Firefox2/Requirements
Feature Set
This document sets out the feature set, product requirements and prioritization for the development and release of Firefox 2, code-named "Bon Echo", presently under development with an expected release in Q3 2006.
The intended audience for this document is the community involved in designing, developing, testing and managing the release of the product as well as partners and third-party developers who are building software that extends Bon Echo.
All press inquiries should be directed to the Mozilla Press Centre.
Priorities
| Priority | Description |
| P1 | Mandatory - The set of features required as a minimum for this release to be complete. The product will not ship without these. |
| P2 | Highly Desirable - A key feature that will make the product more complete, has great benefits to the end-user and major strategic impact. |
| P3 | Nice to Have - Lowest priority feature that may be incorporated, dropping first in favour of delivering P2 items. |
| P4 | Future - Intended for future release, included as they may influence design decisions and should be associated with the roadmap. |
| P5 | Deleted - Requirements that have been deleted from the product roadmap. |
Milestones
| Milestone | Description |
| A1 | 2.0a1 - Bon Echo Alpha 1 |
| A2 | 2.0a2 - Bon Echo Alpha 2 |
| B1 | 2.0b1 - Bon Echo Beta 1 |
| B2 | 2.0b2 - Bon Echo Beta 2 |
Note: Milestone targets are included in this document solely to assist in planning, authoritative targets are being tracked through the project status tracking pages.
Visual Refresh
Bon Echo will update its appearance to look and feel like a modern native application on all platforms. Incremental polish and refinement to the user interface will focus on improving the usability and accessibility of primary product features.
| Chrome Polishing | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A2 | review and simplification of existing top level chrome |
| P3 | B1 | use of consistent terminology and layout in dialogs |
| P3 | B1 | elimination of unneccessary dialogs & UI |
| Theme Polishing | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A2 | new icons for new features |
| P1 | B1 | new icons for all themes |
| P1 | A2 | NSITheme support for Windows Vista API |
| P1 | B1 | polish winstripe based on Windows Vista |
| P2 | B1 | polish pinstripe based on OS X 10.4 |
| P3 | B1 | polish gnomestripe based on Gnome |
Bookmarks and History
Bon Echo will modernize its data model to extend capabilities around synchronizing, storing and retrieving bookmark and history data and meta data. The existing bookmarks UI will be preserved, but augmented to facilitate ease of management, searching, and indexing of web browsing history and sites of interest.
| Places | |||
| Priority | Milestone | Item | |
| P1 | A1 | new data storage layer using SQLlite with no impact to performance (startup, page load, new window times) | |
| P1 | A2 | parity with Firefox 1.x bookmark access points in toolbars and menus | |
| P1 | A2 | parity with existing management methods using drag and drop, clipboard, property editing, etc. | |
| P1 | B1 | easy method for end-users to add bookmarks through main browser UI | |
| P1 | A1 | ability to import existing bookmarks and history from existing Firefox profiles | |
| P2 | A1 | ability to import existing bookmarks and history from Mozilla | |
| P2 | A2 | fast & easy search through bookmarks and history in main browser UI | |
| P2 | A2 | export bookmarks to standard format that can be imported by IE, Opera, Fx1.x | |
| P2 | A2 | developer API to access bookmarks and allow services to act as bookmark sources | |
| P3 | A2 | advanced management and search capabilities for history and bookmarks | |
| P3 | A1 | live bookmarks aggregation through "subscriptions" folder | |
| P3 | A2 | optional ability to annotate bookmarks and history with tags, notes, arbitrary metadata | |
User Experience
Bon Echo will improve on the web browsing experience with enhancements to tabs, and the ability to restart the browser without losing state. It will also address many frequently raised usability issues to streamline the overall user experience.
