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Before Anything Else:

STOP:

• First, this page is a mess, please can a Wiki expert port all this to seperate organised pages
• A lead Designer and team must be chosen to deal with naming and the thesis behind it. Designers know that you should never ever let a programmer make all the decisions about an interface - that's why we get things like NS8. If the product name ends up being decided by a vote based on a short list of suggested ideas from users, I shall shoot myself. All products should have a name chosen from a thesis thought out by a project designer, based on suggestions from the community.
• A Wiki Manager should be assigned to control this mess.

Kroc Camen

Difference between this effort and Mozilla2

- Could someone tell me the difference between this effort and Mozilla2?

From Jean-Marc Desperrier:

Well, there no relation :-) Mozilla2 is about making major change in the Core (the low level part shared between all mozilla.org applications) to support new advanced functions. Between two release of an application, it's difficult to make such change, that involve a significant risk of unstability. OTOH not doing that means the evolution of the soft is impaired, and it will keep forever some code whose shortcomings are well known, and that at the end more time has been spent correcting that would have been needed to write again better.

The Seamonkey effort is about continuing to release new versions of the mozilla suite application, the original mozilla, that is in danger of dying in favor of Firefox and Thunderbird. Initially FF/TB were just separating the navigation/mail code from the whole of the suite, but they have now evolved in their own direction that not every user of the suite likes.

---

From Kroc Camen:

Mozilla2

The software that lays out the pages you see in Firefox and SeaMonkey is known as Gecko. Both Firefox and Seamonkey are User Interfaces that use Gecko to display web pages. Gecko was originally called "Mozilla" when it was developed by Netscape. The Mozilla Foundation was spun off of Netscape to maintain the Mozilla engine (Gecko). This engine has been progressing constantly and is almost at version 1.8. Therefore "Mozilla2" refers to plans for what to include when Gecko reaches the big 2.0 version number. Remember that Gecko is not an Internet browser like Firefox, it is the technology that displays web pages which other programs use.

"Mozilla Suite" / "Seamonkey"

Seamonkey is the code name for the web browser known as "Mozilla Suite", it uses the Gecko engine to display webpages and has, since it's inception followed the progress of Gecko very closely meaning that SeaMonkey version numbers are identical to Gecko version numbers, e.g. SeaMonkey1.7 uses Gecko1.7 to display web pages.

Even though SeaMonkey will not have an official 1.8 Release, the gecko engine will continue towards version 2 and this does not affect the SeaMonkey web browser.

---

From Mark Dowling:

Mozilla2/Gecko 2.0

If Moz2 is about Gecko shouldn't this process be named Gecko2? Or by retaining this designation is MoFo deliberately causing confusion, forcing the suite to use another name?

--Jmdesp 03:54, 6 Apr 2005 (PDT) the comment by Kroc Camen nicely complements what I said, but it has a an error. Moz2 is not Gecko2. Gecko is only the rendering engine, and the subject covered in Moz2 include many things that have nothing to do with rendering. In the current list of topic in the wiki entry about Moz2, only ImageLib+GFXResearch+Web Forms 2 are related to Gecko, the other are core elements completely outside of it.

Idea about the best way to do new Seamonkey releases

I have some idea about the best way to do new Seamonkey releases. See my user page for that jmdesp

If would like to know if other people share my view, and if they approve including this plan on the Seamonkey effort pages.

It makes sense to me to build off the same branch that FF and TB use. I would also suggest that a release candidate 1 build be built from the branch as soon as possible after the branch. Further release candidates would be created off the branch until one of the candidates is deemed the final release. These release candidates would help get testing from the widest base of users possible. Schapel 09:20, 11 Mar 2005 (PST)

I can't remember how this works. I recall back when Fx was called Phoenix, it was cut from a Seamonkey branch, and picked up changes from there. Now it seems to use the Aviary branch only.

