MozillaZine

Independent Status Reports (January 18, 2004)

The theme of this report could be utilizing other programming languages in Mozilla. It's nice to see items here from 3 such projects. MozPHP and MozPython have the goal of embedding their respective scripting engines. The Mozilla-Delphi project has a different remit, to provides resources for working with Mozilla technologies in the Borland Delphi and Kylix programming environments. I urge support for all of these ambitious projects.

Note: If anyone has an update that they would like included in the next report, go here, or have any feedback on the structure of the reports in general, feel free to contact us.

Previous Reports

XUL Console — v1.2

(Extension to ease XUL development work)

XUL Console now supports evaluation of XUL code from files located not only in the local file system, but also in Mozilla chrome directory (for unrestricted XPCOM access) and remote server (HTTP).

Notable Highlights

  • File, chrome and HTTP protocols supported
  • Help Quickstart section extended

mozImage — v0.5

(Simple image browser)

The goal of mozImage is to create a simple image browser based on the Mozilla Framework. It has a simple and fast user interface that you can see on screen shot page.

Here are some key feature:

  • Slide show
  • Scale images to window size
  • Compatible with both Mozilla Browser and Mozilla Firebird
  • Easy navigation through file system
  • Simple menu and toolbar

Mycroft — 775 search plugins

(Search plugins for Mozilla and Firebird)

I have been quite lazy to submit status reports lately, the last one was in September. Since then a lot has happened: 300 plugins have been added, mainly due to the great work of our members (and external contributors) who went through the list of requests.

In late November, we implemented logging of our search engine, which has proven to be more than useful, since now we can monitor very closely the needs of our users. If you are curious about these, you can find the latest in our Mailing List Archives.

As a result, there is a top 10 of the most looked for search engines, a new category listing as well as an improved search algorithm.

Notable Highlights

  • Lots of new plugins
  • It's easier to find them

It's very hard to keep up with all the search plugins that get submitted by external contributors, and even harder to keep the list of requests fairly small. If you have some time and energy for Mycroft, we'd be glad to welcome you.

MozPHP — version 0.1.3

(Embeds the PHP interpreter in Mozilla)

There is no need any more to assign MIME type text/php to extension .php. This is now done internally by the cfh protocol handler.

MozPython — version 0.1.0

(Embeds the Python interpreter in Mozilla)

MozPython embeds the Python interpreter in Mozilla. With MozPython you can execute Python scripts in Mozilla. Script output to sys.stdout is displayed in the browser window.

MozPython may for example be useful for you if you have written a Web application with Python CGI scripts. You can now have your application run offline in Mozilla without the need for a local Web server.

If PyXPCOM is installed on your system then MozPython gives your scripts access to the browser window they are executing in. This might be useful if you are more interested in creating pure offline applications using Mozilla and Python.

Archangel — v0.5.0

(Browse RGTP bulletin boards with Mozilla)

Archangel is becoming useable as an RGTP client. It's still experimental, however, and there are still many bugs. Especially, initial connections are slow; the browser will appear to lock up for a while. Debugging messages are currently printed to standard error while this happens; eventually these will be replaced with a proper dialog box. Please read the installation page carefully.

Notable Highlights

Forumzilla — v0.4.5

(An extension to Mozilla and Thunderbird for reading RSS feeds)

I've released a new pre-alpha version of Forumzilla with the following changes:

  • added a "quick load" option (thanks Brian Kennelly!) that generates messages based on information in the feed file instead of downloading the story content; a link to the full story is provided; to use quick load for a feed, prepend a dollar sign ($) to its URL in subscriptions.txt;
  • added a startup delay preference forumzilla.startup.delay so you can specify the number of seconds after starting the application before Forumzilla starts downloading feeds and stories; Forumzilla runs in the UI thread, making the UI unresponsive while feeds are being parsed and stories downloaded; with this option, you can delay that period of unresponsiveness until after you've entered your mail account passwords, started reading your first new message, etc.; the default is two seconds;
  • fixed a number of bugs that prevented certain feeds from working.

Next on the agenda, a way to deal with items that appear with many other items on a single page (as opposed to each item having its own page), and a subscriptions dialog for managing subscriptions so you don't have to hack subscriptions.txt.

MozManual — Final 1.0

(Introduction to Mozilla — A Manual for First Time Users; a brief overview and feature guide)

The final version 1.0 is now available. Translations into Dutch, French, German, and Spanish are in progress, and there is interest in an Italian version. The project web pages are being modified to better support the translation efforts. See the project Notes page for details, and requests for translation help.

Mozilla-Delphi Project

(Resources for working with Mozilla in Borland Delphi and Kylix)

The Mozilla-Delphi project provides resources for working with Mozilla technologies in the Borland Delphi and Kylix programming environments.

I have just taken over this project, which was abandoned before it produced any code, and I'm looking for volunteers.

A basic tutorial on using the Mozilla ActiveX Control is online and bridge classes for Mozilla's JavaScript engine will follow soon.

ConQuery — v0.8a

(Context sensitive web query interface extention for Mz/Fb/Nc)

What's new:

  • + plugin parser performance is significantly improved;
  • + plugin processing algorythm is completely restructured: no "install/uninstall plugin" from now! ConQuery works directly with configurable plugins directory. Use "block/unblock" to ignore unwanted plugins;
  • + HotMenu implemented. Thanks to Henrik Gulbrandsen! Shift+RClick opens ConQuery context popup menu only;
  • + New variable [:linkurl]. Thanks to Biju G C for suggestion and piece of code. This variable holds the target of rightclicked link;
  • + CQR plugins pack is removed from XPI: get plugins from Plugins Repository.
  • + Minor changes

Xprint

(An advanced printing system which enables X11 applications — such as Mozilla/Firebird/Thunderbird/Eclipse etc. — to use devices like printers, FAX or create documents in formats like PostScript, PDF, PCL, etc.)

The 009 gamma builds of Xprint are now available (Debian's "xprt-xprintorg" package was updated, too), including various fixes since the last trunk builds and TrueType/OpenType font support has now been enabled by default for Solaris and AIX

Notable Highlights

  • The Solaris GISWxprintglue package size was reduced to less than 10% (now ~168KB, incl. FAQ, manual pages and extra tools) of the package size in the 008 release, so the package can be included with the normal Mozilla release builds
  • an all-new font download engine for the PostScript DDX which can download TrueType/OpenType/PS Type42/PS Type 1 fonts to any PostScript Level 2/3 printer as smoothed+optimised outline data
  • Better performance
  • Better stability
  • support for the XTT font API extensions
  • better support for CUPS
  • PDF output

TipBar — v0.8.0

(Tip of the Day Extension)

It has been updated to version 0.8.0. It has been completely rewritten.

Some new features are

  • Support for Mozilla Suite, Firebird, and Thunderbird
  • Access to the tipbar has been moved to the help menu
  • Both local and remote databases for failover
  • Offline support

Enigmail — v0.83.0

(OpenPGP messages for Mozilla)

The latest release has got a new user interface for message composing. In addition, the new version contains several improvements and fixes:

  • Ability to display PGP photo IDs
  • Correct verification of PGP/MIME signed messages sent through mailman
  • Downloads from PGP keyservers rewritten
  • Several improvements for better convenience

Previous Reports

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