Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
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Omega X
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Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by Omega X »

Its come to my attention that we get many people here that just don't realize how much work is going into Firefox 4. So I wanted to create a list of Features, Fixes and Changes both already in and coming soon.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT A THREAD FOR POLITICAL RHETORIC OF FIREFOX FEATURES. Violating posts will be reported.

If I missed something, Feel Free to let me know.

Things that were announced but has not shown up in nightly builds/Betas or turned on by default yet are marked in Red and with an asterisk(*).

List Of Firefox 4 Features:


Backend

+ Server Side
+ HTML 5
+ Canvas
  • WebGL(MDC Page)
  • SVG Enhancements
  • SMIL Animation
  • SMIL Event Timing
  • SVG In <IMG> tags
+ CSS 3
  • Transitions
  • Multiple Backgrounds
  • Touch properties
  • Resizing
  • Calc
  • 2D Transforms
+ JavaScript
  • ECMAScript 5 Elements
  • JaegerMonkey MethodJIT JS Engine
  • JS Animation API
+ Gecko Engine

User Interface/Frontend

+ Styling/Toolbars
  • NEW UI Refresh Windows/Mac/Linux (Mockups: Win, Mac, Tux)
  • Firefox Consolidated Menu (Discussion)
  • In-Content UI (Addons Manager)
  • Per-Tab Modal Dialogs
  • Bookmarks Button
  • Add-Ons Toolbar
  • Tab Animation: Open/Close
  • Status Bar Removal
  • Addons Bar
+ Tab Functions
  • Tab Matches (Info)
  • Tabs-On-Top
  • Panorama(A.K.A Uberview, R.K.A. Tab View, A.K.A. Tab Sets, B.K.A. Tab Candy) (Info)(Discussion)(Aza, please stop with the names!)
  • AppTabs (Info) (Discussion)
+ Tools
  • Web Console (Info)
  • New Addons Manager
  • Firefox Sync Integration
  • 'About:Memory' Usage tracking: Malloc/WorkingSet/PrivateBytes/GFX/Storage/Layout/Images/Canvas

Bug Fixes

  • Async APIs Places/Cookies/Images/Cache
  • New/Faster Scrolling Method
  • Startup Speed enhancements
  • TraceMonkey NanoJIT JS Engine Enhancements/JaegerMonkey Integration
  • Mac OSX Clickthrough fixes
  • UserAgent Overhaul
  • XPCOM Overhaul
  • Restart-less Addons (Info)
  • Lazy Frame Construction
  • Lazy Services Initialization (For Performance)
  • Tab Bar fixes & enhancements
  • :visited selector privacy enhancement
  • Storage API enhancements
  • Cairo Library Updates
  • SQLite Library Updates
  • DOM Improvements: Floats/Shadows/Canvas
  • CSS Parsing performance improvements
  • DNS performance enhancements
  • Critical Proxy fixes
  • Session Restore fixes
  • 'About:Cache update
  • Image decoder refactoring
  • Video scale refactoring
  • Refactored "About Firefox" window
  • Startup Cache (refactors previous startup method)
  • Cache structure tweaks
  • -moz prefix removed from box-shadow & border-radius

Miscellaneous Changes

  • OmniJar Packaging (for faster startup)
  • Integrated Start Page (About:Home)
  • Gopher Support Removed
  • Default Plugin Removed
  • Remote XUL Removed
  • js-ctypes API
  • Services Module
  • 64-Bit Support (Mac OSX only. Windows Platforms are targeted for a later release. Linux x64 builds are provided by the Distro.)
  • Theme Agnostic Personas/Backgrounds*
  • Archived Add-On Deployment
  • Per-Site Privacy Settings for Local Storage
  • Better Lightweight Extensions Support (JetPacks)

Once again, if I missed something let me know.

