Show notes for November 28, 2007
01.08.08 - 03:45pm
AIR MOZILLA LIVE - November 28, 2007.
Host Asa Dotzler
Guests:
Melissa Reeder (Creative Commons)
Mark Finkle & Dave Townsend (Mozilla Evangelism and Mozilla Apps)
Christian Sejersen (Mozilla Mobile)
Cast & Crew
Produced by Rainer Cvillink
Co-Producer and Camera by Marcia Knous
Production Assistance by Rhian Baker, Mary Colvig, and Carsten Book
TOPIC: Creative Commons, Extension Development and the Extend Firefox contest, and Mozilla Mobile.
http://creativecommons.org/
http://extendfirefox.com
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile
—————————————————
Welcome to another installment of Air Mozilla Live. I’m your host, Asa Dotzler.
We’ve got a great show for you today. We’ll be joined by Melissa Reeder from Creative Commons, Mark Finkle & Dave Townsend for the Extend Firefox program, and Christian Sejerson of Mozilla Mobile.
We’ll be taking your questions via IRC, IM, and email so if you haven’t already, you can join us on the server irc.mozilla.org in the channel #airmozilla or reach us on the various IM networks at username airmozilla.
First, the news.
———————————————————-
NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
———————————————————-
The Book of Mozilla
This week we saw the launch of the Mozilla Project’s community newsletter titled about:mozilla. The weekly newsletter, appearing every Monday, will cover the latest news, information, and announcements from across the breadth of the Mozilla project, giving you a heads-up on the coming week’s meetings and events, and helping you stay on top of what’s going on in the Mozillaverse.
Deb Richardson, the project coordinator encourages community members to submit news items for about:mozilla. She says in the initial issue, “If there’s something you think should be included in the newsletter, send it along to mozilla-news-submissions@mozilla.org. If you have questions or comments, you can contact the editor at news-editor@mozilla.org. Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated.”
This News Segment at Air Mozilla Live will rely heavily on the about:mozilla newsletter and we encourage you to subscribe to stay up to date between AML broadcasts.
Mozilla Foundation launches Directed Giving program
———————————————————-
When you donate to the Mozilla Foundation, you now have the option of directing your donations to one of four selected projects (Bugzilla, SeaMonkey, Camino, and Mozilla accessibility for people with disabilities). You can also choose to make a traditional unrestricted donation as well. The Mozilla Foundation will take note of your choice, and keep track of how much money has been designated for each project. They will then work with the people responsible for each project and come up with some worthy project-related initiatives to fund using those designated donations.
As an extra incentive to help get the program started, the Mozilla Foundation will match 2-for-1 any donations you designate for these projects from now until the end of 2007, up to a maximum of $10,000 per project. For more information, see Frank Hecker’s blog post at http://hecker.org/mozilla/directed-giving
Firefox 3 Beta 1 shipped last week
———————————————————-
Firefox 3 Beta 1 is now available for download. Join the already more thn 500,000 testing this latest beta. Earlyfeedback from our community says it’s rendering modern web pages and applications really fast, people just love what we’re affectionately calling the awesomebar — the new auto-complete, full-page zoom is also getting a lot of positive reaaction.
We need all the testing we can get on the beta, so if you haven’t gotten it yet, please do and let us know how it works for your daily browsing needs.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html
Proto: new Mac theme in beta
———————————————————-
If you’re a Mac user, when you first run the beta you’ll see an offer to get Proto, the prototype of the new Firefox 3 theme for OS X. Proto represents the first phase of the new Mac theme work, driving towards a more native look and feel on that platform. The second phase will be modifying Proto to include a cross-platform shape and control set which will differentiate Firefox from other applications. The end goal should be an OS X native feeling browser that also definitely feels like Firefox. If you install the Proto add-on, you’ll get updates as new versions of the theme are available.
Extend Firefox 2 add-on contest
———————————————————-
Everyone knows that one of the best things about Firefox is that you can customize it to do what you want, how you want. Add-ons are the core of this magic, and we’re having our second Extend Firefox add-on development contest.
The contest runs until December 31st, and there are three Grand Prizes and twelve Runner-up prizes this year. Submissions will be judged on user experience, innovation, and the use of open standards, so it’s time to pull out all the stops and get hacking. For more information about the contest, judges, prizes, and how to enter, see the Extend Firefox website.
http://extendfirefox.com
And that’s the news. We’ll be back after the break with our first guest Melissa Reeder.
———————————————————-
———————————————————-
Melissa Reeder, Creative Common’s Development Coordinator.
——————————————————————————
——————————————————————————
Mark Finkle & Dave Townsend talking about the Extensions.
Easy Stuff Resources
extension wizard - online, simple and it works
JS xpcom wizard - online, simple and it works
mozilla IRC - #extdev is full of friendly help
building a sidebar - its easier than you think
tweaking the statusbar - covers more stuff
McCoy - signing your extension to work in Firefox 3
updating & versioning extensions - general information
Hard Stuff Resources
JS XPCOM - easier than binary and useful for sharing data across browser windows
a href=”http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/How_to_build_a_binary_XPCOM_component_using_Visual_Studio”>building with the SDK - not as easy as you would hope
building with the tree - its a better way and worth learning
More Resources
developer.mozilla.org - docs for Mozilla developers
xul reference - XUL, by the book
xul tutorial - XUL, by example
building an extension - all the various parts
code snippets - great examples for common things
addons.mozilla.org - lots of addons you can take apart & study
——————————————————————————
——————————————————————————
Christian Sayerson, Mozilla Mobile lead
———————————————————-
———————————————————-
Speak Your Peace