479334)
Remove Gopher support (Bug 388195)
Stop reading/writing xpti.dat and incrementally loading XPT files (Bug 570488)
Prevent Customize toolbar sheet from moving when selecting the show dropdown menu (Bug 566424)
Implement Firefox TabBrowser API: loadTabs(), loadOneTab() and change addTab() to get feature parity (Bug 558614)
Implement Firefox TabBrowser API: getIcon() (Bug 558673)
Make Search and Go buttons widgets for browser customizable toolbar (Bug 529647)
Use transparent resizer images (Bug 554810)
Make copying/pasting lists not add # in plain text mode (Bug 365805)
Use the uninstall.log to uninstall the previous version before installing when upgrading an existing install (Bug 367539)

2.1 Alpha 1 Roundup

2010-05-31T01:56:00.005+02:00

Welcome back! This update comes a lot later than I initially thought. On the upside I can present you with an more-or-less overview of changes between the last stable release and the first SeaMonkey 2.1 alpha version which has just been released two weeks ago (for the platform changes, see Firefox 3.6 and Mozilla Developer Preview (1.9.3 alpha)). Parallelly, SeaMonkey 2.0.5 is expected to be released tomorrow (Pacific time). The changes contained in the stable branch releases are part of the release notes nowadays so I will not track or repeat them here.

Since the first alpha has been cut, new features have already been pushed to the trunk, and more are to come. The SeaMonkey 2.1 Features wiki page tracks the overall progress of major new features. Short teaser of what is already available in trunk nightly builds:

The Add-on Manager has been rewritten and now opens within a new tab or browser window.
The Troubleshooting Information page (about:support), which features a short-hand for accessing your profile folder, can now be opened from the Tools menu.
You can now drag files and URLs to and from the Download Manager, e.g. to the desktop or Explorer window.
You can now save multiple messages as individual files in a directory.

Here is a list of notable SeaMonkey changes between versions 2.0 and 2.1 Alpha 1:

MailNews

make sure images added to an HTML message body do not get an incorrect "attachment" disposition (Bug 525955)
make sure that a plain text attachment with application/octet-stream content type shows inline (Bug 532603)
only ask for master password if not already logged into the Software Security Device (Bug 534462)
allow using multiple instances of the Forward filter action (Bug 523892)
add Forward Inline filter action (Bug 312025)
make nsMessenger.cpp 64-bit compatible (Bug 519021)
make nsMsgAttachmentHandler 64-bit compatible (Bug 558246)
allow offline stores >4GB (Bug 532323)
extend local folder size limit to 4GB on Mac OS X (Bug 538512)
add a space between "The message was sent successfully but could not be copied to your Sent folder." and "Would you like to return to the compose window?" (Bug 528600)
support semicolon (;) as email address separator (e.g. in To: field) (Bug 242693)
make sure messages marked manually as Junk are moved to Junk folder even if user does not check "Enable adaptive junk mail controls for this account" (Bug 487610)
make sure main body part of IMAP message is downloaded when Display Attachments Inline is off and folder is not set for offline use (Bug 246415)
make sure internal message selection state is correct after toggling folder pane off/on and switching tabs (Bug 545674)
make sure IMAP folder size is calculated correctly when condstore is used (Bug 548584)
do not crash when message contains a mailto: URL (Bug 546900)
support drag&drop of single message to desktop/file system window (Bug 537448)
wrap the message pane in a hbox for Thunderbird compatibility (Bug 544661)
do not crash when setting message charset (related to mailnews.sendInBackground pref) (Bug 537404)
use Create Folder as confirm button label in New Folder dialog (Bug 495939)
support libnotify/libindicate notifications for new mail alerts (Bug 478463)
fix Mac dock double count of unread messages on startup (Bug 516477)
make sure attachments with octet-stream content type are accessible (Bug 538407)
reintroduce menulist-menupopup CSS class to allow styling of folder submenus (Bug 542837)
rewrite authentication logic for IMAP, POP and SMTP (new pref: mail.server.default.authMethod) (Bug 525238)
show Yes/No buttons instead of OK/Cancel in NNTP cancel dialog (Bug 168231)
handle IMAP servers that drop the connection on STARTTLS (Bug 549457)
use Rename as confirm button label in Rename Folder dialog (Bug 495940)
add recognition of SHA-2 hashes when verifying S/MIME messages with detached signatures (application/pkcs7-signature) (Bug 541334)
do not indent username label in SMTP server prefs dialog (Bug 554404)
fix crash doing STATUS on IMAP folders (Bug 550455)
support "needs body" for custom filter actions (Bug 555051)
do not crash while closing standalone mail window of RSS item while still loading (Bug 288172)
add account name to IMAP alert messages (Bug 66860)
extend MailNews back-end to allow detachment to folders (Bug 531757)
make sure filter junk status "Not Junk" sticks (Bug 556786)
make sure URL with JA characters attached in compose window is shown correctly in attachment box (Bug 161156)
enable Save As dialog of mail compose window to handle non-ASCII filenames (Bug 161791)
make sure compacting with IMAP delete model does not mess up offline store or leak temp files (Bug 546384)
add emails to CC list (instead of BCC) automatically when sending email (Bug 269728)
use buffered file I/O to help performance with profiles on networked file systems (Bug 539389)
add new pref mail.biff.use_new_count_in_mac_dock to allow "New Mail" count for Mac dock icon instead of unread mail count (Bug 518828)
make IMAP password prompts serial, using new asynchronuous prompter service (Bug 557622)
make sure manually marking a message as NOT JUNK is sufficient and message does not get refiled as junk (Bug 540385)
fix Forward Inline with non-default charset (Bug 494912)
make sure cancelling the master password prompt does not bring up a second one for each connection (Bug 560740)
hook up POP3 to asynchronous prompt service and make its password prompts serial again (Bug 557625)
import settings from Windows Mail on Vista and Windows Live Mail on XP/Vista/Windows 7 (Bug 394687)
make sure viewing an HTML mail is not too slow for POP and local folders (Bug 545126)
do not close Search Messages dialog when hitting Enter but start the search (Bug 543160)
make sure Kerberos/GSSAPI authentication does not fail when hostname is changed after account creation(Bug 530319)
change label of Rebuild Summary File button to Repair Folder in Folder Properties and add an explanation (Bug 564610)
do not crash while deleting message header with POP account (Bug 540074)
use notification bar for return receipt confirmation (Bug 539066)

Address Book

support LDAP address book names with cyrillic/chinese letters (Bug 536437)
make sure "-addressbook" command line option does not disable Resize/Maximize window menu items (Bug 330914)
improve handling of BirthYear in birthday field for pre-1900 dates (Bug 522642)

Download Manager

provide new CSS for Download Manager clearListButton on Mac (Bug 536903)
improve download progress dialogs (Bug 513691)
rewrite broken FTP file upload dialog (Bug 467524)

History

switch Places history to asynchronous expiration (removed browser.history_expire_* prefs, added places.history.enabled and places.database.cache_to_memory_percentage prefs) (Bug 536374)
adapt Help for Places history changes (Bug 546936)

Audio/Video

add full screen video playback to SeaMonkey (Bug 531576)

Session Store

limit old close tab method to three tabs (browser.tabs.max_tabs_undo pref) and use Session Restore for additional tabs (Bug 530735)
allow to save/restore referrer (Bug 524369)
speed up cookie saving (run after each page load) (Bug 524371)
support input type=file multiple (Session Store part) (Bug 547710)
move writing sessionstore.js off the main thread (Bug 547406)
do not consider closed windows as open (Bug 548228)
introduce sessionstore-browser-state-restored notification representing the end of the setBrowserState operation (Bug 548211)
add support for HTML5 History.pushState(), History.replaceState() methods (Session Store parts) (Bug 558652)
increase Session Store interval to 15s (Bug 558649)
reduce uses of aNode.localName and namespaceURI in XPath generation (speed up counting sibling nodes) (Bug 558645)
make sure getBrowserState does not return two entries for one window (Bug 558639)
do not set focus to minimized windows (Bug 558638)
skip windows that are closed but not yet destroyed (Bug 558636)
only save form data for fields that do not have the default value (Bug 561728)

Preferences

sync Applications Preferences pane and Modern application picker CSS with what Firefox has (Bug 538164)
sync pref-smartupdate.* prefs with Firefox (add UI for app.update.auto and app.update.mode prefs) (Bug 541665)

Linux

make sure Customize Toolbars window is not too small on Linux (does not cut off "Restore defaults" button) (Bug 439134)
remove Copy Image Location from context menu now that Copy Image copies image location again (Bug 469481)

Compiling

make sure "make distclean" fully cleans an hg src build (Bug 446690)
make l10n nightly updates work (Bug 539938)
add warning if configure or config.status are out of date (Bug 541657)
remove MSVC6 support (Bug 508760)
remove BUILD_OFFICIAL in favor of MOZILLA_OFFICIAL (Bug 542297)
remove iconv requirement for updater on Windows (Bug 543230)
drop configure support for cairo-mac widget toolkit (Bug 543212)
add --hg-clone-options option to client.py (Bug 508955)
require python >= 2.4 to build (and >=2.5 on Windows hosts) (Bug 427750)
allow client.py network attempts to restart themselves in case of failures; add a '--retries' option (Bug 538528)
drop support for --disable-xpfe-components configure option (Bug 552222)
substitute Windows-style paths in configure when building with pymake (Bug 550657)
export more header files to build Enigmail against SDK (Bug 562059)

General

port several bugfixes from Toolkit View Source (Bug 537377)
implement browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab functionality on SeaMonkey to avoid closing browser with last tab (Bug 533125)
make sure an empty title attribute inhibits tooltips (Bug 264001)
add 48x48 icon for the migration wizard (Bug 512732)
auto hide menubar in full screen mode instead of hiding it completely (Bug 540629)
add context variable to extensions.update.url pref indicating the context of the check (Bug 540087)
make Print Preview show up (Bug 543205)
improve appearance of cascading menulists in the Modern theme (Bug 542842)
fix misalignment in --help command line option output (Bug 546296)
remove obsolete 'Java Console' item from Tools menu (Bug 511884)
make Crash Reporter send correct URL when crashing during pageload (Bug 548208)
sync Page Info with Firefox (list background images in Media, resize images correctly when using scaling) (Bug 550469)
make sure View Background Image context menu item is not always grayed out (Bug 549612)
make Profile Importer not treat error as fatal when reading from Windows registry (Bug 537525)
make sure Stop button is disabled when SeaMonkey opens a blank window (Bug 74571)
add API for getting web progress notifications for all tabs; introduce support for preventing websites from auto-refreshing (accessibility.blockautorefresh pref) (Bug 558995)
make sure drag&drop of links to contents area does not fail (Bug 560443)
fix context menu IDs and accesskeys (Bug 487692)
make sure history.pushState does not forget favicon and feeds (Bug 557374)
make sure closing a window with multiple tabs produces a warning (if configured like that) (Bug 525386)
support resizable textareas in the Modern theme (Bug 553937)
add CSS styling for about:memory to the Modern theme (Bug 547458)
add CSS styling for about:support to the Modern theme (Bug 561668)

SeaMonkey 2.0 Goes Gold

2009-10-23T22:30:00.005+02:00

After years of development, the SeaMonkey Project is finally about to release another major stable version, SeaMonkey 2.0, early next week. Great efforts have been made by a team of volunteers to take the successor of the Mozilla Suite to the next level. Since SeaMonkey 2.0 is building upon the same platform as Firefox 3.5 and Thunderbird 3.0, it now shares many back-ends with them, including browsing (Gecko), messaging (MailNews) and other central technologies like XUL, Toolkit, the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine and more. Naturally their developers deserve our great appreciation and respect, too.

This post is not meant to anticipate the official announcement; after all this is not the official SeaMonkey blog. Hence I will just refer you to that. The Release Notes that will undoubtedly be linked from the announcement will also contain a list of major changes since the previous stable version, SeaMonkey 1.1. For further details, have a look at the archives of this blog.

One thing worth noting, though, is the availability of extensions (add-ons). While a few of them are obsoleted by SeaMonkey 2.0 itself (e.g. Undo Close Tab, Crash Recovery and Forumzilla) and some others work if you disable the extension compatibility check, the majority probably needs some adjustments. Extension authors should know that SeaMonkey 2 now supports the same extension installation interface like Firefox and also many of the internal interfaces. For example it was quite easy to make the current version of the Download Statusbar extension fully support SeaMonkey 2.0 now that the suite uses the same download management back-end (but different front-end!) as Firefox—an extension that dropped support for the Mozilla Suite in 2003 due to the lack of support for exactly that new back-end! I think we can expect some updated/modified versions of popular add-ons at AMO and/or the xSidebar hub shortly after the release. Still I would like to encourage all add-on developers, irrespective of whether they created extensions or themes for Firefox, Thunderbird or SeaMonkey, to revisit their products and check if supporting SeaMonkey 2 is feasible.

Meanwhile development goes on. The new stable branch repository, comm-1.9.1, has been set up. This is where minor updates for SeaMonkey 2.0 will be released from. At the same time comm-central has switched back to pulling in the Mozilla trunk (mozilla-central) and has reopened for trunk development. The SeaMonkey Trunk Tracker, as the name suggests, will monitor the trunk from now on but also continue to feature branch updates from time to time.

