What Firebird Needs
August 7, 2003
My recent ranting about fonts notwithstanding, I'm usually seen by the web development community as a Microsoft apologist. I use (and like using) Windows and my main browser is Internet Explorer 6.0.
That statement usually inspires all kinds of brilliance in correspondents, ranging from "M$ blowz!" to "bet u get hacked lol". But I keep up with security patches, have a firewall, and the Google Toolbar blocks popups sufficiently for my tastes.
Despite this confession, I will enthusiastically concede that Firebird is a fantastic browser. After some initial rough spots, Ben Goodger created a terrific advocacy page explaining the browser's benefits. And it warms my heart to see people like Asa working on integrating Movable Type into web panels. That's exactly the kind of innovation that gets people hooked on a tool. I spent a while trying to hack my Movable Type boomarklet to load into Internet Explorer's search pane, and while I was successful, it was nowhere near as pleasant an experience as a well-designed XUL form would be.
But all that praise aside, IE's still been my default browser thus far. So starting today, I've set Firebird as my default so that I can focus on the shortcomings that explain why I haven't yet switched. Now that the Google toolbar on Mozilla and Firebird has reached parity with the official toolbar for IE, my major obstacle is overcome. The extensions support in Firebird is fantastic and gives me hope that most of the new features I need will be added quickly, along with the fact that there are dozens of others available which I hadn't even known I wanted.
What don't I have? I think the primary missing pieces are context menu additions that could probably be created for Mozilla, but that I don't have the time and inclination to learn how to create, especially when they're easily added to Internet Explorer. The first gee-whiz feature (people are always amazed when they see this and don't know it exists) that I use constantly in IE is the ability to highlight a selection on a web page and right-click to view source for just that part of the HTML for the page. It's just one of several great features in Microsoft's Web Developer Accessories that are free to download.
Also critical are a few features afforded by the IE Web Accessories, such as right-click highlighting of text on a page and the ability to zoom in and out on an image (which just involves resizing the image by 50% or 200%) by right-clicking on it.
A few years ago, I talked to Dan Sanderson about his BlogTracker tool, then known as Subhonker Filter, and he created the ability to view update lists in the IE sidebar, which simply involves setting the TARGET attribute of a link to "_search". Since then, I've created a bunch of tools for my personal use which load into the sidebar in the same way, which works great on my widescreen laptop, since it still allows me to see a full web page while the sidebar's open.
So a common theme seems to emerge. I use right-click extensions and I use a lot of tools which load into the Search Pane in the browser. It seems like the latter need could be met by having Firebird web panels support the target="_search" syntax, even though it's not a standard, so that those links would work without changing the syntax from IE. The right-click extensions are certainly possible in Mozilla-based browsers, but they're completely incompatible with the way that IE implements them. So there's probably some demand for recreating a handful of context menu features.
I'll keep posting as I find other elements of my surfing habit that Firebird doesn't support yet (bookmark handling is still weaker in Firebird, too) but feel free to add your own list of requisites here if you're still using IE as your primary browser.
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If you highlight something on a page in Firebird and right click, View Selection Source is available as a contextual menu option. Oddly, I never find myself using that feature.
Doh! It's been there all along and I never noticed. I am poorly qualified to be a Firebird user. :)
What I wish Moz/Firebird would do is to be able to Copy an image to the clipboard from the right-click menu, or at least the ability to drag it onto another app instead of having to Save first. It does allow drag-and-drop of links and text selections, and of an image's URL, but not the graphic itself.
The IE Web accessories are nice, but the wealth of extremely useful extensions available for Firebird is impressive and a major reason it has become my default browser.
The ability to halve or double the size of an image is included as part of the Mouse Gestures extension for Firebird, which I personally find essential and use daily without even thinking about them: http://optimoz.mozdev.org/
Unfortunately the default preferences are a bit broken at the moment; you need to set "diagonal tolerance" to about 50 before diagonal gestures work properly. Once you've done that, gesturing diagonally from top-left to bottom-right over an image will double its size and gesturing the other way will halve it. The same gesture performed over the page at large (not over an image) will increase or decrease the text size. The other gestures are well worth learning as well.