Probably the best thing to do from the standpoint of MoFo would be to strictly divide things -- for example, the core rendering/netlib/security be developed as a core, Fx and Tb as user interfaces, and Seamonkey as another UI.

Barring that, beg borrow and steal. Of course, I really don't know much about how things are made, honestly. --irixman

Question - FF & TB under SM?

If the seperated Thunderbird and Firefox are going to be the focus from Mozilla now, and (IMHO) most Seamonkey (Browser Suite) users use the brower/mail over other Suite features in general, than why can't an "official" bridge be made for a unified interface to the 2 seperate apps? This would allow a seamless transisition between mail and browser, a standardized install routine, and insure no overlap of features for expediant processing and coding. Maybe call it the "ThunderFox Shell"? Justa' wonderin'...

MRK

This is not the goal of this project. The goal is not only to have a single application for mail and browser. The goal is to have the whole look and feel including all the advantages of the (in my opinion more advanced) GUI in the suite and "backport" the few advantages that Firefox and Thunderbird have to the "new suite", but don't add the disadvantages of the two single applications. -- Mreimer 00:33, 10 Mar 2005 (PST)

Mreimer, what are these disadvantages of the stand alone FF/TB apps? Just curious. -DrSeuss

To name only a few of them: - I don't like to install several apps (I don't like the concept of creating several applications out of something that fits great in a suite at all) - I don't like the "simplified" interface of Firefox and Thunderbird - Firefox and Thunderbird don't work together as good as mozilla mail and mozilla navigator in the suite (firefox deals with tb as good as with every "foreign" mailer) - I don't have Composer and Chat if I use just the single applications -- Mreimer 09:13, 10 Mar 2005 (PST)

FF&TB also missing some features that are used in companies. Also, the PasswordManager, DownloadManager aren't like some peoples it want ... only to add some points to the list. -- Opi 09:39, 10 Mar 2005 (PST)

Advantages of SM to FF/TB IMHO is that you have one application (SM) for differend needs (Mail, Browser, Chat, (maybe Calender if you want). Than you have one Perference Menu for all Parts of the Programm. An about:config for both Mail/Browser in one Programm. Only one installation of Extensions that will fit Browser/Mail. And (important for multiple installations) one patch fit Browser/Mail instead of 2 independent Patch-Installations for 2 Programms (like TB/FF). -- Tomcat 13:40, 10 Mar 2005 (PST)

One I just learned about, something I use all the time: right click on a link in mail, select "open in new tab." Apparently you can't do that with FF&TB L2

This is completely possible within the Firefox/Thunderbird framework. Open the Options window, move to the Advanced panel, and look at the tabbed browsing options. Change the 'Open links from other applications in' setting to 'A new tab in the most recent window'. Sure, you can't make this Thunderbird-specific, but I'd have to question why in the world you'd want to make it application-specific. --Waldo 21:15, 12 Mar 2005 (PST)

But if the next time I want to open it in a new window? It's not as freindly or flexible. --L2 08:06, 19 Mar 2005 (PST)

Idea: Mozilla users base contributions on offical 1.8 release?

Consider this a product of brainstorming - it may be worth something or just junk. You can decide if it's worth keeping or if it's just nothing.

I noticed that there is a donation page at mozilla.org ([1]). What if users offered to contribute to mozilla.org only if their contribution went towards further develpment on mozilla seamonkey (or at least an official mozilla release of 1.8)? That might persuade mozilla.org to at least release a 1.8 version.

You've probably seen this already: [2]

"# The Mozilla Foundation will provide infrastructure for those interested in working on the 1.7.x releases, which we expect will include a number of vendors who provide these products to their customers. We've committed to support the 1.7 branch some time ago. If we ship 1.8 we'll need to support that as well, and we just can't manage supporting that many versions as well as Firefox and Thunderbird releases."

Where? What sites are going to offer The Seamonkey for downloads?

Ray Alex

What I don't understand is why don't they just finish 1.8, and support THAT version (and stop support on 1.7x). They wouldn't be supporting two versions of seamonkey, and vendors would be getting support for an updated improved version.

