14 December 2008

Clippings 3.1 beta 1

There will be a minor release of Clippings to address a few common user requests and bug fixes.

This beta release is a preview of things to come. Meant for early adopters craving the latest and greatest, this beta release is being made available for testing, and should only be installed if you are willing to tolerate a few bugs. If that scares you, consider waiting until Clippings 3.1 is officially released.

» Download: Clippings 3.1b1 (180KB; English (United States); compatible with Firefox 2.0-3.1b2)

What's New
  • Paste clippings without overwriting the clipboard
  • Paste clippings containing HTML tags as rich text
  • Window and dialog dimensions set in "em", not pixels; this allows windows and dialogs to be sized correctly on the screen
  • New extension preferences dialog (Tools → Add-ons, select Clippings in the list of installed extensions → click Options)
  • Clippings icon now appears in Thunderbird's message view status bar
  • The Clippings submenu now appears in the subject line context menu in Thunderbird's message compose window. This means that you can paste clippings into the subject line of a new message.

Known Issues
  • The Clippings submenu in the subject line context menu in Thunderbird's message compose window sometimes disappears (bug 20350)

Help and Support

Feedback on this beta release is welcome. Please see the Contact page on the AE Creations website for details on how to report a bug or obtain support.

06 December 2008

Using Google Apps and Yahoo! Mail in Send Tab URLs 2.0

Send Tab URLs 2.0 comes with experimental support for Yahoo! Mail Classic (not the so-called "all-new" Yahoo! Mail) and Google Apps Gmail (hereafter referred to as Google Apps, and not to be confused with regular Gmail, which already works out of the box). Support for those two web mail apps is disabled by default, but can be enabled if you wish to try it.

Why?

Send Tab URLs has not been tested with Google Apps, as I have not been able to gain access to any Google Apps installations to use for testing. If Send Tab URLs can't be tested with Google Apps, then there is no assurance that it will work with it.

As for Yahoo! Mail, the problem of not being able to use a quick compose URL in the so-called "all-new" Yahoo! Mail precludes support for that web mail app. And the setup required to make Send Tab URLs work with classic Yahoo! Mail would be too difficult for "normal" computer users to bother with.

Nonetheless, testers and advanced users are welcome to try using Send Tab URLs with these two unsupported web mail applications. If that is you, then do so at your own risk.

To Enable Support for Yahoo! Mail (Classic)
  1. Start Firefox. Then in about:config, set the pref sendtabs.mailclient.yahoomail.enabled to true.
  2. Open a new browser window or tab and login to your Yahoo! Mail account.
  3. Once you are viewing your Yahoo! Mail inbox, observe the URL in the Firefox address bar. Select and copy the URL up to, and including, the last slash character (/) in the URL. Be sure to include the "http://" prefix.
  4. Return to about:config and edit the pref sendtabs.mailclient.yahoomail.mail_url, changing its value to what you selected and copied in step 3.
After following these steps, you should be able to use Send Tab URLs with Yahoo! Mail Classic.

To Enable Support for Google Apps
  1. Start Firefox. Then in about:config, set the pref sendtabs.mailclient.googleapps.enabled to true.
  2. The first time you send the URL list to Google Apps, you will be prompted for the Google Apps domain. Consult your system administrator if you do not know this information. You can change it later from the extension preferences dialog (from a Firefox browser window, choose Tools -> Add-ons, select Send Tab URLs and click Options -> Google Apps tab).
Things You Should Know About

The URL list generated by Send Tab URLs won't display properly when the Yahoo! Mail editor is in rich text mode. However, you can switch from plain text to rich text in Yahoo! Mail's editor to compose and send the URL list as an HTML email.

Send Tab URLs 2.0 released!

Send Tab URLs 2.0 has been released and is available for download from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations web site.

If you already have an older version of Send Tab URLs installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, open Extension Manager (Tools → Add-ons), then right-click on the entry for Send Tab URLs in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Update.

Supported languages: English (United States), Chinese (simplified), Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portugeuse (Brazil), Spanish, Turkish.

What's New
  • Added support for Gmail
  • Added ability to send the URL list to the clipboard
  • Added support for the following email applications on Windows: Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, and Eudora 8
  • Redesigned extension preferences dialog, containing new configuration options

Acknowledgements

Web mail support in Send Tab URLs is based on Email This!, a Firefox extension by Lazyrussian Productions. The code for launching Gmail is derived from John Joseph Bachir’s Gmail compose bookmarklet.

Many thanks to the Babelzilla localization team for their work in translating Send Tab URLs.

04 December 2008

New AE Creations forums

Starting now, all questions, comments and feedback relating to Clippings, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs extensions should be directed to the new web-based forums.

Anyone can browse through forum posts and comments, but to create a new post or comment on existing posts, you must be logged in to the forums. New forum users can register for a new account.

All forum users are expected to abide by the forum rules.

The forums are a replacement for the mailing lists, which will be discontinued. The two mailing list archives (prior to December 2008) will remain available for browsing: AE Creations, Clippings.

30 November 2008

Send Tab URLs 2.0 release candidate 3

This is the third, and hopefully last, release candidate of the upcoming 2.0 release of Send Tab URLs.

» Download: Send Tab URLs 2.0 rc 3 (45 KB; compatible with Firefox 2.0 - 3.1b1)

Supported languages: English (United States), Chinese (simplified), Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portugeuse (Brazil), Spanish, Turkish.

Changes from Release Candidate 2
  • Support for Google Apps has been dropped. It will still be available by enabling a pref in about:config, but this pref has been disabled by default; more details on enabling Google Apps support will be available shortly. For now, Google Apps support is considered experimental, and Send Tab URLs may or may not work with it.
  • Added Danish translation
  • Compatible with Firefox 3.1 beta 1

Help and Support

Please see the Contact page on the AE Creations web site for instructions on where to submit feedback or bug reports.

07 November 2008

Send Tab URLs 2.0 release candidate 2

Fixes to a few spit-and-polish bugs necessitated another release candidate.

If you already have a previous version of Send Tab URLs installed, you must uninstall it first before installing this release. Because this is a pre-release build, updates will not be available automatically.

» Download: Send Tab URLs 2.0 rc2 (43 KB; compatible with Firefox 2.0 - 3.0.*)

Supported languages: English (United States), Dutch, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Turkish.

Changes from Release Candidate 1
  • Improvements to how Gmail/Google Apps are invoked so that you can do other tasks in Gmail after sending the URL list (like logging out).
  • Reworked the message box that appears when a long list of URLs to Gmail or Google Apps is being sent

Acknowledgement

Web mail support in Send Tab URLs is based on Email This!, a Firefox extension by Lazyrussian Productions. The code for Gmail/Google Apps invocation is taken from John Joseph Bachir’s Gmail compose bookmarklet.

05 November 2008

Delicious Post

A while ago, I came across del.icio.us post, a simple Firefox extension that lets you post a link or the current page to del.icio.us Delicious. It has just the basics you need to quickly create a del.icio.us   Delicious bookmark to the current page, and while it lacked some features from the official Post to Delicious bookmarklet, it was still quite useful.