Anil, I was surprised with your commments about Firebird, I've spected that you fell in love instantly with it, but it seems it's not :(.
I really don't like use Firebird, personally I love to use Mozilla, I feel confortably with it. Mail, chat, DOM, browser, maybe I see you more as a developer than a simple user...
Did you tryed last Mozilla 1.4 suit? It's sweet.
The problem with the Mozilla suite is that a browser alone is hard enough to make. Attempting to create a suite will spread virtually any group's resources far too thinly to make any one component competitive, as has been patently obvious with Mozilla. There's a reason that quite a few people are now finally giving Firebird a whirl as a default browser. Too bad it took 5 years to get here.
Rafe/Anil:
FYI, the "View Selection Source" is in Mozilla too, not just Firebird.
Note, however, it's the DOM source -- not always the same as the original HTML. For example, <br /> gets transformed into <br>.
bet u get hacked lol!
For real though, I'm in the midst of writing a piece advocating the switch to Firebird, and I'm very interested to read what you think of it and your issues.
Allright. I may be a complete tosser, but I indeed do like Firebird and it nearly replaced IE6... Nearly... Just not yet. Why? Because I'm a sucker for brands... I want to see Google's logo. Why? I dunno... Let's all ask google to update their stuff and make it available for Firebird (Moz). See, why use a fake if the real stuff is there.
Furthermore IE6 still beats Firebird on launch. I use an RSS aggregator in Outlook... usually i'll click a link to a post when interested... Anyway... Firebird is on its way to seduce me as a new customer. I think the switch will be made in a few months.
Anil, Mozilla has a robust sidebar already, which I use constantly for Dan's BlogTracker and more recently, the blo.gs sidebar (which doesn't suffer from weblogs.com timeouts).
The problem as I understand it (as an outsider not following firebird dev super closely) is that "web panels" are still being coded and supported, and should make it into the next major release of firebird. Web panels sound like a reinvention of the mozilla sidebars (someone correct me if I am wrong).
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot:
http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html
Tim Bray's 'use a better browser' campaign:
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/17/BrowserDream
Um: both the Web Developer Accessories and the Web Accessories linked to state "for IE 5.x only".
Do they work in IE6 then? They sound vaguely useful...
There are two things that I like better about IE 6 and only two things: 1. You can make it so when you view source it shows up in Notepad. 2. IE 6 launches faster.
The IE Accessories work in IE6, warnings be damned. And you can configure Firebird to use Notepad (et al.) to view source.
My favourite thing about Moz/Firebird is that you can set your own user agent name - so I have mine set to "Your Worst Nightmare" and freak out people when they check their logs.
OK - that's not really my favourite thing, but it's cool.
things that I like better about IE 6 ... You can make it so when you view source it shows up in Notepad.
Not only that, with IE you can have Notepad pop-ups!
Matt, my understanding of Firebird's "web panels" (primarily from bg's description implementation (from the user perspective) is it's slicker because you can both use it as a clipping space a la ie5mac and because you can target to the web panel from the toolbar and bookmarks. I agree with Anil that it'd make sense for web panels to support the target="_search" syntax, as it's already in use.
As far as general browsing, after getting used to tabbed browsing and the near perfect pop-up blocking handling, it was pretty much impossible for me to go back to IE. There are only a few things that bug me during day to day browsing:
* title tags don't show completely; they work as I think they should in IE
* Javascript links don't execute as expected when I open them into a new tab (IE doesn't handle javascript links well either)
For development, having the Javascript Console, DOM Inspector and Venkmann completely blows away anything the IE gizmos offered (I was quite the fan of both Micosoft and WDG's developer extensions back in the day). My current favorite development widgets are JesseR's bookmarklets. Most of the more useful ones just aren't able to work in most non-Gecko browsers.
Still, it would be nice to have a plugin that would allow easy JavaScript behavior attachment (context menus, pre/post-loading) manager...
I currently use Mozilla as my default browser... but only because of the native browser tabs and better rendering engine. I tried Firebird, but found it fell short in certain aspects and didn't have all the "cool" development tools that Moz has.
