M9 Release Notes

These release notes, last updated August 26, 1999, describe installation instructions and known issues pertinent to the M9 release. These notes are updated as we receive feedback, so please check back for new information.

Related links

Contents of This Document This release expires on September 15, 1999 at 00:01 am.


READ THIS Before You Install

If you have installed a Seamonkey build prior to August 10, your profile directory contains a "prefs50.js" file. In M9 (and all builds after August 10), Apprunner will look for "prefs.js" instead. To use your existing prefs, change the name of the prefs50.js file to prefs.js. If you have no previous profiles, you don't need to make the change.

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.

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 M9 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.

Do not use Java Plugin 1.3. It doesn't work with the most recent mozilla builds, and crashes will result. Make sure there are no files named *npjava*.* in either the bin/;lugins directory or the NS4.x plugins directory. This problem is being addressed. For more information about this bug, see bug 5369.

Proxies are not working in this release. If you attempt to use this build from behind a proxy, you will experience bugs. See bugs 8559 and 6540. This problem is scheduled to be fix in the M10 release. (See also bug 10276.)


Installing the M9 Release Build

Installation Instructions -- Unix

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

  2.  

     
     
     
     
     

    mkdir mozilla ;
    mv mozilla*.tar.gz mozilla
     

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

  4.  

     
     
     
     
     

    cd mozilla ;
    gzip -dc mozilla-i686-pc-linux-gnu-M8.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
     

  5. Change to the "package" directory.

  6.  

     
     
     
     
     

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

  7. Run mozilla with the run script:

  8.  

     
     
     
     
     

    ./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

IMPORTANT: Please see the information in the mail/news pref document to correctly set up your mail preferences file. 

Installation Instructions -- Win32

You will need a copy of WinZip. This is shareware available at http://www.winzip.com (also at http://www.download.com).
  1. Click once on the mozilla-win32.zip link. The file will be downloaded to your default folder.

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

  4.  
  5. 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.

  6.  
  7. Select Apprunner from x86 folder to launch the program.

  8.  
Note: To use your current bookmarks with M9, you should overwrite the default M9 bookmark file with your own, for example, copy "C:\Program "files\Netscape\Users\<profile_name>\bookmark.htm" to "x86rel\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

IMPORTANT: Please see the information in the mail/news pref document to correctly set up your mail preferences file. 

Installation Instructions -- Mac OS

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).
  5. Click the Save button.
  6. Double-click on the newly created icon "mozilla-mac.sea.bin".
  7. StuffIt™ will start up and simultaneously create a file "mozilla-mac.sea", and a folder called "mozilla-mac."
  8. 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 M9, you should overwrite the default M9 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.

Mail Instructions for Macintosh

IMPORTANT: Please see the information in the mail/news pref document to correctly set up your mail preferences file. 

Uninstalling the M9 Release Build

Linux

Windows

Mac OS


Files Created or Used

Windows
user/ $windir/ bin/
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.tbl and signonsx.tbl (logins and passwords file store)
mozregistry.dat (the Mozilla registry) localstore.rdf (the Mozilla registry)
Unix
user/ ~/.mozilla/ /tmp/localstore
prefs.js in ~/.mozilla/[profile] (preferences file (use))
Cache in ~/.mozilla/[profile](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 and signonsx (logins and passwords file store)
registry (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:


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. These menus and options are working: File menu: New Browser Window, New > Blank Page / Page using Template ... / Page using Draft ..., Quit; Go menu; Bookmarks menu
Toolbars Toolbars display above and below content window, most buttons working though a couple are not hooked up to execute a command.
Downloadable chrome You can dynamically change the chrome (apply new skins and new content) in M9 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 load your current bookmarks 
file. See instructions under platform installations.
Access via Manage 
Bookmarks Window
Can open, close, and sort folders.
Status Display Toolbar beneath content area, status during loading of URLs.

Available Mail/News Functionality

Functionality Description
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 protocol works; send a message (note: on send, the compose message window doesn't close)
Display Message -- 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.
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.
Post message to newsgroup Using the compose window, post a message to a newsgroup. To post to hosts other than news.mozilla.org, set the "network.hosts.nntp_server" preference (the default NNTP server preference). Currently, the default value of this preference is "news.mozilla.org".
Post to multiple newsgroups simultaneously In the "Newsgroup:" field of the compose window, you can post to multiple newsgroups at once. Use commas to separate the newsgroups.
Display news hosts and subscribed newsgroups Using the prefs and the newsrc files (and if needed, the fat or NewsFAT files), populate the folder pane with news hosts and subscribed newsgroups.
Display News articles in thread pane When you click on a newsgroup, show the message subject, date, etc. in the thread pane.
Display Message -- News Click on a message in the thread pane and the message content is displayed in the message pane.
Get News Select a newsgroup in the folder pane and click on "Get Msg" to download any new news articles.
Marking news message as read Use the menu "Message | Mark | As Read" to mark a news message as read. 
Currently, the read status is being saved, but not in the newsrc file. This is a bug. (#8075)
Viewing news message automatically marks it read Viewing a news message marks it read 
Currently, the read status is being saved, but not in the newsrc file. This is a bug. (#8075)
Cancel news message If you are the author of an article, then the delete button (or the Edit | Delete Message menu item) cancels the article. As with 4.x, you can only cancel one article at a time. 

Due to several dialog / alert bugs, you won't see the confirmation dialog ("are you sure you want to do this?") or the alert open cancellation. ("message cancelled."). For now, On Windows and UNIX, look for these messages in the console window.

Address Book The Personal Address Book is displayed in the left pane. LDAP and additional address books are not working yet.

Additional Mail Functionality

Available Editor Functionality

Functionality Description
Maximize/Minimize Box
Collapase/Expand/Zoom box (Mac)
All function.
Apply/Remove bold, italic, underline Applies style, doesn't remove.
Apply/Remove Listing Functions.
Indent/Outdent Functions.
Apply font, font size, font color All function.
Insert Link Opens the Insert Link dialog
Insert Image Opens the Insert Image dialog.
Insert Anchor Functions
Insert horizontal line functions
Spell Check Opens the Spell Check dialog on Windows; does not function on Mac OS and Linux. (bug 6864)
Up/Down arrows Scrolls document but doesn't reposition cursor. (bug 5709)
Left/Right arrows Works correctly.
File menu New, Open, Save, Save As, and Quit work correctly. PrintSetup, Print Preview, and Print are not functional. (bugs 11767, 10664, and 8806
Edit menu Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All, and Find work correctly. Clear and Find Again are not functional.
View menu Hide Composition Toolbar and Hide Format Toolbar are not functional. (bug 11770)
Insert menu Link, Image, Horizontal Line, and Table work correctly. Target, HTML Tag, Line Break, and Break Below Images are not functional. (bug 11771)
Format menu Font options, size, style, and color work correctly. Paragraph options work correctly. Remove All Styles option does not function. (bug 11794)
Tools menu Spell Check option opens the Spell Check dialog on Windows; does not function on Mac OS and Linux. (bug 6864)

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

General Browser Issues

Issues with Bookmarks and History

Sidebar Issues

Issues With Profiles

Issues With Preferences

Editor Issues

 

Java Issues

Javascript Issues

Issues With Small Fonts on Linux


Known Issues in Mail and News


M9 International Issues

For updated information on features, fonts, and testing for Internationalization, visit this page.

General:

Browser: Localizability: Mail/News (Testing done on Windows only): Mail/News (for Mac and Linux)

Features that are not supported in M9:

List of Charset Converters available at M9:

Single-byte:

Multi-byte: Stateful: