R.I.P. MozAppSuite
By glazou on Wednesday 9 March 2005, 21:15 - Mozilla - Permalink
This is from my own perspective only, I don't/can't speak/write for others : I almost don't launch MozAppSuite any more. Only from time to time, to compare Nvu and Composer. I am working on Nvu, and I have no time to spend on Composer's obsolete front-end. I have switched from the Moz App Suite to Firefox+Thunderbird+Nvu. I never used Chatzilla because it can't display multiple channels at the same time.
So goodbye dear Moz App Suite. You were my first love in the World of Mozilla and a first love's never forgotten. You gave me very happy moments, good friends, and my best job since 1994 (at Grif SA). Thanks for the fish, and rest in peace.
Comments
I can't believe that they want to kill seamonkey. It's still the best all-in-one and it's the link from old netscape to firefox thunderbird.
It's too early to tear down this bridge. The firefox hype sometimes lead to irrational decisions.
Btw: I totally agreee to this: www.steelgryphon.com/blog...
Daniel, do you have an idea whether Linspire has any plans for Seamonkey? Perhaps they would be interested in hiring staff as project management, or anything like that - given that they use Seamonkey as the base for their "Linspire Internet Suite"...
I understand where Pete is coming from, but it's not that they *want* to kill it, it's just that it makes sense on numerous levels (resources, public interest, etc.).
It's sad to see it go, but life goes on, and improvments are to be made. Now if individuals can take it and tame it, more power to them, but I think it's time the foundation puts it sight on the future.
I'm in exactly the same boat. I used to use Mozilla Suite religiously, now I don't even have it installed. The individual products are much easier to use and have a nicer feel to them.
ChatZilla is now available as an extension to Firefox, so every part of the Suite is available to the users of the mozilla/toolkit apps.
I still use it when I need Venkman, but that is the only reason.
The only thing I am missing in Firefox ist CTRL+E, which should open a web page in N|Vu, This is one reason, why I still like composer and the suite - test your web project in the browser, find a mistake, just press CTRL+E and fix it with composer, then save it. It's so fantastic easy doing that with the suite,
Henri,
Venkman is available as an extension to Firefox. See www.hacksrus.com/~ginda/v...
I agree with the poster who said Seamonkey is the migrator from NS-Comm 4.79 - after all, it was for us! If only opengroupware and the "outlook killer" were nearer fruition, but alas from Mozilla 1.2 - 1.7.3 it is now off to Notes/Domino/Blackberry Enterprise Server we go! Mozilla is, in my opinion, more corporate friendly because of consistency of look across Suite apps, but lacked MSIs and good documentation of default settings or a default profile generator. FF/TB/Nvu means three sets of prefs to negotiate, and now FF/TB are reworking the prefs... I use FF 1.0.x, TB 1.0.x and Mozilla 1.8b1 but for line users I think Mozilla is still preferable.
If Nvu has surpassed composer, it is only because nvu improvements have not reverted into Composer. Perhaps that is a job for the Seamonkey Volunteers!
wiki.mozilla.org/wiki/Sea... - Neil Deakin's link to the above page has added many more Mozilla folks!
Well, I have been using SeaMonkey everyday and I don't use firefox as much. I only use the browser part and nothing else. The reason?? Firefox doesn't have some features that SeaMonkey have as a browser and some had been removed. I got tired of doing some extension over and over, find that some extensions don't work and having lack of extension for some features. So, I find it easier to just download the SeaMonkey for updating over and over with most of the features intacts. After all, I'm the webmaster...
If anything, I really think Mozilla should rebrand their 1.8 browser. You say MozAppSuite, I say Mozilla-the-Suite, others say Seamonkey, yet others call it Communicator and who knows what else... It doesn't make things much clearer.
Detaching the project from the Mozilla Foundation into a volunteer project (just like Camino) sounds like a very good idea to me, and also as a nice opportunity to fix the naming issue :).
~Grauw
The suite is still my main workhorse. I have Firefox installed on machines where I only do browsing (I manage several boxes). The suite is just really convenient, and I also hate it when I can't find the prefs in FF/TB streamlined pref manager UI. And I often use Ctrl+E in the browser as well...
Just today I installed TB to play with the RSS reader, and clicking on a link launched IE even though the suite is my default browser. What a drag!
I guess this will be a good time to go looking for an alternative mail client since TB does not have anything revolutionary in it IMO, and it does not even integrate seamlessly with other Mozilla products.
I used to use the suite, even as "recently" as last fall. Then I switched to Firefox, and after a small period of adjustment, I've never looked back. I held off for so long to wait for Firefox to reach near-official stability (0.9 maybe?), and it's really nice to have huge community support in terms of themes and extensions, plus the cleaner interface and real toolbar customization are really nice. Some people miss all the prefs, but there's about:config and probably some extensions for that.
At first I missed being able to open links in e-mail in tabs, but since figuring out that I can set a pref to make new pages opened from external apps in tabs, I just click away in Thunderbird (which is nice, too, and not too different).
