Technical Jiggery PokeryKevin Gerich's web logThinking Different- (Found July 8, 2008 ) A few days ago I took delivery of a brand-spanking-new Thinkpad T42. It's a beast of a machine with the sex appeal of a brick, but it'll do. Why a Thinkpad I'd like to be able to build Firefox and Thunderbird on Windows and Linux. I'm very slow in getting to my Windows Firefox bugs because of the lack of a good development machine. Now I have no excuse :) I'd also like to develop themes for GNOME at some point....http://kmgerich.com/archive/000086.html Silliness is its own reward (Updated with extra mirth!)- (Found July 8, 2008 ) Looking over the selection of Firefox buttons at the new SpreadFirefox site, I was inspired to make this: To the obvious question, I say: Why not This is an audience participation blog post. Warm up your Photoshops and your MacPaints and lets see your take on the little browser that could! UPDATE: This comes from Scott techory.com: He has another one on his blog. Cool stuff! UPDATE 2: Daniel Keep sent this one through email. Thanks Daniel :)...http://kmgerich.com/archive/000071.html Pretty Widgets, part 2- (Found July 8, 2008 ) Here's a followup on my attempt to make the HTML widgets on Mac Firefox presentable. I've had to make some compromises here to get the widgets to look nice, for instance I force the background-color and -image on buttons. And text box borders usually use my colors rather than the ones specified by the web page CSS. For these reasons these styles would probably not be acceptable for inclusion in Firefox, but in most cases I've found these to be more comfortable than the primitive default...http://kmgerich.com/archive/000072.html "Live Bookmarks" is not RSS- (Found July 8, 2008 ) A few days ago we changed Firefox's Live Bookmarks status icon to something less geeky. As people rightly pointed out, Live Bookmarks shouldn't pretend to be RSS. The status bar icon should not represent multiple flavors of a syndication format. It should represent the Live Bookmarks feature. Here are some of Stephen Horlander's original sketches for a replacement Live Bookmark icon Initially the RSS button design was suggested by members of the Mozilla Visual Identity team. At the time, it...http://kmgerich.com/archive/000073.html Find Bar Feng Shui- (Found July 8, 2008 ) I have always thought the UI for Firefox's Find Toolbar has room for improvement. Recently the Match Case checkbox was added to the bar, increasing the amount of horizontal space it requires. This becomes a problem when the find bar is used in the Help window, where a portion is clipped off unless you widen the window. I made a Photoshop mockup of how an alternate find toolbar might look. This probably isn't the answer - just starting point for a discussion. What do you like and dislike about...http://kmgerich.com/archive/000074.html Firefox 1.0almost- (Found July 8, 2008 ) Firefox 1.0 Release Candidate 1 is out. There isn't anything flashy to talk about in this version except hundreds of bug fixes. Version 1.0 for Windows and Linux is scheduled for release on November 9. The Mac version will get special attention and come out sometime later. Between 1.0RC1 and 1.0 I'm going to finish up tweaking the Windows and Linux theme. Here are a few of my priorities. Feel free to suggest other theme tweaks that should make it into 1.0. Scrollbar arrows rendered incorrectly..http://kmgerich.com/archive/000075.html about:Aquafication- (Found July 8, 2008 ) A little over a week ago, Ben informed me of the decision to push back the Mac-specific Firefox work to a 1.1 release that would come out in March 2005. Firefox 1.0 was going to be released on Windows and Linux first. After the Windows version was out the door, we (meaning Ben and the few Mac hackers who work on Firefox) would focus on the Mac user experience to bring it closer to the level of polish and integration that OS X users expect. But the Mac-specific work will take a while - with the..http://kmgerich.com/archive/000076.html MTBCP (Mean Time Between Cat Pictures)- (Found July 8, 2008 ) It's just a matter of time before any blog contains pictures of children or kittens. Here are two little ladies that we'll be adopting after Thanksgiving. Any kitten-raising tips would be appreciated :)...http://kmgerich.com/archive/000077.html Firefox 1.0: The Beginning- (Found July 8, 2008 ) Even though I've been working closely with Firefox and Thunderbird for over a year now, I'm amazed at the attention it's receiving. Not actually surprised though. I've always thought of Mozilla as being full of potential. It's great to see Mozilla technology being given its due. My own involvement with Mozilla has been very rewarding so far. Thank you to Ben Goodger and Dave Hyatt for bringing me into Firefox. Thanks to Scott MacGregor who helped me land the first version of Pinstripe...http://kmgerich.com/archive/000078.html Our little 'bird is all grown up- (Found July 8, 2008 ) When I started using Thunderbird, I must admit that I had to force myself. Stephen Horlander and I were creating the Pinstripe theme and I was happily using Apple's Mail program. A year ago Thunderbird felt unfinished (I can hear you say "duh"), but I needed that dogfood taste to inform the design of Pinstripe. At first I found it hard to get around the "Netscape Messenger 4" feel of Thunderbird. I wish that the UI had been burnt down and redesigned from the ground up as Firefox was. There seem.http://kmgerich.com/archive/000079.html |