Finally, here is a list of notable changes between Beta 2 and 2.0 final (including RCs):

MailNews

make sure typing file extension sets correct file output type (Bug 508597)
make suppression of junk whitelisting (of own identities) work for deferred-to servers like POP3 to Local Folders (Bug 512416)
hide tab bar when single tab remains after choosing Close from tab context menu (Bug 514177)
prevent going into infinite UI loop if SSL security certificate expires (Bug 493980)
select first filter in Message Filters window (Bug 511989)
add support for mouse Back and Forward buttons and Reload, Stop, Search, Bookmarks and Home keys on media keyboards (Bug 512169)
implement Body filter for IMAP messages downloaded for offline use (Bug 127250)
enable filter criteria "doesn't contain" and "isn't" for user-defined IMAP header fields (Bug 242550)
remove filter_news_for_junk pref in favor of inherited folder property (Bug 510659)
enable junk UI elements when RSS or news junk is enabled (Bug 496015)
actually search online when unchecking "Search local system" in Advanced Search (Bug 511131)
make sure Identity Settings dialog opens centered with reasonable width (Bug 486955)
modernize askSendFormat (removes the three mail.asksendformat.* prefs) (Bug 507682)
prevent shutdown hangs by trying to clean up connections on quit-application-granted and not running IMAP URLs once shutdown has been requested (Bug 497059), also fixes: do not shut down IMAP connections when closing MailNews window while others still open (Bug 490170)
do not repeatedly send wrong password if login fails (prevent possible server account locking due to multiple failed login attempts) (Bug 508381)
make sure small icons in MailNews toolbar do not become large when customizing (Bug 513446)
improve XLIST/LSUB interaction for servers like GMail IMAP (re-enable unsubscribing) (Bug 493455)
add IMAP autosync date constraints prefs to Account Settings/Synchronization & Storage (Bug 510707)
make sure icons appear on Message Filters dialog menulist (Bug 515256)
make sure File button in MailNews Search Messages window has normal height on Windows with default theme (Bug 512702)
make sure READ and NEW flags are set correctly after filter message move (fixes automatic junk detection/move on messages moved by a filter from IMAP) (Bug 389098)
make sure mail compose window closes itself after Account Wizard Cancel/Exit (Bug 405172)
make sure compose window context menu displays correctly after resizing address toolbar (Bug 514416)
do not hang when interrupting viewing search folder (Bug 516388)
do not override user-selected name when creating new message filter and handle Attachment and Junk Status rules correctly (Bug 510703)
make SMTP server dropdown accept choosing Use Default Server (Bug 373573)
show message determined to be junk as Simple HTML and do not load remote images (adds support for TB's mail.spam.display.sanitize pref); reload mail if junk status changes (Bug 179568)
make sure navigating from standalone message window marks message as read again (fix Tabmail regression) (Bug 514876), also fixes: Reply/Forward/Tag (1-5) operate on initial message in standalone message window (Bug 517663)
make sure to remove folder from view when deleting IMAP subfolder (Bug 513012)
implement minimal APIs needed for Enigmail (Bug 517238)
implement customizable toolbars for message compose window (Bug 509209)
make double click/Enter and Del trigger Edit and Delete in Customize Message Views window (Bug 513456)
make sure message opened from non-all view is shown in new tab (Bug 517554)
make sure newsgroup unread counts reflect filter actions like Delete Message; add newsgroup name to downloading/getting news headers status messages (Bug 311774)
stop re-downloading messages from GMail IMAP (allow 1-byte fuzz per line when validating offline IMAP state) (Bug 517466)
make Mark As Not Junk clear deleted flag from message with IMAP mark as deleted model (Bug 515927)
show scrollbar on header pane for long address lists (or View/Headers/All mode) (Bug 517924)
fix Tools/Delete Mail Marked as Junk in Folder (Bug 517996)
create Junk folder on Local Folders as needed (Bug 505949)
do not crash while playing back offline IMAP operations (Bug 480090)
do not crash while reading msgFilterRules.dat containing BOM (Bug 518565)
add Get Messages for Account to news server context menu (Bug 87107)
do not disable spell checking when indenting text in HTML composition (Bug 492751)
add Help icon to Message Filter dialog Help button (Bug 515227)
make search bar search by Subject and Address (From, To, CC, and BCC, was: From) (Bug 518846)
do not show No Feed Summary warning for RSS entries with no summaries (Bug 506726)
improve presentation of IMAP autosync policies in Account Settings/Synchronization & Storage to avoid mixup with retention settings (Bug 515842)
implement new keyboard shortcut for Paste As Quotation (Ctrl+Shift+O, Ctrl+Shift+V is Paste Without Formatting now) (Bug 461117)
do not crash trying to convert message to Unicode (Bug 518686)
prevent continuous repeated synchronization and indexing of messages from Exchange IMAP server (Bug 518702)
default Age In Days in Advanced Search window to "is less than" (Bug 187741)
add extra line break at top of message if "Include signature for replies" is disabled while signature position is "below my reply" (Bug 518403)
prevent high memory usage and consuming 100% CPU when dealing with high UIDs (Bug 518918)
speed up move/delete of large number of offline IMAP messages (Bug 519979)
fix migration of mail folders (directory-rel prefs issue) (Bug 452465)
determine Forward button drop-down menu default based on preferences (Bug 520108)
disable actions for multi selection of folders in folderpane (note: bug kept open for implementing multi-selection support post-2.0) (Bug 50767)
make sure compacting IMAP offline store does not try to fetch messages (go online) (Bug 519801)
reset Dock icon when getting to zero unread messages (Bug 520977)
prevent shutdown from failing with 100% CPU load when autocomplete over LDAP is used (Bug 420744)
make sure changing "Use my account settings" of one folder does not alter retention policy settings of other folders (Bug 515316)
make sure compacting IMAP offline store takes relaxed IMAP autosync constraints (changed prefs) into account (Bug 521134)
allow to set Movemail account as default (Bug 480942)
do not show Close Tab context menu when right-clicking anywhere beside tabs (Bug 518203)
make sure address list in Select Addresses dialog opened from compose window is filled initially (Bug 460550)
make sure closing tab that has never been viewed does not trigger blank thread pane (Bug 515249)
do not close standalone message window when other message is marked as junk (Bug 519128)
do not hang on shutdown trying to append message to IMAP folder via filter (Bug 497598)
do not crash while using doing quick search multiple times in folder in Grouped By Sort mode (Bug 520006)
fix some causes of shutdown hangs and high CPU load without open IMAP connections (Bug 494014)
make sure IMAP autosync does not stop working (start downloading messages immediately unless folder is excluded) (Bug 517256)
speed up changes to messages in virtual folders by batching notifications (Bug 508978)
do not crash while trying to create offline operations table (Bug 440236)
fix code run on closing compose window (Bug 522365)
also fixes: fix saving draft emails (Bug 521199)

Address Book

fix saving of cards with custom photo (Bug 513471)
remove Photo tab from personal vCard editing (Bug 520432)

Download Manager

mark Open as default double click action in Download Manager context menu (Bug 513490)
play a sound (again) when downloads complete (Bug 490467)
optimize sorting on entry updates in new Download Manager (Bug 474626)

Bookmarks

make sure bookmarking pages using drag&drop works (Bug 514630)
do not hang on restart if bookmark seperator contains double quote characters (Bug 452056)
make sure new bookmark folders show no "(Empty)" items after drag&drop (Bug 513275)
allow to drop on "(Empty)" (Bookmarks menu / Personal Toolbar) (Bug 518060)
fix copying bookmarks (Bug 520987)
make sure Bookmarks Manager toolbar items are not disabled after entering search with active selection (Bug 519049)

Session Restore

show quit dialog when multiple windows are open (Bug 514388)
let Session Restore cope with empty history entries (Bug 509315)
make sessionStorage object conform the WHATWG spec (Bug 511635)
prevent Session Restore from opening multiple about:blank tabs after crash while loading multiple tabs (Bug 517139)
make Session Restore save state when closing last browser window (Bug 515006)
make sure Save Tabs on Quit dialog saves preference (Bug 516330)
do not trigger browser.windows.loadOnNewWindow or browser.startup.page when restoring window (Bug 517998)

Preferences

add new satchel prefs (browser.formfill.*) to Preferences (including Help changes) (Bug 390158)
add option to warn on closing window with multiple tabs (browser.tabs.warnOnClose) to Preferences (including Help changes) (Bug 385141)
drop support for obsolete signon.expireMasterPassword pref (Bug 517478)
add Download retention settings to Preferences (pref: browser.download.manager.retention) (Bug 487675)
remove obsolete javascript.allow.mailnews pref (including UI) (Bug 248280)
add Connection Timeout to MailNews Preferences (includes Help changes; pref: mailnews.tcptimeout) (Bug 287806)
rename Junk Mail Preferences panel to Junk & Suspect Mail and add new anti-virus and scam preferences for MailNews (Bug 463249)

Composer

improve Composer's handling of XHTML documents (Bug 431184)

Help

document new "Get Messages" and "Get All New Messages" shortcuts (Ctrl+[Shift+]D) (Bug 514890)
document Focus Search Field shortcuts (Ctrl+F/Ctrl+K) (Bug 509338)
update Help for Find in This Page (Bug 432700)
define MailNews terms relating to security (Bug 221259)
remove Roaming Profiles from Help (Bug 518294)
document Session Restore (Bug 509404)
remove reference to toggle JavaScript on/off in MailNews (Bug 514969)
document new anti virus and scam preferences in MailNews Preferences (Bug 519228)
update Help for new time-policy IMAP autosync settings (Bug 515523)
update Help for new download manager preferences (Bug 519332)
update Website Certificates documentation for switch from dialogs to error pages (Bug 506724)
document Add-ons Manager (Bug 373457)
remove links to "Netscape My Webpage" from Help (Bug 522175)

Locales

add en-GB (British English) to source locales (Bug 503900)
add it (Italian) to source locales (Bug 520980)
switch from %LOCALE%.add-ons.mozilla.org to %LOCALE%.add-ons.mozilla.com (former has broken certs) (Bug 517596)

Venkman

add shortcut (Ctrl+G) for Find Again (Bug 518580)
initialize Add Watch Expression dialog with current source selection (Bug 519131)

Lightning Integration

set minVersion to 2.0b2 (Bug 516407)
implement minimal APIs needed for Lightning (Bug 516453)
add Lightning preferences integration (Bug 516398)
make sure Lightning does not disable the throbber (Bug 516681)
make sure Lightning Categories preferences pane is showing categories (Bug 517700)
add missing css/icons (folderview-cycler/spin-buttons) for Lightning Tasks and/or Events sidebar (Bug 517683)
make sure Lightning icons (calendar, tasks) show up on MailNews tabs (Bug 521415)
make sure List all tabs dropdown is not empty with Lightning installed (Bug 522125)

Linux/GTK

provide Copy Image Location context menu item until Copy Image copies location again (Bug 469481)
fix height of "Automatic proxy configuration URL" field/button in Preferences (Bug 484622)

Mac

respect system-wide SOCKS proxy settings on Mac OS X (Bug 457377)
use "pressed" look for toolbarbuttons when their menu is open (Bug 512548)
fix loading PKCS#11 module (security device) on Mac (Bug 496013)
show alignment-icon instead of checkmark in Composer image alignment menulist (Bug 384340)
use better progress bar background colors in Download Manager and add padding to progress dialogs on Mac (Bug 517788)

Compiling

allow to build with system Hunspell (Bug 518334)

General

make grippy mouseover effect consistent (Bug 385252)
add styles for horizontal scrollboxes (needed for Tabmail) to Modern theme (Bug 477710)
support biarch system plugin location (/usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins) (Bug 496708)
use different accesskeys for Restart and Preferences in Add-on Manager (Bug 507451)
respect browser.chrome.favicons setting when opening Edit/Preferences/Applications (Bug 514671)
fix some issues (missing icons, truncated labels) with Default theme menulists (Bug 514854)
add option to Clear Private Data for Location Bar History (Bug 436942)
delete closed tabs when clearing browser history (Bug 479448)
update Modern theme for notifications (Bug 515622)
do not focus browser when opening tabs in background (e.g. from from middle clicks) (Bug 517307)
make sure link in frame selected with Type Ahead Find is the one followed (Bug 485213)
migrate old wallet.captureForms pref to new browser.formfill.enable pref (Bug 491673)
change font-size:smaller/larger to 83.3333%/120% for Modern theme (Bug 516708)
support South Korean SEED crypto cipher suites (Bug 478839)
display correct (NLS) name of (DBCS) font on OS/2 (Bug 511361)
make Save Page save result of POST action instead of origin form (Bug 188253)
do not use bold font with groupbox custom caption content (example: font preferences) (Bug 514883)
show "installation complete" message in Add-on Manager after add-on install and application restart (Bug 442167)
change Apply Theme dialog from OK to Restart Now/Later (Bug 492263)
use new icon set for SeaMonkey Default Theme (task icons) (Bug 348720)
show placeholder for missing/disabled plugins (Bug 465771)
fix saving in Page Info (media) and View Source (page) (Bug 520447)
make sure SeaMonkey 2.0 is not detected as old stable version by Start page (Bug 521341)
add about:rights and a "Know Your Rights" infobar (Bug 508039)
update Modern theme (global changes) (Bug 465924)
update Modern theme for SeaMonkey 2.0 (Bug 456757)
show Release Notes as first-run page (Bug 521314)
show Larry icon in Modern theme's about:certerror like in Page Info Security tab (Bug 514383)
update video controls for Modern theme (Bug 490277)
use MailNews icon for SeaMonkey Mail start menu icon provided by Windows installer (Bug 521616)
make sure https webpage with data: images does not trigger "Page contains unencrypted information" mixed content warning (Bug 477118)
show single Master Password prompt at startup if Master Password set (prevents multiple Master Password prompts; pref: signon.startup.prompt) (Bug 381269)

Beta 2 Roundup

2009-09-03T23:16:00.003+02:00

Not too long ago I told you there will be a second Beta. Now, only one and a half months later, SeaMonkey 2 Beta 2 has been tagged. Things are progressing fast, especially compared to the time it took between Alpha 3 and Beta 1. The upcoming Beta release is considered feature complete, i.e. no major changes are expected to land between now and the release of SeaMonkey 2.0. That also means that approval is required from now on for anything that is to be checked in for SeaMonkey.

