Is Firefox going NUTS or what?!?
By glazou on Tuesday 24 August 2004, 15:46 - Mozilla - Permalink
I can't believe it!!! Laurent just told me about the removal of the stylesheet switcher. This is ridiculous and I have two good reasons to say that:
- the stylesheet switcher is A CONFORMANCE CRITERIUM of CSS 2. Excerpt from section 3.2 of the specification :
5. If the source document comes with alternate style sheets (such as with the "alternate" keyword in HTML 4.0), the UA must allow the user to select one from among these style sheets and apply the selected one.
And:
A user agent that renders a document with associated style sheets must respect points 1 - 5
- a lot of blogs offer alternate stylesheets to improve browsing experience and reader's pleasure
After the removal of the JS Console and the Source View, I think it's highly time for Firefox to stop doing crazy things like that. A buggy (but used w/o problem by a lot of people) feature was better than nothing at all.
Update: "Work offline" is gone too!!!
Comments
Js console / source view is still here afaik (the bug was wontfixed).
Work offline is gone though: bugzilla.mozilla.org/show...
And there I was, writing an article about alternate and user style sheets. Luckily there is already an extenion in the works: robtougher.com/servlet/we...
What's next ? Remove the browser ?
Oh dear...
The offline browsing I don't mind as I've accidently turned it on a number of times without doing anything obvious. It also had bugs with it. The stylesheet thing though, what are the bugs? It's always worked for me.
I don't know anymore. It looks like they are trying to piss off the very bloggers that put firefox buttons on they blogs. First they wanted to remove view source and now the style switcher. I just don't understand. What's next?
I'm wondering what other fancy changes were "decided on last aviary meeting"... What is happening between 0.9 and 1.0 is really scary.
I am happy that there are still some good browsers that keep being improved instead of getting dumbed down, like Mozilla (also known as: Mozilla, the suite, or Seamonkey).
(I use Mozilla for browsing and would prefer Opera rather than Fire*, but i do use Thunder* for e-mail.)
Well, the "Work offline" removal, I agree with. I think it is too buggy to be useful (especially compared to IE).
But I don't think it is a good idea to remove the stylesheet switcher. Ok, there are bugs in it, but it works good enough and it certainly isn't 'confusing' n00b's there in the left corner. But I don't have strong feelings about it. If they want to remove semi-useful things, fine by me, but I felt trying to remove the "view source" option was a grave blunder.
Why is the alternative stylesheet option a conformance criterium of css 2? I find that a bit strange.
Early Phoenix builds didn't have the stylesheet switcher, it got added sometime around the in the Phoenix/Firebird name switch.
Well I believe if RSS feeds are part of the UI alternative stylesheets should be too, even if they get a less visible place like the view menu.
I've got nothing in principle against removing features (even view source) as they're trivially easy to add back for people who are likely to use such features. However, I don't see the point of removing view source unless it offered a noticable speedup of the application. The view menu isn't that big so I don't see the need for saving space there (the Character Encoding menu would confuse the average user - but sometimes its needed so it'll stay).
At 0.9 Firefox had just the right amount of features - not too many to make the UI complicated but enough to make it attractive over IE before looking at extensions,
Work offline has saved my @$$ more than once, when I needed to clear the DNS cache without restarting the browser. I've also used work offline many times to read pages that had disappeared from some sites. It's a nice feature.
They have so many things that could be improved. E.g. cookie management is a pain. Try to remove a blocked cookie site, without using the keyboard. Yack.
I also don't want to depend too much on extensions to have a functional browser. What's in for me if I go to somebody's machine and have to download/install 10 extensions before I get my browser in an OK state? Did anybody think about that?
I have not liked the arrogant nature of the people taking decisions for mozilla in the past year. They take decisions without any warning, without any discussion. It reminds me of my country's government. If not enough people complain, it will go in. One thing I didn't like is that the support they got for mozilla in the past years was from geeks who stayed true to them even in the dark days. Now they just want to completely forget about these users. I can't wait for the "Don't get Firefox initiative". It will only take one or two more stupid similar moves for some people to start it.
In fact what should be done:
- have a clear message that the features that are currently removed are removed because they aren't suitable for 1.0 quality requirements. And provide arguments
- provide a roadmap for reinclusion of these features
I've posted before on mozillazine about lack of communication of the Mozilla team. That's another proof I think they need to address. With IE team back to work, with a really more open attitude, I really really hope that mozilla is not going to mess up their last progress.
