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M4 Release Notes

These release notes, last updated April 19, 1999, describe installation instructions and known issues pertinent to the M4 release. These notes are updated as we receive feedback, so please check back for new information. This release expires on June 1, 1999 at 00:01 am.

Installing the M4 Release Build

Unix Instructions

  1. Create a directory named "mozilla" and move the tar.gz file into the mozilla directory.


    2. mkdir mozilla ;
    mv mozilla*.tar.gz mozilla

  2. Change to the mozilla directory and untar the archive. This will create a directory called "package".


    3. cd mozilla ;
    gzip -dc mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-M4.tar.gz | tar -xvf -

  3. Change to the "package" directory.


    4. mv mozilla*.tar.gz ../ ;
    cd package

  4. Run mozilla with the run script:


    5. ./mozilla-apprunner.sh

Note: Bookmarks are temporarily reading the file "mozilla/package/res/rdf/bookmarks.html." instead of "~/.netscape/bookmarks.html". You can copy your bookmarks file as a workaround for now:

cp ~/.netscape/bookmarks.html mozilla/package/res/rdf/bookmarks.html

Mail Instructions for Unix

The current build reads the following preferences. For Windows, Mac and UNIX, the name of the preferences files is "prefs.js". The preferences file must be in the same directory as the apprunner binary. Only change the red dummy values. Leave everything else the same. Make sure you have those first three lines (two comments and one new line).

// Netscape User Preferences
// This is a generated file! Do not edit.

user_pref("mail.accountmanager.accounts", "account1");

user_pref("mail.account.account1.server", "server1");
user_pref("mail.account.account1.identities", "id1");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.type", "pop3");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.hostname", "dredd");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.userName", "test");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.password", "clear text pop passsword");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory", "/disk/test/mozillamail");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.fullName", "Mozilla Q. Dragon");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.organization", "mozilla.org");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.useremail", "test@netscape.com");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.smtp_server", "dredd");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.smtp_name", "test");

Unix Specific Notes:

  • Don't set the "mail.server.server1.directory" pref to your real nsmail directory. Instead, make a copy of your nsmail directory and point the "mail.server.server1.directory" pref to that copy.

  • Make sure that the directory you set as your "mail.server.server1.directory" exists. (#4861)

  • You may crash after you get messages. (#4862) But you can start back up.

  • Folders with a more than 100 messages will take a long time to load the first time.

  • Don't put your prefs.js file in your ~/.mozilla directory, or it will get ignored. The preferences file must be in the same directory as the apprunner binary.

Win32 Instructions

You will need a copy of WinZip. This is shareware available at www.download.com.

  1. Click once on the mozilla-win32.zip link. The file will be downloaded to your default folder.


  2. Click on the mozilla-win32.zip file to launch WinZip.


  3. After clicking "I Agree" to terms of WinZip shareware, click the Extract button in the WinZip tool bar. An x86 folder with application and associated files will be unzipped.


  4. Select Apprunner from x86 folder to launch the program.


    • Run "apprunner.exe" to use browser and mail.


    • Run "viewer.exe" to run only the gecko layout engine
Note: To use your current bookmarks with M4, you should overwrite the default M4 bookmark file with your own, for example, copy "C:\Program "files\Netscape\Users\<profile_name>\bookmark.htm" to "mozilla\package\res\rdf\bookmarks.html." Note that the file name changes slightly and that 'profile_name>' needs to be replaced by your user profile name.

Mail Instructions for Win32

The current build reads the following preferences. For Windows, Mac and UNIX, the name of the preferences files is "prefs.js". The preferences file must be in the same directory as the apprunner binary. Only change the red dummy values. Leave everything else the same. Make sure you have those first three lines (two comments and one new line).

// Netscape User Preferences
// This is a generated file! Do not edit.

user_pref("mail.accountmanager.accounts", "account1");

user_pref("mail.account.account1.server", "server1");
user_pref("mail.account.account1.identities", "id1");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.type", "pop3");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.hostname", "dredd");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.userName", "test");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.password", "clear text pop passsword");
user_pref("mail.server.server1.directory",
"c:\\program files\\netscape\\users\\test\\mail");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.fullName", "Mozilla Q. Dragon");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.organization", "mozilla.org");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.useremail", "test@netscape.com");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.smtp_server", "dredd");
user_pref("mail.identity.id1.smtp_name", "test");

Note: If you are unable to send mail, make sure the directory specified at "browser.download_directory" actually exists.

