status update

maintained by Chris Nelson <chrisn@statecollege.com>

Last Updated Sunday, August 29, 1999

This status update page is updated every weekend. To get updates and news throughout the week , I invite you to check out mozillaZine, a site I maintain devoted to Mozilla advocacy.

Previous Updates

Module Updates
XPToolkit
August 30
Submitted by Peter Trudelle <trudelle@netscape.com>

Highlights

  • Resolved 62 bugs in the last week, fixing 47 of them.  See our Bug List  for details.  Seamonkey is getting very close to being edible dogfood (oh boy, again!), so please use it, especially to report anything that stands in your way.   A can a day, that's all we ask.
  • Brian Albers has signed up to provide mouse wheel (e.g., IntelliMouse) scrolling support! Thanks Brian, we'd almost given up on having that for beta. (brer@albers.org)
  • We now have two color picker implementations!  Pete Collins built one out of titledbuttons in a XUL popup, and posted a  snapshot of it in action.  Stuart Parmenter built the other as a frame-based widget, and posted some documentation for it. An embarrassment of riches! (pete@postpagan.com, pavlov)
Lowlights
Accomplishments
  1. XPIDL'ified nsITransferable, nsIFormatConverter, nsIDragService, nsIDragSession. (pinkerton)
  2. Rewrote d&d/clipboard implementations on mac, win32, gtk for new interfaces. (pinkerton)
  3. Fixed QueryInterface problems all over drag&drop/clipboard code on mac, win32, gtk. (pinkerton)
  4. Removed <xul:checkbox>. Use <html:input> instead, which now supports the Tristate checkbox.  (pinkerton)
  5. Tweaked mac build scripts to fix a bug related to the IDL compiler. (pinkerton)
  6. Removed several obsolete interfaces from widget. (pinkerton)
  7. Added gfx rendering pref to pref UI, so you can all turn on GFX widgets and test them. (mcafee)
  8. Re-worked tinderbox scripts so we can maintain them better.  People were hacking them up and then not re-submitting changes; new way encourages you to check changes in. (slamm, mcafee)
  9. Reimplemented tree widget selection. (hyatt)
  10. Implemented keyboard navigation in the tree widget.  (hyatt)
  11. Fixed many (10-15) tree widget bugs. Scrollbar sizes correctly, content shows up correctly.  (hyatt)
  12. Implemented text cropping in the tree widget.  (hyatt)
  13. Implemented twisties in the tree widget.  (hyatt)
  14. Implemented column resizing feedback cursor.  (hyatt)
  15. Implemented command dispatcher.  (hyatt)
  16. Fixed bugs, tracked down leaks, and added more leak finding machinery (especially during Thursday's leak-a-thon) (scc)
  17. The weak reference doc is up, but still needs more work.
Priorities
  1. Fix blocker, dogfood and beta bugs. (all)
  2. Turn on GFX scrollbars. (evaughan)
  3. Help xpapps with dialog issues. (evaughan)
  4. Make splitter split. (evaughan)
  5. Fix large data clipboard molasses. (pinkerton)
  6. nsIScriptableRegion. (pinkerton)
  7. Remove one of the interfaces nsWebShellWindow implements on the way to making menubars update. (saari)
  8. Finish Linux D&D for M11. (mcafee)
  9. Finish File Picker. (pavlov)
  10. Get column resizing in the tree widget. (hyatt)
  11. Get back to popups and XP Menus. (hyatt)
  12. Revise the dialog default button code for hyatt's new OnCommand architecture, then land it. (sdagley)
Decisions
Issues
People
  • Scott Collins will be transitioning to the Browser Technologies team. We'll miss having him on XPToolkit, and wish him great success on BTek. He's been mostly working on a lot of their hard low-level problems anyway, so in a way we're just making it official.  He'll still finish all of his current assigned tasks and bugs. (scc)
  • David Hyatt started feeling what could be the onset of RSI/CTS, which would explain why he only got about a month's worth of work done this week.  if you see him using his hands, please remind him to stop and get them to a doctor. (hyatt)
Unix
August 24
Submitted by Chris McAfee <mcafee@netscape.com>
  • Jim Dunn reports that HP-UX 10.20 builds and runs viewer using the aCC compiler.
  • Steve Lamm has hacked the tinderbox client script to do properly-timed reporting, and it now uses a driver script so we can stop hacking the main script to change the machine names, etc. If you're running a tinderbox, please check out a new client and test this: mozilla/tools/tinderbox.
  • The Xlib emedding example is now part of the default build. (ramiro)
  • Ramiro Estrugo has added support for multiple toolkits in the same build tree.
  • gfx rendered widgets are scheduled to get turned on soon. (kmcclusk). Some problems here are the URL bar not working, combobox is a little flakey, things like that. Turn this on with:
      Viewer:    Style|Widget Render Mode|Gfx
      Apprunner: Edit|Preferences..|Appearance|Widget Rendering|gfx
Memory Management/Leak Cleanup
August 27
Submitted by Patrick Beard <beard@netscape.com>
I've been experimenting with the Boehm conervative garbage collector as a leak detector. This can intrument object allocations with stack crawls, detect smashed blocks, and save us from runaway memory leaks. For now, it's giving me TOO much information, but as leaks are brought under control this will be invaluable.
Editor
August 27
Submitted by Akkana Peck <akkana@netscape.com>

We've been working on usability (dogfood) issues, and have an updated list of bugs on our dogfood page, http://www.mozilla.org/editor/dogfood.html.