| Tabbed Browsing | |||
| Priority | Milestone | Item | |
| P1 | A1 | fixes for HTML target="" bugs for tabbed browsing | |
| P1 | B1 | improved UI for handling tab overflow | |
| P1 | B1 | set default destination for new window links is new tabs | |
| P1 | A1 | improved discoverability and usability of close tab button | |
| P1 | A1 | heuristic for tab close selection behaviour to match user expectations | |
| P2 | A2 | add UI for re-opening accidentally closed tabs | |
| P2 | A2 | add UI for managing multiple tabs (preview, switching, etc) | |
| P2 | B1 | conduct and incorporate feedback from usabilty study on close tab buttons | |
| P4 | B1 | add visual animation enhancements for tab re-ordering, preview, etc | |
| P4 | B1 | add ability to tear off tabs | |
| Session Restore | |||
| Priority | Milestone | Item | |
| P1 | A2 | restore session after an application forced restart | |
| P2 | A2 | restore session after a crash | |
| P3 | A2 | option to allow advanced users to always restore session after normal shutdown | |
| Spell Check | |||
| Priority | Milestone | Item | |
| P1 | A2 | spell-as-you-type functionality for text fields | |
| P1 | A2 | identify and meet license requirements to bundle english dictionary | |
| P1 | B1 | identify and meet license requirements to provide secondary distribution of l10n diactionaries | |
| P2 | B1 | identify and meet license requirements to bundle l10n dictionaries | |
Feeds
Bon Echo will make it easier for users to discover, preview and interact with web feeds. It will allow users to selectively view feeds with either Live Bookmarks, web applications, Extensions or standalone applications.
| Feed Handling and Parsing | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P2 | A1 | new RSS/Atom feed parser based on ... |
| P2 | A2 | content sniffing to detect when content served as XML or text is actually a feed |
| P2 | A2 | consistent user experience for previewing, handling & subscribing to feeds when user clicks on links or chrome that lead to feeds (ie: via feed://, link-rel or content sniffing) |
| P2 | A2 | ability to subscribe to feeds using client app or web service |
| P3 | B1 | developer APIs to access to feed content in format-agnostic fashion and feed parser |
| P3 | B1 | content-area preview of XML-RSS/XML-Atom content |
| User Interface Requirements | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P2 | A2 | low-bar pretty-printing for RSS/Atom that displays content (images, sound files, movie files, text) in a human-readable format |
| P3 | A2 | chrome priveledged controls for adding/handling feed subscriptions to bookmarks |
Extensions
Bon Echo will make it easier for users to add, remove, and configure Extensions. It will also provide a mechanism to protect users from potentially malicious or dangerous third-party Extensions.
| User Interface Requirements | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P2 | A2 | new add-ons manager that consolidates and simplifies managament (adding, removing, updating, disabling) themes and extensions |
| P2 | A2 | improved visibility of notification when extension updates are available |
| P2 | A2 | automatic extension updates |
| P2 | A2 | more undestandable extension installation and update dialogs |
| P3 | A2 | add path into extension options from browser options |
| P5 | A2 | password lockdown for extension installation |
| Extension Blocklisting | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A1 | capability to enable, disable, and block installation of extensions based on a blocklist |
| P1 | A1 | new UI to indicate when an extension has been disabled & why |
| P1 | A1 | mozilla.com server-side resources for hosting the blocklist |
| P1 | B1 | policy and criteria for disabling and re-enabling extensions |
| Locale Packs | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P2 | A2 | support for extensions that provide l10n to applications or extensions |
| P2 | A2 | UI indication for extensions that have locale packs associated with them |
Search
Bon Echo will modernize the search plugin specification to provide enhanced compatibility and extensibility. It will also make it easier for users to manage their search plugins.