You can bring up Messenger using any of these methods:

  • From within apprunner's UI under Tasks | Messenger


  • From command line using -mail argument


The application should show a mail UI.

MacOS Instructions

If you have Stuffit Expander™ installed and your browser is configured to use it:
  1. Click once on the mozilla-mac.sea.bin link. The file will be downloaded to your default folder (usually the desktop) and Stuffit™ will start up and convert it to mozilla-mac.sea for you. Then Stuffit will open up mozilla-mac.sea and convert it to a folder called mozilla-mac for you.

  2. Open the mozilla-mac folder and double-click the file "apprunner." (Note: you no longer need the .bin or .sea files.)
Note: If you try step one and your browser asks you what you want to do it's because you don't have Stuffit™ configured. In that case, just click Save and continue from Step #3 below.

If you do not have Stuffit Expander™ installed or your browser is not properly configured:

  1. Make sure you have Stuffit™ somewhere on your hard drive.

  2. Click and hold the mozilla-mac.sea.bin link.

  3. Choose "Save this link as...".

    4. You will see a file dialog box where you can select where you want to save the file (for example, your Desktop).

  4. Click the Save button.

  5. Double-click on the newly created icon "mozilla-mac.sea.bin".

  6. Stuffit™ will start up and simultaneously create a file "mozilla-mac.sea", and a folder called "mozilla-mac."

  7. Open the mozilla-mac folder and double-click the file "apprunner." (Note: you no longer need the .bin or .sea files.)
Note: To use your current bookmarks with M3, you should overwrite the default M3 bookmark file with your own. Copy your bookmark file, located in your profile directory (example: "{Hard Disk}:System Folder:Preferences:Netscape Users:{Profile Name}") into your "{Mozilla Binary Location}/res/rdf/" folder.

Files Created or Used

Windows
user/ $windir/ $%TMPDIR%/
prefs.js (Preferences file (used))
cache/ (cache directory)
cookies.txt (cookies file)
*cookperm.txt (used to selectively accept/reject cookies)
FieldSchema.tbl (files for auto form filling)
SchemaConcat.tbl (files for auto form filling)
SchemaValue.tbl (files for auto form filling)
URLFieldSchema.tbl (files for auto form filling)
signons.txt (logins and passwords file store)		 mozregistry.dat (the Mozilla registry) localstore.rdf (the Mozilla registry)
Unix
user/ ~/.mozilla/ /tmp/localstore
prefences.js (preferences file (use))
cache/ (cache directory)
cookies (cookies file)
*cookperm (used to selectively accept/reject cookies)
FieldSchema.tbl (files for auto form filling)
SchemaConcat.tbl (files for auto form filling)
SchemaValue.tbl (files for auto form filling)
URLFieldSchema.tbl (files for auto form filling)
signons (logins and passwords file store)		 mozregistry.dat (the Mozilla registry) localstore.rdf
Mac
TBA TBA TBA

*Note:"cookperm.txt" ("cookperm" on Unix) is a file used to selectively accept cookies from certain sites and not from others. It is used only if you set your preferences so you see a warning before accepting cookies. To do that, hand edit the prefs.js file to include:


    user.pref ("network.cookie.rememberAboutCookies", true);

