M18 Release Notes (Draft)

System Requirements

Mac OS 8.5, Mac OS 8.6, or Mac OS 9 with PowerPC, 200 MHz PowerPC 604 or G3, 32 MB of RAM, with virtual memory turned on (or 48 MB of dynamic RAM)

Mac OS: You must have the file QuickTimeLib on your machine.

Red Hat Linux 6.1, Pentium II, 233 MHz, 32 MB of RAM

Linux: If you are running Netscape 6 on SuSe Linux 6.2, you must install the file libjpeg.so.62 available here.

What's New

M18 has improved Java support. Java now works on Linux. Visit a page containing a java applet and you'll be prompted to xpinstall the java plugin which is Sun's Java 2 Runtime Environment v 1.3.0.

We have a new Modern theme. To check it out switch themes from the Themes panel in preferences or from the new on the fly Apply Theme menu item in the View menu. The Classic theme is now the default in Mozilla.

Improved downloading / Helper App and mime type handling.

Improved tree sorting and column sizing (ex. Bookmarks, History, Mail-News thread pane)

Proxy and proxy auto configuration improvements.

Improved auto complete in mail and browser addressing.

about:plugins was implemented.

Improved accelerators and mnemonics.

Mail-News threading is vastly improved. Expand all threads and threads with unread icon are both new.

Send page was implemented.

Toolbar customization was implemented. See the Navigator preferences panel for some new choices.

READ THIS Before You Install

If you experience a crash upon launch, delete your Mozilla registry. The format of the Mozilla registry has changed on all platforms since M9.

• Mac OS: Open your System Folder's Preferences folder, and delete the "Mozilla Registry" file.
• Windows: Open your Windows directory, and delete "mozregistry.dat".
• Linux: open your ~/.mozilla directory, and delete the "registry" file.

Install into a clean directory, or delete previous builds before installing. Installing on top of previous milestone builds or released product builds may cause problems. Incompatibilities may be introduced from milestone to milestone while the software is under development.

Make sure the directory is writeable, Mozilla requires that the person who runs the application have write permission to the directory where Mozilla is installed.

On Linux systems that use glibc 2.0 (such as RedHat 5.2), there are problems with dl functions (dlopen(), dlsym()) not being thread safe. This might cause your M18 build to randomly crash at startup. If this happens to you, try running the application a few more times. The bits posted on ftp.mozilla.org are built on RedHat 6.0, which uses glibc 2.1 and does not have this problem. For more details, see bug 8849.
 
 

Installing the M18 Release Build

Installation Instructions -- Unix

1. Create a directory named "mozilla".


mkdir mozilla ;

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


cd mozilla ;
gzip -dc ../mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-M18.tar.gz | tar -xvf -

3. Change to the "package" directory.


cd package

4. Run mozilla with the run script:


./mozilla

Mail Instructions for Unix

Installation Instructions -- Win32

1. Click once on the mozilla-win32-installer-M18.exe and the file will be downloaded to your default folder.

 
2. Double click on mozilla-win32-isntaller-M18.exe and follow the onscreen instructions.

 
3. To run mozilla, click on Start-Applicactions-Mozilla Seamonkey-Mozilla.

Note:
If you have an existing 5.0 profile as well as unmigrated 4.x profiles, and the command mozilla does not launch Seamonkey, use the command mozilla -installer which brings up Profile Manager and allows the user to select a profile.

Mail Instructions for Win32

Installation Instructions -- Mac OS

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 "mozilla." (Note: you no longer need the .bin or .sea files.)

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...".


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

Note: Do not use a slash (/) anywhere in the access path for the Mac installer. Spaces are okay, but avoid other special characters.

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 "mozilla." (Note: you no longer need the .bin or .sea files.)

If you use the installer and get an "error 340" restart the installation from the beginning.

Mail Instructions for Macintosh

Uninstalling the M18 Release Build

Linux

• Remove the /package directory where you installed Seamonkey

 
• Remove the ~/.mozilla directory, which contains profile information

Windows

• Go to Settings/Control Panel/Add Remove Programs and choose Mozilla Seamonkey

Mac OS

• Remove the the folder Mozilla in the Documents folder

 
• Remove the file "Mozilla Registry" in the System Folder | Preferences folder

 
• Remove the folder where you installed Seamonkey (probably mozilla-mac-M18)

Files Created or Used

*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);

General Issues

(Linux only) You can't bring a window to the front by clicking the window's  name in the Task menu, or by clicking the component icons or the "Go To  Window" icon in the task bar. Click the window itself to bring it to the  front.  (bugs 8002 and  26082.)

