[Ext] Firefox Showcase 0.9.1 : 1-16-2007

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Guss77
Posts: 1
Joined: February 10th, 2006, 4:51 am

Showcase doesn't work for me :-(

Post by Guss77 »

It opens both in local and global mode, but the shortcut only works for the global mode - to invoke local mode I have to use the view menu.
Also - no thumbnails are displayed: all I see is a white rectangle with the showcase icon.

I'm using Linux with Firefox 1.5.0.1 Mandriva RPM.
Old joseprio
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Re: Showcase doesn't work for me :-(

Post by Old joseprio »

Guss77 wrote:It opens both in local and global mode, but the shortcut only works for the global mode - to invoke local mode I have to use the view menu.
Also - no thumbnails are displayed: all I see is a white rectangle with the showcase icon.

I'm using Linux with Firefox 1.5.0.1 Mandriva RPM.


Hi Guss,

could you tell me what other extensions you've installed? You can change the shortcut using the KeyConfig extension (http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/keyconfig ) which allows key rebinding for any shortcut in Firefox.

Also, if you don't mind, I would like you to test two more things:
- Do the other tab preview extensions work properly in your system? If you need any link, just ask and I'll write down some URLs
- Install Showcase 0.5.4 from http://showcase.uworks.net/download.html , and tell me if it works for you.

Before releasing, at least one person tested in on Linux with satisfactory results, so I hope I can solve your issue with this information :)
fractalbit
Posts: 8
Joined: February 11th, 2006, 1:00 pm

Post by fractalbit »

This is really an excellent extension. It is actually the best from the 3 i tried (foxpose and another that i dont rember the name). Just some features that i would like to see in a future version ...

1) Use a resample algorithm for the generation of the thumbs. Maybe this is a limitation of the current firefox version beacuse all the extensions i tried have almost the same pixelated thumbs. Quick tabs in IE7 show so much better. Please take a look at this, it is essential.

2) With right click give the ability to close all others but this tab.

Well that is for now about suggestions. Now a question :

Can i have the thumbs in a sidebar? Is this already a feature? I cant find it!

Thanks for your time and congratulations for this so much needed extension!
Old joseprio
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

fractalbit wrote:This is really an excellent extension. It is actually the best from the 3 i tried (foxpose and another that i dont rember the name). Just some features that i would like to see in a future version ...

1) Use a resample algorithm for the generation of the thumbs. Maybe this is a limitation of the current firefox version beacuse all the extensions i tried have almost the same pixelated thumbs. Quick tabs in IE7 show so much better. Please take a look at this, it is essential.

2) With right click give the ability to close all others but this tab.

Well that is for now about suggestions. Now a question :

Can i have the thumbs in a sidebar? Is this already a feature? I cant find it!

Thanks for your time and congratulations for this so much needed extension!


You're completely right about the pixellated thumbs, right now the problem is the current firefox implementation. The new version improves this behaviour a bit, refreshing the thumbnail after a grow animation. I've an idea to solve it, but I can't know if it works until I've tried! It would make the rendering go a slower (hopefully not too much), but thanks to the "incremental rendering" of Showcase, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Unfortunately, sidebar functionality is not added in this version, although is not difficult to implement and will be included in the next major release... Adding the option to close the other tabs for the window sounds quite logical for the contextual menu, so I'll implement it by then, too.
fractalbit
Posts: 8
Joined: February 11th, 2006, 1:00 pm

Post by fractalbit »

Thanks for really listening! Any word about when we will see the next major release?
Old joseprio
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

fractalbit wrote:Thanks for really listening! Any word about when we will see the next major release?


I think that the development should take about 2 to 3 weeks... Anyways, as soon as I know about the feasability of the aliasing, I'll post about it here, together with an screenshot :)
fractalbit
Posts: 8
Joined: February 11th, 2006, 1:00 pm

Post by fractalbit »

Looking
fractalbit
Posts: 8
Joined: February 11th, 2006, 1:00 pm

Post by fractalbit »

joseprio wrote:
fractalbit wrote:Thanks for really listening! Any word about when we will see the next major release?


I think that the development should take about 2 to 3 weeks... Anyways, as soon as I know about the feasability of the aliasing, I'll post about it here, together with an screenshot :)


Thanks, i am looking forward to this =D>
Old joseprio
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

fractalbit wrote:
joseprio wrote:
fractalbit wrote:Thanks for really listening! Any word about when we will see the next major release?


I think that the development should take about 2 to 3 weeks... Anyways, as soon as I know about the feasability of the aliasing, I'll post about it here, together with an screenshot :)


Thanks, i am looking forward to this =D>


Well, just took a look and made some tests, and I'm afraid at this moment it is not possible...

Firefox is using a scaling method for all images that is really bad for text (nearest neighbor). I thought that maybe images that were drawn in another way used a better scaling algorithm (bilinear or bicubic), but no...