Limited Support Features


Available Navigator Functionality
Functionality Description Comments
Back, Forward, Reload
Location Field You can browse by entering URLs
Various Menu Commands Menus do work, but many commands are not hooked up. Menus items that do work include: File menu: New Browser Window, New > Blank Page / Page using Template ... / Page using Draft ..., Quit; Go menu; Bookmarks menu (except Add commands)
Toolbars Toolbars display above and below content window, most buttons working though a couple are not hooked up to execute a command. No toolbar hiding or moving enabled yet.
Downloadable chrome You can dynamically change the chrome (apply new skins and new content) in M4 with the following caveats:
(1) Only Navigator is using the new chrome URLs. Messenger hasn't made the switchover yet.
(2) Changes aren't persistent yet, so if you change the skin, the change won't be remembered.
(3) The window doesn't dynamically refresh (once the window manager is further along, it will). In order to see your changes, you need to open up a new window after running the script to set the new skin. 		See the sample code in section 9 of the downloadable chrome spec
Link Buttons Buttons that simply link to a web address, including the N brand button, Home, My Netscape.
Access Personal Toolbar Links in Personal Toolbar are displayed and can be used Can't add or edit
Access Bookmarks Access Bookmarks through Bookmarks menu, can't add or edit. Can load your current bookmarks
file. See instructions under platform installations.
Access via Manage
Bookmarks Window		 Can open and close folders, one click to launch bookmarked URL in new toolbar-less window. File menu > New Window command also works.
Status Display Toolbar beneath content area, status during loading of URLs.


Available Mail/News Functionality (Win32 and Unix only)
Functionality Description Comments
Start Mail Run Apprunner and bring up the three-pane mail window
Get New Mail Download and display contents of local mail folders; POP
Handle SMTP SMTP works; send a message (note: on send, the compose message window doesn't close)
Display Message News: Go to the "demos" menu and display a news article.
Mail: Go to the "demos" menu and select several messages from your Inbox. The message content is displayed in the message (lower right) pane.
Display Folder List Local mail folders are displayed in the folder (left-hand) pane.
Delete Message Delete a message using the Delete toolbar button.
Edit/Send Text Message Bring up the compose window by clicking the New Msg button, type some text, and send. Currently, the compose window has to be manually closed.
Sorting -- Thread Pane Sorting works for Subject, Sender, Status, and Date.
Move/Copy Messages You can move one message at a time.
Read Attachments in Messages Attachments can be displayed in the message pane.


Additionally:

  • Apprunner reads the Preferences file from the current directory, not from the executable directory. The preferences file names are:


    • Windows: prefs.js


    • UNIX: preferences.js


    • MacOS: Netscape Preferences


  • On UNIX, preferences are not read from ~/.mozilla/.


Available Gecko Functionality
Functionality Description Comments
HTML 4.0 Done except bugs.
Cascading Style Sheets, level 1 (CSS1) Features 98% done; bug-fixing remains.
Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 (CSS2) Positioning, tables, selectors done. No support is committed for final release, but some features are already working and will likely be enabled.
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 0 Done.
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 HTML 90% done.
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 JavaScript event model 80% done.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) James Clark expat parser in; documents parse.
Simple XLink and HTML Namespaces done.
XML + CSS1 Working.

Known Issues

  • Opening multiple browser windows causes unpredictable results. Any URL entered into a new browser window affects only the first window. Closing multiple windows in the wrong order can cause a crash.


  • The Sidebar may appear collapsed when you first launch Apprunner. The Sidebar collapses when you resize a window.


  • Loading problems (possible crash or freeze) sometimes occur on pages that contain applets.


  • On Win32 and Mac, you cannot copy and paste in the Location bar.


  • Several problems are under investigation for the URL http://my.netscape.com. My Netscape is diverted to the Netscape home page on all platforms.


  • Within Viewer, the Debug & Tools menu options are not currently working or produce unpredictable results.


  • If you have installed the latest JRE 1.2 from Sun Microsystems, you may crash at startup if the Java plugin is present. To fix this, remove the following dlls from the Plugins folder located in your 4.5 Communicator directory: npjava32.dll, npjava12.dll and npjava11.dll.


  • None of the JavaScript window.xxx() functions work with AppRunner windows. Windows can be opened using the ToolkitCore, but those windows don't play well with most of the JavaScript properties and methods.


  • "javascript:" is not working.


