Airencracken

Talking About Firefox 1.1 Previews
Posted by asa on Sat, 04/09/2005 - 21:46 :: Spreading Firefox

SFX TeamAs many of you know, we're coming into the final stages of the Firefox 1.1 development cycle. I've posted some specific developer-oriented planning over at my primary weblog. I'm posting here because, in addition to getting the developer and testing communities organized around the important issues for Firefox 1.1, we also need to start talking about our messaging around the upcoming releases and how that can work to support the releases.

As you can see from the map, before we ship Firefox 1.1, we've got several previews and testing candidates scheduled. These releases provide a lot of value in terms of our development effort, but also create potential pitfalls in terms of media exposure.

The first of these is due up in the next week to ten days. This release, which will most likely be branded as the "Deer Park Developer Preview" (Deer Park is the project codename for Firefox 1.1) or simply "Developer Preview" is intended as a testbed for website developers, web application developers, and extension or theme developers. While it's only been five months since we shipped Firefox 1.0, the underlying technologies that impact these sorts of developers have seen nearly a year's worth of changes so it's critical that we get those in the hands of developers so they can test and update their work so it functions properly when Firefox 1.1 is released. This release is not "feature complete" and is likely to still have major issues that end users would not be tolerant of.

For the second of these releases, due about 5 or 6 weeks after the first and probably branded as a "General Preview" (or similar) we'd like to achieve widespread testing. This release should be feature complete for Firefox 1.1. We will certainly still have bugs to fix, but for most testers and reviewers, the feature set will finished enough that they can have a good idea of what's new for Firefox 1.1. It's important that we get this out so that we can get more widespread testing on the new features before they're released in Firefox 1.1. This release will certainly still contain some serious bugs and may have features which aren't functioning quite as intended and it won't have the fit and finish, spit and polish of a final release.

After the second candidate, we'll be working on fixing bugs and polishing up for a final release. To make sure our "nearly final" code is really ready for the masses, we'll be shipping at least a couple of "Release Candidate" builds. We expect the first of these when we feel like we're "done" but if we find any last-minute issues when the community is testing these, we can still fix those and offer up another candidate. When we ship a candidate and there are no new problems surfaced, that candidate will become the final Firefox 1.1. These builds should be quite good and we don't expect most people to be able to distinguish them from final releases.

OK, I realize that was a bit of a lengthy explanation of our release process but there's good reason for that. The world will be turning to us (the Mozilla community, including SFX, personal weblogs, the mozilla.org website, Mozillazine, etc.) for their stories around each of those pre-releases. It's very important that we help them set the correct expectations for each one of these -- to avoid the bad assumptions and negative press that could result if they gave these pre-releases the same treatment they would a final release.

I'm turning to you all for help in generating the "talking points" for each of these releases. I've described what the releases are here for and why we're doing them and I hope you all can help us generate good "quotable" one or two sentence explanations that will help set the right expectations and tone for each of these releases.

The first release is probably the biggest concern because it's neither feature complete nor highly stable. Let's start there and see if we can come up with short, clear, and positive sounding talking points that we can all use in our public communications (blog and forum postings, etc.) to convey what this release is and also what it isn't.
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Awesome. I hope it comes out soon. Man, how did I ever use IE? Or even opera for that matter. On a side note FF 1.0.3. is out, just dled it.

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Jenny

You aren't kidding! I tried FF a year or so ago and didn't like it, but a few months ago, I decided to try it again and now, I can't believe I ever used anything else. I love it. And yup, I dl'd 1.0.3 last night.

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brainsmile

can you elaborate on why it's better? FF different from Modzilla?

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Airencracken

Tabbed browsing, intuitive interface, better security and customization. Looks better, smaller process, takes up less resources. Better better better. FF is part of Mozilla.

gear02

I'm kinda out of it so I may have seen it but it didn't register in m brain, but what's new in 1.1?

Jenny

I couldn't live without the tabbed browsing now. and I love the customization! It's easy to use, I don't have problems with it like I used to have with IE, etc.

mcs328

For me FF takes 15 seconds to 60 seconds to load up versus IE which loads up less than 15 seconds. Other than that I like FF much better so it's worth the wait.

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bachviet

I've been using FF for the last 1-1/2 years and I won't go back to IE anytime soon. I still use IE for DLing updates though. Right now I'm using FF 1.0.2/1.0.3.

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doolittle

firefox has some nice features and i like using it, however i have had a few issues with it and i have to go back to IE. i usually have both running.
its alot better than that pos netscape. i dont think that an alternitive browser will ever be more popular than IE. they do keep microsoft honest and force them to update IE.

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Airencracken

Yeah. I wonder why that is. I have the same issue with it taking more time to come up.

attgig

yup. slow loadup times pisses me off with firefox. yeah, the hack definitely helps with firefox loading up pages...but it's still slower than IE. the whole rendering process is just retarded for some reason.

And I hate how some pages just don't show up correctly in firefox vs IE.
ie. (pun intended), expedia's calendar control does not work in firefox.

Finally, i wish I could have a google toolbar for firefox. I love being able to autofil info using the google toolbar in IE. no such thing in firefox (though i like how it remembers the login/password automatically for a site, where ie, you have to give it the username and it'll fill out the password).

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Airencracken

The bugmenot extenstion is pretty badass as well.

kimchicowboy

what part about the taskbar? being able to google a request right away? i have that in my firefox (OS X version)

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hapoo

i use ff, but it uses way too much ram.

DankNstickY

wait so why is FF better than Opera? i've tried FF and can't stand it. Opera runs much better on my system and i feel that its features are better than FF. i havent seen something on FF that i wanted that Opera didnt have.

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BigJon

Just updated last night...so I shouldn't have this problem. I think that's why they did an update all of a sudden.

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AmRivlin

I agree, my ibook was hammered till i upped it to 768
FF on XP sucks the memory down too.

Good to see ya hapoo, we miss you in the OT

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guiseppewv

My firefox autofills. I am not talking about passwords either b/c I have that feature shut off. My usernames and other fields autofill. Am I the only one who has this "feature"? I am going to have to check when I get home just to make sure.

Markel

Tools / Options / Privacy / Saved Form Information - check the box to enable.

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guiseppewv

I thought you could do that!!!! Thanks!!!

Hey, att, here is how you get autofill to work!!!!

attgig

yeah, it autofills username/passwords.

but, with IE's google toolbar, I can autofill my address/e-mail address, credit card. do you realize how much online shopping I do?!?!? that's so essential

wait...does your firefox do that too?




the autofill part on the taskbar.