So, what is new? First and foremost Thunderbird's tabbed interface (Tabmail) was ported to MailNews. Moving that blocker out of the way put Lightning integration within reach. Other notable changes include:

the creation of SMILE, a combination of FUEL and STEEL
the ability to delete/cut bookmarks from the bookmarks search view, where deleted bookmarks no longer appear
the ability to reopen closed browser windows (Undo Close Window)
the ability to apply more actions (e.g. Remove) to multiple selected downloads
the ability to choose whether to retry authentication or enter a new password when login fails in MailNews (instead of just forgetting the old saved password)

The following list should cover all noteworthy changes that were made between since Beta 1 (except Forgotten Fixes of course):

Forgotten Fixes

add hidden pref to turn off virus scanning on downloads (browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone) (Bug 412204)

Progress

support multiple spam corpus files (backend) (Bug 506397)
Modern theme update / changes in global (partly fixed) (Bug 465924)
port jminta's kill-RDF to SeaMonkey where applicable (partly fixed) (Bug 460953)
replace RDF-driven folder pane with a JS-driven/non-RDF treeview (initial changes made) (Bug 507601)

MailNews

Drop the redundant /resources/ in mailnews directories (Bug 490118)
lessen number of cases where restart is required on application update due to MAPI DLLs being in use (Bug 497424)
remove never-used prefs mail.default_cc and news.default_cc (Bug 502041)
add pluggable filter lists (allow extensions to create their own) (Bug 503668)
allow to fetch mail with Movemail account despite having no write privileges in mail spool dir (Bug 384774)
rename Retention Policy option "Use server defaults" to "Use my account settings" (Bug 464355)
make sure message/rfc822 attachments of saved messages do not open blank (read attachment size) (Bug 351064)
check for (and add if needed) mozilla envelope line (From: ) and check file size when copying non-Mozilla eml files (Bug 499304)
make local body search work with Base64-encoded body (Bug 132340)
allow to change "and place my signature" pref irrespective of whether signature is set or not (Bug 277187)
make sure messages display in standalone message window on Mac with Default Theme (Bug 506019)
do not crash when downloading many messages with "copy all" filter enabled (Bug 313026)
fix invalidation of view lines when moving threads on incoming mail (Bug 504297)
make sure new message added to an open threaded cross-folder saved search gets added in the right place (Bug 505321)
make sure Undo Delete Message (Ctrl+Z) does not erase messages from Trash (Bug 323875)
make sure copying messages without trailing CR/LF does not skip last line (Bug 498978)
fix display of header values with unencoded special characters (Bug 468351)
make prefs to mark all RSS or NNTP messages read when exiting the folder work again (Bug 503624)
prevent false positives when searching offline newsgroup (NNTP) and IMAP messages bodies (Bug 249841)
neither guess type nor silently add extension when using Save As dialog (additionally removed All Files filter) (Bug 340168)
make sure POP/IMAP/SMTP server passwords are not inappropriately forgotten (ask whether to retry or enter new password if login failed) (Bug 121647)
do not crash when creating message view (insert message at end of view instead) (Bug 492571)
do not crash while getting message after renaming a virtual folder (Bug 383584)
remove useless @ sign behind email address box on Movemail identity page (Bug 505589)
make renaming mail folder by clicking OK in rename dialog work again (Bug 506004)
auto-assign meaningful name when creating new filter (based on first search term) (Bug 457745)
make sure dock icon shows correct number of unread messages on Mac (counts only inboxes by default, pref: mail.notification.count.inbox_only) (Bug 274688)
do not crash when parsing MIME multipart line (Bug 482879)
implement new choices for matching criteria (doesn't contain, isn't) for custom header MailViews and Search (Bug 238816)
disable Message Filters menu item when no accounts are set up (Bug 506510)
make "Send unsent messages" command work again (Bug 505672)
add submenu to "Create a new message" button allowing to choose whether to compose in HTML or Plain Text (Bug 16908)
highlight default action in submenu of "Create a new message" button (Bug 507871)
do not crash when marking thread read (in virtual folder) (Bug 503811)
make sure Move step of "Copy then Move" action in single filter rule is executed (Bug 448337)
throw an error if mailbox would grow larger than 4GB in size (Bug 387502)
do not require restart to get localized folder names (Drafts/Junk/Sent/Templates/Archives name in folderpane tree) (Bug 467527)
do not require restart to get localized folder names (SeaMonkey Archives part) (Bug 508056)
do not require restart to get localized folder names (IMAP case) (Bug 508026)
make virtual folder watching mails with status NEW display correct counts (Bug 372372)
show full newsgroup name as tooltip on hover of group name (whether that is abbreviated or not) (Bug 174234)
set search scope correctly for custom search terms (Bug 510249)
do not issue EXPUNGE for \Noselect IMAP folders and virtual folders when invoking File/Compact Folders (Bug 510645)
allow to run mail classification (Junk filter) before normal filters (per-filter setting in Filter Rules dialog) (Bug 198100)
make sure text boxes (News Feeds, Folder Properties) containing domains/URLs stay LTR when UI is RTL (Bug 477842)
do not crash when deleting local folder including saved search subfolder (Bug 505974)
fix "Save as text" corruption where non-ASCII mail 3-byte escape sequence split to two buffers (Bug 269812)
do not crash when renaming IMAP folder (Bug 486485)
support both standard and non-standard MIME types application/x-pkcs7-mime and application/x-pkcs7-signature (with and without x- prefix) (Bug 436869)
make per-folder filters on newsgroups editable again (Bug 512110)
improve look of the inline attachment separator (show attachment filename) (Bug 509616)
improve look of the inline attachment separator (SeaMonkey part) (Bug 512454)
make "Check for new mail at startup" work without "Automatically download new messages" again (POP) (Bug 458625)
make subscribing to feed (triggered by external application) work if no RSS account present (Bug 474709)
re-enable IMAP subscription for servers that support XLIST (like GMail) (Bug 493455)
fix various causes of corruption of offline IMAP store (Bug 468595)
make sure check for new mail interval is calculated correctly (Bug 509747)
make sure Filter Rules dialog is not corrupted when there are many rules (Bug 506199)
make sure list content popups do not show up in left up corner of mail windows (Bug 423955)
only disable spell checking for citations, not indented text in HTML composition (Bug 492751)
port Thunderbird's tabbed interface (Tabmail) to MailNews (Bug 460960)
do not crash during address autocomplete (from Outlook address book) (Bug 512678)
enable space/time policy for IMAP autosync (pref: mail.server.default.autosync_max_age_days) (Bug 482476)
fix threading when a view is active (Bug 505967)
allow to drag & drop .eml file into mailbox folder (Bug 499878)

Address Book

show LDAP labeledURI field as Website (and support for it to LDIF import) (Bug 263304)
allow to search for contacts that include apostrophes (Bug 496970)
do not crash when searching Address Book from Sidebar (Bug 280232)
add option to add photo/image/picture to contacts (Bug 119459)

Download Manager

indicate availability of download progress dialog context menus through WAI-ARIA attribute (Bug 504163)
do not treat search terms as regular expressions (Bug 501772)
add Ctrl+J as shortcut to invoke Download Manager (Bug 333855)
fix import of NOT_STARTED entries in downloads.rdf by changing their status to CANCELED (Bug 495680)
reimplement "Properties" (opening Progress Dialog) in new Download Manager (Bug 474620)
add start and end date columns to Download Manager (inactive by default) (Bug 180623)
add multiple selection support to more download actions (play/pause/resume/retry, stop/cancel/remove) (Bug 474619)

Bookmarks

make sure deleted bookmarks do not appear in search results window (Bug 123679)
add ability to delete/cut bookmarks from search results window (Bug 81893)
do not append newline to end of URL when copying single bookmark (Bug 509029)
separate bookmarks by newline when copying to clipboard (HTML format) (Bug 509094)
switch bookmark transaction system from JS to C++ to prevent memory leaks (Bug 342296)

Composer

use new Password Manager backend for Publish dialog (Bug 507884)

History

fix History import from SeaMonkey 1.1.x (Bug 484175)
make "Delete History for (host|domain)" available in History context menus (Bug 512146)

Certificates

support browser.ssl_override_behavior pref for "Add Exception" on SSL error pages (Bug 431940)
do not show "SSL is disabled" error when SSL3 is disabled (but TLS enabled) (Bug 368130)

Audio/Video

make MOZ_MEDIA work on OS/2 (Bug 448918)
make sure "Pause" changes to "Play" in context menu when end of video is reached (Bug 504337)
disable media entries in context menu when media source is invalid (Bug 507002)
add View Video to video context menu (Bug 483727)

Help

update Help for Certificate Manager tabs (Bug 459566)

Mac

make the default theme look better on Mac (Bug 460699)
add Mac Help key [cmd+?] support to Page Info window (Bug 510773)
use correct window titles (without application name) on Mac (Bug 457548)

GTK/Linux

allow to specify path to binary for XSMP session restore (environment variable MOZ_APP_LAUNCHER) (Bug 453689)
support 64-bit local file operations like STAT for e.g. removing large files (Bug 389087)

General

add entry for allow/disable/remember Geolocation to Permissions tab in Page Info (Bug 491835)
make context menus aware of contentEditable (Bug 503478)
update QA "Latest Builds" after removal of nightly/latest-trunk symlink (Bug 504283)
respect locale for file size and image dimensions in MetaData Properties and Page Info windows (Bug 252043)
use SetProcessDEPPolicy to enable NX on Windows XP SP3 (Bug 479667)
add ability to load plugins from "plugins" directory in profile directory (Bug 475383)
change key for "open link in opposite of default" from Shift+Ins to Alt+Ins to resolve conflict with alternate paste key (Bug 505141)
make sure "View MathML source" does not show a blank window (Bug 505212)
make sure collapsed toolbars keep state after returning from full screen mode (Bug 506492)
create SMILE (SeaMonkey Interface Library for Extensions) as combination of FUEL and STEEL (Bug 411536)
make session restore not hang/stop responding with high CPU load on large forms with many checkboxes (Bug 510652)
make sure Location Bar autocomplete does not fill in non-existent URLs (Bug 481836)
add Undo Close Window feature (Bug 510890)
add mozapps/ to Modern theme (including icons used in Add-ons Manager) (Bug 493022)
do not crash with XUL file chooser (Bug 490932)
enable emboldening of (DBCS) fonts without bold counterpart for OS/2 (Bug 509317)
make sure loading CSS and images succeeds when loading secure (SSL, https) page for the first time (or after "Clear Private Data") (Bug 480619)
ship an add-on blocklist by default (Bug 505832)
improve identity display on security tab (Bug 498618)
do not change file type icon for HTML files to mail when upgrading SeaMonkey (Bug 507896)

Beta 1 Roundup

2009-07-18T19:50:00.007+02:00

Welcome back! Again it has been quiet on this blog for too long. But no longer! Beta 1 has been tagged and is about to be released early next week. Beta 1 you say? Well, the original plan was to have only one Beta but as time went by and certain key features were stuck in the review process, the decision was made to have two Betas.

SeaMonkey 2 Beta 1 will use the same rendering engine as Firefox 3.5.1, Gecko 1.9.1.1, including the recent security fixes and overall improvements, and the same MailNews backend as Thunderbird Beta 3 which will be released in parallel.

This is the first post since the Alpha 3 Roundup so the below changes (except Forgotten Fixes) are all relative to that. I didn't include screenshots this time, but of course only to encourage you to download and try SeaMonkey 2.0 Beta 1 yourself when it is released! :-)

Noteworthy Changes

new Download Manager (supports cross-session resumable downloads)
fully localizable builds (Beta 1 will be available in 17 languages including US English)
Feed Preview (browser feed integration)
Geolocation UI (no provider yet)
searchable Cookies
FAYT improvements
image zoom (available with full page zoom)
EV certificate UI (status bar, location bar)
support for -new-tab and -new-window command line options
dropped support for Palm Sync Extension
Audio/Video improvements
MailNews:

Archive functionality
customizable toolbars
filter improvements
menu entries for feed summary/web page choices
preferences for signature text, closing standalone message window when using Del and checking for new mail only after opening the MailNews window

Forgotton Fixes

redesign / simplify Filter Rule Dialog (added Forward/Reply filter actions) (Bug 294094)

Progress

MailNews Activities: provide a centralized alert/message service to allow different front-end displays for alerts (Bug 481431)
add filtering for IMAP folders other than the Inbox: backend (Bug 257415)

MailNews

add web search for selected text to mail window context menu (Bug 154658)
disentangle SeaMonkey and Thunderbird UI (Bug 390262)
use Tango style smileys (emoticons) in MailNews (Bug 484484)
put signature editing in UI (as an alternative to selecting a file) (Bug 324495)
place default Archive folder under Local Folders for deferred POP3 accounts (Bug 476218)
make sure to use correct date after undo of move/delete/archive of POP3 message (Bug 479163)
do not corrupt attributes of tags (such as IMG) when re-editing (Edit Draft, Forward Inline, Edit As New) quoted-printable HTML messages [had been backed out] (Bug 307023)
make delay for moving between mails using cursor keys configurable (mailnews.threadpane_select_delay) (Bug 242791)
do not crash when entering an invalid email address (Bug 479206)
split off attaching functionality from AttachFile() to AttachFiles() so that extensions can more easily add attachments (Bug 464651)
maintain offline copy of message when moving it between IMAP folders (Bug 439108)
make mail.spam.markAsNotJunkMarksUnRead only apply when message is in Junk folder (Bug 478840)
assign SpecialFolder attribute Archive to main Archive folders to aid customizability (Bug 480546)
make Forward Inline work when trying to send message without specified charset as UTF-8 (Bug 303540)
do not crash when IMAP folder path ends with hierarchy delimiter (Bug 480870)
make Match All Messages persist for saved searches (Bug 477254)
maintain BCC field for sent email in message summary file (Bug 481667)
add search all fields capability ("From, To or CC") to available Message View criteria (Bug 310359)
add BCC to search all fields capability ("From, To, CC or BCC") of available Message View criteria (Bug 483629)
support BCC headers in normal IMAP header parsing (Bug 501763)
make Tools>Import>Mail>Outlook/Communicator 4.x back button work in case of error (Bug 216155)
support opening .eml files from the command line using relative paths (Bug 376089)
allow to open .eml (message/rfc822) files using file:// URL (Bug 466959)
do not crash when trying to copy/move .eml to folder (Bug 489011)
make replying (HTML reply with auto-detect send format) to plain text quote not trigger conversion warning (Bug 279745)
allow using "Tags isn't empty" search condition (Bug 473091)
make Compact All compact offline storage for news servers (Bug 482039)
escape username for prompting for password so auth does not fail (Bug 485395)
speed up undoing move/delete of large number of local messages (Bug 488606)
do not crash upon accessing IMAP server with duplicate entries in .mailboxlist (Bug 376192)
make IMAP auto sync use IMAP STATUS command to see if folder has changed (Bug 428266)
change "RSS News & Blogs" to "Blogs & News Feeds" (Bug 461711)
make sure tags are not lost when IMAP server does not support custom keywords (Bug 370440)
make pressing OK button in Account Settings save data and close dialog when changing Junk settings (find Junk folder case-insensitively) (Bug 368617)
do not apply retention policy to special folders (Drafts, Templates, Outbox) (Bug 412690)
make Forward/Reply filters update message status for forwarded/replied message (Bug 366968)
make sure to use configured port for NNTP, not default 119 (Bug 470907)
make MIME decoding RFC 2368 conformant (decode all parts of a mailto: URI's query string except body, e.g. Newsgroup or Newshost) (Bug 443851)
add preferences to not add signature to replies and forwards (Bug 167319)
make standalone message view advance to next message when deleting viewed message from outside (respecting mail.delete_matches_sort_order and IMAP mark-as-deleted model) (Bug 486954)
do not ignore IMAP CAPABILITY response (used to determine Quota/Sharing) in greeting after authentication (Bug 470650)
add ability to show message dates in/with senders' time zones in message headers (mailnews.display.date_senders_timezone, replaces mailnews.display.original_date) (Bug 392307)
make sure to use correct date format (short if same day) when displaying messages in/with senders' time zones (Bug 483034)
use disk cache (cross-session availability) for IMAP messages not downloaded for offline use (Bug 450456)
make local moves and copies transfer all database info (including ones added by extensions, e.g. TaQuilla soft tag percent matches) and add prefs for exceptions (mailnews.database.summary.dontPreserveOnCopy|Move) (Bug 459680)
move all database info for IMAP moves and copies (Bug 486007)
close IMAP connections on MailNews shutdown (Bug 485995)
rename "Offline" tab to "Synchronization" in Folder Properties and preference pane label "Syncing & Disk Space" to "Synchronization & Storage" for IMAP and news accounts (Bug 478605)
allow to choose subject prefix for forwarded messages (mail.forward_subject_prefix) and make "Fwd" the default (remove square brackets around subject) (Bug 194788)
make adding in-reply-to= to references= work when parsing mailto: URLs (Bug 443848)
add per-account option to inhibit Junk whitelisting of identities' email addresses/domain (template: mail.server.default.inhibitWhiteListingIdentityUser|Domain) (Bug 452879)
enable preferences to inhibit user whitelisting (Bug 486420)
make sure message pane layout does not break after deleting/moving top message with Sort by Date/Grouped By Sort active (Bug 482195)
do not expunge IMAP messages marked as deleted when auto-expunge is off (Bug 484445)
maintain Junk status in keywords when moving mail to IMAP account (Bug 384853)
make sure biff (new mail notification) is triggered when automatically checking IMAP Inbox for new mail (Bug 459487)
ensure folders do not falsely indicate new messages (unread count = pending unread + unread messages in DB) (Bug 482754)
make moving multiple local folders to IMAP folder work again (Bug 448550)
tidy up Feed Subscription (fix drag & drop and hide virtual folders in Feed Subscriptions dialog, stop updating feeds in Trash, make feeds moved out of Trash work, clean up RDF files after emptying Trash) (Bug 471932)
increase timeout for IMAP copies/moves based on number of messages (assuming 40 messages/sec) (Bug 409259)
implement customizable toolbars in MailNews (Bug 413385)
use correct message count for virtual folders opened in new window (Bug 485494)
increase maximum number of recipients per MAPI call to 2000 (was 100) (Bug 305168)
do not crash while sending mail on shutdown (Bug 489779)
do not hang while doing quicksearch when 'sort by' is threaded and folder is large (Bug 489711)
make Account Manager window size configurable per locale to prevent cropping buttons (Bug 317659)
fix accesskeys in Account Settings (Bug 313245)
fix IMAP download when going offline (Bug 471695)
prevent Invalid MAIL extension (SIZE=0) error while trying to send return receipt (skip file size cache) (Bug 462866)
wait one day before removing RSS messages from cache after disappearing from feed (Bug 451737)
add feed summary/web page choices to menus (View/Feed Message Body As, Message/Open Feed Message) (Bug 438429)
ignore tries to open/drag&drop deleted attachments (stops adding x-moz-deleted to MIME types db which broke ability to send attachments) (Bug 476400)
do not process feeds with non-2xx status (Bug 491720)
do not crash clicking on newsgroup (Bug 460036)
speed up selecting threaded Saved Search (skip saving selection when there is none) (Bug 466048)
do not toggle header area when deleting message from cross-folder saved searches (Bug 492149)
change mail.strictly_mime.parm_folding pref default to 1 (encode Content-Type name param in legacy RFC2047 way but separated into multiple lines) (Bug 486682)
fix MAPI support on Win XP (Bug 482966)
do not hang when clicking virtual folder (Bug 489993)
make pressing Shift while clicking Forward toggle HTML/plain text composition mode (Bug 228562)
make sure to close local IMAP DBs (.msf files) after doing autosync (Bug 470221)
block remote content for messages only (Bug 374578)
add per-account option for flat archiving (mail.server.default.archive_granularity) and change default to per-year archiving (Bug 486827)
implement UI for Archive functionality (menu item, shortcut Shift+A and context menu entry) (Bug 482458)
remember unsolicited MYRIGHTS response (fix getting IMAP folder ACL, allow deleting messages) (Bug 493209)
allow deleting complete collapsed threads (using Shift+Del with prefs mail.warn_on_collapsed_thread_operation and mail.operate_on_msgs_in_collapsed_threads set to true) (Bug 448288)
do not truncate name part with '&' when using drag & drop on attachments (Bug 485514)
add pref to close standalone window when using Del (Bug 80574)
add support for IMAP COMPRESS Extension (RFC 4978, saves bandwidth, pref: mail.server.default.use_compress_deflate) (Bug 401673)
add pref to choose whether to only check for new mail after opening MailNews (default: check upon opening any new window, including browser) (Bug 450263)
change Delete button text to Undelete for message marked as deleted (IMAP mark as deleted model) (Bug 207485)
fix case of duplicate messages appearing in list and some messages not appearing (IMAP) (Bug 414723)
do not interpret IMAP attachment text file (from OEX composed email) as HTML (Bug 493157)
do not create zero-byte file when using drag and drop (to desktop or other folder) with attachment on Vista (Bug 458159)
remove unused pref mail.imap.fetch_by_chunks (Bug 449407)
do LIST to find out whether parent folder supports subfolders when creating Archive subfolder fails with IMAP (Bug 492921)
do not hang on shutdown when appending message to IMAP folder via a filter (Bug 497598)
fix problems with Customizable Toolbar multistate buttons (Junk, Delete) (Bug 491676)
make sure moving more than two folders into another IMAP folder works (Bug 496905)
do not forget (Junk) status when detaching attachment (Bug 340886)
set NEW status of incoming mail before filtering starts (make Status is/isn't New filters work) (Bug 272963)
indicate 'Deleted Attachment' in inline text (add "You deleted an attachment from this message.") (Bug 329915)
do not trigger new mail notification (biff) for Junk and Trash folders (Bug 487418)
clean up Disk Space UI, hide "Always delete read messages" checkbox (unhide: comment 33) (Bug 326584)
do not crash setting charset when composing/sending mail (Bug 301264)
remove IFRAME under feed messages viewed as "summary" (Bug 497895)
enable "File > Offline > Download/Sync Now" independent from whether selected account is enabled for download (Bug 245315)
do not use signature text entered in UI if file checkbox is checked without file specified (Bug 499558)
check file size of temp file created during compact before copying back over original (prevent data loss due to virus scan) (Bug 491303)
prevent IMAP connections from hanging when going offline (Bug 500416)
improve "server has disabled login" error message, use "server doesn't allow plaintext authentication without STARTTLS or SSL/TLS" instead (Bug 491709)
do not crash when switching newsgroup (with invalid thread index) (Bug 493186)
make sure non-ASCII IMAP folder names appear correct after rename (Bug 499278)
do not crash when emptying trash (check if database is available) (Bug 481866)
do not crash when downloading messages for offline use (check if database is available) (Bug 492665)
expand newly created thread if selected message started the thread (Bug 494811)
allow extensions to add custom search terms (Bug 495519)
make sure IMAP cross-server move does not fail after copy to different folder (Bug 497622)
make sure messages deleted while offline are deleted from server when going online (Bug 475570)
include host name in Message Disposition Notification (MDN) Reporting-UA field (required by RFC3798) (Bug 199942)

Address Book

improve autocomplete performance (up to 5 times) by using directory search facilities (Bug 450134)
reset default for collecting addresses to Collected Addresses address book (Bug 330320)
support GSSAPI (Kerberos) authentication for binding to LDAP servers (Bug 308118)
save "Allow remote images in HTML mail" state across Address Book restarts (Bug 461660)
rename Cards to Contacts (Bug 455246)
refer to Remote Content rather than Remote Images in "Allow..." to include audio/video case (Bug 480674)

Composer

do not crash when selecting Select Row, Column, or All-Cells from table context menu (Bug 461866)

DOM Inspector

add Ctrl+Shift+I shortcut (Inspect Page) (Bug 477400)
add Copy URI to stylesheet context menu (Bug 212754)

ChatZilla

add Navigator customizable toolbar button for ChatZilla (Bug 485818)

JavaScript Debugger (Venkman)

make evaluating variables return correct results (Bug 458020)
allow debugging scripts compiled before the debugger got activated (Bug 480765)
allow to disable debugging using a pref (extensions.venkman.jsd.initAtStartup) (Bug 483681)
support language features of JS 1.7 in console (Bug 487780)
do not open browser window when invoking SeaMonkey with just "-venkman" (Bug 493077)

Audio/Video

add throbber to video overlay to indicate buffering (Bug 470983)
always display controls for video element without video track (Bug 462368)
add video tag controls to Modern theme (Bug 458246)
show error icon when error occurs while loading video (Bug 481040)
minimize CPU usage by using display:none for video controls on hidden items (Bug 484935)
make Ogg Theora backend for HTML5 video element compile/work on Solaris (Bug 449754)
initiate media load when appending source child element to video element (Bug 462455)
make video scrubber jump to clicked position instead of taking incremental steps (Bug 475286)
notify media element of error when media data cannot be retrieved or used (Bug 476731)
cache media data after playing it and across seeks (Bug 475441)
add UI for video volume control (Bug 475317)
show numeric position and duration on video controls (Bug 475318)
make sure video scrubber thumb does not overlap play/pause button and duration (Bug 488083)
make sure video volume slider is set according to mute state (Bug 488084)
make HTML5 video/audio elements not inherit document direction (i.e. always LTR) (Bug 489631)
scale video in object/iframe element to full size (Bug 486673)
make sure Video/Audio stays in sync under high CPU load on Windows (Bug 494116)
do not handle Wave files internally (due to lack of support for non-PCM encoded Wave files; audio tag still supported) (Bug 475110)
stop playback while buffering (prevent audio out of sync after video resumes from buffering) (Bug 487552)
use an own thread for decoding (helps playing HD Theora videos play smoothly) (Bug 474540)
fix audio/video out of sync with Ogg Theora + Vorbis (Bug 466699)
respect offset in Theora videos (Bug 493140)
do not buffer video (stop after first frame) unless it has 'autobuffer' attribute set on it (Bug 479863)
provide preferred font name for video controls on Windows (Arial) and Mac (Helvetica) (Bug 489902)
move scrubber to end of buffer bar when playback ends (Bug 481106)
update time shown on scrubber if it changed while hidden (Bug 493523)
make video control playback postion bar keep up with thumb changes while dragging (Bug 493884)
prevent video thumb from jumping around while being dragged (Bug 493508)
start decoding from previous keyframe after seeking video to avoid showing ugly frames (Bug 463358)
update video scrubber icons (Bug 493130)
show correct play button state when restarting video after it has ended (Bug 496231)
scale video in OBJECT or IFRAME element to full element size, preserving aspect ratio (Bug 486673)
make seeking in bufferred ranges fast by trying a 'bounded seek' in each buffered data range before falling back to a seek over the whole resource (Bug 469408)
support creation of Audio JS objects outside of the document (Bug 454971)
make audio/video focusable and keyboard accessible (Space, Left/Right and Up/Down with and without Ctrl, Home/End) (Bug 486899)

Session Restore

make Start New Session follow Browser Startup page settings (Bug 481850)
reduce Session Restore performance hit by not flushing layout on saving scroll position (Bug 484648)
do not show Session Restore screen (about:sessionrestore) when there is nothing to restore (Bug 488669)
handle invalid XPaths better (Bug 487922)
prevent empty prefs.js/sessionstore.js after system crash (Bug 477934)