As long as Alternate CSS can be brought back with a more reliable, less buggy, more complete implementation (the sooner, the better), then I have no major problem with the decision to **temporary** remove alternate CSS from Firefox.
An incomplete, half-buggy implementation often frustrates expectations.
In this case, alternate css is not the most important feature of the browser.
we need a firefox distribution with the top 5-10 (the extensions needed to get a great browser are sadly going up lately) extensions pre-installed (and tested if they work together etc)
Dear Asa. Firefox's rendering engine so-called Gecko is very buggy. Just check those bugs: 220542, 243338, 253979, 256311, 256450, 61363, 197015, 89738, 91933, 168960 - and i just mentioned those critical crashing bugs.
For the sake of quality of Firefox 1.0 i'm asking You to remove it until most of this bugs will get fixes.
Also after checking <a href="bugzilla.mozilla.org/bugl... list</a> i'm suggesting to remove - linux builds, ftp support, https support, livemarks, find-as-you-type, windows installer, bookmarks, plugin system, printing support, popup blocking, profile manager, import manager, form manager, help window and download manager. These features all have confirmed critical crashing bugs. Finally after reading <a href="bugzilla.mozilla.org/show... 234598</a> - meaby release package should contain only new theme and some readme's?
P.S. 0.9 was "feature complete" - remember?
Dear gandalf,
The Firefox rendering engine hasn't been "so-called Gecko" for a long time. 0.9 was originally called "feature complete", but that was dropped shortly before release. You know the Find Toolbar? It wasn't in 0.9. The new plugin manager? Not in 0.9. But even if it WAS feature complete, that doesn't mean that feature inclusion in 0.9 is sufficient for inclusion in 1.0, just that it's necessary.
That said, I use the alternate stylesheet picker on a daily basis. I don't know what they mean when it's buggy, it's always seemed great to me. I'm looking forward to the extension.
Of course I want to keep the switcher in for a 1.0 release, but if it has to be removed then at least it's still in on the trunk and future Fx releases.
dear Logan. my previous comment was that kind called 'ironic' as you might see.
But - Gecko is rendering engine in Firefox, i clearly see that term "feature complete" doesn't fit the situation, and that many, many features were added after 0.9 release. I'm very afraid about it's impact on stability of Firefox 1.0. "feature complete" gave a chance that last months will be spent on including important patches making firefox 1.0 more stable than 0.9.
I can bet that 1.0 will be buggy. Things lightly tested like livemarks, plugin system have little chance to be hell stable like those tested for years.
Of course it's not representative example but i'm using alternate switcher for long time and never found it buggy, i also checked Livemarks. twice. both time found myself with crashed firefox.
Can't understand the decision to add it now instead fixing other features
groups.google.com/groups?...
I just don't understand what they (Asa, Blake and Ben) want to do. If I was a troll I would wonder if now they are being paid by MS to bring down Mozilla. It makes no sense at all the direction (and lack of) set with regards to this once beautiful project, first they try to kill the suite and now it seems that they want to turn Firefox into MfcEmbeded plus some new untested gizmos that _they_ want.
Yet another reason for me to stick with SeaMonkey.
Glad to see people do stick with SeaMonkey. I had tested Mozilla Suite and Firefox on my machine for memory usage and speed. Initially, Firefox faired slightly better when it went to homepage than the Suite, but it started to eat more and more RAM than the Suite as I opened more tabs. Hence, I know I have something for backup if Firefox changes its color to "Blue".
Also I don't think user opinion is given much importance by the Firefox team. They and their "secret" meetings!! I'll just use Mozilla if the Fire of the Fox subsides, and if worst comes to worst I still have Konqurer,Lynx etc :). Still after that much rambling, I wish Firefox luck.
Looks like I'll be installing a new extension in the future. Here's hoping it'll have an option for remembering stylesheet changes, so I can change the stylesheet, click a link to another section of the site, and not have it revert back to the default style. I really need to get back to learning about extension-writing...
I'm happy this is happening. At first I was pissed, but after reading posts by Blake and others. Firefox WILL have a StyleSwitcher and a Work Offline. The problem here is that they are buggy and sub-quality compared to other features.