| User Interface Requirements | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A2 | UI for adding and removing search plugins |
| P2 | A2 | tool for restoring default search plugins |
| P2 | A2 | shadow text in search bar (e.g. "Google Search", "Yahoo! Search", etc.) to improve accessibility of search chrome |
| P2 | A2 | resizable search box |
| P3 | A2 | support for multiple search boxes |
| Searchplugins | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A1 | new XML based data model for search plugins |
| P2 | A1 | import for Sherlock format |
| P2 | A1 | import for subset of Open Search format |
| P2 | A2 | API for type-ahead find search results |
| P2 | A2 | API for adding search engines, including JS methods |
| P2 | A2 | discovery of searchplugins using the <link rel> tag |
| P3 | a2 | auto-discovery of search plugins |
Distribution Support
Bon Echo will include new and enhanced capabilities that will facilitate customization, installation and life cycle support for multiple distribution channels.
| Installer | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P2 | A2 | move to NSIS installer |
| P3 | A2 | have installer only fetch app-extensions for advanced options when selected during install |
| EULA | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A2 | must display EULA on install or on first run when install was silent or when browser was pre-loaded |
| Distribution Channel Support | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A2 | mechanism for building custom branded or themed builds for partner distributions |
| P1 | A2 | enhancements to software update infrastructre to support N distributions |
| P2 | A2 | ability to select & install phishing protection extensions during installation |
| P2 | A2 | ability to select & install phishing protection extensions on first run |
| P2 | A2 | ability to bundle phishing protection extensions |
Infrastructure & Performance
Bon Echo will be optimized and tuned for general web browsing use cases.
| Performance | ||||
| Priority | Milestone | Item | ||
| P2 | B1 | no regressions in web compatibility | ||
| P2 | B1 | improve memory usage by x% | ||
| P2 | B1 | no regressions in browsing speed / page load times | ||
| Gecko 1.9 Platform Uplift | ||||
| Priority | Milestone | Item | ||
| P1 | B1 | all appropriate security patches from gecko 1.9 | ||
| P2 | B1 | other small, safe, but important gecko 1.9 patches | ||
| Instrumentation | ||||
| Priority | Milestone | Item | ||
| P1 | A2 | respect and protection of end-user privacy | ||
| P2 | A2 | data model for user interface instrumentation | ||
| P2 | A2 | API and hooks to instrument user interface | ||
| P2 | A2 | UI to enable/disable instrumentation | ||
| P2 | A2 | server-side infrastructure to collect data from instrumented builds | ||
Security
Bon Echo will act as a trusted friend, facilitating as safe and secure browsing experience as possible.
| Phishing Protection | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A2 | respect and protection of end-user privacy in providing anti-phising capability |
| P1 | A2 | basic in-browser phishing protection |
| P1 | A2 | bundling or installation wizard to integrate enhanced phising protection |
| P1 | A2 | API for phishing protection extensions to use in order to provide consistent and best possible user experience |
| SSL | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | A1 | remove SSL2 cyphers from product |
| P3 | A2 | improve UI for SSL/security information |
| P3 | A2 | APIs for 3rd party extensions to provide enhanced security mechanisms |
Documentation
| End-User Documentation | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P3 | A2 | reduce in-product help content to minimum amount required, moving remainder to web-accessible location |
| P3 | A2 | replace existing help UI with rich UI that brings user to online help |
| P4 | -- | enhance online help system to be community edited, collect metrics and feedback from users |
Platform Support
| Platform Support | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | -- | Windows Vista |
| P1 | -- | Windows XP |
| P1 | -- | Windows 2000 |
| P1 | -- | Windows ME |
| P1 | -- | Mac OS X 10.2+ |
| P1 | -- | Red Hat Linux |
| P2 | -- | All other Linux variants |
Locale Support
| Platform Support | ||
| Priority | Milestone | Item |
| P1 | -- | English |
| P1 | -- | French |
| P1 | -- | Italian |
| P1 | -- | German |
| P1 | -- | Spanish |
| P1 | -- | Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) |
| P1 | -- | Japanese |
| P1 | -- | Korean |
| P1 | -- | [....need to add the others....] |
| P2 | -- | [need to add secondary localizations, e.g. highly desirable but would not hold initial release for] |