Comments on: Firefox 3: rocking on Linux

By: John Wilson

John Wilson — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:07:14 +0000

Just read about the formal linkage of GNOME and FF. As a KDE user feeling more than a little betrayed but not too surprised, I must admit.

While I’m late to this little party I feel the need to remind you, as others have that GNOME != Linux and never has.

Sad, really. To link up with a desktop so deeply ingrained with Mono, Moonlight and OOXML.

Not to mention writing off approximately half of the Linux desktop users out here.

By: blizzard

blizzard — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:38:04 +0000

Yes, it’s very hot!

By: Johan

Johan — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:35:07 +0000

I see Firefox 3 now has a native gtk print dialog: http://ventnorsblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/print-me-print-me-print-me-man-after.html

By: Christopher Blizzard » Blog Archive » michael ventor’s work

Christopher Blizzard » Blog Archive » michael ventor’s work — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:40:52 +0000

[...] It’s worth a post to point out the stuff that Michael Ventor has been working on. He’s one of the guys actually doing the work on Firefox + Linux integration, as opposed to me who is just playing the part of vocal fanboy. [...]

By: Sitor

Sitor — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:25:23 +0000

I agree with earlier posters that definitely more effort should be put in better integration with KDE. I don’t like that whole Mozilla bias towards Gnome. I really think FF is the best browser, but the really pitiful File Save/Open dialog box called by FF has made me consider ditching it for Konqueror (which is a superb File Manager, but not as good as Internet browser).
The remark that cooperating with KDE is more difficult because it has a competing browser is really the Open Source spirit unworthy.

By: Steve Wills Weblog » Blog Archive » Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 on Mac Compared

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:59:23 +0000

[...] Inspired by Chris’s post on Firefox 3, and wanting to prove to myself that not only did the Mac native widgets in FF3 looks good, but the font improvements I thought I was seeing were real, I did a quick comparison of the two. [...]

By: tecosystems » links for 2008-01-06

tecosystems » links for 2008-01-06 — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:22:19 +0000

[...] Christopher Blizzard » Blog Archive » Firefox 3: rocking on Linux excellent news (tags: linux firefox christopherblizzard) [...]

By: justin

justin — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:27:55 +0000

Rick,
That is good to hear. But, how about allowing one to rename files and folders from that same dialog box? It is so frustrating to have to open a separate program and navigate again to the same folder just to do that.

By: Rick Stockton

Rick Stockton — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:23:25 +0000

(Warning: long and detailed)

Justin had a good point (about the dumbed-down-too-far GTK FileChooser). GTK already has RFE bugs, with code attached, to make a couple of enhancements, and Firefox/Thunderbird really should expose them after assisting Gnome to implement the improvements.

(1) Context menu (at least), or a Preference (active all the time when set) to display and thus allow sorting by last-changed TIME, not just DATE; and

(2) Similarly, display and allow sorting of the selected directory by file SIZE.

But GtkFileChooser() has allowed allow selection of multiple files for years (Boolean gtk_file_chooser_get_select_multiple.) Firefox should allow File…Open File… to select and open multiple files of supported types in separate tabs, BY DEFAULT. You don’t even need a pref for this– just allow it! If the User wants to open only one file (jpg, or html, whatever) and clicks “OK” after selecting it, he is not FORCED TO select more files.

It’s even more important for the common occurrence of attaching multiple files to Thunderbird Emails– without going all the way back to the toolbar and re-clicking to get back to the PLACE YOU WERE to attach the next file.

- – - – -
Yeah, GtkFileChooser looks like a TRS-80 screen next to Microsoft’s “Windows Explorer” double-paneled tree. But, you could AT LEAST allow selecting multiple files (with no GUI involvement at all). And, if you really care to work with Gnome, help them/encourage them to implement those needed optional columns and have the column selection under Gnome’s control– just add options to “show files sizes” and “show exact time last changed” to the already implemented “show hidden files” context pop-up.

Yes, there have been bugs on Bugzilla. You point at Gnome, and Gnome has done nothing. I hope your increased involvement improves this. Right now, I often have to pop up a Nautilus (or Krusader :)) to see which file I really want to select. And, of course, leaving the selection of multiple files, for “open” or TB “attach file”, as an impossibility is almost purely Mozilla’s neglect.

Thanks for blogging, thanks even more for reading. It would be nice to bring this butt-ugly FileChooser a bit closer to the usefulness of the Chooser which Microsoft has been suing for over a dozen years….

By: bkoz

bkoz — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:10:12 +0000

And what about printing support for linux?

That seems to be a major issue for me. Often, I resort to konq to print things, because it is integrated with cups in a way that allows printing niceties like 2-up, print to PDF, etc that are old-news kind of tricks on alternate platforms like Mac OS X. In addition, the page rendering for printing seems all mushed and, well: icko. Often icky.

Any word on when linux will have parity with printing?