The author doesn't appear to be maintaining it anymore; but since the code is licensed under a Creative Commons license which permits modification of the work, I decided to start my own fork of this extension -- which, as it turns out, two others already exist (Post to del.icio.us and Jaggnito).

My version is named "Delicious Post" -- not only to distinguish it from the original extension, but to (grudgingly) reflect the new name given to this popular social bookmarking service.

» Download: Delicious Post 0.7.3 (10.5 KB; English (United States); compatible with Firefox 3.0-3.0.*)

This release introduces compatibility with Firefox 3, and includes some behind-the-scenes code fixes to give it a stable foundation for future planned enhancements. There are no new features in this release. Full details of changes can be found in the changelog.

Why?

Because eventually, I want to add a few additional features that are missing in the original del.icio.us post -- such as allowing private bookmarks, tag name autocompletion, and automatically using the selected text in the web page as the bookmark notes. But most importantly, I want to be able to use it on Firefox 3.

But I like del.icio.us post the way it was!

I suppose that you, and many others, do. That is why the additional features I have planned will be configurable so that they can be disabled if you prefer the primitive UI.

Will Delicious Post be compatible with Firefox 2?

No. The Mozilla Corp. plans on ending support for Firefox 2 in December 2008 (that is next month), and there is no point in making it compatible with a version of Firefox that will be officially retired in a month. I also want to make use of some APIs and developer features that is only available in Firefox 3 and above.

If you are still using Firefox 2, you should install the original del.icio.us post extension.

I found a bug. How do I report it?

Send bug reports to the AE Creations mailing list; please mention Delicious Post in the subject line. If you have a Bugzilla account on Mozdev, you can file a bug here.

30 October 2008

Menu Editor incompatibility in Clippings is resolved

An update to Clippings was released yesterday to address the problem where clippings and subfolders on the Clippings submenu on Firefox's browser context menu were disappearing if Menu Editor is installed. (This issue was not occuring on Firefox 2.) A workaround exists for this bug -- but while it allowed users to be able to paste clippings, the workaround was rather awkward to deal with, and clearly was not the best solution.

The good news is that users no longer have to contend with this workaround in the new release. Clippings users having the Menu Editor extension installed should upgrade to this release, version 3.0.2, to be able to use Clippings the way it was designed.

The update can be obtained by either waiting for Firefox's automatic extension update to detect and install this new release, or going into Tools → Add-ons in the Firefox browser window, selecting Clippings in the list of extensions, then right-clicking and selecting Find Update in the context menu.

25 October 2008

Send Tab URLs 2.0 release candidate 1

The release candidate of Send Tab URLs 2.0 is now available for download. Barring any last-minute showstopper bugs, this release should resemble the official 2.0 release of this Firefox extension.

If you already have a previous version of Send Tab URLs installed, you must uninstall it first before installing this release. Because this is a pre-release build, updates will not be available automatically.

» Download: Send Tab URLs 2.0 rc1 (40 KB; compatible with Firefox 2.0-3.0.*)

Supported languages: English (United States), Dutch, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Turkish.

What's New in Send Tab URLs 2.0

This list is a cumulative summary of all the new features introduced since the first beta release.
  • You can now send the URL list to Web-based email clients. Gmail and Google Apps are supported. There is also experimental support for Yahoo! Mail.
  • The URL list can be sent to the clipboard.
  • Added support for the following email applications on Windows: Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, and Eudora 8.
  • Works with up to 30 browser tabs (previously, the limit was 24). There is no limit if sending the URL list to the clipboard.
  • Redesigned extension preferences dialog, containing new configuration options.

Changes From the Previous Beta Releases
  • Bug fix: Problems when sending the URL list to Yahoo! Mail in a new browser window. On Firefox 2, a blank window appears; on Firefox 3, a window appears with an error message (bug 20050).
  • If you have used the previous beta releases of Send Tab URLs, please note that if Yahoo! Mail support is enabled, you must now include the "http://" part of the Yahoo! Mail URL in the about:config preference sendtabs.mailclient.yahoomail.mail_url.

Things You Should Know About
  • Windows users: Send Tab URLs will work with Mozilla Thunderbird, SeaMonkey Mail, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, MS Office Outlook and Eudora 8. Send Tab URLs may not work with other Windows-based email programs not listed here, especially if the URLs of the individual browser tabs are long. There is no such limitation on Linux or Mac OS X.
  • If you have multiple Firefox profiles, and you are running Firefox using a profile other than the original default profile, and Thunderbird is set as the default email client, you may receive the following error when invoking Send Tab URLs: "Thunderbird is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Thunderbird process, or restart your system." To resolve this problem, close Thunderbird and try again; OR, exit Firefox and restart it using the original default profile.

Help and Support

Feedback on this release candidate is welcome. Please see the Contact page on the AE Creations website for details on how to report a bug or obtain support.

09 October 2008

Send Tab URLs 2.0 beta 2

This is the second beta release of Send Tab URLs 2.0. Meant for early adopters craving the latest and greatest, this beta release is being made available for testing, and should only be installed if you are willing to tolerate a few bugs. If that scares you, then you should wait until version 2.0 is officially released.

» Download: Send Tab URLs 2.0 beta 2 (30 KB; compatible with Firefox 2.0.0.* - 3.0.*)

If you already have a previous version of Send Tab URLs installed, you must uninstall it first before installing this release. Because this is a pre-release build, updates will not be available automatically.

What's New
  • Redesigned extension preferences dialog, containing new configuration options.
  • Warning message when sending a very long URL list to Gmail or Google Apps; Gmail and Google Apps may raise an error (HTTP code 400) due to very long mailto: strings. The warning message describes a workaround.

Known Issues
  • Problems when sending the URL list to Yahoo! Mail in a new browser window. On Firefox 2, a blank window appears; on Firefox 3, a window appears with an error message (bug 20050)

Help and Support

Feedback on this beta release is welcome. Please see the Contact page on the AE Creations website for details on how to report a bug or obtain support.

02 October 2008

Using Yahoo! Mail in Send Tab URLs 2.0 beta

In the previous post, I alluded to experimental support for Yahoo! Mail in Send Tab URLs 2.0 beta. For those of you who are familiar with the Email This! Firefox extension, the instructions for enabling support for Yahoo! Mail are very similar.

Please note that Send Tab URLs will work with Yahoo! Mail classic, not the "all-new" Yahoo! Mail.

To Enable Support for Yahoo! Mail (Classic)
  1. Start Firefox. Then in about:config, set the pref sendtabs.mailclient.yahoomail.enabled to true.
  2. Open a new browser window or tab and login to your Yahoo! Mail account.
  3. Once you are viewing your Yahoo! Mail inbox, observe the URL in the Firefox address bar. Select and copy the URL up to, and including, the last slash character (/) in the URL, and omitting the "http://" prefix.
  4. Return to about:config and edit the pref sendtabs.mailclient.yahoomail.mail_url, changing its value to what you selected and copied in step 3.
After following these steps, you should now be able to send the browser tab URLs to Yahoo! Mail.