(Windows only) Pressing Ctrl-Tab does not cycle among the currently open windows. Workaround: open the Tasks menu and choose the window you want. (bug 30864)

Keyboard Shortcuts

(Linux only) Keyboard mnemonics (menu access keys) have been temporarily disabled. (bugs 22515 and 24413)

Preferences

Font Preferences dialog box: You can't select a font size smaller than 12 pt (bug 30813).

There is no way to turn off style-sheets. (bug 32372)

Menus

(Linux and Windows only) When you select Copy from a context menu, the menu remains on the screen. To remove the menu, click outside of it. (bug 28773)

Mousewheel scrolling

Windows: If you are using a Logitech wheel mouse, scrolling with the wheel in Mozilla may not work while Logitech's em_exec program is running. A workaround for the problem (which may involve upgrading your mouse driver) is documented in bug 20618.

Mac OS: Mousewheel scrolling (for USB mice) is not yet implemented for Mac OS.

Browser Issues

(Mac OS only) If you use the SmoothType control panel instead of Apple's "Smooth all fonts on screen" option in the Appearance control panel, you need SmoothType version 2.1.1 for Mozilla. Mozilla is not compatible with earlier versions of SmoothType, and some pages may be improperly drawn. To get an update, go to http://www.kaleidoscope.net/greg/smoothtype.html.

When you try to save a web page whose URL ends in "/" (that is, the URL has no file name portion), the Save File dialog does not contain a filename and you must enter one manually. (bug 24817)

Switching the color depth while Mozilla is running may result in graphic corruption.(bug 6061)

Possible Crashes

View Source

Menus are absent in the View Page Source window, and keyboard shortcuts no longer  work in M18. (bug 26953)

Problems Loading Pages

(Linux only) In 256 colors, loading the test10.html document in Mozilla will cause a crash. (bug 11090)

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

The layout for pages with very long text is slow.
(bug 29641)

(Mac OS) Quicktime movies may be displayed off center. (bug 36046)

(Mac OS) There is no way to install Shockwave using mozilla. The workaround is to install with Communicator 4.7. (bug 35915)
 

Bookmarks and History Incorrect bookmark behavior can be related to profile problems. See Issues With Profiles.

Do not copy and paste a bookmark folder into itself; this will cause a crash. To recover, remove the bookmarks.html file from your hard disk. (bug 29212)
 

Forms

HTML

The ISINDEX element is not working. This element is used for search functions. (bug 3326)

The "vlink" attribute is not working. Visited links on a page may not be displayed in the color assigned by a page's author. (bug 12493)

The "char" attribute is not working. This attribute is used for alignment specified by some character (usually a decimal point). (bug 2212)

The "valign" attribute of the COLGROUP element is not working. (bug 29055)

The "standby" attribute of the OBJECT element is not working. You should see a message while you wait for an object to be loaded on a page, but the message will not appear. (bug 14088)

(Mac OS) A crash occurs the first time Navigator tries to load a web page containing an applet. Restart the computer; subsequent applets will load without problems.

The "label" attribute of the "OPTION" element is not supported. (bug 40545)

Multiple "INPUT" buttons with the "type" attribute set to "radio" do not work outside forms. You can work around this by placing any radio buttons within dummy "FORM" elements. (bug 14445)

The "dir" attribute is not yet supported in all cases. (bug 9100)

The "compact" attribute of the list elements is not yet supported. (bug 2055)

Various metadata attributes, including "lang", "title", "summary", "cite", "datetime", "hreflang", "longdesc", "rel" and "rev" are not yet displayed to the user. (bug 1995)

Non HTML4 Strict documents will try to be rendered the way the author intended rather than according to the specification.

XML

Automatically fired Simple XLinks and "show link in new window" do not work in all cases (bugs 39597 and 41772)

DOM 2: getElementById() only finds elements that are in the HTML namespace. Works for XUL documents, though, using the special XUL and HTML elements.

DOM 2: document.doctype not implemented (bug 15118)

xml:lang attribute not implemented (bug 41978)
 

CSS1

The 'text-decoration' property in CSS should not apply to elements that contain no text, but at the moment there are cases where we do not do this correctly. (bug 20163)

Borders of differing styles look ugly at corners of boxes. (bug 19963)

Printing

(Linux only) Text is cut off on the right when printed. Workaround: In the File menu, choose Page Setup and change the right margin to .50 inches. Then try again. (bug 24405)

The password field prints blank. (bug 24406)

There are problems printing tables with long rows. (bug 24952)

You cannot print in Landscape mode. (bug 24847)

Transparent gif files print as black and white or not at all. (bug 12037)

Plugins

Profiles

• Windows mozregistry.dat ( c:\winnt or c:\windows or equivalent),
• Mac OS Mozilla Registry (System Folder:Preferences),
• Linux registry (~/.mozilla/)

Default profile locations for profile directories are <3 levels up from the exe location>\Users50 on Windows, :Documents:Mozilla:Users50: on Mac OS, and ~/.mozilla on Linux.
 