Download Manager

make SeaMonkey download manager use Toolkit backend (Bug 381157)
implement tree-based UI for Toolkit download manager (Bug 472001)
implement new download progress dialog (Bug 483241)
remove/migrate old download progress dialog prefs (browser.download.progressDnldDialog.*) (Bug 495048)
fork Pause/Resume/Retry etc. icons and add different ones for Classic/Mac (Bug 495711)
use correct filename in "Save Link Target As..." (check Content-Disposition header) (Bug 426742)
update Download pref pane for use with new Download Manager (Bug 490464)
make Space key pause/resume downloads (Bug 487681)
make Del key cancel/delete downloads (Bug 474622)
open downloads using Return/Enter or double click (Bug 495545)

Certificates

allow to mark imported self-signed server certificate trusted (enable edit button) (Bug 453466)
never treat SSL certificates added as exceptions as EV (Bug 445871)
include identity indicator (EV certificate UI) in Status Bar and Location Bar (Bug 465504)
only prompt once per server/session for client certificate (pref: security.remember_cert_checkbox_default_setting) (Bug 431819)

Locales

add Turkish (tr) to sources locales (Bug 503276)

History

do not crash when deleting entries in sidebar showing pages grouped by day and site (Bug 470586)
make location bar autocomplete even faster (Bug 479739)
use indices for sorting in frecency calculation query (up to 7 times faster) (Bug 482276)
make sure clicking URL in history drop-down auto-completes URL (Bug 468363)
allow sorting container view without sorting containers (Bug 473157)

Help

use CSS for smileys in MailNews Help (Bug 285325)
improve styling of Help find bar in Modern (Bug 367272)
reflect removal of Help sidebar tabs in Help contents (Bug 406551)
update Help on signature-related settings in Composition & Addressing (Bug 489169)
update Help on History and Location Bar pref panel with respect to Places prefs (Bug 472840)
add Help for MailNews RSS Accounts (Bug 286975)
update Help on Synchronization & Storage (Disk Space) settings (Bug 474525)

Mac

make Session Restore not special-case closed windows on Mac (assume windows are closed purposely) (Bug 481370)
improve drawing native search fields and dropdown buttons in RTL mode (Bug 477590)
make sure file picker dialog closes when Open/Save/Cancel is clicked (Bug 473467)
select folder with new mail when clicking on Growl alert (Bug 467159)
make font name unique across all documents for @font-face (downloadable fonts) (Bug 480267)
do not beep when closing preferences window using Cmd+W (Bug 476226)
respect keyboard modifiers (e.g. Cmd) when clicking bookmarks in native menu (Bug 490002)
improve parsing proxy bypass hosts/domains on Mac when using system proxy settings (*.something syntax) (Bug 470207)
improve proxy bypass hosts/domains parsing when using system proxy settings (make domain.tld match *.domain.tld) (Bug 470207)

GTK/Linux

use correct icon for Close button in "about {addon}" dialog (Bug 422763)
do not crash on quit (stop trying to unload Xinerama) (Bug 448512)
do not convert font sizes to integer on GTK2 (allow pt fractions) (Bug 190778)

Compiling

pull Venkman (JavaScript Debugger) from Mercurial instead of CVS (Bug 482686)
add --disable-jit option to js configure (Bug 463172)
fix usage of WinCE SDK (adds --disable-windows-mobile-components) (Bug 486684)
make "make install" work for Darwin/X11 (Bug 486036)
require Sun C++ 5.9 (Sun Studio 12) on Sparc Solaris (Bug 476448)
make sure icons (zoom in/out) are included in static build (Bug 389448)
build locales from Mercurial (--enable-ui-locale / source L10n) (Bug 286110)
remove debug UI from final release branches (Bug 202315)

General

add search bar to Cookie Manager and confirm deleting multiple cookies (Bug 476175)
allow the Plugin Finder Service to install plugins using installers (Bug 435788)
speculatively load stylesheets (CSS preloading) (Bug 457810)
do not show mixed content warning if an image fails to load (Bug 455367)
make sure XML preview header is RTL in RTL locales (Bug 350597)
make about:plugins support RTL (Bug 437844)
make style matching with local font always use @font-face rule style (e.g. font-weight: bold) (Bug 465463)
disable synthetic bold/italic for downloadable fonts specified as bold/italic in @font-face rule (Bug 468387)
support specifying direction (RTL/LTR) for :-moz-tree-cell pseudo class through CSS (Bug 478377)
make networking work correctly when offline state changes while going offline (e.g. when waking from sleep) (Bug 470274)
remove "halo" around buttons on Modern theme (Bug 418090, Bug 479992)
correct clipping when -moz-background-clip:padding is in effect and box has round corners (Bug 456219)
increase JPEG writer default quality to 92 (was: 50) and do not subsample (affects images pasted from clipboard on Windows) (Bug 444898)
make sure new FAYT implementation does not prevent entering text in text input boxes while search is active (Bug 466994)
stop FAYT upon loading new webpage (Bug 470175)
support -new-tab and -new-window command line options (Bug 479600)
implement getBrowserAtIndex() and getBrowserIndexForDocument() for better extension compatibility (Bug 482291)
apply system background color to tab preview when new tab is loading (respect browser.display.use_system_colors) (Bug 478575)
expire saved form data after some time (pref: browser.formfill.expire_days if present, else browser.history_expire_days) (Bug 243136)
migrate multiple logins per site from wallet to login manager (Password Manager) (Bug 474846)
encrypt all migrated Base64-encoded passwords/logins once when Master Password is used (Bug 316084)
remember scroll position on pages with cache-control: no-store HTTP header (Bug 215405)
support RTL mode for FTP and Gopher index pages (Bug 348233)
make Page Info find feeds with link rel="feed" (Bug 484371)
do not crash when using Fontconfig on Solaris (Bug 474758)
set LD_LIBRARY_PATH on Solaris if shared library symlink is found (Bug 472269)
add native theming to groupboxes on Windows (Bug 390734)
make sure native theming of groupboxes on Windows introduced no UI regressions (Bug 484567)
use transaction for better performance importing from legacy storage (Bug 483693)
make form history not remember default values of unmodified fields (Bug 463486)
stop setting mouse cursor to progress mode (spinner) while pages are transferring (Bug 481359)
disable undo when text boxes show non-editable descriptive text (emptytext) (Bug 471776)
speed up file uploads (HTTP POST) on Windows by increasing maximum TCP sending window to 128 KB (Bug 454990)
make sure View Page Source shows resulting page after form submit (Bug 469302)
make sure View Page Source uses correct cache entry when issuing GET on POST-ed form (Bug 475542)
make sure ellipsis for narrow tree columns does not leak into wrong column (Bug 249141)
exclude ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) adapters when checking whether to initiate dial-up login (Bug 465158)
make sure keyboard Back/Forward keys do not go back/forward twice (Bug 400568)
make Help key (F1) work again in Page Info (Bug 488972)
remove separators, springs and spacers when using "Restore Default Set" in Customize Toolbar dialog (Bug 475711)
hide undetermined progress bar in update dialog to stop unnecessary CPU usage (Bug 341749)
do not unminimize windows when changing desktop settings (theme, appearance) on Windows (Bug 169582)
use URLs in Add-on Manager that do not trigger SSL certificate warnings (Bug 488856)
make sure registry key SeaMonkeyHTML is created under HKCU rather than HKCR on Windows (Bug 488499)
cancel downloads in progress for previous releases on startup instead of resuming them (Bug 485624)
package new updater icon to prevent License File Not Found error during update (Bug 487012)
allow to zoom images (Bug 163537)
make sure vertical scrollbars stay visible when the window shrinks horizontally (Bug 435652)
do not crash displaying profile selection after invocation via internet shortcut (Bug 476988)
implement Feed Preview (browser feed integration) (Bug 415372)
always show geo.enabled (geolocation pref) in about:config (Bug 491653)
make changes to geo.enabled pref apply without application restart (Bug 491766)
disable DNS prefetching when manual proxy is in use (Bug 488162)
do not fill login forms when username field is blank while leaving login fields (Bug 471906)
restore missing groupmark icon in Bookmark Manager (Bug 494159)
drop support for the Palm Sync Extension (Bug 495232)
do not crash with malformed pluginreg.dat (Bug 493545)
correct Get Add-ons panel search field alignment (Bug 490195)
integrate Network Geolocation Provider (Bug 488472)
fix Location Bar dropdown search row styling/background for the default theme (Bug 494162)
support new FTP listing style in Modern (Bug 398138)
open only one Page Info window per location (Bug 86400)
fix height of list in "Select helper application" dialog for Modern (Bug 498153)
make sure build ID does not disappear from title bar on reload with Nightly Tester Tools installed (Bug 462997)
speed up Random Number Generator (RNG) by not initializing twice (Bug 489811)
speed up startup by not accessing IE Internet Temporary Files and Windows Temp folder for seeding (on platforms that do not need it) (Bug 501605)
port several Page Info improvements from Firefox (Bug 491310)

Edit: replaced erroneously inserted source/video tags, added EV cert UI to Noteworthy list

Alpha 3 Roundup

2009-02-20T18:51:00.010+01:00

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)

Better Late Than Never

2009-02-20T17:31:00.004+01:00

Now that Alpha 3 has been tagged it's time for... something completely different. :-)

Back in 2005 (when I was still at university) I was taking an "Internet lab" course where we implemented a basic HTTP server, a POP3 client with simple MIME support and a stripped-down Chord network, all in Java. The intention was to give an introduction to Internet protocols. Our task was to look at the relevant RFCs and come up with a standards-compliant implementation.

When we arrived at the POP3 client exercise our tutor gave us a Really Simple POP Server (RSPS). We used Mozilla (the suite) to check if it worked. It didn't. Or rather that's how it appeared to us. The truth was that Mozilla was violating the relevant RFC 1939 by requiring the server to support the optional commands TOP and UIDL. Our tutor was kind enough to implement those to let us test with Mozilla but obviously it wasn't RSPS's fault.

It was only recently that I found that the corresponding bug 156998 has been fixed (in June 2007 already, actually) so the good news is that this will be fixed in SeaMonkey 2 (the fix has not been back-ported to the Mozilla1.8 branch SeaMonkey 1.1 updates are released from); verified with the original RSPS (AFAIK it's not publicly available and all I have is the binary JAR so no source, sorry).

Alpha 2 Roundup

2008-12-08T21:55:00.011+01:00

A lot has happened since Alpha 1. Tracemonkey, the Just-In-Time (JIT) JavaScript compiler, has been enabled for content (as opposed to chrome) by default. The old Find As You Type backend has been removed and replaced by Toolkit's. Audio/Video support has been enhanced. SeaMonkey has switched to the new mozilla-1.9.1 branch (which will lead to Firefox 3.1) together with the rest of comm-central.

The new Alpha is not only about changes under the hood, though. Most notably Alpha 2 now features the first step towards customizable toolbars: you can now select the icon size and whether to display icons and/or text in both the browser and the MailNews component:

Also new is RSS feed support for MailNews which has been ported from Thunderbird:

Since there is no support for displaying RSS feeds in the browser yet the feed icon at the right end of the URL bar has been modified to allow subscribing to the feed in the MailNews component for the time being.

There are of course things that are not working yet. For one Get All New Messages is not working correctly (fails for POP3 accounts, Bug 259212). This will probably be fixed soon and then maybe even allow to query RSS accounts, too. Also noteworthy is my all-time favorite Bug 338549 which has the effect of presenting multiple password prompts at once when checking multiple MailNews accounts. And when you look at the Bookmarks menu you might find that bookmark groups are not appearing there (Bug 461167).

Trunk development continued after the cut for Alpha 2 had been made. Current nightlies already feature several improvements, particularly the new Places-based history UI (including the frecency-powered URL bar). A follow-up post will cover the details.

Progress

Treelines: now fixed (last checkin: certificate details tree) (Bug 438793)
border-radius support (CSS3): style system changes (Bug 450652)
@font-face support: implement user font set object (Bug 441473)
Places-based history UI: port Firefox utilityOverlay.js API to SeaMonkey (prerequisite) (Bug 370698)
Toolbar customization: spring.png for Modern theme, small icons (Navigator, MailNews) for Classic theme (Bug 428227), use transparent background for small Classic theme messenger icons (Bug 462645), add alpha transparency to small Classic communicator and navigator icons (Bug 464936) and finally: allow to set icon size and whether/where to display text per toolbar (Bug 428216, also fixes Bug 253007: allow to set Modern theme Navigator buttons (Back etc.) to show text and icons)
use Toolkit download manager backend: disable Toolkit's download manager UI for the suite (Bug 381157)
Feed integration: connect feed discovery with MailNews feed subscribe (interim solution until Feed Preview is implemented) (Bug 465258)
make sure Group By Sort in saved search (virtual folder) doesn't crash on expand/collapse group (bug 467840 isl pending) (Bug 465011)
open only one window when opening a local html file (pending: fix internet shortcuts) (Bug 461501)

