The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Discussion of general topics about Seamonkey
Anonymosity
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by Anonymosity »

It would be nice if SeaMonkey's icon in the Mac application package could be brought up to date. It is still 128x128, whereas icon sizes for MacOS are now 1024x1024. Even Firefox 24 had icons that were 1024x1024.
barbaz
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by barbaz »

Anonymosity wrote:It would be nice if SeaMonkey's icon in the Mac application package could be brought up to date. It is still 128x128, whereas icon sizes for MacOS are now 1024x1024. Even Firefox 24 had icons that were 1024x1024.
Do feel free to contribute a 1024x1024 SeaMonkey icon for the Mac application package. I'm sure the help would be much appreciated! :)
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Ken Saunders
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by Ken Saunders »

barbaz wrote: Do feel free to contribute a 1024x1024 SeaMonkey icon for the Mac application package. I'm sure the help would be much appreciated! :)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362210
rsx11m
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by rsx11m »

Lemon Juice wrote:Or perhaps SM could join forces with Waterfox developer who plans to get funding and fork XUL to retain classic extensions support. He has an ambitious plan but worthy of praise!
Sure promising. If there is enough momentum to maintain a Gecko fork off 56.0 (or 52.0 ESR for that matter) it would certainly be an option for SeaMonkey to join that. As said before though, that effort might be too much to chew on for a single project, and a sufficient number of core developers should be participating who can manage the common code for stability and security. So, while "we are not planning to support any abandoned stuff" shouldn't be taken as an absolute statement, maintaining a fork that also keeps up with emerging web standards is not a trivial task.
frg
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by frg »

>> As said before though, that effort might be too much to chew on for a single project,

Jupp. At least the Firefox codebase currently has enough devs to get it going even if its going into a wrong direction.

At the same time I am personally not thinking that rust will overtake the world soon and might even fall flat:

https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/graph ... -05&type=c

I am always looking how many people contribute. Don't do this with SeaMonkey (not on github fortunately) or you will become sad... But for a project like rust which is about to become the next best thing since the invention of sliced bread not enough I think. Maybe I am missing something here?

Here for servo and Pale Moon to misuse and mislead :)

https://github.com/servo/servo/graphs/c ... -05&type=c
https://github.com/MoonchildProductions ... -05&type=c
isaacschemm
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by isaacschemm »

I'm glad for the 2.49esr. By the time that cycle ends, it will be a lot clearer where the various options stand.
Lemon Juice
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by Lemon Juice »

rsx11m wrote:
Lemon Juice wrote:Or perhaps SM could join forces with Waterfox developer who plans to get funding and fork XUL to retain classic extensions support. He has an ambitious plan but worthy of praise!
Sure promising. If there is enough momentum to maintain a Gecko fork off 56.0 (or 52.0 ESR for that matter) it would certainly be an option for SeaMonkey to join that.
When I read the discussion about plans for Waterfox this is the first time in recent years that I find someone is thinking seriously about developing a browser in an interesting direction and this got me quite excited. A browser that gives full power to the extension developers and is not a Chrome offshoot or imitator.

I don't know how Waterfox is going to keep its engine updates in its XUL environment but if that guy succeeds I wouldn't even mind if SM became a suite built on top of Waterfox and Thunderbird - if that is feasible at all. Even if 32-bit systems were to be abandoned due to not enough man power, I still think it's the lesser evil than simply dropping all "old" technologies.
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Lemon Juice
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by Lemon Juice »

frg wrote:At the same time I am personally not thinking that rust will overtake the world soon and might even fall flat
Whoever invented the name for that language has already sentenced it to death! :mrgreen:
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isaacschemm
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by isaacschemm »

Lemon Juice wrote:
frg wrote:At the same time I am personally not thinking that rust will overtake the world soon and might even fall flat
Whoever invented the name for that language has already sentenced it to death! :mrgreen:
If someone invents a library for Rust that forms a wrapper around non-Rust code, they should call it Patina :)
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Frank Lion
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by Frank Lion »

From the long opening post, it is clear that the core problem here is a lack of resources for the project, both in terms of man/woman power and financial. The problem has, obviously, been brought to the forefront by the planned demise of XUL, etc.

I recall that is was raised here and I covered that side at the time. I'm guessing that damn all happened about that since.