 

To create a new profile name with a space in it, enclose the name in quotation marks (for instance, "My Profile").

You open Profile Manager with the command line argument : -ProfileManager. The Profile Manager user interface appears, supporting creating a new profile, and deleting and renaming existing profiles. When you finish any of the tasks you can click Exit to quit the Profile Manager. You can click a Start Communicator button to start Mozilla with a selected profile. Also, users can migrate 4.5 Communicator profiles.

Various command line options to create and manage profiles are:

# mozilla -P <Profilename>

Runs Mozilla with the <Profilename>.

# mozilla -nosplash -CreateProfile "<Profilename> <ProfileDir>"

Creates a profile (i.e., <Profilename>) and creates a directory at the specified location i.e., <Profiledir> and quits the application.

# mozilla -nosplash -CreateProfile <Profilename>

Creates a profile and creates a profile directory under default profile location.

# mozilla -ProfileWizard

Launches the Create Profile Wizard to create a new profile. The Create Profile Wizard lets users create a new profile at the default location or the location of their choice. At the end of the process a profile is created and marked as the current profile, and Mozilla is launched with that profile. The wizard is currently just two screens. Mail and News related preferences/information will be collected by a different application.

# mozilla -ProfileManager

Brings up Profile Manager. Users can select a profile and click on the Start Communicator button to launch Mozilla with the chosen profile. The current profile (usually the last used profile) appears preselected.

# mozilla -SelectProfile

Brings up Profile Selector. Users can select a profile from those displayed or click "manage profiles" to reach the Profile Manager and proceed as above.

# mozilla

Several scenarios:
 number of profiles = 0 --> Brings up Create Profile Wizard
 number of profiles = 1 --> Launches Mozilla directly with that profile
 number of profiles > 1 --> Brings up Profile Manager

Editor

Mail

Preferences

Error Messages

Undo

Drag and Drop

Drag and drop of folders is not working. (bug 25589)

Drag and drop does not work consistently on Linux.

Drafts and Templates/Stationery

To save as message as a draft or a template, your Copies and Folders preference must point to folders that exist. To set your Copies and Folder preference:

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Mail/News Account Settings.
2. Click Copies and Folders for the account you wish to set.
3. Click "Drafts on [mail account/server]" or "Templates on [mail account/server]" and choose a folder. (The options contain your own mail account and server name.)

Address Book

The Collected Addresses address book doesn't appear immediately when you send or read a message. It will appear after you exit and restart.

Passwords

1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2. Click the Advanced category to open it.
3. Click Forms and Passwords.
4. Put a checkmark next to Enable Password Manager.

The "Save Password" check box in the Account Setup won't save a password. To save a password in the Master Password database, check the "Save password" box in the server password dialog that you see when you access a server. You will then see either a dialog box asking you to enter your master password, or a dialog box that lets you create a new Master password.

To remove a mail server from the Master password list, do one of the following:

• Choose Preferences from the Edit menu, then click the Advanced: Password Manager preference. Click the View Stored Passwords and then select the server and click Remove.

 
• From the Tasks menu choose Autofill: Display Signons, click View Stored Passwords, then select the server and click Remove.

Message Filters

Performance

• Loading newsgroups and/or switching among different newsgroups.
• Scrolling the message list in a large folder or newsgroup.
• Deleting multiple messages.
• Marking as "read" a large selection of messages or an entire newsgroup or folder.

Cryptographic Functionality

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/psm/psm-mozilla/index.html

See also: Mozilla Crypto FAQ.

Java

HTTPS is not supported in this release of J2SE.

Running J2SE in M18 in 256 color mode may cause a flicking problem.

Running too many applets and plug-in on the same page may fail because the browser will attempt to stop or destroy the running instances of the applets or plug-ins, but the the applets or plugins are not properly cleared up.

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 (or later) Communicator directory: npjava32.dll, npjava12.dll and npjava11.dll.

Document Object Model (DOM)

DOM Level 0

The Javascript methods history.back() and history.forward() do not work as  expected. There are problem with the history array.  (bug 21373) 

Event Handling

Fonts Issues

There is some info about setting the X server's DPI value at http://www.mozilla.org/unix/dpi.html.

If your fonts are still too small (or too large) after setting the DPI correctly, you can adjust the font size as follows:
setenv GECKO_FONT_SIZE_FACTOR 1.5

Note that the latter only affects fonts. The screen_resolution preference affects anything that specifies absolute size (e.g. CSS "pt" points).
 

M18 International Issues