Firefox 1.5 Release Notes

The BeOS-porting team of the Mozilla project is happy to present to you the first stable release of Firefox ever. Firefox 1.5 is an accumulation of not only numerous improvements of the browser itself, but an enormous improvement of the BeOS port as well. This release marks a new era in web browsing experience on the BeOS platform, and we hope you'll enjoy it as well.

These release notes will document the current state of affairs, known bugs, notes and other relevant information for the use of this build. But since this is work in progress, we ask you to check out the online version of these release notes as well, to keep up to date with the latest information. (http://www.livejournal.com/community/bezilla/122794.html)

Also ook at the Official Firefox 1.5 Release Notes
(http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.5.html)

Changelog

Last changed: 20th of November
* Updated to Firefox 1.5

Table of contents

1. General Release Notes


2. Installing and Running


3. Bug Reporting


4. Build notes


5. Known issues

1. General Release Notes

Countless numbers of man hours have gone into the Firefox 1.5 release. Naturally, not only from the developers of Firefox itself, but also by the port team, which realised a good amount of fixes to the Firefox browser to make it the best release ever. Thanks to the input we got after the release of the second beta of the Firefox 1.5, we have been able to work out some kinks and this release will feature a much better browsing experience.

The 1.5 release has an enormous amount of changes from previous unofficial Firefox builds floating around. It is by far the most stable, most advanced release of Firefox to date. We consider this release production stable, and encourage everyone to upgrade to this new release.

Finally, this release is one that will eventually try to get us back into the official Mozilla ports teams. As of this moment, the BeOS port isn't recognised as an official port (because at one point in time the team sort of dissolved). In order to reap the benefits of the Mozilla Foundation and Corporation, the current team is trying to reach the status of official port. This release is just one step closer to that goal.

2. Installing and Running

The installation process of Firefox 1.5 is nothing more than a simple unzip operation. But it is _highly_ recommended to uninstall your previous installation of Firefox before installing this one (by removing the MozillaFirefox, firefox, firebird or phoenix directories), because this build will install in a new location. Upgrading Firefox 1.5b2 by unzipping this package over it will not cause any problems.

This build will install in a firefox subdirectory. The recommended installation location is /boot/apps/, though any other location will do. After the unzip operation, you can launch the browser by using the firefox script in the bin subdirectory. To finish the installation off, you can optionally add that script to the Deskbar menu.

3. Bug Reporting

The porting team considers user input very valuable (like the rest of the Mozilla projects), and we welcome any input regarding bugs. However, because of the size of the current porting team, in order to keep the amount of 'noise' down, we'd like to request certain care with reporting bugs.

First of all, when you encounter or perceive a bug, try to look at the online release notes and the mentioned known problems in order to make sure the bug you have encountered isn't already reported. Second of all, try to find out whether or not the bug is already in bugzilla (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org). If you've checked this, and you're able to reproduce the bug, please file a comment at the online release notes (and please don't report a bug in the Mozilla Bugzilla). The comment will be checked by the port developers, and they will decide how to act further. Because we understand not everyone has a livejournal account, anonymous posting is allowed, but please note that we request a valid e-mailaddress in the post, or that you watch your own comments for responses.

This way of bug reporting is at the moment an experiment. Whether or not it succeeds, depends on the quality of bug reports. We thank you very much for helping us improve our releases.

4. Build Notes

Interested in building Firefox yourself? Here's a rough guide on how to do that for the 1.5 release. First of all, refer to the Wiki page to learn how to build in general. This short guide will refer to the page when needed.
(http://wiki.bebits.com/page/BuildingFirebird)

1. Check if you have the prerequisites and the necessary build tools.


2. Download the .mozconfig file. Check the paths of GLIB and IDL.
   (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=203740)


3. Go in a terminal to the directory you want the source to be in and perform the following:
   cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot co -r FIREFOX_1_5_RELEASE mozilla/client.mk
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot co -r FIREFOX_1_5_RELEASE mozilla/browser/config/mozconfig


4. Enter the mozilla directory and perform:
   make -f client.mk checkout


5. Perform, in the mozilla directory, a
   make -f client.mk build

The browser will be built and can be found in the mozilla/dist/bin directory.

5. Known Problems

At the moment, drag and drop is very limited. Only internal drag and drop, within the mozilla application, is supported. Furthermore, it is still experimental. A flaw has already been discovered: when dragging bookmarks, there are actually copies performed, rather than moves. We expect this sollution to be fixed in later revisions.

Another known issue is the fact that alternative input methods via the input_server aren't yet supported. Support is expected to arrive in the Firefox 2.0 release.