I for one was not happy with the current Style Switcher and had kept a hacked version of Clav's old style switcher around for Firefox.
The issue here is releasing a "Killer 1.0". Not something that still goeas along the lines of "yeah, it's buggy, but it's still in release stages". That won't cut it. Once these features mature (on the trunk builds) they than can be added to 1.1 to -> 1.5.
I don't see what the bug issue is here!
-Jed
La fondation Mozilla est en train de faire n'importe quoi en ce moment.
- Ils sont en train de volontairement crever la Suite (SeaMonkey) à petit feu. Ils ont décidé qu'ils n'en veulent plus (et tant pis si des gens s'en servent). Ils rajoutent des trucs à FireFox seulement au lieu de les rajouter aux deux. Ils poussent en avant la marque "FireFox" et cachent "Mozilla" (car l'image ne leur plaît plus).
- Ils lancent une vaste campagne "Get FireFox" (qui a bien marché: plein de webmasters ont ajouté un bouton sur leur site) mais totalement prématurée (puisque eux-mêmes disent que FireFox n'est pas encore assez prêt, que plein de fonctions sont enlevées tous les jours (car trop buggées), que le thème de FireFox est moche et pas fini, etc). Ils sont contents d'avoir des millions de downloads; mais combien d'utilisateurs gardent FireFox au final ? Combien sont définitivement déçus ? Combien ont essayé FireFox mais ne l'utiliseront plus jamais ?
- Ils n'écoutent plus les utilisateurs. Ils pourraient mettre en place quelque chose (un système de sondage hebdomadaire, par exemple, pour voir ce que veulent les utilisateurs et dans quelle direction aller), ils pourraient adopter ce qui sert vraiment (regarder quelles sont les extensions les plus utilisées (car vraiment essentielles) et les adopter dans le noyau définitivement), mais non. Les "grosses têtes" se réunissent ensemble, décident tous seuls, et n'écoutent même pas le feedback des utilisateurs.
- Le Bugzilla ne marche plus. Trop de bugs, pas assez de tri. Les bugs ne sont pas pris en compte (sauf s'ils sont très critiques ou touchent à la sécurité) et les demandes d'évolution ne servent à rien. Maintenant que la fondation est "professionnalisée", ça devrait pourtant tourner d'une manière "pro", avec des gars payés pour trier tout ça et réfléchir à l'ensemble ("c'est pas con ce que l'on nous propose là !").
- Etc, etc...
Je reste fidèle à ma Suite, mais pour combien de temps ? Quand la Suite sera morte et qu'il ne restera que FireFox (une vaste régression par rapport à mon navigateur actuel), je fais quoi, moi ?
I thank God for SeaMonkey Suite...
J'ai lu ici : www.mozilla.org/roadmap.h... que seamonkey serait maintenu. Rastignac, arrête de nous faire peur !
Je trouve qu'il manque à la suite un jeu d'icones du même niveau que firefox et thunderbird, et ce que j'ai vu ici website-beta.mozilla.org/... me plait bien (le m bleu).
maintenant, c'est sur que si les fonctions intéressants de Mozilla sont retirées de firefox, beaucoup vont rester sur ie.
Maintenant, il faut que mozilla.org soit clair : si la suite disparaît, je repasse tous les utilisateurs de mon entreprise à IE/outlook, et finallement ça sera plus simple.
Je n'ai toujours pas compris l'intéret d'avoir des installations séparées pour la navigation, la messagerie, l'agenda, l'éditeur. Ceux qui ont pris cette direction n'on jamais dû installer ou mettre à jour un parc. Quand je dois installer une machine, s'il faut 2 heures pour installer firefox+thunderbird+nvu+machin+thèmes+extensions+plugins+java pour retrouver ce que j'ai avec la suite, mon choix est vite fait
stupidity. i agree that firefox should aim for the mass market. but by removing "work offline" they are doing the exact opposite. just because all geeks have broadband, or at least anytime 56k, it doesn't mean most people do, especially in europe.
i do agree, however, that work offline could be massively improved. ie, if you have no network connection then it automatically switches to work offline mode.
but don't take it away.
