One of the questions that I receive quite frequently is what new features are expected to be in Firefox 3. Well, I have never seen a set-in-stone list but one thing that I certainly expect to see is the Places that was removed from Firefox 2. That will replace the current bookmark system with one that is more powerful and customizable.
I did, however, go searching around the wiki with the intent of pulling up some meeting notes here and there that listed expectations for Firefox 3. I didn’t exactly find that but I came across the Product Requirements Document that appears to have been carried over from Firefox 2. In there it lists some of the features that they are hoping to implement in Firefox 3 but I’m not sure on the accuracy since some of the features still say Firefox 2 as the target release.
One thing that is listed there that really caught my attention was the “Floating icons/toolbars.” I currently find it to be quite troublesome to move icons around to condense my toolbars and I hope that “floating” also means you can put multiple toolbars together on the same row. Typically when I hear of a floating toolbar that would mean something that I could actually “pull out” of the browser window and have it move independently from the browser itself. I’m not sure if that is what they are really referring to but any tweaking to the movement of toolbars would be nice.
That’s all I could really find that refers to future features of Firefox (whew, what a tongue twister). I think a lot of the work in the new version will be under-the-hood optimization, unlike the recent Firefox 2 release where there was a noticeable difference after upgrading from Firefox 1.x.
i recall reading about that floating feature, and they did mean it won’t be docked all the time. same thing u can find in office 2003 i think.
this could be great, placing a vertical toolbar on the side, and doubling the Links toolbars.
hopefully on the road to beta, there will be a few more things added.
btw, is ur portable version is upgraded automatically using nightly?
I would very much like to see Places have features for direct synchronisation with services such as Google Bookmarks. Anyone who points out the Google Browser Sync extension in response to this want is missing my point entirely.
I’d also like to see some better Feed features – the preview and ‘Live Bookmarks’ are good, but IE7 has topped Firefox by being able to subscribe to feeds within it, rather than just adding the bookmark menus. If you want to be able to view the full feed in Firefox you have to manually bookmark the actual feed URL along with your standard bookmarks, which is no way near as user friendly.
All that along with passing the [webstandards.org] test and having some easier to use UserCSS functions of course.
Since the portable version is a milestone release it will only upgrade when a milestone (alpha 2, alpha 3, beta 1, etc…) is released. You can change that by going to about:config and finding the option “app.update.channel” and change the value to “nightly” without the quotes.
I definitely want this as well, and they should work with the guy that develops the GMarks extension because he already has a toolbar, sidebar, and menu depending on what you want. Not only that but it integrates with Google Reader and given their partnership with Google I’m sure Mozilla would find that beneficial.
I actually don’t use the Google Browser Sync anymore because it is just too obvious that it is an external tool and doesn’t feel like it integrates well into Firefox. They definitely need to figure out a good solution to synchronizing things for people while making the information accessible via a webpage on other browsers.
Ahh, the feeds. This is where Flock really shows up the Mozilla team. There are quite a few features in Flock that I would never use but the feed reader is not comparable to what any other browser has built-in. RSS is the wave of the future and hopefully Mozilla decides to fully jump on the bandwagon.
I can’t wait to see a milestone release of Firefox 3 that actually passes the Acid 2 test. The day that I see that smiley face put together all nicely is the day that I’ll have my own great big smile.
Besides the stuff they have already been working on (mainly Cairo, Reflow, and Places, along with more Javascript 2 and more SVG support), a lot of the features are still in the planning stages. Because of this, nothing is set in stone, and Mozilla has asked the community to give their ideas.
[wiki.mozilla.org]
3.0 Features
The final version of Firefox 3.0 is expected to be released by the end of 2007. Developers hope that it will be a major step toward making Web applications indistinguishable from programs that are installed on the desktop, Schroepfer said.
Gran Paradiso features better support for a number of graphics standards, such as the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) language and the Canvas specification, Schroepfer said. “These are fairly major architectural changes to enable us to improve performance.”
Firefox 3.0 also supports the Cairo graphics library, which aims to make Web pages look the same whether they are being printed or viewed on a Windows PC, a Macintosh, or a small-screen device.
The Firefox 3.0 plan calls for browsing, bookmarking, and privacy enhancements to be built into the browser, but Schroepfer said there is still a lot of time to work out new features. “It’s a bit early to be talking about the user-facing features,” he said.