MailNews

use hourglass with pointer for mouse cursor when loading new newsgroup (Bug 178767)
fix problems filtering POP3 mail when hidden pref to remove dupes is set (Bug 457168)
use application name in the cancel message body for News (Bug 294824)
move keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V from "Paste As Quotation" to "Paste Without Formatting" (Bug 192330)
set default retention policy of "delete all but the last X messages" to 2000 (was: 30) and change field types to "number" (Bug 438918)
correct filtering custom mail headers (Sender/Date/Status) (Bug 404489)
eliminate "[JavaScript Application]" dialog titles (use prompt service instead of window.alert() in chrome code) (Bug 432608)
always convert Content Type to lowercase for matching (Bug 381659)
make sure the number in the "Order Received" column does not become negative when mail's offset in local mail folder file exceeds 2GB (Bug 450991)
rename "Move" on "Message" menu to "Move To" to match context menu (Bug 185940)
do not do a disk sync after each POP3 header in partial header download fetch (Bug 385838)
remove own address from Mail-Followup-To: on reply (Bug 325429)
import Sent/Outbox from Eudora (Bug 452296)
do not insert extra LF characters when saving IMAP messages with CRLF line ending at a multiple of 8192 bytes (Bug 460636)
apply changes to read state of IMAP messages when toggling it in a cross-folder saved search (Bug 461584)
unlock destination file after saving message (.eml) (Bug 461256)
Rebuild Summary File: save message metadata (junk-related, tags, etc.) when reindexing local or IMAP folders (Bug 449768)
enable threaded/grouped-by-sort views for saved searches across multiple folders (Bug 379806)
add a shortcut for Rewrap (Bug 461667)
do not require to send a mail in order to enable MDN (return receipt) subject encoding (Bug 462725)
fix importing Outlook 2007 account settings (check whether Organization is empty) (Bug 450854)
fix importing mail from Outlook 2003/2007 (Bug 408323)
fix setting port when importing account settings from Outlook Express (Bug 262641)
add a bit of jitter to the biff-interval (+/-5%, 1-30 seconds, mail.biff.add_interval_jitter) (Bug 235086)
add support for setting Mail-Followup-To and Mail-Reply-To headers (aids using mailing lists; see comments 0 and 27 for details and prefs) (Bug 204339)
port Thunderbird RSS/Atom reader to SeaMonkey (Bug 255834)
allow extensions to add custom filter actions (Bug 419356)
make filters using Sender as custom mail header work (do not match From instead) (Bug 404489)
use generic "Confirm" instead of the message in "advance to next unread" dialog title (Bug 84828)
make sure to actually import messages when importing from Outlook Express (Bug 455229)
do not corrupt attributes of tags (such as IMG) when re-editing (Edit Draft, Forward Inline, Edit As New) quoted-printable HTML messages (Bug 307023)
do not crash on IMAP folder with sequence Delete, Rebuild Index, Undo (Bug 457751)
do not auto-sync IMAP folders that require a password if the password has not been provided yet (Bug 456291)
mark message as read when deleting it from local folder (or POP/IMAP when offline) (Bug 463849)
do not crash when doing a body search (Bug 465805)
close msf files after compacting folders (do not limit number of folders that can be opened) (Bug 249754)
change IMAP APPEND wait timeout from 100 to 20 sec (improve copying mail to Sent folder) (Bug 396874)
do not request IMAP capability command if server announces it in greetings (Bug 401293)
do not compact the offline store when issuing Compact Folder on IMAP folder (just issue an IMAP EXPUNGE instead) (Bug 420115)
remove accounts without a server or a duplicate server upon loading accounts (Bug 464808)
advance to next message when deleting message while offline and using IMAP mark-as-deleted model (Bug 451877)
generalize Bayes code to support multiple traits (one of which is Junk) (Bug 453885)
integrate generalized Bayes traits into MailNews classifications (enable extensions to define custom traits) (Bug 461479)
update unread count for threaded cross-folder views after reading a matching message (Bug 466241)
clear only a server's own biff state on Windows (fix new mail popup window) (Bug 462762)
improve references parser logic for In-Reply-To/References headers (e.g. with mixed message-id and non-message-id content) (Bug 466796)
fetch IMAP flags only once (Bug 466891)
display website in feed message headers (Bug 463255)
place focus in Subject field instead of body when composing HTML mail with pre-filled recipient (e.g. mailto:) (Bug 467244)
keep showing current message list view after rebuilding another mailbox's index using File/Properties (Bug 467246)
do not crash when parsing IMAP message headers (Bug 467114)

Address Book

change layout of Card dialog to better cope with lower screen resolutions (Bug 63941)
do not collect addresses into Collected Addressed that occur in other ABs (Bug 58769)
actually apply changes to Outlook (Express) cards (Bug 459956)
remove contact from search results display when it has been deleted (Bug 435027)
immediately reflect that a list has been deleted (Bug 462364)
do not crash when selecting recipient from contacts sidebar (Bug 463560)

Audio/Video

stop video download when document has been closed/unloaded (Bug 451457)
support direct loading and displaying of Ogg files (Bug 448603)
download video/audio resources to the cache during playback (Bug 462378)
add context menu for video (Bug 461136)
support WAV format in element (Bug 449315)
support 8-bit WAV samples (Bug 463929)
support duration for video (Bug 449307)
provide audio and video interfaces even when media is diabled, so that content popup menu construction works (Bug 466234)

CSS

remove support for -moz-pre-wrap (Bug 433065)

Locales

add si (Sinhala) to source locales (Bug 458519)
add ka (Georgian) to source locales (Bug 463917)
add pt-PT (European Portuguese) to source locales (Bug 453472)

DNS

implement negative (NXDOMAIN) DNS cache (cache a failed hostlookup for 1 minute) (Bug 208312)
bypass internal DNS cache when doing manual page reload (Bug 459724)
add DNS pre-fetching (see comment 8) (Bug 453403)

Mac

update navigator.onLine when network connectivity changes on Mac (online/offline detection) (Bug 426932)
allow to update / set disabled attribute on native submenus on Mac OS X (Bug 456374)
turn off shadow for autoscroll icon in Modern (on Mac OS X) (Bug 461367)
rewrite Mac OS X default plugin for 64-bit (Bug 428973)
support formatted text (e.g. HTML) from clipboard and drag-and-drop on Mac OS X (Bug 428096)
fix Mac OS 10.4-only top crash (Bug 458961)
make Dock icon show new mail at the same time as the Growl alert (Bug 459482)
add Growl integration for mail alerts on Mac OS X (Bug 308552)
ensure that clicking a Growl alert brings SeaMonkey to the front (Bug 459485)
make Growl alerts of New Mail notify for the account for which new mail has just been received (Bug 459483)

GTK/Linux

do not corrupt XUL FastLoad cache when application is running while upgrading on Linux (Bug 368428)
add a globally shared location for plugins (/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins) on Linux/Unix (Bug 440506)
make filepicker filters case insensitive (Bug 136941)

Add-ons & AUS

skip "Continue" (and close dialog after two seconds) if all updates have been successful during add-ons update (Bug 397493)
AUS update dialog rework / do not list extensions with available updates for the next version of the app in app update "extension will be disabled" warning (Bug 324121)
do not install automatic update if installed version is newer (Bug 313057)
display update wizard Back button on Linux only when needed (Bug 464765)
display placeholder for disabled/blocked plugins (Bug 391728)
add new icons for disabled/blocked plugin placeholders (Bug 462965)
enable Install button in Add-on Manager by default (Bug 414014)

Debug & QA

hide bloat items from Debug menu unless they work (i.e. if the application has been built with --enable-logrefcnt) (Bug 93902)
remove obsolete 'Form Manager Samples' item from Debug menu (Bug 462085)
move Debug & QA menus to the left of the Help menu (Bug 418246)

Certificates

store certificates for temporary SSL server exceptions only temporarily (Bug 460829)
implement new security exception handling backend for MailNews (Bug 429843)
use new security exceptions front end (Bug 465978)
introduce new certificate error page which better separates user information from technical details (Bug 463504)

Compiling

remove MOZ_CO_PROJECT (Bug 451825)
remove --enable-glitz (Bug 445321)
allow to pass arbitrary options to hg using client.py (--hg-options) (Bug 458215)
remove support for --enable-extensions=all (Bug 450015)
increase required Pango build-time version to 1.14 (Bug 460717)
create a makefile target (source-package) for packaging a source tarball (Bug 456373)
allow to build SeaMonkey with --enable-static (fixed by removal of Find As You Type) (Bug 397146)
make --disable-wave work (Bug 463537)
make client.py update the default repository from mozilla-central to mozilla-1.9.1 (Bug 465521)

General

enable Set As Wallpaper context menu entry based on presence of shell service (was: Windows only) (Bug 454017)
remove remaining contents.rdf (stop using installed-chrome.txt) (Bug 366673)
limit Gecko date in User Agent string to 8 digits (YYYYMMDD) (Bug 450973)
improve handling of DOS and Unix style FTP listings (whitespace at end of filename, dates and symlinks) (Bug 365133)
speculatively load referenced JavaScript files, blocking "real" parsing on a script src load (Bug 364315)
implement cross-site XMLHttpRequest (Bug 389508)
make multiple text selection (with Ctrl) work with double-click "word-by-word" and triple-click "paragraph" modes (Bug 415707)
add support for retrieving PNG (lossless) images from Windows clipboard (Bug 444800)
correct button states (hover vs. normal) of Classic theme stop button (Bug 431452)
put the search box in the main toolbar of Bookmark Manager (Bug 460756)
implement geolocation prompt (notification bar) (Bug 459413)
make sure Spell Checker always identifies misspelled words (Bug 432225)
correct Sidebar "Tabs" menu placement (Bug 388349)
enable view-source link-browsing (SRC, HREF) (Bug 17612)
optimize PNGs in the Classic theme (Bug 464663)
add CF_HDROP support back into Windows drag and drop data object (re-enable dragging images to applications like Photoshop) (Bug 440911)
remove old Find As You Type (FAYT) (Bug 461938)
use Toolkit Type Ahead Find instead of the old one (Bug 345526)
make clicking on an autocompleted input field not break autocomplete (Bug 460466)
respect Accept-Ranges response header (only accept value "bytes" for resume support) (Bug 462707)
add accesskeys to print dialogs (Bug 277296)
add view-source link-browsing (Bug 464352)
Vista integration: avoid the second UAC prompt for helper.exe on software update by launching it directly from the elevated updater.exe process (Bug 390344), move installer parts requiring elevated rights to new helper.exe (improve installation as a standard user) (Bug 453797)
bind default toolbar appearance to Preferences/Appearance settings (Bug 465089)
support use of access control headers to allow cross-site downloadable fonts (Bug 457825)

Lost & Found

2008-09-30T03:02:00.003+02:00

I started compiling lists of bugs that were checked into the trunk long before I started this blog. I even kept them around afterwards. Now in the light of the upcoming SeaMonkey 2 Alpha 1 the time has come to do some cleanup. Below are all bugs from my list of the early days of Mozilla 1.9 trunk (SeaMonkey trunk was called 1.5a back then) that have neither been fixed on the 1.8.1 branch (SeaMonkey 1.1.x) nor appeared on this blog until now. As always I tried to focus on visible changes and noticeable enhancements rather than internal code changes.

MailNews

rename TLS and SSL in SMTP preferences to what they really mean (STARTTLS, SMTP-over-SSL) (Bug 185662)
make Reply, Reply All, Forward and Next buttons dual-mode (adding Reply to Sender, Reply to All Recipients, Forward Inline/As Attachment, Next Message/Flagged Message/Unread Thread) (Bug 17796)
do not lose keystrokes while email composer is saving draft (Bug 352310)
speed up deleting attachments containing UNIX line breaks (Bug 365751)
add "Stop Filter Execution" filter action (Bug 358684)
allow to set marking junk as read independently for automatic and manual cases in preferences (Bug 377920)
do not fall back to insecure authentication after SMTP authentication failure (Bug 311657)
support opening a message from the command line (Bug 386919)
remove "Copy Folder Location" context menu entry, moving functionality to Location field in Properties dialog (Bug 369393)
move Location field from IMAP Sharing tab of folder properties dialog to General Information tab (enable it for all account types) (Bug 180546)
add more descriptive error messages for network level errors while sending mail (SMTP) (Bug 361433)
enable extensions to add and handle columns in MailNews (Bug 376717)

ChatZilla

change Switch Text Direction shortcut to Ctrl+Shift+X (was: Ctrl+Shift+E) (Bug 333570)
do not open multiline input when dropping link in single line input (Bug 332588)
add IRC-Hispano to default network list (Bug 227366)
add IRCnet to default network list (Bug 135926)
allow styling all parts of ChatZilla with motifs (Bug 235169)
allow disabling Bugzilla link detection on a per-channel basis (Bug 349137)

DOM Inspector

allow inserting/creating new nodes (Bug 112775)
add File / Save DOM As... (Bug 72494)
allow to hide processing instructions (Bug 360898)
show separate menu entries for Inspect Content/Chrome Document (Bug 337069)

Compiling

make Mozilla compile with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (VC8) (Bug 249782)
remove non-Cairo GTK2 gfx code (GTK 1 support and Xprint) (Bug 383889)

General

add "Ignore Word" to inline spellchecker used for editable elements (Bug 354580)
use bullets instead of asterisks to block out password characters (Bug 97811)
make dictionaries part of the locale pack in the installer (Bug 350688)
add font-family (alias) resolver checking whether specified font-family is installed in the system (Bug 352174)
make a backup copy of prefs.js before overwriting it if there were errors reading it (Bug 361102)
Undo Close Tab enhancements: File / Recently Closed Tabs menu entry, select restored tabs and reuse blank tabs with no history (Bug 354953)
let Mozilla applications manage NSS configuration for PKCS#11 shared libraries (prevent Windows from locking nssckbi.dll) (Bug 176501)
implement font-size-adjust on Linux (Bug 363410)
make Gecko pass the Acid2 test (Bug 289480)
let Backspace default to nothing on Linux instead of going back (in history) (Bug 358764)
support startup notification on Linux/UNIX desktops (Bug 223492)
enable native theme (form control etc.) in HTML content on Linux (Bug 329846)
add support for the X Session Management Protocol (XSMP) (Bug 93789)
make downloading using "Save Link As..." successful on a link to a page/file that uses HTTP/FTP authentication (Bug 315227)
make Debug QA and Palm Sync extensions optional in Windows installer (Bug 385377)
add pref to control minimal font size for high quality text rendering (browser.display.auto_quality_min_font_size) (Bug 387969)
allow multiple selection of text with Ctrl (Bug 73373)

