Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Alpha 2


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release notes: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/3.0a2/releasenotes/

Gecko 1.9 Alpha 2 introduces several new features which can be tested by using Gran Paradiso Alpha 2:

* Core layout code affecting the calculation of widths in tables, floats, and absolutely positioned elements has been rewritten. The code for handling incremental layout of pages (as data arrives over the network, as images load, or as dynamic changes are made) has also been changed extensively. (See the Reflow-Refactoring wiki page for more information.

* Resolved remaining issues with ACID2 test compliance.

* Support for the Web Apps 1.0 API for changing stylesheets.

* The inline-block and inline-table values of CSS 2.1's display property are now implemented.

* XML documents can now be rendered as they're downloaded instead of only after the full document has been loaded.

* Greatly improved Mac widgets support since Alpha 1.

* Improvements in the Cairo graphics layer.

Some of the changes in Gecko 1.9 Alpha 2 will affect the web and platform compatibility of Gran Paradiso Alpha 2:

* Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME are not supported for Gecko 1.9.

* OS X 10.2 is no longer supported, and OS X 10.3.9 or better is required.

* The non-standard JavaScript Script object is no longer supported.

* Moving DOM nodes between documents now requires a call to importNode or adoptNode as per the DOM specification.

Please Note

  • The browser may consume excessive amounts of memory after prolonged browsing. In order to better handle memory issues, a new garbage collection system has been implemented. However, as the process of integrating Gecko into this system is still ongoing, there are some known leaks that result in large memory usage when the browser is used for a long period of time. A restart should resolve the problem, which will be fixed in Alpha 3.
  • The Cairo graphics system has drastically changed the way all text and images are rendered from previous versions of Gecko, so occasional misrenderings of non-latin scripts and fonts may occur.

ive been using the dailys for over a month now, and as of late, as Cryton's post suggests, ff3 was using over 530MB of ram with just one window with two standard-page tabs opened within. needless to say once i started to notice this, i went back to FF2 for now (until they can get the memory leaks plugged and ram usage back down to at least reasonable)

So, how does Places work?

IIRC the Places backend will be turned on for Alpha 3, but the plan is to initally make firefox use the existing UI for bookmark management, but instead of using the existing way of storing bookmarks ('mook') it will use Places (SQL Lite). So the end user will 'see' no difference in Gecko Alpha 3, even tho the bookmarks will be stored in a different way in your profile dir.

Will there be a big UI change for the final? FF2 style looks pretty desperate.

No UI rework planned for the main browser window (at the moment, anyway), but some areas will get a UI revision, like the Extension Install, Password / Identity Manager, Security/Privacy Context, Bookmarks Manager & Download Manager.

Its good to see that its coming along but i think i am also going to wait until the RC's become available, mostly because of the huge memory leak after prolonged usage, hopefully that gets sorted out pretty quick.

And no offence Darrian but in my opinion that does look kind of bad on vista, to me atleast.

Really? I don't think so.

It's skinnable for a reason...

Yes but you are using Firebird on that screenshot (why ain't it called FireFox on yours?) and I was on about FF 2.0 final. and Even if you can get that skin for FF 2.0, it still doesn't look half as good as the deafult IE 7 look in Vista:

Just look at the transparency on the uploaded image and the brilliant icons in the toolbar:

post-194916-1170891436_thumb.jpg

Edited by Guest
Yes but you are using Firebird on that screenshot (why ain't it called FireFox on yours?) and I was on about FF 2.0 final. and Even if you can get that skin for FF 2.0, it still doesn't look half as good as the deafult IE 7 look in Vista:

Just look at the transparency on the uploaded image and the brilliant icons in the toolbar:

I am running the same skin in FF2.0. Do some research sometime. No, it is not as nice looking as IE but it still offers me more functionality.

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