Now, although SeaMonkey does actually gets a lot more right than it gets wrong, I am also reading a pretty high level of self-deception and loss of focus going on here, with stuff like this -
As a final statement, we do not think that SeaMonkey will take over the browser world any time soon. SeaMonkey is a niche product and will stay that way. Too many people are not interested in a classic suite anymore and most users are happy to use what is hip. That is OK with us. It's all about choice.
Leaving aside things like that only about 10 people in the world know what a term like 'classic suite' is supposed to mean in 2017, who is the intended end user supposed to be? Certainly not the average non-technical 'Joe' of mature years, that's for sure.

Yes, SeaMonkey is stuffed with choices and most of them are in the Preferences Window, after that it goes rapidly downhill, choice-wise. Choice is not about the Council pointing out that a user can use a Hotkey combination or a context menu to bring up a normal browser function. Choices are about consideration for the needs of others and providing them.

None of this mattered when things were going OK, did they? It was fine to have a hobby browser around that geeks could tinker with and geeks could use, however outside events have changed all that, haven't they, and the usual suggestions of 'let's do nothing' or 'let's wait and see what someone else comes up with' are really not going to cut it here. By all means, appeal internally to increase resources, but with such a small userbase I'm guessing that anyone who was interested would have come forward by now. I also realise that SM is not in a resources position to maintain/produce any form of XUL engine themselves.

So, given the limited existing resources, I suggest SM makes itself more appealing/useful to the average user, potential browser/extension/theme coders and external sponsors. Increasing the user base from a mere few hundred thousand to a few million is hardly like trying to take over the world, but it does at least bring revenue and convince those from outside that this is a project worth investing time or sponsorship on.

So, to greatly improve the initial '30 minute user experience' window of opportunity and appeal to user/potential coder/potential sponsor -

#1. Visual -

http://franklion.co.uk/GEN-LINKS/Default-SM-layout.png

Default SM layout..hmm. User supposed to know by osmosis that the Home button and Bookmarks are hidden in the Bookmarks Toolbar, are they? Move them to the Menu Bar.

The SM default theme is not good. Trouble is, whatever poor sap is given that one is picking up a poison chalice - it can't be improved, only rebuilt and the second it's touched then 80% of your existing userbase will complain, just because they are use to it.

So, keep it, and using the latest methods of how Complete Themes are made, overlay it with a new toolbarbutton set, new rules for toolbar/tabs height and generally tidy the whole thing up. That is what gets seen by new potential users and existing users just go to View > Apply Theme and select 'SM Classic' - which is the existing default theme and is the one that was running underneath anyway.

To avoid another poison chalice potential, it should be the Council who choose the toolbar button set to use for this.

Timescale to implement - once you have the buttons, about a week.

#2. Functionality -

Turn the core functionality of this -

AK2 on the default SeaMonkey Browser window -

Image

...into this -

AK2 on the SeaMonkey Browser window (with the Sea Fox extension) -

Image

...by approaching Pat D and getting permission to incorporate those new toolbar buttons, tab close buttons, etc into SM by default. Existing users would drag off to the Customise Window what buttons they didn't want and an option in Prefs could return the tab closing to default.

Ignore the actual theme in those pics, they are just pics I had around for something else. However, the fact that I'm making brand new graphics loosely based on a 20 year old design, should at least tell you that this is no 'Johnny Come Lately' writing this stuff.

Timescale - up to Pat, but it's not going to take long to implement if it's already written and tested, is it?

#3. Functionality 2.

Awesome Bar - SM users (and probably more relevantly SM Council users) don't like it, preferring to use the dropdown of recently typed URL's. I get it, but you've got the Awesome Bar whether you like it or not, via Firefox, so at least make it useful.

Users (having seen hundreds of user browser screenshots) don't have their urlbar very wide at all by default. This means they only get to see meaningless half complete urls in the Awesome Bar and not the more complete and useful Site Descriptions.

So, just change the order to Favicon>Description> Url and make the whole thing more useful to users.

Timescale - I did this ages ago, SM are welcome to use my code for this.


So, there you have it, 3 simple suggestions to make SM more appealing to new users, new potential coders and potential sponsors, all without changing the original appearance/functionality back for existing users in less than 1 minute.

I'll deal with the graphics and SVG side another time, but suffice to say that none of that is the problem that some people seem to think it is.

