SeaFox - Development

[patrickjdempsey]

JAN 6, 2015: SeaFox 0.4.1 is now Public! If you have found that the menus have reverted to SeaMonkey style, go into the Addons Manager and choose "Options" under SeaFox and check "Rearrange menus like Firefox". SeaFox 0.4 fixes a long-standing bug where disabling or uninstalling SeaFox with the menubar hidden would result in a broken menubar that could only be fixed by installing SeaFox or editing localstore.rdf.

MAY 26, 2014: This thread has been re-purposed as a Development thread. It is for technical discussions, questions from Themers and other Extension authors, and detailed feature requests. For basic support, please see the new Support thread here:
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=2836799

First-run preference changes:

- Show close buttons on all tabs: browser.tabs.closeButtons
- Open new tabs at the end of the tab bar: browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent
- Always show the tab bar: browser.tabs.autoHide
- Disable SeaMonkey tab previews: browser.tabs.tooltippreview.enable
- Disable urlbar domain highlighting: browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled
- Disable type-ahead find: accessibility.typeaheadfind and accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart
- Aggressive favicon lookup: browser.chrome.favicons and browser.chrome.site_icons
- Disable fast mousewheel scrolling: mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.enabled
- Disable yellow secure background on urlbar: browser.urlbar.highlight.secure

- Hide SeaMonkey features: Mail, Editor, Addressbook, Web Navigation bar: extensions.seafox.components.disable
- Rearrange main menus: extensions.seafox.menus.rearrange

- Force Firefox 3.x toolbar button arrangement: extensions.seafox.buttons.force: true


AUG 1, 2013: I wanted to go ahead and make my intentions to build an extension that will convert SM 2.1x into Fx 3.x official. I'm not sure how long this will take to build, or how "complete" it will really be. When the extension is finished I will most likely also build a companion theme for it. This extension will build heavily on my work in Luddite UI: viewtopic.php?f=48&t=2431997 although at this stage I do not plan on a deep options panel with hundreds of buttons.

This announcement also carries with it an abandonment of Luddite UI, which will possibly become unstable due to extreme changes in Firefox. I'm a little sad at abandoning Luddite UI after only a year and a half, but Mozilla obviously has plans for Firefox that don't involve us old-timers. Hopefully things will be more stable around SeaMonkey and I won't have to worry about never-ending support issues.

[patrickjdempsey]

GOALS:

- Preferences: on first-run, automatically apply a long list of prefs to force SM to act more like Firefox 3.x/2.0. Store a backup of non-default user settings and offer a "reset" button for easy reversal.

- Toolbars: on first-run, rearrange SM toolbar buttons in Firefox 3.x order. Store a backup of user toolbar arrangements if non-default. Create new buttons for ones missing from SM stock. Fix menu-bar to make it menu-collapsible. Hide grippies.

- Tabstrip: get CatTheif's "Sea Tab X" working 100% again and incorporate it. If possible make the tab closers follow browser.tabs.closeButtons setting. Build proper Firefox NewTab button.

- Urlbar: put Firefox's site identity stuff into the identity box. Add identity popup. Incorporate the Go button.

- Components: hide the Composer, Mail and Chat components from easy view. These will still be accessible, just out of the way.

- Menus: rearrange main-menu and context menus to duplicate Firefox 3.x.

- Key Bindings: (if possible) reset keyboard shortcuts to match Firefox's.

- Theme: as I was never a huge fan of Strata, I'll likely end up building a custom theme *based* on Strata... probably one that reflects the history of Netscape/SeaMonkey/Firefox. This one is a big MAYBE.

[patrickjdempsey]

- Tabstrip: get CatTheif's "Sea Tab X" working 100% again and incorporate it. If possible make the tab closers follow browser.tabs.closeButtons setting. Build proper Firefox NewTab button.

Have finally got this figured out. As Australis looms, I'm going to get back to work on some of this.

Edit: Have begun putting together a very simple extension. So far I've got:

- close buttons on tabs, based on Sea Tab X.
- dynamic new tab button at end of tabs.
- go button in the urlbar.
- security identity box with signed cert names and colors in the urlbar.
- partially fixed FindBar at bottom.
- removed grippys from toolbars.
- set nav-bar default set like Firefox 3.x (requires going to Customize > Restore Default Set).
- hid extra stuff on status bar.