Well, in the bright side, I readed in several websites that the next major revision of Gecko (1.9) will include better scaling, so scaled text will look a lot better by then...
altape
Posts: 53
Joined: January 6th, 2006, 11:26 pm

Post by altape »

It's not nearest neighbor. It looks like some perverted combination of bilinear and nearest neighbor, and I'm not sure how they managed to do it. I suspect it has to do with cairo & opengl.
Old joseprio
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

altape wrote:It's not nearest neighbor. It looks like some perverted combination of bilinear and nearest neighbor, and I'm not sure how they managed to do it. I suspect it has to do with cairo & opengl.


You're right, when the scale factor is bigger than 100% (expanding) then it looks like "smoothed" as in bilinear, but when shrinking, it's like nearest neighbor. From what I readed, the version of Cairo they're using in Gecko 1.8 is pure software.... I guess that this is because they're using the platform (windows, mac os x, linux) 2D APIs to render the content, so maybe they cannot mix those with hardware accelerated Cairo. Seems that for Gecko 1.9 we may have all content rendered rendered in hardware accelerated Cairo!

Some information about that: http://developer.mozilla.org/presentati ... vg-canvas/
fractalbit
Posts: 8
Joined: February 11th, 2006, 1:00 pm

Post by fractalbit »

Any idea why middle clicking a thumb doesnt zoom it any more? It suddenly stopped working! The option is selected but ...
Old joseprio
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

fractalbit wrote:Any idea why middle clicking a thumb doesnt zoom it any more? It suddenly stopped working! The option is selected but ...


The only thing that changed in this version is that if you "unclick" the mouse anywhere in the window, you'll leave zoom mode... I guess that if you close and reopen showcase, then it will work well again, right?

One question: are you using Showcase embedded in a browser tab, or in it's own window?
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RenegadeX
Posts: 892
Joined: January 21st, 2005, 5:29 am
Location: Canada

Post by RenegadeX »

I've tried Viamatic Foxpose, Tab Catalog, Tab Preview, Tab Catalog, (and also Reveal - for tab history, which I found I didn't ever use) - and above all, I prefer Firefox ShowCase! I'm very picky, so if you've got my vote, consider it a job well done! :)

I like the way when you mouseover a thumbnail it 'grows'(zooms). Also like the middle-click to magnify feature. And I see you've now added a Close button for each tab.

A couple of ideas to make an already great extension even better:
  • 1) Option for Showcase button to position itself on the Tab Bar.
    The following extension could be used as a guide: New Tab Button on Tab Bar
  • 2) IE7 puts a fairly wide coloured background behind the mouse-overed thumbnail. It looks good, and I know it would look good in Firefox too!
  • 3) IE7 incorporates a dropdown marker for Open Tabs into the button. It's the perfect place for it; Tab Mix Plus gave me a 'Opened Tabs' button, but hey - 1 button is better than 2!
  • 4) Viamatic Foxpose uses a coloured Tab Title background - I like the way it looks. For some reason the Showcase title area looks odd now that the Close button is there.. it's kinda 'floating in nothing'.
  • 5) And for the ultimate 'Tab Showcase' Firefox Extension -- incorporate Tab Catalog / Opera-style point-at-a-tab-and-see-its-thumbnail. ;)

Thoughts on the above, anyone?
Old joseprio
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

RenegadeX wrote:A couple of ideas to make an already great extension even better:
  • 1) Option for Showcase button to position itself on the Tab Bar.
    The following extension could be used as a guide: New Tab Button on Tab Bar
  • 2) IE7 puts a fairly wide coloured background behind the mouse-overed thumbnail. It looks good, and I know it would look good in Firefox too!
  • 3) IE7 incorporates a dropdown marker for Open Tabs into the button. It's the perfect place for it; Tab Mix Plus gave me a 'Opened Tabs' button, but hey - 1 button is better than 2!
  • 4) Viamatic Foxpose uses a coloured Tab Title background - I like the way it looks. For some reason the Showcase title area looks odd now that the Close button is there.. it's kinda 'floating in nothing'.
  • 5) And for the ultimate 'Tab Showcase' Firefox Extension -- incorporate Tab Catalog / Opera-style point-at-a-tab-and-see-its-thumbnail. ;)
Thoughts on the above, anyone?


Well, first of all, thanks for your ideas! :)

1) Would make sense. Anyways, I think I that I might implement a separate extension that would allow to place any button in that place, so you can use any button that is present in the "toolbar palette". That would make it a lot more flexible! By the way, next major release will come with 6 showcase buttons in the toolbar palette (Showcase, Showcase this window, Showcase tab, Showcase tab for this window, Showcase sidebar and Showcase sidebar for this window). This way people will be able to choose exactly how they want showcase invoked.
2 & 3) I'll take a look on IE7, and then I'll post here again!
4) That's true. I wanted to add the close button to the "boxed" thumbnail, but I couldn't, so I went for simple style one. Anyways, I'll add an option to add background color to the thumbnails, and another option to choose that color. That will be coming on the next "major" release (hopefully, in 2 to 3 weeks).
5) I think this is something similar to Tab Preview, right?
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