Fantasiomagazine: tu oublies un détail: quand tu installes firefox+thunderbird+nvu+sunbird, tu as 4 fois l'équivalent de la suite, parce que tu installes 4 fois tout le moteur de mozilla... et ça pompe aussi 4 fois plus de RAM quand tu les lances tous en même temps...
La Suite Seamonkey va être maintenue, mais ce sera une conquille vide !! Étant donné que les nouveautés ne sont pas incorporées dans la Suite, la Suite va stagner. Étant donné que la fondation pousse les gens à adopter FireFox en masse, la Suite sera de plus en plus délaissée. Bref, la Suite sera toujours là, égale à elle-même, mais peu ou pas du tout mise à jour. Elle bénéficiera des améliorations du noyau (rendu, vitesse, etc) mais il n'y aura pas de nouveautés (réservées à FireFox).
Le "copy image to clipboard" ? Pour FireFox uniquement. Le "resume" dans le "download manager" ? Pour FireFox uniquement. Le Gestionnaire d'Extensions ? Pour FireFox uniquement. Etc, etc, etc. J'en passe et des meilleures.
De même, de plus en plus d'extensions sont "FireFox uniquement". OK, les extensions se programment mieux avec FireFox qu'avec la Suite, et donc c'est plus facile pour les développeurs. Pourtant, il est tout à fait possible de faire des extensions qui marchent avec les deux (on en trouve: c'est donc possible).
Bref, la Suite va stagner. Et de toutes façons, dans quelques versions, les bestiaux (Thunderbird, FireFox, etc) vont tous être fusionnés ensemble pour former la nouvelle Suite. La vieille Suite va disparaître. Ce sera une toute nouvelle Suite; en fait, ce sera juste un programme d'installation qui installe les éléments séparés d'un seul coup...
PS: et quid de l'avenir du GRE ? Et quid du XulRunner ? Et quid des autres enjeux futurs ?
C'est clair que quand je suis passé de Mozilla suite à Firefox j'ai été agacé de tant de choses laissées au bon vouloir des extensions (par exemple avoir sa page d'acceuil dans un nouvel onglet me paraissait la base, comme option, devoir utiliser l'usine à gaz TBE pour avoir un comportement décent des onglets) Et c'est saoulant qu'à chaque version on doive attendre/vérifier/réinstaller les extensions. Bref les extensions ont leur qualité et leur défauts mais trop d'extensions tue l'extension
Maintenant, quand je vois tout ce qu'ils virent pour la 1.0 je m'interroge sur leur politique : virent-ils les choses parce qu'elles sont bugués ou parce qu'elles ne doivent pas, pour eux, être dans le navigateur de base. Pour moi une 1.0 c'est la version telle qu'on la voulait au départ du projet, donc une version où on a bossé et débugué toutes les fonctionnalités, au lieu de les entrevoir hypothétiquement dans une future version.
Perso je suis resté sur 0.8 (TBE ayant l'air inexistant sur 0.9x, plus les bugs html, etc) et je n'attend pas grand chose de la 1.0 (seul les problèmes de fuite mémoires m'agacent dans 0.8)
Ce qui m'interesse plus c'est la fusion attendue des FF/TB pour donner la nouvelle suite Mozilla. Avantages pour l'installation, la mémoire partagée, l'accès plus rapide aux différents modules etc (je trouvais Mozilla suite trop peu réactifs comparés aux standalones).
Damn. For me, no style switcher, kills my need for Firefox. I'm serious too. I go to too many sites that have just enough bad coloring to where I need to either use the alternate sheet or no style at all.
And this, just a month after I switched over to using Firefox full time. Guess it's time to migrate my but back to the big fat Mozilla download. This really bums me.
I ain't recommending a browser to anyone that I can't use full time. And I ain't recommending Mozilla either, 'cause the average users I know, won't use it even after I've tried to get them to.
If you'd posted this on April 1, I'd have laughed.
Pour les distraits :
geckozone.org/forum/viewt...
French Firefox (0.9.3)
www.firefox.fr
I have had a number of complaints from visitors to my web site that the layout does not display properly in Firefox. After investigation it appears that Firefox is not obeying my style sheet and font size can be overridden by firefox. Does anyone know if there is anything special I have to do to either my site code or the style sheet or is this a known bug with firefox that is due to be fixed. My stylesheet is at www.aaa-flying-school.com...