  • The following toolbar and menu items are either not fully functional or disabled:


    • The Back button doesn't work with manually entered URLs or URLs accessed through bookmarks


    • The Stop button fails intermittently


    • The Close menu item doesn't work (use the close box to close windows)


    • Print (toolbar button & menu item) and Print Preview fail intermittently


    • The View Source menu item doesn't work

  • Keyboard shortcuts/command keys are not available for most menu items with the exception of the following for the mail compose and editor window: Ctrl-C (copy), Ctrl-V (paste), Ctrl-Z (undo). and Ctrl-Y(redo) and their MacOS equivalents. The old Unix equivalents (using Alt- instead of Ctrl-) don't work; use Ctrl- .


  • Information about preferences related to saving username/password or form data:

    • To see a warning prompt before saving username/password or form data, set the following preference (by hand) in your prefs.js file:
      • user_pref("wallet.useDialogs", true);

      This pref is false by default, so saving will be done silently. This is done because there currently are no dialog boxes and the warning prompt would occur in the console window.

    • To suppress saving of form data altogether, set the following preference (by hand) in your prefs.js file:
      • user_pref("wallet.captureForms", false);

      This preference is true by default.

    • To supress saving of username/password, set the following preference (by hand) in your prefs.js file:
      • user_pref("network.singon.rememberSignons", false);

      This preference is true by default.



  • If you have local folders with many saved messages (hundreds or thousands), don't point the Mail application at your actual local folder hierarchy. All folders reparse at startup, and vast quantities of memory could be consumed if your total number of messages is high.


  • Vcards in mail are not fully functional and may cause failures when clicked.


  • Bugs 4886and 4784: Getting New Messages gets old messages, too. The Inbox thread pane displays duplicate messages after every Get Message. This also produces a side effect where any new messages or new duplications cause an error when attempting to display the message: "XML Parsing Error." The workaround for the side effect is as follows:


    1. Exit after getting messages.

    2. Delete all .msf files in the user mail profile directories (user and user/mail directories)

    3. Launch the application again.

    However, the main problem of duplicate messages will continue to appear in the inbox thread pane.


  • Issues in the Mail Compose window:


    • The cursor does not appear in the message field until you begin typing.


    • At the end of a line, you may need to press Enter twice before the cursor moves to the next line.


    • The received message does not wrap lines, so you may want to embed hard returns in your messages.


    • Messages may contain either too much vertical white space or not enough.


  • Win32 only:


    • You may not be able to subsequently enter text into any compose window after the first try, due to editor timing problems.




  • Win95 only:


    • Selecting the Print option causes crashes.


    • Preferences now load, but are not completely functional.


    • The CSS property "bgcolor" does not work.


    • The Wallet feature does not work correctly.




  • MacOS only:


    • The Application menu does not appear when Apprunner is on top. You can click on another application or the desktop to switch applications. You can also use Command-Tab to cycle through applications.


    • Resizing windows occasionally causes failures.


    • FTP is not functioning and may cause freezes.


    • Print is not functioning.


    • Increasing allocated memory to greater than 35 MB causes Apprunner to crash on launch.


    • There is unexpected behavior on the Mac when sidebar categories are selected. Expected behavior: Clicking once on a category should select it, and clicking twice should open it. Actual behavior: Sometimes a single click opens a category, and when this happens the previous category is highlighted after the single-clicked category opens.


    • If an included .css file is missing, the application will crash.


    • Cookies are not yet ready.


  • Linux only:


    • The Copy command in the Edit menu is not working.


    • The Back and Forward buttons do not work for manually entered URLs.


    • Java is not yet implemented.


    • In Messenger, text under the toolbar buttons is not readable. For a workaround, see http://www.mozilla.org/unix/dpi.html.


    • You can use an environment variable to alleviate the small font problem:

      • setenv GECKO_FONT_SIZE_FACTOR 1.5

    • Bug 4103: On Linux, a crash occurs if you:


      1. Start apprunner.


      2. Select "File / New Browser Window."


      3. Close a window.


      4. Select "File / New Browser Window." a second time.

M4 International Issues

For more detailed descriptions of milestone features, visit the Internationalization project page.