However, if I were to vote for my favourite browser, it would be IE... for these reasons:
1. Integration with OS (Duh)
2. Embed-ability in other programs. (I know Moz can do this now but it's not as easy as IE imo)
3. My Copernic Agent/Summarizer bars and software integration (This is the killer).
4. A better Googlebar implementation.
5. It looks like a part of my OS
6. Doesn't feel as "clunky" as Moz
Now, as I said, I use Moz and love it to bits, but I *really* miss my Copernic Agent and Google integration and find myself wanting to go back to IE... but alas I can't "surf" without tabs, and I've yet to come accross a good tab system for IE.
If the next version/upgrade of IE manages to equal the rendering power of Mozilla, while also delivering tabbed browsing, then I'll go back to IE for sure!
Still, with all that said, a day doesn't go by without me wanting to go back... it's wierd.
"6. Doesn't feel as "clunky" as Moz"
Kris, I think that's why I always liked IE until Safari came around. Even Camino seems a little klunky when put beside Safari and Mac IE. I loved IE 5 when I was on Windows. I used it from early developer previews until the end of 2001. Firebird is the first Mozilla-based browser...well maybe K-Meleon, that I could easily use as my main Windows browser.
R.E "clunkiness" of Mozilla: I too had that problem with Mozilla (although it didn't stop me from using it), but Firebird's interface - especially the default theme - is much lighter and less clunky.
Simon, I've 'gone' across to Firebird to give it a test run for a few days... but have had to load it up with quite a few extensions to get it anywhere near what I like/need.
It seems ok, but missing the DOM inspector as far as I can see.
Guess it's going to be a weekend of weighing up the pros and cons.
I just wish MS wouldn't let IE go stale, just an upgrade of it's CSS2 implementation and tabs is all it needs to convert a lot of ppl back imho.
I've been using Firebird for months and I love it. For some reason though, I am hesitant to make it my default browser. Perhaps it's fear of change.
You could always try Lynx. I'm sure that would make you appreciate both Mozzila and IE much more!
The only problem I have with Mozilla is that I am forced to use Composer (or whatever it is) when View Source instead of the program of my choice (IE allows me this option).
i agree that mozilla's handling of bookmards is not-so-cool. but i use mozilla simply because, well, it doesnt crash half as often. oh and for the tabbed browsing
Have the people here who use Internet Explorer got any useful comments about:
http://www.pivx.com/larholm/unpatched/
Is it a case of:
"I disable 'active scripting'"
or:
"It won't happen to me"
...in which case the following should give some pause for thought:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/11/0251235&mode=thread&tid=123&tid=153&tid=99
Tremendo: "...I wish Moz/Firebird would do is to be able to Copy an image to the clipboard..."
Solved!
Well most of the stuff on MS's IE web tools is available as extensions on Firebird. Like the ability to turn images on/off etc. IE gives the ability to view a list of links/images, or the DOM model, but I've never really found a need to use those, except to freak people out by showing them features they never knew existed in IE. Firebird on the other hand has some extentions which I'm increasingly finding invaluable while creating web applications. Like being able to view live http headers, or turn stylesheets on/off, validate pages with a single click and best of all - the javascript console. (It's been there all along in Netscape, but Netscape/Mozilla has always been a crappy browser compared to IE and while IE allows you to take liberties with Javascript which in itself has a really bad syntax, Netscape/Mozilla really acts up when it encounters Javascript. However Firebird has convinced me to start using it as an invaluable accesory to my programming tools).
Not to forget some great RSS readers available as extensions!
Now that there is a usable alternative to IE, I'm waiting to see some improvements in the next version of IE - it has been stagnating since IE 5.
Here's how I handle those Javascript links!
(It works provided you are using Netcaptor - http://www.netcaptor.com).
While browsing any site, if you come across Javascript link and want to open it in new page just press F12 (This will lock the 'Tab', alternatively you can right click Tab and select 'Tab Locked') and now click on the link! Voilla, it opens in new window! :)
JD
http://jdk.phpkid.org
I've wanted to switch, tried to switch from the evil one, but I haven't been able to find a replacement for surfsaver pro (http://www.surfsaver.com) or mybase (http://www.mybase.com) for saving data from the web. Does Moz/Firebird have any applications that work with it for saving web data into a database? I'd be happy to pqy for a new app to escape the evil one.
Thanks,
Tim