What the firefox Team should add to FF57 + later

[Ulf3000]

Hey i though a little about what FF57 will need to become as god as the old firefox , even if reprogrammed from the start.


1)
Customizable Buttons with their own context menu , lots of good addons have their own context menu and react to mouse events .

2)
best cookie manager in the realm of "cookie manager+" or "cookiekeeper" with "selfdestructing cookie" support , with all funtionality and controll over cookies from a small menu.

3)
tab customisations:

a) styled tabs to mark active, new , unread, unloaded , suspended tabs ...
b) vertical tree tabs with tab preview exactly like the firefox experiments https://testpilot.firefox.com/ addon "tabcenter" which already exists with a sleaker style and tree funtionality ... sidebar customizable on teh left or right side of the browser
b2) multirow
c) tab sorting , position of new tab etc options from tabmix plus
d) tab highlighter ! to remember tabs in a huge list of tabs
4)
built in stylish "userstyles" manager. with all options , just rip off stylish and write it efficient and modern lowlevel directly into the firefox code

5)
better access to requests api , to trigger cache , cors , remapping and similar FINEGRAINED and also leads to better security addons

6)
native translation box or window similar to the one from s3 goolge translator

7)
ADDONBAR - do i even need to explain this ?

8)
BUILD IN BEST Session Manager with all options

9)
slim theme - where all "whitespace" is reduced

10)
good file access api to redevelop addons like "save to folder"

11)
BUILD IN greasemonkey or similar ; Multiscript loader ; could share code with devtools

12)
context menu customisation exactly like "Menu Wizard" addon



well there could be more but those are the main enhancers of firefox right now ... what do you say am i right about this ? i have a feeing some of it will even come as https://testpilot.firefox.com/ suggests ..

[GHM113]

I think people overestimate the importance of XUL/XPCOM/Jetpack addons. According to..
https://techcrunch.com/2010/11/18/state-of-mozilla/
..Firefox had 400 million users in 2010, probably a little less nowadays. The addons providing the functionality from your post have 1-2 million users max. That's less than 1% of the user base.

Now about what the functionality that will be possible to implement using WebExtensions:
3a - possible with toolbar API
3b - already possible with sidebar API
3b2 - possible with toolbar API and .css tweaks
3c - possible with toolbar API
3d - possible with toolbar API
7 - possible with toolbar API

[Brummelchen]

in short: none of that would come - dream on or get webextensions for that. good luck.

[Ulf3000]

it seems as long as extension are programmed by the mozilla firefox crew themselfs they can also be bootstrapped with lowlevel access like here https://testpilot.firefox.com/ (really nice addons here), only addon devs are restricted to webextension.

the core code between bootstrapped addons, overlay addons and webext addons are the same anyways. firefox will use xul a ctypes at least till 2020 and beyond.

its entirely possible mozilla brings back the features in a controlled way

[Brummelchen]

"test pilot" is a testing area for experienced users - that mean that those features wont come for sure. mozilla is testing a lot of crap no one needs, they focus on "shield" and "heartbeat" - user behavior, performance, special formed ads and such crap. remember pocket (sorted out) or webrtc (not sure, rtc is overrated). but at least stick with my first answer please and dont expect anything. if you want more to read or say go: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3029880

[sabret00the]

They've already announced that we'll be getting 4 and 9.

[Brummelchen]

that was noticed before in the linked thread, but userstyles would be much more limited in comparison to now. compact themes are already present. "photon" can be tested in servo nightly https://download.servo.org (x64 only)

[Ulf3000]

that was noticed before in the linked thread, but userstyles would be much more limited in comparison to now. compact themes are already present. "photon" can be tested in servo nightly https://download.servo.org (x64 only)

but thats only becasue MAYBE some elements will change in name (id and or classname) ... photon is still just a xul browser with css stylesheet which will be slowly converted into a xhtml browser with css stylesheet .. styles which slim down the addon mangager and similar should easily be possible ...
Cc["@mozilla.org/content/style-sheet-service;1"].getService(Ci.nsIStyleSheetService) will work for the unforeseeable future if not ever , i can 100% confirm this as i talked with sdk guys in detail on irc not once but often over the past 2 years

[Brummelchen]

photon is the mockup of servo and servo dont offer XUL, where did you read that rubbish?

[Aris]

@Brummelchen

Can you tell me how you can test Photon ui on those Servo builds.
I only get an unusable window without any ui on Windows/macOS (not tested Linux yet).

[Brummelchen]

servo wont run here (windows 10 ltsb x64) - it dont contain all needed libraries (dll) and if, it crashes immediately. i only got once a dialog outside my sandbox (hate it), otherwise never got a dialog like that*. i loaded a fresh copy from the official server but that archive is dated from april and not fresh. and i am tired chasing a ghost like i did with >v4 dev/aurora/etc.
* servo is same intrusive like chromium with registry and files here and there.
from time to time i read Sören comments - but as you can see my UA i think i will stick with this solution in the near future.