The time is near when the switch will be flipped to turn on gfx widgets, which means that text fields will use the editor. Work progresses on making this solid. There's a preference in the prefs dialog to turn them on now and get a preview.

Key bindings are in a transitional state: we're attempting to switch to the new XUL key bindings, which are not in a stable state yet. We'll try to keep keys working as much as possible while we work on this.

Rules work continues; watch the newsgroup for more information on how to write rules.

The editor XUL file is being rewritten to reflect the state of the selection in the toolbars, making use of the recently checked in broadcaster/command changes (see the xpfe newsgroup).

Mail/News
August 27
Submitted by Phil Peterson <phil@netscape.com>

This week

  • 57 bugs fixed and features added (14 by engrs in other groups)
  • Demo'd mail profile migration for Seamonkey engineers (in Windows, run apprunner -installer and you get a list of 4.x profiles to migrate to mozilla. Warning: so far, it copies the profile, including mail folders, so it'll double the disk space used by the migrated profile)
  • History address book (AB which lists people who've sent you email) appeared
  • IMAP new folder creation works
  • Next unread message works
  • Added Flag column in thread pane
  • Printing messages works
  • Address book entries now sort, as do folders in the folder pane
Next week
  • M10 bugs
  • Driving towards usable mail/news. Lots of work on our plate and dependencies on other groups, but we really need the exposure and bug reporting from anyone and everyone.
Footprint
  • Win32: 1217k, Mac: 2245k (expecting ~20% drop due to debug symbols), Linux: 2529k (not expecting improvement)
JavaScript
August 27
Submitted by Mike McCabe <mccabe@netscape.com>

Brendan Eich reports that 'Javascript: URLs work in M9, although security changes in the trunk have temporarily busted them.'

XPConnect
August 27
Submitted by Mike McCabe <mccabe@netscape.com>

Mike Ang has just finished a new revision of the XPIDL Author's Guide. This should be a big relief to those of us who have had only quick wits and a keen sense of smell to guide them when writing XPIDL in the past. Also, please see the faq or let us know if something's missing.

Completed system for transparently converting JavaScript exceptions and errors to nsresults and vice versa. This has many facets. Documents to follow.

Added reflection of interface constants; i.e. constants of nsIFoo are now properties of Components.interfaces.nsIFoo - where before they were only properties of an instance of a native nsIFoo reflected into JavaScript.

Added instanceof supports so that one can detect if an JS object is a wrapped native of a given type by doing: "foo instanceof Components.interfaces.nsIFoo".

Working on getting the typelib spec and actual implementation in sync. And, I'm adding initial support for arrays in xpidl/typelib/xpconnect.

Mike McCabe is continuing to work on xpidl enhancements and bugs; the most recent news is that xpidl generates NS_DECL_NSIFOO and NS_FORWARD_NSIFOO macros, which should make implementing interfaces a little easier. A recent tree-spam with NS_DECL_NSIFOO replacing explicit interface method declarations saved 2000 lines of code!

Mike Shaver has the following news about component loaders - when his work is complete, it'll be possible to implement first-class XPCOM components in JavaScript. Java, next?

Work is mostly complete on the factoring of the component manager to permit alternate component loaders, such as those for components written in JavaScript or Java. Relative component naming to allow installed Mozillas to move around on the disk without breaking the registry is also done, modulo Mac problems. When the Mac problems are resolved, all that stuff will land.

Next week, John Bandhauer, myself and interested others will get down to nuts and bolts on JS component loader design and I'll get that pounded out. Watch for discussion in mozilla.xpcom.

Internationalization and Localization
August 28
Submitted by Tague Griffith <tague@netscape.com>
GTK
August 28
Submitted by Stuart Parmenter <pavlov@netscape.com>
  • Ramiro fixed lots of scrolling problems on unix and I was able to speed up resizing a great deal.
  • I made a color picker widget. Documentation is at http://www.mozilla.org/xpfe/xptoolkit/colorpicker.html
  • I've fixed some memory leaks.
  • Worked with Robert Churchill to get the RDF file system datasource working on unix.

Previous Updates