Things You Should Know About
  • As stated above, this will only work with Yahoo! Mail classic, not the "all-new" Yahoo! Mail.
  • The URL list generated by Send Tab URLs won't display properly when the Yahoo! Mail editor is in rich text mode. However, you can switch from plain text to rich text in Yahoo! Mail's editor to compose and send the URL list as an HTML email. (Remember to switch back to plain text mode afterwards.)
These two points are the reasons why support for Yahoo! Mail is considered experimental.

Acknowledgment

Web mail support in Send Tab URLs is adapted from Email This!, a Firefox extension by Lazyrussian Productions.


01 October 2008

Send Tab URLs 2.0 beta 1

This is the first of two planned beta releases of the next version of Send Tab URLs.

Meant for early adopters craving the latest and greatest, this beta release is being made available for testing, and should only be installed if you are willing to tolerate a few bugs. If that scares you, then don't install it.

» Download: Send Tab URLs 2.0 beta 1 (25 KB; compatible with Firefox 2.0 - 3.0.*)

If you already have a previous version of Send Tab URLs installed, you must uninstall it first before installing this release. Because this is a pre-release build, updates will not be available automatically.

What's New
  • You can now send the URL list to Web-based email clients. Gmail and Google Apps are supported. There is also experimental support for Yahoo! Mail; more details to come in a later post.
  • You can also send the URL list to the clipboard
  • Added support for the following email applications: Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail

Known Issues

The same issues of email application compatibility on Windows apply (Linux and Mac OS X users are not affected). With this release, Send Tab URLs will work with Mozilla Thunderbird, SeaMonkey Mail, Outlook Express, MS Office Outlook, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail. Send Tab URLs may not work with other Windows-based email programs not listed here, especially if the URLs of the individual browser tabs are long.

Things You Should Know About

The maximum number of browser tabs that Send Tab URLs can handle has been raised to 30. The about:config pref that specifies the limit has been removed. This limit doesn't apply when sending URLs to the clipboard.

Help and Support

Feedback on this beta release is welcome. Please see the Contact page on the AE Creations website for details on how to report a bug or obtain support.

23 September 2008

Updates to the AE Creations website

With Panic Button out of the way for now, I took some time to do some much-needed updates to the AE Creations website. Content was rearranged and some cosmetic tweaks were made. CSS style rules were moved out of the <head> element of the HTML document structure and into the site's CSS file, and redundant rule sets were pruned. As a result of these updates, the website largely follows the frequently-preached web design philosophy of separating content (HTML), appearance (CSS) and behaviour (JavaScript, though that's not used here), and is now much easier for me to maintain.

What's Changed

The home page has undergone the most dramatic transformation. Clippings is promoted as a "Featured Extension," while maintaining links to its own website. The space dedicated to Panic Button and Send Tab URLs has been substantially reduced by replacing its bulky thumbnail graphics with simpler 24 × 24-pixel icons and shortening their verbose extension descriptions to brief one-sentence summaries. The result is a far cleaner layout, making efficient use of space and allowing almost all of the home page content to appear without the need to scroll down, even on 1024 × 768 monitors.

Using table-less CSS layouts, the "Other Extensions" list sits side-by-side with a new list containing the three most recent posts from this blog. It is automatically generated from my own, lovingly-crafted PHP script which reads this blog's XML-based Atom feed and dynamically creates the HTML content.

The pages for Send Tab URLs and Panic Button have also changed. The Download and Install links (the ones users would click on to install the extension in Firefox) have moved to the top of the page, and the installation help content have moved into a separate page to cut down on redundancy.

Website Branding

The general appearance of the site (the "theme" or "skin") has been mostly untouched. It would take too much time to do a complete makeover of the site, which I don't believe is necessary right now. And I wanted to keep most of the default branding to recognize the Mozdev.org organization that is hosting my extensions.

The most notable modifications to the default Mozdev branding are the removal of today's date and the strange "Do you want fries with that" message on the page header, replacing them with links to the home page, this blog and the help-and-support contact page to make it more useful. The left navigation sidebar was heavily revised to link to content in the AE Creations website, rather than to general Mozdev pages.

19 September 2008

Panic Button 1.1.1

This minor release fixes a bug where the customizations to the Panic Button toolbar button image and label aren't automatically applied when adding the toolbar button to the Firefox window (bug 18954).

Because Panic Button is in the AMO sandbox, automatic updates are not yet available.  If you have a previous version already installed, you will need to upgrade it by uninstalling it, restarting Firefox, then installing this new version.  You can download the new version from the Panic Button page on AMO, or from the Panic Button page on the AE Creations website.


10 September 2008

Panic Button 1.1 released!

A new version of Panic Button is now available from Mozilla Add-ons. Because it is in the AMO sandbox, you will need to log in first to download and install. To skip this step, you can download and install it from the Panic Button page on the AE Creations website.

If you have a previous version already installed, you will need to uninstall it, restart Firefox and install this new version. Automatic updating currently doesn't work due to Panic Button being in the sandbox on AMO.

What's New
  • New option in the extension preferences dialog (Customize tab) to choose an image file on your computer as the Panic Button toolbar button image
  • Bug fix: Clicking OK in the extension preferences dialog didn't close the dialog box if the Panic Button toolbar button wasn't added to the browser toolbar (bug 19774)
  • Other minor improvements

Help and Support

Send your comments and bug reports to the AE Creations mailing list.

02 September 2008

Google Chrome

I am typing this from Google Chrome, the new web browser that was announced yesterday (after news of it were accidentally leaked) and released about two hours ago.  It is blazingly fast!  And even without maximizing the browser window, there is so much screen area for viewing the web pages, due to the minimal space used by the tab bar and the "omnibox" (a combined address and search bar) -- and there's no menu bar or status bar to clutter your view.  You can drag tabs out of the browser window to view the web page in a separate window -- now that's something I'd like to see in Firefox!  Although only a beta release, it appears that the Google Chrome team has already fulfill their goal of creating a fast, responsive and simple-to-use Web browser.

Each browser tab in Google Chrome runs in its own process, and the implications of this is huge.  It means that it's easy to isolate which web pages are using up excessive memory and CPU cycles (there is a task manager that lets you see performance stats on all open browser tabs), putting the onus squarely on the web developer to make their web pages more leaner and efficient.  And from a stabililty standpoint, if a misbehaving web page crashes a browser tab, it won't take down the whole application with it.