Dean

From my glance at the FTP site, we are on 1.7rc3. 1.8 just went into beta1. If MoFo wants to release 1.8, it would mean having a full beta process with feature freezes, release candidates, and a generally long process. It would also mean throwing away all the work done to make 1.7 a stable product, and starting it over on 1.8. MoFo probably wants to get seamonkey out the door and stop any new development. -- Owen

Mozilla is on 1.7.5 and 1.7.6 will released in the next weeks. For 1.8 there exists a 1.8b1 and a 1.8b2 will also released in the end of the month. -- Opi 09:00, 11 Mar 2005 (PST)

I manage the donations@mozilla.org address. It has been suggested many times that donations could be earmarked for a specific project (including by me) but MoFo has always rejected the idea. They are concerned that high profile projects (e.g. Firefox) may get all the funding to the detriment of equally important projects (e.g. Bugzilla). At the end of the day we get so many donations they wouldn't notice if a (probably) small number of people insisted they wanted to donate for SeaMonkey only. -- irongut

Product Name & Version

Discussion of Product Name and Version moved to Name and Version

Idea: why not have (sticky) discussion threads or a forum over at MZ?

I would assume that this sparks a lot of discussion and there will be many who want to help or have good ideas. We need some discussion forum to avoid basic ressources get crammed with comments and to make it easy for potential contributors to find their way.

So I wonder whether somebody with good ties to the Gods of Mozillazine could motivate them to create new forums for discussing this? Another solution would be mailinglists or newsgroups (or both) but with these there seems to be an increased spam problem. -- johann_p 14:43, 12 Mar 2005 (PST)

The big problem with Mozillazine is the signal to noise ratio. L2

Pedant Warning!  :-) You want a high signal to noise ratio = S/N

This is true. We could use the npm.seamonkey group, but it seems to also have a high S/N ratio. I think it is very important that all efforts be coordinated at one easy place. Some threaded discussion would be the best. --irixman

I just would like to remark that the S/N ratio here is already falling: if there is no pointer here that we can provide for people to contribute ideas, make rants etc. I fear the Wiki will drown in noise. I'd rather have the noise somewhere else. -- johann_p 14:43, 12 Mar 2005 (PST)

Perhaps we should create more places in the Wiki to post these type things. For instance, a naming discussion page, and a page to discuss new ideas, a place to discuss the core, etc. You are right though; and I am surely contributing to it now ;-) --irixman

The problem with employing this wiki for discussion, with all its arcane formatting conventions and lack of outright, proper delineations between comments, makes for a very cluttered interface. So I don't agree with simply creating more wiki pages. I don't like useing a wiki for carrying on discussions. It isn't geared for it. In many cases, individuals will neglect to either indent their comments, apply proper headers or leave their signature, in which case, everything begins to bleed into a single, senseless, mass of text.

We already have Seamonkey Forums over on MozillaZine, why not use them? - Scarrow

Resource Needs

I would suggest that we need two more resource pages here.

One, an organization chart, with who to go to, who will be reviewing what, and I don't know what else.

Second, a chrome debugger's tutorial.

 It could include:


 1 Preparation - what you need to know, and where to get it.

 2 Bugzilla proceedures

 3 Source access and navigating (check out?)

 4 Proceedures and Tools for Editing

 5 Proceedures for Debugging

 ??? tinderbox, check-ins ??? what-ever

It seems we have a lot of volunteers like myself who are technically competent but proceedurally ignorant. If those in the know want our help, you'll need to show us how. L2

As there are no changes with the resources yet all old information also applies to the new product we will form. so all infos you need to get the source, compile, and test is found on http://www.mozilla.org/developer/ ... more will come in time. -- Opi 08:36, 12 Mar 2005 (PST)

The other thing it would be nice to have is an explanation of where to go to volunteer. I couldn't find any kind of e-mail addy on the page and I couldn't even figure out how to open a new thread in the discussion to ask.

