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status update

maintained by Chris Nelson <chrisn@statecollege.com>

Last Updated Thursday, April 1st, 1999

This status update page is updated every weekend. To get updates and news throughout the week , I invite you to check out mozillaZine, a site I maintain devoted to Mozilla advocacy.

Previous Updates

Friends of the Tree

nester (on irc.mozilla.org) for noticing that we've neglected to handle the Linux/PPC platform correctly in the XPConnect builds. -Scott F.

Module Updates
XPToolkit
March 29th
Submitted by Peter Trudelle <trudelle@netscape.com>
Highlights
  1. Mac and Windows modal dialogs are functional.  Mac modal windows even behave modally.  Windows modal windows don't behave modally, though they actually are.  (danm, pinkerton)
  2. Doing gcc/Solaris builds in the background so we can start purifying/quantifying the build. Already Quantify/Solaris verified ramiro's image rendering fix,  we went from 90%+ cpu usage to 5% for showinganimated gifs! (mcafee, ramiro)
  3. Completed initial infrastructure for Clipboard support on Windows. (rods)
  4. Wrote Clipboard Viewer to test clipboard support.  It may even be a nice addition to the product. (rods)
Lowlights
  1. We are having to decommit on getting system colors to work with CSS.  We thought we had something usable, but the code we submitted was rejected by the module owner.  As was pointed out to us, this is not our area of responsibility anyway.
Accomplishments
  1. Changes to XP Clipboard class  (transferable, dataflavor, formatconverter) are about 80% done.
  2. Landed new box layout manager described here last week (some widgets didn't like getting resized very small).  Corresponding new navigator.xul file should be checked in this afternoon. (evaughan)
  3. Created XPToolkit MyNetscape channel.  (pinkerton)
  4. Got command-key binding limping/bolted on to menu handling on Mac.  Still have some issues to resolve and other platform work to do. (sdagley, saari)
  5. Completed initial XP interface for file/folder dialogs. (sdagley)
  6. Modal window API is as final as it will get until clients start using it and shooting holes in it. (danm)
  7. Added Editor to the Tools menu, it Just Worked, that  was cool to be able to hack the file like that. (mcafee)
  8. Updated the Unix page: http://www.mozilla.org/unix (mcafee)

    9.  
Decisions

Priorities

  1. Finish M4 milestone features in time for them to be used by apps developers.
  2. Fix M4 milestone showstopper bugs.
  3. Get clipboard working on GTK. (mcafee, rods)
  4. Get drag & drop working on Mac & Linux GTK. (mcafee, rods, pinkerton).
  5. File/folder Picker (sdagley, rods, mcafee)
  6. Get key binding working and checked in on all platforms. (sdagley, saari)
  7. Check in sample dialog code and update the docs. (danm)
  8. Get windows off into the GUI thread where they belong. (danm)
  9. Make Windows modal windows feel more modal. (danm)
  10. Write box layout documentation. (evaughan)
  11. Build XP  scrollbar widget. (evaughan)


Issues

  1. The Linux event loop model is much different from  Windows' and the Mac's, bringing into question the viability of our entire modal window story.
  2. Most of us could do a lot  better at communication and coordination. Please keep the appropriate people in the loop about what you will be doing, are doing, and have done.  Work with people rather than just let them find out what you did afterward.  If you're checking stuff in,  post a 1-2 liner to xpfe.checkins.  Don't forget this is open source folks, nearly everything should be happening on mozilla.org.
  3. Clipboard API /support will not handle large amounts of data well. We will have to add streamable support for large data chunks.
People
  1. DanM, SDagley on vacation the week of April 12.
Mozilla QA
March 26th
Submitted by Jan Leger <leger@netscape.com>

Jan Leger has this week's QA update:

  • "Our initial posting of the Mozilla QA Home Page brought in 7 volunteer testers within the first 48 hours! More help is pouring in.

  • Entries to the TCMS (Testcase Management System) Naming Contest is now closed. We received 36 entries which will be posted for voting next week.

  • Have you hugged your bugs lately? Please continue to encourage folks to read the new Bug Writing Guidelines for complete, accurate bugzilla problem report information. Help our developers fix them bugs fast! http://www.mozilla.org/quality/bug-writing-guidelines.html "
NGLayout
March 26th
Submitted by Troy Chevalier <troy@netscape.com>

Troy writes in with this update:

"Not much status for layout this week. I was on vacation last week, which is why there was even less status. :-)

Mostly we're all fixing bugs. Kipp and Chris have their remaining feature work on hold until their bug counts are reasonable."