There's lots more to it about Google Chrome: a new and powerful JavaScript engine, V8; anti-phishing and anti-malware protection; a special "Incognito" privacy mode where you can view a web site in a separate tab that won't record any cookies or add to your browsing history; all browser tabs operate in a "sandbox" security model; built-in Google Gears; ability to create shortcuts to web apps like Gmail so that they can be launched in their own windows, mimicking desktop apps; and of course, support for web standards, made possible by WebKit, the same rendering engine used in Safari.  Basic features like searching, bookmarking, text zoom, download manager, etc. are all there, as one would expect in any modern web browser.


Screen shot of Google Chrome

Check out the incredibly cool comic book, with characters resembling the members of the development team explaining Google Chrome and all of its features in depth.  The beta release, initially for Windows only, is now available for download.  

There are a few missing features that, I think, needs to be added, like spell checking in web page form fields, and print preview -- but overall, the quality of the product is surprisingly high for such an early beta release.

15 August 2008

Classic del.icio.us Bookmark Viewer: for those of you who miss the old del.icio.us

I've been using and adjusting to the "new Delicious" user interface for the past two weeks (it was unveiled to the public on 31 July).

There are a few things I like about it. Minor improvements such as:
  • Being able to switch between three different bookmark viewing modes (regular, title and full viewing modes)
  • Having the option to sort my bookmarks alphabetically.
  • Ability to navigate to specific pages in my bookmark list instead of having to hit the "earlier" or "later" links repeatedly.
  • Drop-down list of matching tags and auto-completion of tags when entering them in the tag filter box at the top of the page.
The latter two are the most significant improvements that I find useful. But other than those minor improvements listed above, I hate it. How do I hate it? Let me count the ways:
  • The new layout doesn't make efficient use of space; there is too much wasted white space in each bookmark item in the new UI while in the old version everything was neatly compact, yet readable. Also, the placement of the bookmark date stamp for all bookmarks created on the same date results in an unnecessary and useless blank margin on the left-hand side of the bookmarks page.
  • Tab completion of tags in the Add Bookmark UI wasn't working at all (that problem has since been fixed).
  • The '+' operator to filter bookmarks by combining two or more tags in the tag filter box is now treated as part of the tag name!
  • Some of the subtle grey colours in the UI (like those on the background of tag names for each bookmark) are simply bad choices, as they barely show up on LCD screens.
  • The Delicious team has done away with time stamps of, for example, "5 minutes ago" or "2 hours ago" on recently-added bookmarks.
Here is a screen shot of the "new Delicious" UI, taken on 15 August 2008. Compare this to the screen shot from a past posting.

The "new Delicious."

There was supposedly a "limited" preview of the new UI, but I don't believe that it is a sufficient means of gauging user reaction and feedback to the new UI if it's so limited (users have to sign up for it and hope to get an invite to join) and not well publicized (I knew nothing about the "limited" preview until the day before the "new Delicious" went live).

Introducing the Classic del.icio.us Bookmark Viewer

I dislike the new user interface so much that I felt compelled to do something. So I put together a simple tool that sort of resembles the look and feel of the old del.icio.us.

The "classic del.icio.us bookmark viewer" can be found at http://aecreations.mozdev.org/delicious/bookmarks.html. It was created by combining a linkroll and a tagroll into a single page, and using CSS styling to give it a somewhat familiar look and feel. Simply enter your del.icio.us user name, choose how many recent bookmarks and how many tags to display, then click Get Bookmarks.

The Classic del.icio.us Bookmarks Viewer

By no means is this tool meant to be a complete replacement for the "new Delicious." It is missing significant capabilities of the old del.icio.us site, like editing bookmarks and filtering by tags (the latter isn't working with linkrolls), but I hope that many people would find it useful.

31 July 2008

Send Tab URLs 1.0 released

Send Tab URLs 1.0 has been released and is now available on Mozilla Add-ons. This version is currently in the sandbox; you need to be logged in as an AMO user to install it. Otherwise, you can download and install version 0.4.1, which is still available to all users.

What's New
  • Automatically detect the title from web page content if no title appears in the browser tab
  • Added support for Turkish locale

What Happened to Webmail Support?

I know lots of readers will be asking about this. In my list of stuff to do for this release, I had wanted Send Tab URLs to be able to invoke Gmail or some other web-based email client for composing the email of browser tab URLs. But I ran into Gmail errors when attempting to send the URL list to it when I wasn't logged in yet to my Google account.

This would be a great feature to have in Send Tab URLs, and I've received many requests for this. Unfortunately, I will need to do some further research into getting around this error without making it so painful for the user to use, and will therefore have to defer this feature to a later release.

Update: Send Tab URLs 1.0 is now a public release on Mozilla Add-ons. You do not need to be logged in to download and install it.

30 July 2008

Upcoming changes to del.icio.us -- er Delicious

I'm an avid user of del.icio.us, the online social bookmarking service where you can organize your bookmarks into tags and share them with other users. It's convenient and addictive -- more so if you've got the del.icio.us browser bookmarklets and the Firefox extension installed. I've become so dependent on it for bookmarking interesting links that I rarely post to my browser bookmarks anymore. And the web-based nature of del.icio.us lets me share my bookmarks across multiple machines without the need to resort to tools like Foxmarks or Google Sync (the latter is no longer available for download).

Screen shot of my del.icio.us page, taken on 30 July 2008

Today, as I was visiting my del.icio.us bookmark page, I found a notification at the top of the page informing me that I will need to remember my login info because the permanent del.icio.us browser session, which eliminates the need to log in to that site every time I start Firefox, will expire when the "new Delicious" is rolled out in the coming weeks.

New Delicious? And with a capitalized "D" with no dots?

That piqued my curiosity enough that I had to read more about it in the del.icio.us blog. Turns out that a new version of del.icio.us has been under development for over a year. There is little mention about it, despite the claim in a post penned by the founder of del.icio.us, dated 1 February 2007, that the del.icio.us team would provide regular updates to keep users informed:
I feel that during this very exciting time for the team I’ve personally had less capacity for talking more openly to the delicious community about what’s been going on. Given that we’ve undergone a lot of changes and have a lot more in store in the future, I want to resolve to be better about communicating.
. . .

Going forward, we’re going to be talking much more about what’s changed, where the bugs are, and in general, more explicit about what we’re doing.

But over a year later, only four posts after this one made any reference to the new version of del.icio.us.

I wish I was in on the limited preview, but I doubt I'll get an invite now since I signed up so close to the launch date, which is supposed to be very soon. It would have been a good chance to see what the upgrade would be like, and to offer my feedback as a regular del.icio.us user. For now, the closest thing to a preview are these screen shots on TechCrunch.