Alpha Particles

2008-09-21T23:08:00.005+02:00

Progress

migrate SeaMonkey preferences panes to use (Bug 394522) is now complete including Proxies (Bug 444157), Popups windows (Bug 441403), Cache (Bug 444161), MailNews / Send Format (Bug 445009), Downloads (Bug 444582), HTTP Networking (Bug 444167), SSL (Bug 445013), Certificates (Bug 445014), MailNews / Addressing (Bug 408613), Master Password (Bug 444170), Passwords (Bug 444169), Validation (Bug 445015) and Browser / Languages (Bug 444411)
add ability to show just the name and not the email address in the message pane if an address book entry exists: main part (Bug 309057)
the return of Treelines: Venkman, DOM Inspector, MailNews, Help viewer, Bookmarks, History and XUL directory viewer (Bug 438793)

MailNews

make IMAP folders offline by default if they are newly created and mail.server.default.offline_download pref is true (Bug 452615)
display messages that are not present in the current folder view but found through a search (Bug 377084)
resort when new message arrives and Sort by / Threaded is active (Bug 262319)
do not ask whether to send HTML mail for recipients matching an "additional email" address of a contact that prefers HTML messages (Bug 437750)
disable JavaScript in MailNews for now (Bug 453943)
properly detect application/pkcs7-mime subtypes in libmime (Bug 456250)
do not lose track of messages in a folder when using CONDSTORE (Bug 456601)
add ability to download IMAP messages preemptively/automatically in the background (Bug 436615)

Address Book

apply changes to phone types made in Apple Addressbook (Bug 452143)
add birthday fields to address book (Bug 13595 and Bug 455797)
update address book card preview pane for card changes via external interfaces (where notifications exist, e.g. OS X) (Bug 455240)

CSS

add support for WebKit's CSS3 Transform proposal (Bug 435293)

DOM

implement cloneNode() for HTML document nodes (Bug 42976)
allow creating HTML documents through document.implementation.createDocument() (Bug 450160)

SVG

support SVG mask/clip-path/filter effects in HTML (Bug 450340)

Certificates

show Exception dialog before fetching certificate when prefetching is active (Bug 453855)

Printing

remove useless "print.use_native_print_dialog" preference (Bug 414843)

General

introduce new UI for setting SeaMonkey as default application/handler (Bug 441050)
add trim, trimLeft and trimRight for JavaScript strings (Bug 305064)
add hu (Hungarian) to source locales (Bug 453350)
make FTP uploads of small files using File / Upload File menu report failures (Bug 389394)
make migration of SeaMonkey profile not fail (possibly not migrating bookmarks) when folder in source profile is missing (Bug 423211)
set colors for GTK treelines when no specific rule is given (Bug 434080)
make transfer mode of images influence the lock icon state (mixed content) (Bug 135007)
add bold default options to about:config context menus (Bug 255726)
disable "Add to SeaMonkey" and add "Cancel Install" in right-click menu after installing extension (Bug 438755)
let Software Update show a hint that the system clock may be off if the server certificate appears to be expired (Bug 390746)
use correct order of buttons in Add-on Updates dialog appearing at startup (Bug 424317)
do not delete a file dragged from Windows Explorer / FTP (Bug 296528)
enable color management support for tagged images by default (Bug 418538)
disable NetworkManager querying by default because its network link detection (which triggers Offline mode) cannot be trusted (Bug 424626)

Crashes

do not crash when opening IMAP messages with inline images (Bug 454061)
do not crash shutting down in cookie code (Bug 455035)

Update: added last three MailNews bugs that made the Alpha cut

Behind the Scenes

2008-08-31T00:55:00.005+02:00

For a web developer, the awesome fantastic Firebug provides everything you need, but it is currently only available for Firefox. Asrail is trying to make Firebug 1.2 work with SeaMonkey 2, though; I successfully installed an XPI today. Until he releases something I will just give you a hint: search for "caio seamonkey firebug" in Google Groups. Or take a look at Firebug Lite.

Progress

Drag & Drop tabs between browser windows: backend (Bug 113934)
Windows default application check: allow to change what to check (Bug 447637)
Preferences window: MailNews / Notifications (Bug 428705), MailNews / Composition (Bug 429143) and Advanced / Keyboard Navigation (Bug 444146)
enable building SeaMonkey with --enable-libxul: /suite directory (Bug 397277)
Redirect mail (resend with possibility to editing before sending): backend (Bug 359226)

MailNews

convert attachment filename correctly when importing from Japanese Eudora (will also be fixed in SM 1.1.12) (Bug 443344)
do not lose IMAP offline stores when connecting to server fails (Bug 213827)
rename 'Unsent' folder to 'Outbox' (Bug 387656)
allow to specify whether to run filters when checking mail, run manually, or both (add a separate manual filter context) (Bug 440635)
cache the top-level address book to help performance (Bug 403256)
ensure that disabling "Automatically mark messages as read" works (Bug 450740)
add ability to filter only selected messages in a folder (Run Filters on Selected Messages) (Bug 444209)
make sure signed/encrypted messages (e.g. S/MIME) always get transfer encoding applied (Bug 232515)
ignore spaces after tag attribute equal sign in HTML messages (Bug 338323)
convert Ask me before downloading more than __ messages option (in the news server settings) to number-type textbox (Bug 451862)
make sure "Edit as new" for opened eml files does not result in a broken compose window (Bug 366482)
use better wording in Folder Properties Retention Policy tab dialog (Bug 339151)
always use Content-Disposition: attachment (was inline for text-type attachments) for sending attachments (Bug 65794)
play back tags to IMAP server when switching from offline to online (Bug 141606)
make Mark All Read keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+C on Linux (like on Windows; was: Ctrl+Shift+M) (Bug 422757)
do not delete mail keywords/tags when detaching/removing attachments (Bug 440366)
add option to quote the contents of displayed inline attachments in replies (UI for mail.reply_quote_inline pref) (Bug 441659)
show just the name and not the email address in the message pane (Bug 309057)
rename Properties to Settings in account context menus (Bug 249620)
implement auto-expunge for IMAP mailboxes (see bug comment 4) (Bug 359284)

Address Book

make Search/Filters check correctly for address in Mac OS X Address Book (Bug 437908)
remove spaces from Mac OS X Address Book display names when first and/or last name is empty (Bug 451021)
allow Junk settings to use read-only address books (like Mac OS X Address Book, but not remote ones) for white lists (Bug 451361)
support multiple address books for Junk whitelist (Bug 449747)

CSS

support white-space:pre-line (Bug 230555)
support positioned and floated generated content (in conjunction with :before and :after) for non-replaced elements (Bug 238072)
ignore CSS2.1 empty-cells:hide in conjunction with border-collapse:collapse (Bug 392047)

DOM

implement ElementTraversal (Bug 447917)
implement W3C Selectors API (querySelector and querySelectorAll) (Bug 416317)
implement WHATWG/HTML5 Drag and Drop (Bug 356295)

Printing

enable printing while in Print Preview on Linux/Unix (Bug 126802)
clear print_to_filename after printing on OS/2 to make sure that it's not overwritten next time (Bug 446290)

Locales

add lt (Lithuanian) to source locales (Bug 451054)
add pt-BR (Brazilian Portuguese) to source locales (Bug 451153)

Certificates

make the "bad cert error dialog" more helpful (add View Certificate button) (Bug 439722)

Compiling

make theora build with VC7.1 (Bug 450265)
add ability to pull specific revisions/tags from comm-central, mozilla-central or dom-inspector (Bug 451811)
make Qt port compile with comm-central (Bug 450957)

General

do not treat Ctrl+Enter as Ctrl+J when captured by a Javascript event (Bug 318235)
add support for Aero Glass effects (-moz-appearance: -moz-win-glass) to Widget layer (Bug 418454)
let downloaded files inherit NTFS properties (like permissions, compression, encryption) from parent folder/directory (Bug 224692)
convert FTP paths from UTF-8 to original charset (e.g. Cyrillic) (Bug 427089)
support new toolkit async autocomplete (Bug 443370)
ensure that major updates are offered when certain language packs are installed (make locale in updater.ini mandatory) (Bug 446527)
catch more Software Update failures, e.g. working offline (Bug 312661)
delete and re-init cookies.sqlite if cookie deletion fails due to corrupted database (Bug 448372)
set DISPLAY environment variable when --display is given to make Xremote work correctly (Bug 441140)
fix dropping images to external applications (Bug 435220)
add workaround for creating plugin cache file on Windows (enable displaying PDF delivered via SSL) (Bug 420310)
make "seamonkey -h" mention -migration switch (Bug 431636)
handle WM_ENDSESSION message to cleanly unload in case of exiting or restarting Windows (Bug 212316)
line up Modern submenus horizontally (Bug 451609)

Crashes

do not crash when exiting on OpenSolaris (with Xinerama enabled) (Bug 449371)
do not crash when saved search is open after deleting a searched subfolder (Bug 438414)
do not crash in debug mode while getting POP3 mail on startup (Bug 452521)

A New Home

2008-08-11T23:56:00.007+02:00

The move to hg went quite smoothly (thanks to the preparatory work of KaiRo and others). Now that SeaMonkey and MailNews have their own repository shared with Thunderbird and Calendar, tracking changes is a lot easier. However, the loss of Bonsai still hurts a bit. Bug 394669 has been fixed but it still needs to be pushed live (Bug 448459). While you are waiting for that, take a look at what is possible with a bit of client-side PHP and RegEx:

Progress

Download manager: make toolkit dlmgr buildable by suite (backend prerequisite) (Bug 440932)
Preferences window: Composer / New Page Settings (Bug 435079), MailNews / Return Receipts (Bug 445011), MailNews / Junk Mail (Bug 445010), MailNews / Character Encoding (Bug 445012); enable using filefield elements (Bug 448106)

MailNews

update saved search folders' unread count when deleting mail without reading it (Bug 300487)
allow filters to move a mail after copying it (Bug 376235)
implement highlightNonMatches in Toolkit autocomplete (to show that email address could not be found in address book) (Bug 441526)
do not report "Mail server is not an IMAP4 mail server" if server says BYE (Bug 408861)
filter news based on any headers [original fix had been backed out due to regressions] (Bug 16913)
add confirmation dialog for Empty Trash (Bug 179891)
make sure removing tags from local messages survives rebuild index (Bug 439132)
set default for MDN confirmation dialog to No (i.e. Do Not Send) (Bug 166164)
support IMAP RFC 4551 - CondStore extension (Bug 436151)
do not issue IMAP fetch CHANGEDSINCE unless using CondStore (Bug 448558)
do not remove new messages from view after changing tag (Bug 444815)
do not clear messages and thread panes when compacting a folder other than the selected one (Bug 271988)
turn off error pages for MailNews windows (XML Parsing Error: no element found/netError.xhtml on newsgroup message download timeout) [will probably also be fixed in SM 1.1.12] (Bug 327510)

Breakpad

disable email field after submission (Bug 427034)

CSS

support CSS3 'word-wrap' property (breaks long lines) (Bug 99457)
implement CSS3 column-rule-* (Bug 271586)
implement W3C Selectors API (querySelector and querySelectorAll) (Bug 416317)
implement parsing of @font-face rules (Bug 441469)

Compiling

actually support --skip-calendar in comm-central's client.py (Bug 447225)
add configure option to l10n repositories (Bug 447619)
change build process to generate unique BuildIDs (including minutes and seconds) (Bug 431270)

General

use separate accesskey for "Search Web for " menu item (Bug 447833)
save form inputs' state with Save Page As (Bug 293834)
add Ogg Theora backend for HTML5 video element (Bug 422538)
do not show "Content Encoding Error" page when redownloading a previously cancelled .tar.gz file (Bug 426273)
show file:// directories containing files >= 2GB on Linux (Bug 278738)
do not try to retrieve image when img src="" and image URI equals document URI (Bug 444931)
utilize min-height on fieldset tag (Bug 210094)
check for left/top start position on startup to prevent overlapping widgets like the Dock (Bug 433358)

Crashes

do not crash and lose mails if Rebuild Index is executed while compacting folder is in progress (Bug 392015)

Moving On

2008-07-23T00:23:00.004+02:00

Finally the switch has been made. SeaMonkey trunk is now on Mercurial (hg), residing in the shared Thunderbird/Calendar/SeaMonkey repository called comm-central and pulling in Gecko and other core components from the Firefox/core repository called mozilla-central. That also means that Gecko 1.9.1pre is now used for SeaMonkey nightly builds, including recent improvements like support for Canvas text and CSS3 properties like text-shadow, border-image and pseudo classes. The CVS trunk is mostly dead now as far as SeaMonkey is concerned. The switch also means that there will be no SeaMonkey release with Gecko 1.9.0 (the rendering engine of Firefox 3.0); SeaMonkey will just skip it and (probably) go with Gecko 1.9.1 when it ships.

Concerning the new hg web interface, there are pros and cons. On the one hand, there are RSS feeds available, which is good, but unlike with Bonsai, bug numbers are not linked and there doesn't seem to be a way to specify query time ranges or show affected files per each changeset in an overview, all of which is unfortunate from the perspective of a trunk tracker.

The splitting-up of the repositories, on the other hand, gives me the opportunity to concentrate on the SeaMonkey and MailNews parts of development. I will probably reduce reporting about Gecko and core changes to the most noteworthy news, partly because it greatly reduces my workload but also because it's getting increasingly hard to sort out all the Firefox-only changes from the mozilla-central repository.