  • The following Unicode converters are supported. We can now view documents in these charsets in M4 (see restriction about Linux)


    • Single Byte


      • Western (ISO-8859-1, Windows-1252, MacRoman)


      • Central European (ISO-8859-2, Windows-1250, MacCE)


      • Greek (ISO-8859-7,Windows-1253, MacGreek)


      • Turkish (ISO-8859-9 aka Latin5, Windows-1254, MacTurkish)


    • Multi Byte


      • Japanese (Shift_JIS, EUC-JP,ISO-2022-JP)


      • Traditional Chinese (Big5, EUC-TW)


      • Simplified Chinese (GB2312)


      • Unicode (UTF-8)


      • Korean (EUC-KR)


  • Windows GFX uses multiple fonts to render Unicode text. The M3 prefs.js font setting that was required to view Japanese is no longer needed. If you want to view CJK text but do not have CJK font, you can download it from:

    ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/extras/fonts/windows/Cyberbit.ZIP.

    Known problems:


    • Crashes on Japanese Windows 95 with certain pages. There is a workaround for this. (bug 4800)


    • Printing on Windows uses the wrong font (a sans serif font). (bug 4875)


    • Certain characters such as euro are not displayed.


  • Mac GFX uses ATSUI to render Unicode text. There are no major changes between M3 and M4 in this area except that non-ASCII font names now can be used in FONT face tag.


  • Linux GFX uses multiple font to render Unicode text. Currently it takes Latin-1 and Japanese (0208) fonts only. Known problems:


    • Japanese fonts are large compared with Latin, causing overlap with lines above. You can use an environment variable to alleviate this problem:

      • setenv GECKO_FONT_SIZE_FACTOR 1.5

    • Windows CP 1252 characters such as smart quotes are taken from Japanese font, which is often too large compared to Latin font.


  • The following restrictions from M3 still apply:


    • (Non-Latin1) Pages must have charset info in <META> tags.


    • Need to click Reload to correctly display the first part of (a non-Latin1) page. (bugs 2143, 3965, 4553)


  • Line wrapping should work for all the alphabetic scripts, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. There is a known bug about line wrapping between tags. (bug 4240)


  • M4 provides limited support for Japanese input on Windows. Right now, we only support Japanese input when a single editor window is open. All of the application's other windows must be closed. The support does not include the correct user interface elements, only data entry. This is a very early prototype. Please do not submit bugs yet. But we welcome design/development support.


  • Non-Latin 1 HTML won't be displayed correctly in FRAME, even with the META tag charset. (bug 3921)


International M4 Mail Application

  • Platforms: Win32


  • US Windows can display Latin 1, but not other charsets, etc. Note that no special font settings are required for Latin 1 display under US Windows -- just modify the mail server settings in the prefs.js file.


  • M4 does not display bodies of Japanese messages. This is a regression from M3 because this area of the code has been rewritten. We will announce to the mozilla.i18n newsgroup, when we have this working again. (bug 2671, 3889)


  • The thread pane is enabled to see Japanese (ISO-2022-JP) and Latin (ISO-8859-1) MIME-2 encoded headers. Non MIME-2 encoded headers won't be displayed correctly. You can see both Latin1 and Japanese simultaneously -- an advancement over all previous Netscape browsers!


  • Mail sending encodes ISO-8859-1 text in headers (To: CC: and Subject:) into MIME-2 encoding. Put the following line into prefs.js to enable this feature:


    • user_pref("intl.charactesr_set_name", "iso-8859-1");

    Please notice a typo (an extra 's' ) is in the key -- it should be "intl.charactesr_set_name", but not "intl.character_set_name" for now. This problem will be fixed later. (bug 4029)

  • The M3 prefs.js font setting is no longer needed to view Japanese. However, you still need to change the prefs.js for other mail settings.

Features that are not supported in M4:

  • No CJK IME support on Mac and Linux.


  • Linux can only view Latin and Japanese.


  • "View|Character Set" menu is not functional. (bug 2341)


  • No Japanese Auto-Detect.


  • No Japanese mail composition (including forward and reply).


  • No MIME-compliant Latin1 mail composition (M3 strips out 8-bit characters in email).


  • No posting non-ASCII forms data.


  • No CJK printing on Linux.


  • HTTP charset won't be handled.