Based on what info I could find on the upgrade, as well as what I've learned whenever a small Internet company is gobbled up by a larger corporation, I have a few concerns:
  • Will the old del.icio.us URL, http://del.icio.us, co-exist with the new URL, http://delicious.com? If not, this change will most certainly break a lot of users' bookmarklets.
  • Despite the takeover by Yahoo! in 2005, del.icio.us users have continued to use their own IDs, and new users can sign up without opening a Yahoo! account. Will this continue -- or will we be forced to merge our accounts with Yahoo!, similar to what happened with Flickr? Many readers will remember that the Flickr-Yahoo merge faced harsh backlash by so many loyal Flickr users.
  • The current del.icio.us UI is fast and responsive, even on 56k dial-up. Will the upgraded del.icio.us be slow and heavy with AJAX doodads and JavaScript-driven eye candy for even the most trivial functionality?
  • And while on the subject of user experience, I've always admired the simple, yet elegant, design of the del.icio.us UI, and even tried to incorporate elements of it in a prototype del.icios.us client I wrote a while back. I think this is a unique characteristic of del.icio.us that helps it to visually stand out from the millions of websites out there on the Internet -- and any move to detract from its present design would be a shame, in my opinion.

And finally, what's with the recent move to eliminate the dots and referring to it as Delicious?

Update: The new Delicious launched on the morning of 31 July 2008. Details in this TechChrunch blog post. The Delicious blog explains, in their announcement of the transition to the new version, why they got rid of the dots in their name, and claims that the old URL will continue to work.

08 July 2008

Panic Button 1.0 released!

Panic Button 1.0 has been released and is now available for download from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations web site.

The only change from the release candidate is a minor adjustment to one of the toolbar button icons.

A reminder to users upgrading from the previous beta releases: You may notice that the Panic Button toolbar button image is reverted back to the default image. You will need to go into extension preferences and set the toolbar button image again.

Panic Button is available for these languages: English (United States), Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish. A heartfelt thanks to the translation team at Babelzilla for localizing Panic Button.

30 June 2008

Panic Button 1.0 release candidate 1

This release candidate should resemble the 1.0 release of Panic Button, barring any last-minute showstopper bugs. It is now available for download from Mozilla Add-ons.

Changes from the previous betas

There are now twenty toolbar button icons to choose from to make the Panic Button - er, button - less conspicuous to whomever you're trying to hide your web surfing from. =)

If you installed any of the previous beta releases, you may notice that the Panic Button toolbar button image is reverted back to the default image. You will need to go into extension preferences and set the toolbar button image again.

This release adds support for these languages: English (United States), Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish.

Help and Support

Send your comments and bug reports to the AE Creations mailing list. If there are no serious showstopper bugs, the 1.0 release will be pushed out in a week.

27 June 2008

Clippings 3.0.1 released

A new version of Clippings has been released and is now available for download from Mozilla Add-ons.

If you already have Clippings installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, open Extension Manager (Tools → Add-ons), then right-click on the entry for Clippings in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Update.

Please note that Firefox 1.5 and Thunderbird 1.5 are no longer supported.

What's New

This release fixes several bugs. Improvements include:
  • On Linux, the Clippings Manager window position is saved. Previously, Clippings Manager always appeared at the top left corner of the screen
  • On Mac OS X, the instructions in the New Clipping dialog and Clippings Manager on how to paste a clipping using shortcut keys has been clarified
  • Fixed a Clippings Manager bug that caused an error when creating a new clipping if there were no clippings and common clippings was enabled
  • Also in Clippings Manager, users are now prevented from exporting clippings to a datasource file of the same name in the same folder. This is to prevent a bug where clippings are appended to the data in the existing Clippings file if the user had chosen to overwrite it.

Help and Support

Send your questions, comments and bug reports to the Clippings mailing list.

23 June 2008

Panic Button compatibility with Firefox 3

I wrote that all three extensions by AE Creations are compatible with Firefox 3 which was released last Tuesday. Turns out I was wrong -- at least for Panic Button. I don't know if this has something to do with the fact that Panic Button is in the Mozilla Add-ons sandbox, but changing the target application max version to 3.0.* didn't have any effect for that extension.

To get around this, I quickly built and uploaded a new version of Panic Button, numbered 0.9.3.1, to Mozilla Add-ons. The only change to it is in the install manifest, where the maxVersion was incremented to "3.0.*".

This update is now available on the Panic Button page on Mozilla Add-ons. I will no longer be providing download links here on this blog, as I've been finding releases to be harder to manage when I have them linked from three different places and uploaded to two different download servers.

18 June 2008

Workaround to Clippings and Menu Editor conflict

I wrote about a problem that was experienced by many users who also have Menu Editor installed. The problem was that if Menu Editor is installed, the clippings and folders on the Clippings submenu of the browser context menu would disappear.

I discovered a workaround using a new feature of Clippings Manager that I totally forgot about. In Clippings 3.0, you can paste a clipping by double-clicking a clipping in Clippings Manager's tree list. Here are the steps:
  1. Click on the text box where you want to paste a clipping.
  2. Right-click to invoke the context menu, then choose Clippings → Organize Clippings. This will open Clippings Manager.
  3. Find the desired clipping in the tree list and double-click on it. The selected clipping will be pasted into the web page text box at the cursor position.
This alternative method of pasting a clipping essentially lets you do so without using the browser context menu.

17 June 2008

Firefox 3

Firefox 3 is now officially released. Among many, many improvements, this new version contains end-user improvements in performance, enhanced bookmark and history system, and a more intelligent address bar (nicknamed the Awesome Bar).

The latest versions of the three Firefox extensions by AE Creations -- Clippings, Send Tab URLs and Panic Button -- are compatible with Firefox 3. If you are upgrading Firefox to this new version, and the AE Creations extensions you have are not the latest versions, you may be prompted to update them when Firefox 3 starts after the upgrade.

Firefox 3

03 June 2008

Clippings not compatible with Menu Editor on Firefox 3

Many users have reported that on Firefox 3 with Menu Editor installed, the Clippings submenu on the browser's context menu won't display any clippings and folders. This problem is reportedly reproducible on Firefox 3; this problem is not occurring on Firefox 2.

This conflict occurs once Menu Editor is installed and its extension preferences dialog is invoked from Tools → Add-ons in Firefox.

There is presently no workaround to this bug. Disabling or uninstalling Menu Editor appears to be the only way to bring back your clippings and folders in the Clippings submenu on the browser's context menu.

27 May 2008

Send Tab URLs to-do list

The next version of Send Tab URLs will be numbered 1.0 to reflect its stability and maturity (i.e., few new features needs to be added to this extension). Here are a few items left to tackle:
  • Need to handle the situation where there is no title for a web page displayed in a tab (bug 18641)
  • Remove trailing space at end of web page title (bug 18663)
  • Make Send Tab URLs work with Gmail or other default, web-based email clients

Panic Button to-do list

Here is a list of items to be completed before I release version 1.0 of Panic Button:
  • Add a few more Panic Button icon choices.
  • Further tweaking of the available Panic Button icons, including creation of another set of similar toolbar button images that appear when hovering over them with a mouse.
  • [Restore Session toolbar] Get rid of the useless disabled close button on the title bar.
  • [Restore Session toolbar] Automatic repositioning of the floating toolbar if switching to text and icon view, and the toolbar is at the far right of the screen. Currently, part of the floating toolbar disappears into the right edge of the screen if the toolbar layout is changed.
  • Localization.