Progress

add attribute to restore treelines on XUL trees (prerequisite to restoring missing treelines in MailNews) (Bug 430852)
Preferences window: Composer / New Page Settings (Bug 435079)

MailNews

allow to disable marking a message as read when viewed (Bug 297534)
Ignore (kill) a subthread (now also with frontend) (Bug 11054)
add Not Deleted view for IMAP with delete model active (Bug 190974)
make Run Junk Mail Controls work on selected messages again (Bug 324953)
set IMAP keywords for junk messages during manual junk analysis (Run Junk Mail Controls) (Bug 438654)
migrate SSL/port number/root folder when importing account settings from Outlook Express (Bug 262641)
do not show escaped name for IMAP saved searches with spaces in the name (Bug 445403)
do not create unneeded .sbd folder when adding IMAP saved search (Bug 445343)
when offline, check memory cache for IMAP/news messages (Bug 213729)
should look in mem cache for messages when offline (Bug 213729)
display warning when sending return receipt fails (Bug 386158)
use better chunk size calculation when mail.imap.fetch_by_chunks is active (speed up sending of large emails) (Bug 425849)
make "next" shortcut in account setup for News, Server information panel work (Bug 443908)
add missing twisty icons for email address lists (Bug 383532)
do not change/force selection upon issuing Delete Mail Marked as Junk (Bug 200138)
display custom columns added by extensions while in "grouped by sort" (Bug 373967)
correctly update unread count in virtual folders when headers (e.g. junkpercent) change (Bug 428427)
enable Mac OS X system address book per default and add UI (Bug 436794)
preserve junkstatusorigin and junkpercent when moving IMAP junk message (Bug 443993)
do not allow to re-detach detached attachments (Bug 416284)
(re)add ability to create Movemail account (Bug 443808)

Certificates

remember (by default) user's client certificate selection for current session (already included in SM 1.1.10) (Bug 431819)

General

go to beginning/end of line when pressing up/down arrows on Mac (Bug 440515)
add "Send Link" to link context menus (Bug 137007)
update help for new Helper Applications pane (Bug 421084)
add Catalan to source l10n (Bug 445139)
Use different IDs for preferences panels' elements (Bug 446027)
display error when install fails due to missing install.rdf (Bug 436207)

Crashes

do not crash when loading a Saved Search Folder (Bug 369918)

Now That You're Gone

2008-07-06T11:31:00.004+02:00

After the release of Firefox 3 and in preparation for Firefox 3.1 / Mozilla 1.9.1, the trunk has switched from CVS to Mercurial for Firefox, Gecko, Toolkit and most other Mozilla core components. The new repository is called mozilla-central. SeaMonkey, Thunderbird, Calendar and other projects haven't made the switch yet but at least for the three mentioned above, a Mercurial repository called comm-central has been be set up but not yet filled. In the meantime, SeaMonkey and MailNews development continues on the CVS trunk (sort of 1.9.0.x). The below is taken from there, ignoring Mercurial for now (Bugzilla integration, anyone?).

Progress

Preferences window: Cookies (Bug 436730), Internet Search (Bug 436709)

MailNews

add ability to set certificate per mail identity (Bug 278549)
quote just the selected portion of a message during Reply (Bug 23394)
allow signature to be placed above the quoted text when forwarding messages (Bug 273114)
allow editing LDAP directory entry using double click (Bug 342934)
close LDAP connection when closing compose window with open address book sidebar (Bug 321271)
add pseudo-offline IMAP delete and move support (Bug 435153)
support Windows x64 build for mailnews (Bug 438533)
enable junk token limit (100000) (Bug 437098)
restore capability to use Tags (formerly Labels) as filter criterion, including "is empty" condition (Bug 217034)
add wbr tag to list of allowed tags for simple HTML view (support YahooGroups emails) (Bug 439601)
allow adding tags with names that are a substring of other tags' names (Bug 439548)
allow filter of "To or CC" to use "is in Address Book..." and "is not in Address Book..." (Bug 187768)
do not freeze up when adding tags with names that are a substring of other tags' names (Bug 433175)
prevent data loss when switching folders while Run Junk Mail Controls on Folder is running (Bug 438805)
Add Junk Score Origin and Junk Percent to search and mail views (Bug 414179)
do not log NNTP XPAT twice (Bug 64580)
add missing error checks in search views (Bug 441914)
fix memory leak after closing message window (Bug 365723)
check identity's LDAP preference before global one to retrieve user certificates (Bug 392016)
make Get All New Messages, retrieval at specified times and at startup work with Movemail accounts (Bug 278383)
handle Keynote files correctly when sending as attachments (Bug 372786)
remove x- prefix from application/x-pkcs7-mime and application/x-pkcs7-signature MIME types (Bug 436869)
do not erase address in compose window when LDAP lookup fails (Bug 366837)

Address Book

use Google Maps for Get Map (Bug 436814)

ChatZilla

display all-numeric channel names as links (Bug 433703)
make multiline mode go away on paste (Bug 417196)
add Cancel button to topic edit mode (keep changes when losing focus) (Bug 399450)
make nicknames of messages to another view clickable (Bug 436871)
improve CTCP detection (start of line, not inline) (Bug 437184)
enable wrapping when line is made up of small blocks of processed (e.g. colored) text (Bug 416749)
handle malformed awayMsgs.txt (rename it and continue startup) (Bug 437375)
make CEIP distinguish mouse click events (Bug 439374)

Printing

do not repeat the same text on every page when using Print Selection (Bug 433284)

General

remove xml-rpc from SeaMonkey build (Bug 438676)
allow to turn off offline mode detection by adding new pref toolkit.networkmanager.disable (workaround for when NetworkManager is running but not controlling the active network interface, e.g. when using PPP) (Bug 424626)
change "Block images from this server" to "Block images from (server name)" (Bug 93390)

Crashes

do not crash MailNews when a script is importing an address book and a field map is required but not set (Bug 437556)
do not crash when importing Outlook email (Bug 440185)
do not crash when importing Outlook contact CSV data file (Bug 440190)

MailNews Advancements

2008-06-09T23:52:00.001+02:00

Progress

Pref window: Advanced pref panel (Bug 421832)
use in Composer where applicable: Pref window part (Bug 432132)

MailNews

disable images on drag feedback for GTK2 since it lacks proper transparency support (Bug 429821)
make deleting/renaming IMAP folder show in the UI again without the need to collapse/expand (Bug 434920)
allow to change priority via filter when message is moved and server supports user flags (Bug 181561)
add a pref (mail.reply_quote_inline) to quote text attachment in reply (Bug 384599)
let IMAP subscribe UI handle folders with a leading hierarchy delimiter correctly (Bug 434110)
make setting mail.auth_login and mail.server.default.auth_login to false (disabling AUTH/SASL) work with IMAP (Bug 417957, also fixed on stable branch)
display correct unread count in Trash when playing back offline delete of unread IMAP message (Bug 435259)
only enable the Next > button when appropriate in the Account wizard (Bug 146392)
update addressbook view when a new card is created while creating a new mailing list (Bug 434978)
enable .wdseml (Windows Search) file opening support for Mail/News (Bug 433697)
make message filters move up/down accelerators not disable the filter (Bug 368218)
allow to limit growth of junk token store (add new pref mailnews.bayesian_spam_filter.junk_maxtokens) (Bug 228675)
do not insert two blank lines after signature when top-posting (Bug 428040)
speed up selecting saved search with a lot of results (do not paint scroll bar for every message) (Bug 436960)

ChatZilla

make userlist readable again (Bug 432482)
make /msg and /describe messages sent to a non-current channel not appear as if they were sent to the current channel (Bug 419230)
escape channel names for irc: urls containing '/' correctly (Bug 435602)
avoid starting Java when opening Chatzilla (Bug 435772)

Compiling

identify more Cygwin environments as such (Bug 428683)
use jemalloc on OpenSolaris (Bug 422055)

General

Add a "Summary" last step before actual install, like Thunderbird has, to installer (Bug 428813)
add accesskeys to right-click menu of bookmarks (Bug 176359)
set accesskey for various labels of updater menuitem in Help menu (Bug 433551)
package and install ChatZilla language packs (Bug 408844)
enable source server support on SeaMonkey Windows tinderbox (Bug 433230)
use Cmd+? to open Help menu on Mac (Bug 432693)
don't try to import IE favorites on Mac (Bug 433117)
set autocomplete popup to correct width when page is zoomed in/out (Bug 407912)
do not apply cross-domain javascript security restrictions to local HTML files loaded into an IFRAME (Bug 435362)
allow chrome favicons for XUL error pages (Bug 301119)
enable using keyboard for text entry if address bar history entry is selected with mouse while pulldown menu is active from hotkey (Bug 270128)

Crashes

do not crash with display: -moz-box, generated content, positioning and fieldset (Bug 398332)
do not crash when htmlSigText is set but no signature file is given (Bug 435587)

Add-ons AMO Integration And More

2008-05-17T22:50:00.008+02:00

Progress

Preferences window: Smart Browsing (now Location Bar) (Bug 411226), Offline & Disk Space (Bug 429015), Composer and Toolbars (Bug 431061) and ChatZilla (Bug 417319)

MailNews

remove dotted lines from tree views (affects MailNews thread display) (Bug 425131)
call onItemAdded only on parent address book of mailing lists (Bug 406921)
also fixes: prevent addresses in multiple lists from appearing multiple times in parent address book (Bug 134590), update parent address book after changing a list (Bug 362351) and update list when deleting card from it (Bug 340728)
implement Mail.app (Mac) importer (Bug 420472)
enable "Character Encoding" in "View Source" window (Bug 350693)
do not let IMAP code deadlock when it can't reach the network (Bug 410747)

GTK/Linux

use 4px tooltip padding width (left and right) on Linux (Bug 419395)
make new Linux print & page-setup dialogs modal (Bug 431190)

Editor

allow to resize linked images in contentEditable elements (Bug 417533)
ensure that contentEditable elements are still editable after going back to a page (Bug 386782)
make pressing enter in div with contentEditable not move text nodes unexpectedly (Bug 430392)
unhide grabber for absolutely positioned elements and make it accessible (Bug 384625)
make Composer handle XHTML documents (Bug 431184)

ChatZilla

make columns in "Join Channel" dialog resizeable (Bug 432831)
allow moving a tab for channel called "#" without errors (Bug 432818)
make double-clicking a user in the user list open a query view (Bug 432235)
add new images and symbols for the userlist (suitable for default & dark motifs) (Bug 431859)
provide a dark motif userlist (Bug 410962)
Add optional instrumentation code / opt-in anonymous usage reporting: CEIP (Customer Experience Improvement Program) (Bug 299472)
make "/voice *" voice all people (Bug 415006)
make channel/user views appear in preferences window if network has no prefs and is hidden (Bug 430977)
localize 421 (ERR_UNKNOWNCOMMAND) message from server (Bug 423644)
add "User commands" to the right-click context menu in Query views (Bug 423011)
make Browse... button in pref window work if pref is invalid (point to default) (Bug 418722)
do not save new nickname when connected and server does not accept it (Bug 420635)
split messages for display already, to indicate "spam" and/or link breakage (Bug 422060)
remove spaces from nicknames (Bug 349268)

Certificates

add a way to always show the Add Exception buttons on SSL error pages (Bug 427293, see comment 22)
show link to correct site in SSL error pages for domain mismatch (Bug 402210)
use identity error icons on SSL error pages (all platforms) (Bug 430904)

Printing

ensure that no content of multi-page print selection streams off end of page / is duplicated on next page (Bug 430389)
calculate correct "total number of pages" for print selection when printing scaled output (Bug 431587)
make print selection place text correctly with initial whitespace and select-all (Bug 430748)

gfx/Layout

remove hover state for dropdown button on menulists in Vista chrome (Bug 430434)
add new artwork for the icons of loading-images and broken-images (Bug 240463)
make Type 1 fonts print correctly (Bug 432071)
make content drop-down menus appear with the parent menu (Bug 431606)
improve font handling and text display in OS/2 Thebes builds (Bug 381333)
make CG glyph rendering not always anti-alias when system preference is to disable for font size > x on Mac (Bug 418479)
add native fast-path for drawImage with a canvas as source (Bug 430873)
use correct logical resolution for converting font sizes in pt, etc. with GTK+ (Bug 384090)
ensure that pop-up window image zoom-out works correctly (Bug 369370)
interpret PNG height correctly (do not mix height and width) (Bug 411852)

Breakpad

make Crash reporter dialog wide enough for l10n (Bug 415428)
send proxy settings to the Breakpad reporter (Bug 385280)

Compiling

implement --disable-vista-sdk-requirements configure option and update source to use it (Bug 428970)
enable high-memory feature on OS/2 by default (Bug 369007)

Crashes

do not crash when specifying invalid filename for print settings on Linux (Bug 429707)
do not crash while setting innerHTML with SVG, onload (Bug 431703)
do not crash when freeing plugin memory (Bug 422024)

General

use platform specific 16x16 warning favicon in network error pages (Bug 429721)
remove useless binaries from the package (now also for OS/2) (Bug 356727)
time changing QuickDraw plugin visibility correctly when switching tabs on Mac (Bug 277067)
add ability to monitor plug-ins at run-time (backend for Plugin Watcher extension) (Bug 412770)
add system colors for even/odd tree rows on all platforms (Bug 429188)
update blocklist URL to include same info as update URL (Bug 430120)
setup unit/mochi/crash/reftest buildbots for SeaMonkey (Bug 416469)
make browser mochitests pass on SeaMonkey (Bug 431453)
make SeaMonkey Windows unit test machine pass all mochitests and navigator window default size dynamic (Bug 432740)
let the installer create a correct Start Mail link (Bug 428819)
use a checkbox instead of a radiobutton on installer's Licence page (Bug 429851)
do not activate links when clicking in blank space in file column of directory listing (Bug 428250)
make Cmd+T open a new window when no browser windows are open on Mac (Bug 429926)
make postMessage dispatch its event asynchronously (Bug 430251)
reactivate Autoscroll on OS/2 (Bug 410398)
adapt and integrate ipluginw for trunk and libxul (needed to make Java plugin work) (Bug 421988)
use extension if the type of an embed is not supported by a plugin (Bug 431280)
give notification bars default icons via CSS (Bug 431275)
use a solid line between results in the Error Console (Bug 431241)
use new folder icons for FTP/filesystem view on XP and Vista (Bug 431013)
make '^' and '¨' characters work in password fields (Bug 430650)
integrate AMO into SeaMonkey's Add-on Manager (Bug 414918)