2/24/2011
- removed Drag/Detach animation
- removed Silent Updates
- removed Decode on Draw from Red, add "Off By Default"
Last edited by Omega X on February 24th, 2011, 4:14 pm, edited 66 times in total.
mat--
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by mat-- »

IndexedDB isn't fully working yet and full Electrolysis won't be in Firefox (they need to complete the work on Fennec 2.0 before porting to desktop, and they will be released at the same time so its physically impossible) . There will also be support for per-document garbage collection, improvements to startup time by folding various libraries into one and initializing various services lazily, support for account manager standard, tab-modal dialogs (doorhanger), web console and web page inspector, support for Jetpack, silent updates, support for resource packages standard, new download manager, support for SLS (forced TLS if I'm not mistaken), revamped UI for site-specific settings (geolocation, cookies), support for native SVG, support for decode-on-draw and image discarding, 64 bit builds avaliable for all platforms, DOM performance improvements, CSS parsing performance improvements, Harfbuzz font shaping, and I probably still forgot a bunch of stuff. :D
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Omega X
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by Omega X »

A lot of that is already in the list.

I do see a couple of things I missed though like the Garbage Collection.

JetPack won't be done until December, way after the release date of Fx4. Geolocation showed up in Fx3.6 but not the per site stuff, SVG was listed, ForceTLS was listed, Account Manager, Inspector and Console was listed, New Downloads Manager was listed.

I forgot about Doorhanger. :/

Electrolysis and a couple of others, I won't rule out until the September 1st deadline.
mat--
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by mat-- »

Jetpack is backwards compatible, which means we already got the support for jetpack extensions even tho the SDK 1.0 isn't released yet. Documentation about resource packages can be found here: https://bug529208.bugzilla.mozilla.org/ ... ?id=455820 (would be nice to have documentation in this thread about new standards pushed by mozilla like account manager and CSP).
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Omega X
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by Omega X »

Yeah, linkage comes later. For now, I just need to get the list situated.
Pillum
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by Pillum »

Canvas 3D IS WebGL.
andy06
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by andy06 »

Hi,

Can someone explain to me the various hardware accelerations?

# Hardware Acceleration DX9/D2D & OGL/ES*
# Canvas 3D* (Not sure, someone confirm please?)
# WebGL*

Which is for what? Will Linux, ARM and MeeGo builds have hardware acceleration enabled? (especially Linux)
WebGL is openGL for the web right?

Is there an easy to understand explanation or diagram for all this (I vaguely remember some openGL diagram explaining the relationship between OpenGL/ES/WebGL etc)

Thanks a lot
andy06
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by andy06 »

Found the image:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/open ... web-and-p/

Now to make sense of it :)
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rob64rock
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by rob64rock »

Not DX9 -Hardware Acceleration DX10/D2D & OGL/ES*

Direct2D and DirectWrite requires DirectX10. DirectX10 can only be found on Windows 7 & Windows Vista.

Read this thread: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1775755&start=0
NoNameReally
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by NoNameReally »

And there's the identity button. And there's the add-ons toolbar.
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Omega X
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by Omega X »

You do realize that I created that thread right?

There are two major Hardware Acceleration components:

For Mac and Linux(including Mobile distros) its OpenGL, OpenGL-ES (And maybe EGL, but I haven't heard much).
For Windows all variations except for Win2000 its Direct2D and DirectX 9.

DirectX 10 is covered by Direct2D. Anyone with incompatible hardware with D2D would default to DirectX 9.


@No-Name

Thanks, I'll add them.
mat--
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by mat-- »

Full electrolysis won't be in Firefox 4: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=569227#c21. On miscellaneous fixes there's improvements to the http cache and dns performance as well.
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Omega X
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by Omega X »

Ok, Electrolysis removed.
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patrickjdempsey
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Is the Add-on's Manager actually finished or was it landed early just to show it off? There was a pretty long list of major problems when it first landed and I haven't seen any movement in fixing them.
Tip of the day: If it has "toolbar" in the name, it's crap.
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KWierso
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Re: Firefox 4 Feature Directory

Post by KWierso »

patrickjdempsey wrote:Is the Add-on's Manager actually finished or was it landed early just to show it off? There was a pretty long list of major problems when it first landed and I haven't seen any movement in fixing them.

It's still being worked on. Lots of bugs still for adding things to it.

Just had some changes in the last few days, though.
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