[pcworld.com]
Lets take a moment to think about hte poor Internet Explorer developers. These guys work there arses off creating IE7 and do a fairly good job at making a browser. But then Fx2 launches and steals the game. Then, before the IE lads have had chance to check there paychecks, the Mozilla team drop another bomb on them with Firefox 3.0!
Sucks to be on the IE team atm!!
As for the floating toolbars, imagine if you could have them runngin on the desktop all the time, like google desktop search or something? Integrating it as tightly as Explorer. But better, obviously.
Nogg3r5, I think it is an exciting time to be an IE developer. Right now it is a great challenge because Firefox is doing so well. Maybe you do not like challenges, but I certainly do. That is why I am interning with the IE team this summer to work on version 8.
Just a note about floating tool bars, that is referring to the browser chrome being able to draw itself over the content area (currently not possible). It is not referring to tool bars that you can accidentally rip out of the browser chrome, like in IE4.
Expect some unofficial announcements about potential Firefox 3 user facing features starting on Monday.
Ryan, anyone,
I’ve tried to force firefox 3a to update nightly, just like i was told ““app.update.channel†and change the value to “nightly†without the quotes.”
but ever since then, i hasn’t be updated even once. didn’t they release any new nightlies, or did i do something wrong?
thanks.
If you are using “Gran Paradiso Alpha 1″, then it will NOT update until Alpha 2 is released.
But you can get the NEWER version, which is called “Minefield 3.0 Alpha 1″.
You always can get the latest nightly here:
[ftp.mozilla.org]
Just uninstall “Gran Paradiso”, and install
firefox-3.0a2pre.en-US.win32.installer.exe
from the given URL. “Minefield” will autoupdate once per every day.
Yeah, SLA is right. It is looking for a nightly version of Gran Paradiso but they are still called Minefield, so it won’t find anything. Sorry about that.
thanks guys.
is there an option to convert the minefield version to be portable? i am afraid i am not that adventurer with my browser. unless its portable.
Yes, you can make almost any Firefox version to be “portable”:
1.
Get this file (it is very rare, I can’t find it anymore in the whole Internet):
[fileho.com]
2.
Get any Firefox ZIPped distribution (NOT installer). You can grab firefox-3.0a2pre.en-US.win32.zip from the link, which I posted in my previous post above.
3.
Extract FirefoxPortableBlank.zip, for example, to C:\Program Files.
4.
Extract Firefox distribution to
PortableFirefox\App
directory, so in the “App” directory there should be two directories: “AppInfo” and “firefox”.
That’s all. Now run PortableFirefox\PortableFirefox.exe
P.S. But this Portable Firefox fails to autoupdate, so you will have to manually download newer Firefox distributions periodically, replacing the whole “firefox” directory every time.
I could always make a portable version real quick if you want one. It’s pretty easy as SLA explained.
I thinking I have written instructions on doing this before and I think that is actually the blank portable version of the files that I made. You actually don’t have to download the blank version because you can just download the complete Firefox Portable file and then overwrite the “firefox” folder with the new one. That’s all I really do. Maybe I should make a screencast so that everyone sees how easy it really is.
If you do it this way, then you can’t run both “normal” Firefox and “portable” Firefox at the same time simultaneously. But if you use my PortableFirefoxBlank.zip, then you CAN!
That’s why this PortableFirefoxBlank.zip is special.
Actually, that is because there is a FirefoxPortable.ini (or PortableFirefox.ini) file located in the same directory as the FirefoxPortable.exe (or PortableFirefox.exe). That file is typically located in the source code folder and if you copy it to the same directory as the FirefoxPortable.exe and change the option “AllowMultipleInstances” to true inside of the file it will do the same thing.
Thank you, I just hadn’t any free time to take a look what is inside “Portable Firefox”.
Is there any “Portable Firefox” distribution, which doesn’t fail to AutoUpdate?
thanks SLA for that detailed explanation, and Ryan, i do believe you wrote something like this in one of your comments, so i think it is a keeper.
as for the update problem, b4 i got a chance to test it out, i stumble upon Firefox Extension Guru’s post about this problem, and about [ffextensionguru.wordpress.com]