Using the suite does bring back good, old memories, but I really think I've found something better.
I thought the original plan was for you to check your code back into the trunk at some future stage, and then the Suite would try to adopt as much code back in as it could...
What happened to that plan?
Please help to save the Mozilla Suite (aka Seamonkey)!
Look at wiki.mozilla.org/wiki/Sea... to see how you can help and what is going on.
marcoos: yes, every piece of the suite is available as standalone apps with more or less the same feature set (except Nvu), for about 5 times the footprint... And forgetting about startup time (3 apps instead of one). Oh, and I'm still using the same profile I used 5 years ago, while the latest ff update screwed my working profile in a sec...
I home they put Mozilla out of its misery.
On my sytem, it is just cruft and rarely gets used.
I tried Nvu and it's not better than Composer, it's as bad. I also tried Thunderbird and Firefox, they're good, but lack features and unfortunately they are 2 separate programs. If you discontinue Mozilla, I won't switch to Firefox, I'll switch to Opera. Opera is more similar and has an embedded e-mail client, IRC client, and much more. I think anyway that Firefox is poor compared to the Mozilla Suite, they basically took away most features and kept just the browser
Bad bad...
For me it's Thunderbird that isn't good enough yet to replace the suite. And until then it's not worth it to have double the footprint.
Issue n°1 with Thunderbird: no option to open links in a new tab.
Issue n°2: no button/link to launch TB from FFox (ctrl+2 = mail in Mozilla Suite)
Issue n°3: ctrl+m in Mozilla Suite opens a new mail message...
Issue n°4: Mozilla Suite has a quick launch bar in the down left corner, which I often use...
That's integration.
I have alos many many problems with FFox, which I just can't stand compared to the Suite navigator... not enough options, no multizilla (love that plugin cause it allows closing tabs with a single click)...
Yeah, plugins are great, installing them is easy, but sorry it's not "it" yet.
And they're giving up the Suite ? Damn...
I was a Firefox user, but I switch back to Mozilla, because Firefox is becoming too much end-user oriented, with useless features for me, and lacking others...
I still use the Mozilla Suite every day. The truth be told, if Mozilla is discontinued I will probably use Konqueror entirely instead of Firefox. I have already switched ot using Kmail on some systems (because of the larger feature set and Kopete w/ KAddressbook integration.) Firefox is nice, but I use email, messaging, html editing, and browsing all the time, at the same time. As such, integration is something I value.
There's a lot of good feedback so far! I guess I'll add my $0.02: Mozilla has better support for things like Macromedia Flash on platforms other than Windows, Mac and Linux.
-- Mon point de vue est simple, Mozilla était l'une des raisons pour lesquelles beaucoup de personnes n'utilisent pas de produits Microsoft... Il y a une certaine légacie; et ça serait dommage de voir tout ca partir...
The timing is a bit curious - now that better calendar integration is in the works. I don't feel that it's time to put the Mozilla suite to rest - I do believe, however, that it is time to give it a graphical overhaul, layout-wise. But perhaps it becomes to Opera-ish...
I think that now, as open source & free software has gained the attention of corporate life, the time is right for a beautifully-integrated suite - a sort of Outlook with the browser incorporated.
The Mozilla Suite was rather unimpressive to most (self included). It was over bloated and slow. Having the standalone apps like Firefox is just a better design in the end. That's the real reason that FF is getting huge while most people were like WhatZilla? If people still want the suite, I think they could easily add in all the features you guys miss from the Suite as extensions in FF+TB+Nvu and then just distribute them as a bundle called "the Mozilla Suite". Seamonkeys just don't live that long :/
Chatzilla can display more than one channel on a screen at the same time, try it. Also, it is available for firefox and even xulrunner with a bit of hacking.
To Herve:
"Issue n°1 with Thunderbird: no option to open links in a new tab."
False. In Preferences > Advanced > Tabbed Browsing, set "Open links from other applications:" to "in a new tab".
"Issue n°2: no button/link to launch TB from FFox (ctrl+2 = mail in Mozilla Suite)"
False. Add a mail button to your Firefox toolbar, assuming Thunderbird is your default.
"Issue n°3: ctrl+m in Mozilla Suite opens a new mail message..."
Yep. And it will do the same in Firefox.
"Issue n°4: Mozilla Suite has a quick launch bar in the down left corner, which I often use..."
That I can understand. It just takes a little adjustment to get used to. I still find myself looking down there some times.
To Robert Morris:
Issue n°1: The solution is suboptimal, I don't want EVERY link to open in a tab. In the suite I can decide when I click a link.
Issue n°2: Again the solution is suboptimal, I don't want stuff cluttering my toolbar. I guess this could be solved by yet-another-extension-that-I-need-to_find-and-install to put the launcher buttons in lower left corner.
Issue n°3: Solution does not work for me. FF does not see that I have new messages, and when I click Ctrl+M it always launches a new instance of my mail program.