Currently, Panic Button is in the sandbox on Mozilla Add-ons. Once version 1.0 is released, I will nominate it to have it changed to a publicly-accessible extension. This would mean that a Mozilla Add-ons user will not have to log in to download and install it, as is the case today.

26 May 2008

Lost messages to the Clippings mailing list

It has been brought to my attention that some emails to the Clippings mailing list haven't been getting through. After some digging around, I found that the mailing list spam filters I had set up were too restrictive, and were automatically discarding legitimate messages. I have made some adjustments to the spam filters; legitimate messages should no longer be flagged as spam.

If you tried to email a message to the Clippings mailing list in the past few weeks, and can't find your message in the list archives, try emailing your message again.

13 May 2008

Mozilla Add-ons T-shirt

Finally, I have something to show for all the effort, the long hours and sleepless nights, the blood, sweat, tears and raw passion I put into my Firefox extensions -- a free T-shirt!

The front.


The back.

These were sent to Mozilla Add-ons developers who submitted their Firefox 3-compatible extensions early. This T-shirt arrived by UPS last week, and I now have it proudly hung on the wall by my desk at work. I haven't put on the T-shirt yet. But I consider this to be an article of memorabilia that is simply too precious to wear -- although it could use some ironing....

10 May 2008

Yet another Panic Button beta release!

Fixes for several showstopper bugs on Mac OS X necessitated another beta release.

Meant for early adopters craving the latest and greatest, this beta release is being made available for testing, and should only be installed if you are willing to tolerate a few bugs. If that scares you, then you shouldn't install it.

» Download: Panic Button 0.9.3 (25 KB; English (United States); compatible with Firefox 2.0-3.0b5)

If you already have the previous release of Panic Button installed, you must uninstall it first before installing this release.

What's New
  • Improved default toolbar button icon.
  • Several platform-specific bug fixes for Mac OS X and Linux. The bug fixes are detailed in the previous post.

Known Issues

  • The Panic Button action option to hide all windows doesn't work if a system native file picker dialog box (Open, Save As) is open in any of the browser windows at the time the Panic Button action is invoked (bug 18629). This bug doesn't occur on Firefox 3.
  • Any preferences in the extension options dialog that are set will be applied to all browser windows that are open after clicking OK, except for the option "F9 key invokes Panic Button action" -- changes to this option will take effect in new browser windows only or when exiting and restarting Firefox. (On Mac OS X, the option will be labeled "Command+F9 key invokes Panic Button action.")
  • Customizations not being remembered between host app toolbar button changes (bug 18954)

Help and Support

Feedback on this extension is welcome. General comments and bug reports may be submitted by going to the AE Creations home page and clicking Contact. If you have a Bugzilla account on Mozdev, you may file a bug report here (please make sure you specify Panic Button on the bug summary field).

08 May 2008

Panic Button fixes for Mac OS X and Linux

Ah, the joys of cross-platform development....

Several bug fixes have landed to fix a few issues found on Mac OS X and Linux. The fixes were tested on Mac OS X 10.5.1 ("Leopard") and Ubuntu 8.04 ("Hardy Heron"). For the latter, testing was performed using Gnome 2.22.1 and KDE 4.

The bug fixes, summarized below, will be included in the next beta release.

Mac OS X fixes

The extension preferences dialog (in Firefox, Tools → Add-ons, select Panic Button then click Preferences) is no longer blank (this was bug 19025).

The Restore Session toolbar is now working. Previously, the floating toolbar couldn't be moved properly, and clicking on it didn't do anything (bug 19026).

Firefox will really quit if Quit is set as the Panic Button action. And if Hide All Windows is the Panic Button action, Firefox will really quit if you clicked Exit on the Restore Session toolbar. Previously, all application windows would close, but you would still have to manually quit Firefox by choosing Firefox → Quit Firefox or pressing Command+Q (bug 19027).

The shortcut key to invoke the Panic Button action on the Mac is now Command+F9. The F9 key as used on Windows and Linux conflicts with Exposé (bug 19024).

Linux fixes

The extension preferences dialog only had a Close button; there was no way to apply changes to settings (bug 19051). This has been fixed so that it now has OK and Cancel buttons.

26 April 2008

Panic Button beta on Mac OS X

Since I don't have a Mac machine of my own, I went to a university computer lab to test Panic Button on Mac OS X. The bugs I found are numerous; in particular, the default Panic Button action "Hide All Windows" is unusable.

Mac OS X bug list, in decreasing order of severity:
  • Restore Session toolbar doesn't work (bug 19026)
  • Extension preferences dialog is totally blank (bug 19025)
  • F9 key conflict with Exposé (bug 19024)
  • Quit action doesn't quit (bug 19027)
Click on the links to see the Bugzilla bug report.

Changing the Panic Button action to "Minimize All Windows" is the best workaround for now -- as well as avoiding the F9 key. Since the extension pref dialog is broken, Mac OS X users would need to change the integer pref named panicbutton.action in about:config. Use an integer value of 1 to specify the "Minimize All Windows" option.

Next, I will need to test Panic Button on a Linux box, preferably using the KDE and Gnome desktop environments. More to follow.

08 April 2008

Another Panic Button beta release!

This new beta release offers new customization options to make the Panic Button toolbar button less conspicuous to whomever you want to hide your web browsing from. =)

Meant for early adopters craving the latest and greatest, this beta release is being made available for testing, and should only be installed if you are willing to tolerate a few bugs. If that scares you, then you shouldn't install it.

» Download: Panic Button 0.9.2 (21 KB; English (United States); compatible with Firefox 2.0-3.0b5)

If you already have the previous release of Panic Button installed, you must uninstall it first before installing this release.

What's New
  • You can set the Panic Button toolbar button caption and image (six toolbar image choices to choose from; more will be added later). These customizations can be set in the extension options dialog (Tools → Add-ons from the Firefox browser window, select Panic Button in the list of extensions and click Options).
  • Bug fix: On Firefox 3.0b3 and newer, hide all windows didn't work if an XUL dialog is open (bug 18637)
  • Compatible with the latest Firefox beta release: 3.0b5.

Known Issues
  • The Panic Button action option to hide all windows doesn't work if a system native file picker dialog box (Open, Save As) is open in any of the browser windows at the time the Panic Button action is invoked (bug 18629). This bug doesn't occur on Firefox 3.
  • Any preferences in the extension options dialog that are set will be applied to all browser windows that are open after clicking OK, except for the option "F9 key invokes Panic Button action" -- changes to this option will take effect in new browser windows only or when exiting and restarting Firefox.

Help and Support

Feedback on this extension is welcome. General comments and bug reports may be submitted by going to the AE Creations home page and clicking Contact. If you have a Bugzilla account on Mozdev, you may file a bug report here (please make sure you specify Panic Button on the bug summary field).

31 March 2008

Clippings shortcut key prefix on Mac OS X

I've been getting reports from a few Mac OS X users of problems with the shortcut key feature introduced in Clippings 3.0.