Like the OP I'm technically competent (in some areas) but procedurally ignorant.

--RC

There's an explanation of what needs to be done in "The Plan" section. If you don't know how to use Bugzilla, hang out on one of the developer IRC channels. Maybe it would be a good idea to arrange some "bug days", a day of the week specifically set aside for helping new members get up to speed with Bugzilla work. -- Schapel 05:39, 14 Mar 2005 (PST)

Well, I went over to the mozilla.org/developer/ page, but I'm still lost. I have no probelm with Bugzilla, but finding anything in the source is still a mystery to me. It seems that you need to understand the whole app to navigate the source. For instance, I thought I'd use bug 135092 as a test bed for understanding the process. After 30 minutes of digging, I still have no idea where the code is. I thought, well maybe the coding is beyond me, so I'll just look at the help structure, maybe I can do something there. Ha, Ha. I think I (we) need a better road map or a safari guide. L2

There are no more docs as on the developers pages. Maybe some special hints are inside this wiki. And this isn't a bug for beginners. The UI thing may be in http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/mailnews/base/resources/content/ but it may, that something else needs changes for this (I'm no mailnews person). And the discussion should be done in MozillaZine forum. -- Opi 06:18, 15 Mar 2005 (PST)

I'd appreciate that. I've tried to grab the Win32 source from SVC, but it fails rather quickly... I do know how to use Bugzilla at a certain level (probably the only level I need since I have no special privileges). I could definitely do with understanding the Mozilla architecture more though... I'm not sure if anywhere lays that out clearly. -- Mithent

For problems, please use the MozillaZine forum, there are users that build SeaMonkey&co self. I think they can help you if you write your problem (with the error messages). Else the cvs checkout howto for SeaMonkey ist on http://www.mozilla.org/cvs.html and normaly it explains enough. -- Opi 06:18, 15 Mar 2005 (PST)

Where on Mozillazine would you suggest raising these questions? We've got General, Builds, Features and Bugs. Nothing for newbie-developers. I feel like I'm being told to go get lost in the forest. If this project wants to involve new blood, the "if you can't figure it out yourself, don't bother us" attitude has got to change. L2]

Agree that the figure it out yourself part must stop, and I personally think it is very ff/tb oriented. I remember when I posted my "Why am I not contributing code (yet)" blog, I got a quick and friendly response from a gecko developer with some easy starters and a bit of hand helding when I had questions.For a newbie developer I think 2 things are very importent when trying to get startet:

1. Try and find a area you want to help out in e.g. "backend", browser, mail, adressbook or whatever. That will make it easier for people to point you in the right direction. It is more tricky if you just say "I wanna fix bugs" :-)
2. be upfront with what you know beforehand, so that they don't point you to c++ bugs if you only know XUL and stuff like that.

Basicly the important part is to minimize the time wasted, because that leaves more time for helping. --Lynggaard 14:44, 16 Mar 2005 (PST)

L2 Hey, Do you want that I make all for you or do you want learn to help? You hada question above and I answered, now you have a new question and tells that we have a "if you can't figure it out yourself, don't bother us" attitude? It's how it was in the school time, the teacher can't tell you all. A Lexicon have only one place to read and not one for beginners and one for the others. And there were many people before you in the same possition. And they learned. First point you should learn, how to arrange in wiki all your answers to komments above in a correct order and don't put all on last position. How to let them go a bit to left, so all will be more readable. Use -- ~~~~ on the end of your comment, so your username and Time will be added. To your problem, I think best place is the general forum, cause it's about a feature, but you won't speak about the feature, you will ask about learning. But before starting to dig into the code. Did you get the source of SeaMonkey from cvs? Did you get it compiled? Does it run and looked like a build from mozilla.org? This are points to start before. -- Opi 05:18, 17 Mar 2005 (PST)

<IRMC> L2 13:43, 17 Mar 2005 (PST)