One of the taglines currently being used by the Mozilla Firefox project is “Web Browsing Redefined.” Today I stumbled onto a Firefox extension which redefines CSS development. Editcss allows you to edit the CSS for a web page in real time, and see the results rendered in real time. It’s a simple concept, but an absolutely amazing experience to use it for the first time. I can’t wait until my next redesign or side project to really put this thing through its paces.
The editing pane shows up in the sidebar, the same place the history window appears. This turns out to be a good orientation, since most CSS files are long lists of short rules. The extension combines mulitple CSS files in the order they are processed, commenting each section with its origin (embedded, link, include). After editing is complete, you can save the final CSS to a file.
The latest release (0.8) of Mozilla Firebird is now available, but it isn’t Mozilla Firebird. The browser has be (re-) re-named Mozilla Firefox. This change comes hot on the heels of the last renaming, from Phoenix to Firebird, and leaves the associated mail client project, Thunderbird, without a good reason for being named for a cheap brand of wine.
The name change (redux) is not without reason, as explained briefly by the Firefox Brand name FAQ and at more length by Mozilla Firebirdfox lead engineer Ben Goodger. The short version: the first renaming was due to trademark issues around the name Phoenix; the second renaming was due to a name collision with another open source project that may not have been a trademark issue. I won’t go into an IP rant, others do a better job. I will say that while this was probably the right thing to do, and the time it took was unavoidable (read Ben’s account above), its unfortunate that all of the name recognition already built by Firebird has to be tossed.
Along with the new release comes a new focus on marketing, beginning with a Button Campain. Snide remarks about how well web-word-of-mouth worked for Howard Dean aside, I think it’s a good idea to get a unified branding effort out in front of the public. I am a little perturbed about this text from the bottom of the buttons page:
Mozilla Firefox™ and the Firefox logo are trademarks of The Mozilla Foundation. The Firefox logo is not licensed under MPL and may not be used without the prior consent of The Mozilla Foundation.
Does this mean I cannot create my own badge, or modify existing badges? I might consider using the little one, but the colors do not fit my layout (I use white text on a gray background). It looks like I don’t have the right to make a new button, only to use those provided. Update – see end of post
Lastly, if you look over the provided buttons, you’ll see a confusion of message: there are three different taglines/slogans. These are:
- The browser, reloaded
- Web browsing, redefined
- Take back the web
I think the project should select one and can the others. The last thing this project needs is another identity crisis. It’s time to send a single, unified message.
Update: Ben was kind enough to leave a comment. He said that the marketing message is still being refined, which is great. Even better, he provided clarification on the use of Firefox iconography. In a nutshell, the logo can only be used in conjunction with the official Mozilla.org project (as opposed to 3rd party custom builds, etc.) This means that I can create a variation of a Firefox button, as long as it is used to reference the Mozilla Firefox project. When you put it that way, it makes plenty of sense. I’ll try to get a color-adapted version up on the site tonight or tommorow.
If you use Firebird, and if you browse with tabs, you probably already know that you can drag tabs around the tab bar to resort them. But you can also drag a tab from one Firebird window to another, moving the page in that tab from one window to the other. If the tab was the last one in the window, the window will close. This is great for consolodating windows opened by other programs (like an aggregator or mail client) into a single window.
As much as I like Mozilla Firebird, I’ve been using it much less on my Mac than Safari. This is because Firebird doesn’t work when used as the default browser under OS X, when displaying an URL launched from another program. Since I launch many urls from places like NetNewsWire, that has meant alot of browsing without Firebird. Just today, as I
caught up on over 350 headlines in NetNewsWire, I considered whether it was time to abandon Firebird on the Mac.
And then I saw this:
New! Mozilla Firebird 0.7.1 for MacOS X contains a number of important enhancements that improve usability on MacOS X. All users of Mozilla Firebird on MacOS X are strongly encouraged to upgrade immediately. ( Mozilla.org’s Firebird Product Page )
It’s fixed. And it loads faster. It’s my default browser once more. Read the Release Notes (includes download link).
Been doing some reading on XUL, The XML User interface Language used in Mozilla products like Firebird. Very cool stuff. Unfortunately, I’ve had some problems getting some of the samples/tutorials I’ve found to work under Firebird. It seems like some things have changed since Mozilla 1.0, and I haven’t found any good references on the differences. I’m going to continue tinkering and see if I can get it worked out.
Also, the excellent Venkman debugger from Mozilla Navigator is available as a Firebird plugin.