Instead of CTRL+ALT+V as is advertised, Mac OS X users have to press Ctrl+Option+V and simultaneously hit the shortcut letter or digit assigned to the desired clipping. That means that a user would have to press four keys on the keyboard at the same time!

And at least one Mac OS X user has reported that CTRL+ALT+V or Ctrl+Option+V doesn't work at all.

The requirement of having to press so many keys at once is strange, and is inconsistent with the behaviour on Windows and Linux where users would press CTRL+ALT+V that would bring up a dialog box prompting the user to enter the shortcut key of the desired clipping to paste:


I've entered this Mac-specific issue as bug 18879. Any helpful reports of further observations on this issue are most welcome, and should be reported in that bug.

17 March 2008

Clippings 3.0 released!

The wait is finally over. Clippings 3.0 has been released and is now available for download.

» Download: Clippings 3.0 (175 KB; compatible with Firefox 2.0-3.0b4 and Thunderbird 2.0-2.0.0.*)

Supported Languages: English (United States), Chinese (simplified), Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Slovak.

If you already have Clippings installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled in Firefox. Otherwise, open Extension Manager in Firefox, then right-click on the entry for Clippings in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Update.

Please note that Clippings 3.0 is, and will not be, compatible with Firefox 1.5 and Thunderbird 1.5. These versions are obsolete and Mozilla Corp. is no longer supporting them.

What's New
  • Common clippings data for Firefox and Thunderbird. This much-requested feature allows your Clippings data to be created, accessed and modified from both Firefox and Thunderbird. (More info.)
  • Shortcut keys. You can now assign a shortcut key to a clipping at the time of creation or by editing a clipping in Clippings Manager. Shortcut keys can be any letter (A-Z) or digit (0-9). To paste the clipping into a web page form field in Firefox or a new email message in Thunderbird, press CTRL+ALT+V, then the shortcut key.
  • Clipping placeholders. You can define placeholders inside a clipping that you will be prompted to fill in when you paste the clipping. Built-in placeholders for the date, time, clipping name, user agent, etc. are also available. (More info.)
  • Default clippings. System administrators and redistributors can bundle a default Clippings datasource file into a customized Clippings XPI to pre-populate their users' datasources when they install the customized XPI. (More info.)
  • Improvements to Clippings Manager's automatic save functionality, including on-the-fly updating of clipping edits/changes.
  • Double-click on a clipping in Clippings Manager to paste it into the most recent host app window
  • Numerous bug fixes.

Known Issues
  • On Firefox 3, it is not possible to adjust the width of Clippings Manager's tree list.
  • Shortcut key assignments are lost after migrating to the common data source.
  • Exporting Clippings data to a Clippings file that already exists may cause the data to be appended to the existing content in the file instead of overwriting it.

Help and Support

A Quick Start Guide is available, and is recommended reading for first-time users.

Support requests should be emailed to the Clippings mailing list at clippings@mozdev.org. Bug reports should also be emailed to the Clippings mailing list. If you have a Bugzilla account on Mozdev, you may file a bug report at http://clippings.mozdev.org/bugs.html.

03 March 2008

Clippings Editor beta

Clippings 3.0 will have the ability for system administrators and redistributors to customize the Clippings XPI (the redistributable file that users download to install into Firefox or Thunderbird) with default clippings data. This new feature prompted the need to have a utility to simply the task of creating, editing and viewing default Clippings datasource files, eliminating the need to either do this in Clippings Manager (and disturb one's personal Clippings data in the process) or manually editing the Clippings RDF file (which is too easy to corrupt and is therefore not recommended).

So here it is, a beta release of Clippings Editor -- a standalone utility that makes creating, viewing and editing Clippings datasource files easy.


» Download: Clippings Editor beta for Windows (6.9 MB; English (United States))

WARNING: This beta release is being made available for testing, and should only be installed if you are willing to tolerate a few bugs. If that doesn't sound like you, you should wait for the official release, which should happen at the same time as the official release of Clippings 3.0.

Installation Instructions

Click on the above download link and save the zip file to a desired location on your system, then unzip it to a folder of your choice. There is no setup program to run.

To uninstall it, simply delete the folder where the zip file was unzipped to.

Sorry, Clippings Editor is currently available for Windows only. This utility will be available for other systems (Linux, Mac OS) in the near future.

Starting Clippings Editor

To run Clippings Editor, locate the folder where it was installed to, then double-click on the file clippingseditor.exe.

To simplify things, you may want to create a shortcut on the Start menu or the Desktop to point to the executable.

Things You Should Know About

If creating a new Clippings datasource file, you must give it a file name and desired folder location before you can begin editing it.

The datasource file is automatically saved when exiting the application. The Save command in the File menu is available if you wish to save the currently-open file at any time.

The Save As command doesn't work if saving to a different folder. This is a known bug.

Clippings Editor can only edit a single file at a time (this is an SDI application). For now, if you want to edit two or more files simultaneously, simply run another instance of Clippings Editor.

Clippings Editor doesn't natively handle the old Clippings 1.x series format files. Clippings 1.x files can be opened, but a new Clippings file must be created to edit it. Also, Clippings Editor cannot save a file in Clippings 1.x format -- use the Export command on the File menu to export to Clippings 1.x format.

Do not use Clippings Editor to modify the Clippings datasource file in the user's Firefox or Thunderbird profile folder (or the user's home directory if the common Clippings datasource is enabled). Doing so may result in data corruption. Instead, invoke Clippings Manager from the host application and export the Clippings data using Options → Export. You can then edit the exported file using Clippings Editor.

And Finally... Some Fun Trivia

Clippings Editor is a standalone application that is based on Mozilla's XULRunner platform. The astute reader may notice in the above screen shot that Clippings Editor's user interface is remarkably similar to the Clippings Manager UI from Clippings (the extension for Firefox and Thunderbird) because both windows share the same code -- except for several modifications, e.g. removal of integration with Firefox and Thunderbird, new menu bar, and minor changes to the toolbar.

25 February 2008

More about Clippings 3.0 features

Here are more details on the new features introduced in Clippings 3.0.

Common Clippings Data for Firefox and Thunderbird

This much-requested feature allows your Clippings data to be created, accessed and modified from both Firefox and Thunderbird. That means that a clipping created in Firefox will be visible in Thunderbird; a clipping created in Firefox that is modified in Thunderbird will be updated in Firefox, too; etc.

This feature will be enabled by default for users who have never had Clippings installed in Firefox and Thunderbird. If you are upgrading from a previous version of Clippings, you can choose to keep your Clippings data separate in Firefox and Thunderbird, or you can enable common clippings by running the Common Clippings Wizard (Clippings Manager, Options → Common Clippings) from both Firefox and Thunderbird.