As for the future, yes, there are potential solutions from other areas. However, quite frankly, so long as SM could keep the security side covered (see how usual extra revenue can be?) then I feel that most SM users would be happy with a frozen SM 49ESR build for a few years at least.

Do something or do nothing, either way it doesn't actually affect me. So, you are seeing something rare - ideas, without any vested interests lurking in the background. :)
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (attrib.)
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Anonymosity
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by Anonymosity »

Ken Saunders wrote:
barbaz wrote: Do feel free to contribute a 1024x1024 SeaMonkey icon for the Mac application package. I'm sure the help would be much appreciated! :)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362210
Nice! I like them.
barbaz
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by barbaz »

#Sun-Glasses wrote:
Frank Lion wrote:As for the future, yes, there are potential solutions from other areas. However, quite frankly, so long as SM could keep the security side covered (see how usual extra revenue can be?) then I feel that most SM users would be happy with a frozen SM 49ESR build for a few years at least.
Think again, cat-man. A product which doesn't get updated in order to support the newest web standards will inevitably fall behind. The longer they wait to include the newest standards the more they will fall behind.
Speaking as a SeaMonkey user, which you appear not to be, I wouldn't mind SeaMonkey temporarily 'falling behind' in that way as long as the websites I need keep working fine.
#Sun-Glasses wrote:They should either cooperate with Pale Moon or with Waterfox or let SeaMonkey die an honorable death, which would be preferable to this very disaster.
What "disaster"?
How do you know those are the only choices?
LewS
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by LewS »

Frank Lion's "a frozen SM 49ESR build for a few years"
is exactly what I would like to see - say 2 years, at least,
since Firefox will take at least that long to get everything
they've got going settled down and stable.
#Sun-Glasses
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by #Sun-Glasses »

LewS wrote:Frank Lion's "a frozen SM 49ESR build for a few years"
is exactly what I would like to see - say 2 years, at least,
since Firefox will take at least that long to get everything
they've got going settled down and stable.
In this case they will most likely end up the same like the K-Meleon clowns. Have a look at their forum and you'll know what I mean. Would be a shame, as SeaMonkey really deserves to live on.
frg
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Re: The State of the SeaMonkey Union!

Post by frg »

There is no point freezing the product. You would have an even greater uphill battle afterwards. The next release after the last 2.49.x is still 2.56 ESR and the source is still kept current fro this. Switching to ESR just means that the release cycle gets longer and a few of the bugs can be sit there unfixed longer to take care of them. If it comes to a 2.56 we will see but we will sure try.

Well some of Franks comments did not go well with me. Lecturing and giving advice is ok but in the end something needs to be done. Sounds too much about "I don't care and don't want to be involved but if you do this magically everything will be great". I can make plans all day and in the end without people implementing them or really helping out they are just plans. So it just becomes background noise to me.

> It was fine to have a hobby browser around that geeks could tinker with and geeks could use,

Sure and what is wrong with it. Its open source and 99% of all such projects won't never make a dime. Even Linux started as a hobby project. If people don't invest time it won't get off the ground. And not everyone is a supa dupa manager cutting deals and knowing how to get things going.

> #1. Visual

The screenshots don't appeal to me. Sorry. Reminds me too much of the 90s where everyone had a blast designing funky interfaces. Today we have the toally opposite where everyone has a blast designing the most boring unappealing many shades of gray interfaces thinkable. I like something in between please. But no doubt that the visuals need updating. The icons in the classic look seem to come right out of a care bear movie. This needs to be cleaned up and other things too (who really uses the grippes?). Also Modern needs a facelift. And a third theme added for the modern loving crowd. But again. Giving advice what to do is not doing it.

> Awesome Bar
SeaMonkey has its own implementation. Actually I like the urls. Looks much clearer to me compared to the Fx bar. Might also be because of the smaller font and more boxed look. Nothing which probably can't be made configurable so imho not a big issue.

What I would probably do now with resources and manpower is scrap most of the SeaMonkey and TB source and use Firefox as a base. Then add the mail news part as an optional component. Composer is so old its best to do away with it unless someone really finds the time to update it. With a current Fx base a complete SeaMonkey theme would be need to put on top to retain the look and feel. You would have a browser with a Firefox and a SeaMonkey theme and one source base for both. And a mail component (prefereably also standalone ) for both. Much more modular and without the current overlapping sources which neds prots almost every week. Sure will never happen and might not be technically feasible but one can dream:)
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