Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

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Philip Chee
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Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

Hi All!

I have been asked by the SeaMonkey developers to seek help in updating the SeaMonkey Modern theme as it is getting very out of date (See: SeaMonkey:StatusMeetings:2008-07-15). We hope to find people who care about Modern and who have experience working on Modern derived themes to help us bring the Modern theme into the 21st Century.

One of our major problems is that SeaMonkey trunk now uses the same toolkit as Firefox but we do not have any styling for many of the /mozapps/ files. We hope that we can find someone to help add the missing CSS and graphics.

You may contact me here in this thread, or via PM, or even via email (see my .sig). You can also contact the SeaMonkey project leader Robert Kaiser (http://www.kairo.at/contact) directly.

I have already sent PMs to Kuden and CheeAun. Suggestions as to themers I could contact who would be interested in helping are welcome.

We could also use this thread as the development thread for "Modern Modern" if you think this is preferable.

Cheers.

Phil
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Euchre
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Euchre »

Considering this seems to be largely in anticipation of the release of SeaMonkey 2, are there any changes in the back end we can expect that would have an impact on the theming of the front end? If something like the 'keyhole' is to be adopted, it will have a significant impact on how the theme should be modified or otherwise redesigned. I think Kuden's work on PastModern would apply very well if the 'keyhole' is to be adopted.
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Kuden
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Kuden »

I can help mozapps, global, navigator, communicator, help, reporter.
First of all, It is necessary to update mozapps and global.

When is the deadline of this work?
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

Euchre wrote:Considering this seems to be largely in anticipation of the release of SeaMonkey 2, are there any changes in the back end we can expect that would have an impact on the theming of the front end? If something like the 'keyhole' is to be adopted, it will have a significant impact on how the theme should be modified or otherwise redesigned. I think Kuden's work on PastModern would apply very well if the 'keyhole' is to be adopted.
SeaMonkey itself won't be changing anything on the backend but we suffered greatly when we moved to toolkit because we then inherited all the toolkit global styles (many which we didn't like) in our "Classic" (now called default) theme and we had to spend a lot of time unbreaking stuff. For Classic we tend to be at the mercy of whatever great ideas the Firefox developers add to /global/.

Modern however is a complete theme and so we are insulated from (most) changes in /toolkit/. We are still affected at times (mostly on the Mac) due to changes in the C++ backend for example in the nsIThemes API which we don't have any control over. On the downside in SeaMonkey 1.x we never had any of the /mozapps/ stuff so now a lot of the toolkit UI is coming up unstyled in Modern.

AND SEAMONKEY WILL NEVER ADOPT THE KEYHOLE PARADIGM THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Phil
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Philip Chee
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

Kuden wrote:I can help mozapps, global, navigator, communicator, help, reporter.
First of all, It is necessary to update mozapps and global.
ありがとうございます Thank you Kuden. Chee Aun has also agreed to help so he should be showing up here soon. As you say the two main tasks are:

1. Fill in anything missing in /global/
2. Most of /mozapps/ is missing and needs to be written.

Kuden wrote:When is the deadline of this work?
The last beta before SeaMonkey 2.0RC1. We hope to get SM 2 out before the end of 2008 but it is still very uncertain.

Phil
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

How to get the latest modern files. Currently we are still on mozilla cvs repository so to check out the files you will need a CVS client and then do

Code: Select all

cvs -d :pserver:anonymous:anonymous@cvs-mirror.mozilla.org:/cvsroot co mozilla/suite/themes/modern/
Sometime in mid August we well be moving to the Mercurial repository (comm-central) so there will be a completely different way of working.

If you don't know how to use CVS you can get the latest ZIP build from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/nightly/latest-trunk/. I suggest the en-US.win32.zip as the easiest to work with. Inside the ZIP the modern files are in /seamonkey/extensions/modern@themes.mozilla.org/chrome/modern.jar

Unfortunately mozilla and SeaMonkey have strict rules on checking in files and changes; and a bug will have to be filed to accompany each patch being worked on. But either KaiRo or I can handle that for you if you don't have a bugzilla account.

I don't know how Chee Aun and Kuden and any other volunteers can coordinate but I think we can break down mozapps into sections and volunteers can pick the ones they want. OR perhaps work collectively as a team section by section.

/global/ is easy, just identify missing files and icons and pick one to start working on. All the current icons should be redone as PNGs. Each icon should also come with a high resolution vector based "master" file.

mozapps (I will have to ask KaiRo to clarify as I am not certain):
  • downloads (on hold. We will be using our own UI for the download manager).
  • extensions (needed)
  • handling (?)
  • passwordmgr (we have a different UI I think)
  • places (we have not moved to places yet and our UI will be different).
  • plugins (needed)
  • profile (our profile styles are in /communicator/profile/)
  • shared (?)
  • updates (needed)
  • viewsource (we currently don't use the /toolkit/ view source files.)
  • xpinstall (?)