Grendel (Java Mail/News client)
March 26th
Submitted by Giao Nguyen <grail@cafebabe.org>

Giao has this update for us:

"Many exciting things happened this week. Unfortunately, they didn't make it into the repository but hopefully this problem would be fixed by Monday. These are the patches I received this week.

  • From Joel York (Jazilla hacker!) - updates to Berkeley store to implement a few methods that we never got around to finishing.

  • From Mauro Botehlo - MBD interfaces. Mauro's shooting to implement an MDB style system for Grendel. Grendel currently doesn't have a DB for addressbook entries yet. If my memory serves me, we currently use a LDIF file.

Here's what the regular Grendel hackers have managed:

  • Edwin finished the multiple identity hacks. This means you can now send from multiple stores and reconfigure the SMTP based on the identity you have chosen.

  • I committed patches to Grendel's XUL-like menu building process so that you can isolate individual menu items from the constructed menu. This means we can start looking towards context sensitive menus.

What's still plaguing us:

  • TreeTable suckness is still upon us. I have no clean solution and I've been short on time to implement any ideas.

  • XUL-like dialog building has suckness written all over it for constructed widgets. This must be fixed and soon.

  • Still having problems with message displays.

I'm going to work on getting the preference editor in sync with Edwin's patches (after all this time!) to support the multiple identities feature.

This is going to kick major ass."

Mail/News
March 26th
Submitted by Phil Peterson <phil@netscape.com>

Phil Peterson has news regarding the Mail/News client:

This week

  • The Mork implementation of MDB is now reading and writing databases

  • IMAP test app is running and talking a little bit of protocol

  • I18n work in message DB

  • News component created, news DB subclass started

  • New toolbar icons added into a new messenger-specific resource directory in dist.

  • Mail/news code is included on Linux Tinderbox

  • Started message move/copy code

  • Planning work for new netlib and multiple identities

  • Updated mozilla mail/news web page
Next week
  • Mork performance, robustness work

  • Continuing work on IMAP

  • Continuing work on News

  • Continuing work on move/copy messages

  • Mail/news code to be included on Mac Tinderbox
XPConnect
March 26th
Submitted by Scott Furman <fur@netscape.com>

Here's Scott Furman's update on the status of XPConnect:

"In case you missed it, as of a week or so ago we have the full XPConnect system up and working with XPIDL-generated typelibs. John Bandauer and Mike McCabe are beginning the process of transitioning XPConnect from experimental to mainstream use. XPConnect and its supporting libraries (libxpt, xptinfo, xptcall) are now part of the client build on Unix and Win32. Work on the Mac is proceeding, but lags the other platforms. The rough edges of the XPIDL compiler are being smoothed out and it's being ported to other platforms.

In case you haven't been following XPConnect in detail, libxpt contains code for reading and writing typelibs, xptinfo presents an xpcom interface for accessing typelibs, and xptcall is the platform-specific assembly code that implements method dispatch and impersonation of XPCOM interfaces. xptcall was recently extracted from xpconnect and made more independent for use in a generic method dispatch 'scriptable' system that Warren is building for RDF and other things. Work on the Sparc port of xptcall is mostly done. We are twisting arms :) to get a Mac PPC port done at Netscape. Assembly-savvy volunteers willing and able to port xptcall to other architectures are appreciated!

Part of the team is ECMA-wrangling in Redmond this week. (ECMA TC39 is the committee responsible for the standardization of JavaScript.) There are still some serious battles being fought among the committee members on the shape of the next-generation JavaScript language. If you've got a spare minute or a thousand, you can read Waldemar's vision of the future evolution of the JavaScript language.

Finally, Mike McCabe whipped the unix build system for Perlconnect into shape. (Perlconnect is the technology that bridges JavaScript and Perl. Mmmmm - Two great tastes in one scripting language !) "

OS/2 Port
March 26th
Submitted by Henry Sobotka <sobotka@axess.com>

Henry Sobotka has this update for us on the status of the OS/2 port:

"This week John Fairhurst released the first apprunner binaries for OS/2 (mozm3ish.zip at Hobbes and Leo); while they don't quite make it through the smoke tests, the beast is up and running and impressively functional. We're now planning to sync our code and check in a new OS/2 branch within the next couple weeks."

Previous Updates