All that is about 12kb. I'm going to try to keep it as small and as simple as possible.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/p ... 145614.png

[patrickjdempsey]

Preferences I'm considering flipping:

browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent:false
browser.tabs.tooltippreview.enable:false
browser.tabs.closeButtons:1 (unsupported but I might add support)
browser.tabs.autoHide:false
browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled:false

If anyone knows of any other valid preferences for restoring Firefox 3.x look or behavior, let me know.

[patrickjdempsey]

Post deleted. Download link now in first post.

[JayhawksRock]

Looks like a good start. Visually looks like nothing is broken. Have not fired up a Firefox 3.6 portable to compare yet but when I do, I'll let you know what I see. Best of luck on this project.

[patrickjdempsey]

Thank you Jayhawks, I'm not sure how in-depth I will go. I'd rather not have a big complicated thing with tons of JS like my Luddite UI ended up becoming. Fortunately, stock SeaMonkey is much closer to 3.x than current Firefox versions are both in basic appearance and under-the-hood settings.

Oh and for now the toolbars don't automatically set themselves. To get the Firefox 3.x toolbar arrangement, go into Customize and hit Restore Default Set. This will also remove the labels from the buttons and make the Go button appear in the urlbar. Eventually I do want to have a popup that appears on first run that asks you if you want your toolbars and preferences set for Firefox-style. That will give it a little bit of automation anyway.

[JayhawksRock]

Thanks for the tips... I already had Aris' CTBB installed which has Nav Bar button styling for Firefox 3 built in with 3 different styling options that all work well. Worth looking at or including or recommending?

[patrickjdempsey]

Ah yes, I knew I had seen something like that. Both the "Classic Firefox Theme for SeaMonkey" and the "Firefox 3 Theme for SeaMonkey" both support the proper OS button surrounds used in those eras. I really like how Classic Firefox feels!

[patrickjdempsey]

New for 0.1.2:

- override for TopLevelImageDocument.CSS
- added #urlbar-search-splitter to nav-bar defaultset
- fixed shifting urlbar when switching tabs
- moved go-button XBL into navigator.XUL
- merged seatabxplus content CSS into navigator.CSS
- created toolbar context menu item to hide/show menu toolbar.
- hid unwanted entries in toolbar context menu.

Note: due to inclusion of a TopLevelImageDocument override, the extension Old Default Image Style may not work properly with SeaFox and should be disabled.

[JayhawksRock]

Minor issue... On the right click Customize menu the menu bar selection does not show a check mark when showing the bar. It does toggle the menu bar OK. Version 0.1.2

Out here in the wheatfields we call that "pickin fly s*it out of the pepper"

[patrickjdempsey]

Yup, currently it's just a button and not a checkbox. The toggle command works. Note that the Alt button will not open up the menubar yet either. Right now I'm just working on solutions in XBL, XUL, and CSS. In order to get the checkbox to align with the current state of the toolbar and for the autohide function to apply, it will require a JS script that runs on window load to align the two. It shouldn't be difficult, I'm just working on as many non-JS solutions as I can for now to keep the extension as light and as small as possible!

[patrickjdempsey]

Just discovered that menubar autohide is broken in SeaMonkey. It should work in Fullscreen mode if you press the Alt button the menubar should appear but does not.

[patrickjdempsey]

New version 0.1.3:

- fixed TopLevelImageDocument.css overflow issues.
- added empty text for urlbar (localized in extension).
- hide security icon in statusbar for non-https sites and blank tab.
- converted menutoolbar context menu item to use seamonkey localized string.
- changed menutoolbar context menu item into a checkbox.
- added script that syncs the menutoolbar context menu item checked status to the menutoolbar.
- removed strict compatibility requirement from install.rdf.
- final Sea Fox icon.

- added script to make SeaMonkey comply with browser.tabs.closeButtons settings.

NOTE: this will likely make your tab closers disappear until you go in and set this to 1. In the future the first-Run script will set this correctly.

[Philip Chee]

You might consider collaborating or at least coordinating with Jeremy Morton author of:
MonkeyFix 1.0.0
and
Firefox 3 theme for SeaMonkey 1.2.0