Phil
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Philip Chee
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

OK. I just confirmed with KaiRo over in #seamonkey that priority #1 is to get /global/ completed. /mozapps/ will take a lower priority, but if you see something you think you can fix there, by all means.

One particular problem I presonally have is that I'm working on the Customizable Toolbars bug and I've got a working patch that will do switch large/small icons in the main mailnews window (messenger.xul) but the icon graphics when shrunk small, look terrible. The fancy vertical borders on hover don't work very well in small icon mode, or even small icon+text mode. Perhaps we should redesign them to be a bit more scalable. Opinions?

Phil
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by KaiRo »

Philip Chee wrote:/global/ is easy, just identify missing files and icons and pick one to start working on. All the current icons should be redone as PNGs. Each icon should also come with a high resolution vector based "master" file.


Well, going through all global/ files, comparing with toolkit's default theme or whatever and identifying what we are missing is not what I'd call "easy". It's probably one of the hardest parts of the work - but probably the most important for now.
Also reworking the icons is everything but easy if they should look the same (and they should) and still be based on vector graphics (I'd so much like to see SVGs that we can have under the same tri-license as all our code and the Modern theme itself).

Philip Chee wrote:mozapps (I will have to ask KaiRo to clarify as I am not certain):


viewsource is actually used, just not everywhere, and xpinstall is used by extension or update stuff (not 100% sure which).
But then, this Modern theme adaption for Firefox probably has done all of mozapps/ already, if we can get that under the tri-license (it's MPL-only right now), it would be great, as we probably can just use it or at least base our version of mozapps/ on it.

As you might read between those lines, one of the most important things for us is that all our work is under the MPL/LGPL/GPL tri-license so any work you contribute should be available under all those three licenses so that we can incorporate it into official SeaMonkey.

That said, thanks to everybody helping us on that, Philip will continue to coordinate this as most of the SeaMonkey core developers (like me) usually don't read web forums like the one here.
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Philip Chee
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

Philip Chee wrote:mozapps (I will have to ask KaiRo to clarify as I am not certain):
  • downloads (on hold. We will be using our own UI for the download manager).

Callek said that we will be using the Firefox UI for the download manager initially until we come up with our own UI. But I think the mozapps "download" isn't the Firefox download manager.

Phil
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

KaiRo wrote:Well, going through all global/ files, comparing with toolkit's default theme or whatever and identifying what we are missing is not what I'd call "easy". It's probably one of the hardest parts of the work - but probably the most important for now.
Also reworking the icons is everything but easy if they should look the same (and they should) and still be based on vector graphics (I'd so much like to see SVGs that we can have under the same tri-license as all our code and the Modern theme itself).
Thanks for the clarification. As you can tell I am not the most visually oriented person around.
KaiRo wrote:But then, this Modern theme adaption for Firefox probably has done all of mozapps/ already, if we can get that under the tri-license (it's MPL-only right now), it would be great, as we probably can just use it or at least base our version of mozapps/ on it.
Good idea.

Kuden, can you licence the /mozapps/ in your Past Modern theme to us (using the tri-licence: MPL/GPL/LGPL) as a starting point?

Phil
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Kuden
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Kuden »

Philip Chee wrote:Kuden, can you licence the /mozapps/ in your Past Modern theme to us (using the tri-licence: MPL/GPL/LGPL) as a starting point?


There is no problem about the license.
I use the tri-licenced code and icon (from SeaMonkey default theme and Firefox default theme).
And, my code and icon is licensed under the tri-licence.

/mozapps/ is not too difficult.
/global/ is not too easy.

I have already started working.
Last edited by Kuden on July 21st, 2008, 6:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Kuden »

When the port of /mozapps/ is completed, I report to here.
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

Kuden wrote:I have already started working.
Hey wow! Looks great!

Phil
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Philip Chee »

Philip Chee wrote:
Kuden wrote:I have already started working.
Hey wow! Looks great!
Hi There,

The SeaMonkey devs have asked me for an update (https://wiki.mozilla.org/SeaMonkey:StatusMeetings:2008-09-09#Any_other_business.3F).
How are things progressing?

Cheers.

Phil
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Re: Updating SeaMonkey Modern (Help Wanted)

Post by Kuden »

Philip Chee wrote:How are things progressing?

I am continuing working now after getting your advice.
Mozapps has been completed by 60% or more.
It is possible to open it to the public for the time being in least.
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