Firefox 1.0.4 available

[unixronin]

Firefox 1.0.4 has been released (get it from getfirefox.com).  It fixes three Javascript security vulnerabilities that are considered critical; see the Mozilla.org security page for details.

Also, technoshaman clued me in to Tab Mix, a Firefox extension that is basically Tabbrowser Preferences on steroids.  It does everything TBP does, plus a bunch more like letting you re-order tabs by dragging them.  If you liked the tab handling in Galeon, you'll like Tab Mix.  (It even allows you to restore the last complete session with all the tabs you had open when you closed Firefox, if that kinda thing makes your motor run.)  Download it from Mozilla.org (you'll have to save it to disk and manually install it by dragging the XPI file to your Firefox window, since the Mozilla.org folks have disabled automatic extension installation from mozilla.org temporarily until they resolve a possible installation exploit) or install it directly from ExtensionsMirror.

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UPDATE:  I've learned that Tab Mix is suffering from developer-of-the-week syndrome, as it is complex and difficult to maintain.  I've also found that the one important-to-me thing Tabbrowser Preferences does, which Tab Mix does NOT, is allow capturing URLs sent from other applications and open them in a new tab instead of a new window.  You may want to keep these factors in mind before deciding whether or not to use Tab Mix.  For myself, I've decided I don't care enough about any of the extra stuff it does to give up the ability to capture external URLs.  About the only extra feature I found worth turning on was sizing tabs to their label content, and that only partially works.  (To be fair, I didn't try the multi-row tab bar feature.)

Comments

[kendaer.livejournal.com]

One more thing that I'm having problems with with TabMix is that when I middle-click on a bookmark, it is opening the new tab AND selecting it.. even though I have those preferences set to *not* do so..

Minor niggle. Also, the tab dragging isn't working for me on Fedora Core 3.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The tab dragging is somewhat counter-intuitive. You can't drag it to blank space, you have to drag to the very edge of an existing tab.

I think a lot of this is "nice idea, but poorly maintained".

[kendaer.livejournal.com]

Ah.. I see. Not exactly the best UI, no. Though now that I understand it, it seems to work as I need, so I'm not too inclined to bitch about it.

Not so sure you are right about this being 'maintainer of the week' though. It looks like it was started by one guy who had no more time and one guy picked it up. The new guy has been responsive to email from me (since I mailed him on the middle-click not opening in the background behaviour).

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, you actually managed to track down the current maintainer? I actually might be interested in using it myself, if it let me capture external links into tabs.

Looking at the history of the project, I can see at least two changes of maintainer.... but I couldn't figure out who the current maintainer was.

[kendaer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, google search is my friend.

I took the username (logixoul (sp)) and Tab Mix and search on google and found his email address since the homepage link for the project was TU.

I'm having no problem having external links opened in a new tab in the current window at all. I routinely use that behaviour from inside pine, so I know it works at least there. (Haven't tried it from within xirc or anything else yet).

That preference (for external windows in a new tab) is controlled by the main firefox prefs though. (under advanced)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I took the username (logixoul (sp)) and Tab Mix and search on google and found his email address since the homepage link for the project was TU.

So logixoul is the current maintainer? I wasn't clear about who the current maintainer even was. The closest I could come was a link mentioning that it was being passed on again, but not to whom -- I guess that was to, not from, logixoul then.

That preference (for external windows in a new tab) is controlled by the main firefox prefs though. (under advanced)

Uh ........ it is? Then there's "Advanced" preferences in your copy of Firefox that aren't present in mine.

[kendaer.livejournal.com]

When I get home I will give you the exact menu path/option. Unfortunately I don't have firefox at work so cannot do so from here.

It's *possible* that one of the other extensions I have loaded is exposing this to me, but I don't think so.

[darthgeek.livejournal.com]

Here's how I have my tabmix settings. It opens external urls into new tabs:

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Huh. What version is this, and where did you get it? I don't have that "Open links from other applications" preference at all.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

My TabMix options dialog looks like this:



It's quite different from yours. This, according to my extensions list, is TabMix v0.2.1.

[kendaer.livejournal.com]

On the unix version (Linux) of firefox 1.0.3, under edit/preferences menu, the advanced tab has the following

Tabbed browsing:

Open links from other applications in:
... a new window
... a new tab in the most recent window
... the most recent tab/window

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

On the Win2K port (I don't have a Linux machine available right now), Advanced and Tabbed Browsing are separate prefs sections. I don't remember whether the "Links from other applications" pref is present in Tabbed Browsing without the Tabbrowser Preferences extension loaded, or whether it's added by TBP.

[anda.livejournal.com]

So now it almost has the same features that Opera's had for years? Woo.