Placeholders In Clippings

You can now define placeholders inside a clipping that you will be prompted to fill in when you paste the clipping. Placeholders are essentially variables that appear in the clipping text in the format $[variable_name]. Valid variable names can contain letters (lowercase or uppercase), digits (0-9) and underscores. Example clipping with placeholders:
Hello, $[YourName], I'm glad you're coming to the club meeting at $[meeting_time]. See you $[2nite]!
When you paste a clipping with placeholders, you will be prompted to fill in the value for each placeholder in the clipping. If you want the placeholders in the clipping pasted exactly as they are, with no prompting and substitution, the clipping name should be prefixed with [NOSUBST].

There are six predefined placeholders you can use in your clippings; these predefined placeholders will be automatically substituted with their expected values when you paste the clipping.
  • $[NAME] - the name of the clipping
  • $[FOLDER] - the name of the folder the clipping belongs to
  • $[DATE] - the current date, expressed in the format defined in your system's locale settings
  • $[TIME] - the current time, expressed in the format defined in your system's locale settings
  • $[HOSTAPP] - the name and version number of the host application you're pasting the clipping in
  • $[UA] - the user agent string of the host application

Default Clippings

System administrators and redistributors can bundle a default Clippings datasource file into a customized Clippings XPI to pre-populate their users' datasources when they install the customized XPI. To create a customized XPI, do the following:
  1. Download the Clippings 3.0 XPI and save it to a location on your system.
  2. Unzip the XPI using a ZIP client such as WinZip. Make sure that the directory structure in the XPI file (actually a ZIP archive with an .xpi file name extension) is intact.
  3. Copy a Clippings datasource file containing the default Clippings data to the defaults directory and rename it clippak.rdf.
  4. Re-zip the XPI archive; the directory structure and all files that were in the XPI must be preserved.
When the user installs the customized XPI, the default Clippings data will be automatically imported when starting the host application (Firefox or Thunderbird) after the installation.

Hint:
Create and organize the default clippings using Clippings Manager, then export the data to a Clippings file. A new, standalone utility is in the works that will let you view and edit Clippings files without disturbing your personal Clippings data.

Other Things You Should Know About
  • If, before migrating to the common Clippings data source, you have a large number of clippings and folders in the root Clippings folder, migrating from Firefox and Thunderbird may result in a larger number of clippings and folders in the common data source, resulting in a rather lengthy Clippings submenu in the host application's context menu. Consider organizing your clippings (deleting unneeded clippings from the root folder and moving clippings to folders) before running the migration utility.
  • Sometimes, if the common Clippings data source is enabled and you make changes to a clipping from Clippings Manager invoked from one host app and then switch to another instance of Clippings Manager from the other host app, the update from the first host app may not be reflected in Clippings Manager from the second host app. Use Options → Reload to update the display.
  • The Redo (a.k.a. "Undo Undo") function key in Clippings Manager has changed as of milestone release 2.99.3; the function key is now F2.

Clippings 3.0 Release Candidate 1

This is the first release candidate of Clippings 3.0. Barring any last-minute showstopper bugs, this release should resemble the final 3.0 release.

» Download: Clippings 3.0 RC 1 (175 KB; compatible with Firefox 2.0-3.0b3 and Thunderbird 2.0-2.0.0.*)

Supported languages: English (United States), Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak.

If you already have a previous release of Clippings installed, you must uninstall it first before installing this release.

Please note that Clippings 3.0 is, and will not be, compatible with Firefox 1.5 and Thunderbird 1.5. These versions are obsolete and Mozilla Corp. is no longer supporting them.

What's New

This is a summary of all the new features introduced in the past development milestone releases. More details about some of the features are described in another post.
  • Common clippings data for Firefox and Thunderbird. This much-requested feature allows your Clippings data to be created, accessed and modified from both Firefox and Thunderbird. (More info.)
  • Shortcut keys. You can now assign a shortcut key to a clipping at the time of creation or by editing a clipping in Clippings Manager. Shortcut keys can be any letter (A-Z) or digit (0-9). To paste the clipping into a web page form field in Firefox or a new email message in Thunderbird, press CTRL+ALT+V, then the shortcut key.
  • Clipping placeholders. You can define placeholders inside a clipping that you will be prompted to fill in when you paste the clipping. Built-in placeholders for the date, time, clipping name, user agent, etc. are also available. (More info.)
  • Default clippings. System administrators and redistributors can bundle a default Clippings datasource file into a customized Clippings XPI to pre-populate their users' datasources when they install the customized XPI. (More info.)
  • Improvements to Clippings Manager's automatic save functionality, including on-the-fly updating of clipping edits/changes.
  • Double-click on a clipping in Clippings Manager to paste it into the most recent host app window
  • Numerous bug fixes.

Known Issues
  • On Firefox 3, it is not possible to adjust the width of Clippings Manager's tree list.
  • Shortcut key assignments are lost after migrating to the common data source.

Feedback Welcome


Please send bug reports to the Clippings mailing list, or file a bug report on Bugzilla (requires Bugzilla account on Mozdev). You can also leave a comment below this blog post.

13 February 2008

Panic Button 0.9.1 (beta 2 release)

This release contains some improvements to the first beta release of Panic Button.

Meant for early adopters craving the latest and greatest, this beta release is being made available for testing, and should only be installed if you are willing to tolerate a few bugs. If that scares you, then you shouldn't install it.

» Download: Panic Button 0.9.1 (16 KB; English (United States); compatible with Firefox 2.0-3.0b3)

If you already have the previous release of Panic Button installed, you must uninstall it first before installing this release.

What's New
  • The Panic Button action is configurable through the extension options dialog (Tools → Add-ons from the Firefox browser window, select Panic Button in the list of extensions and click Options). The Panic Button action options are: hide all windows (the fastest option; a Restore Session toolbar appears after all Firefox app windows close so that you can bring back the browser windows later), minimize all windows (slowest option -- but all windows, including ancillary app windows like Help, View Source, Bookmarks/Places, etc. can be restored), or quit (close all windows and quit Firefox).
  • Windowing shortcut keys (for minimize, maximize and restore commands on the browser window) and CTRL+Q (the quit key) are no longer included with Panic Button.
  • The F9 key for invoking the Panic Button action can be disabled; it is enabled by default. This is useful if you have another extension installed that uses that key.
Known Issues
  • The Panic Button action option to hide all windows doesn't work if a system native file picker dialog box (Open, Save As) is open in any of the browser windows at the time the Panic Button action is invoked (bug 18629).
  • If a dialog box (e.g. Options, About) was invoked from browser window A, clicking the Panic Button on browser window B won't hide browser window A. This is only happening on Firefox 3.0b3 if the Hide All Windows action on the Panic Button is set (bug 18637).

Things You Should Know About

Any downloads in progress will continue in the background if clicking the Panic Button to hide or minimize all windows. If Quit was selected in extension preferences as the Panic Button action, downloads in progress will be cancelled.

Help and Support

Feedback on this extension is welcome. General comments and bug reports may be submitted by going to the AE Creations home page and clicking Contact. If you have a Bugzilla account on Mozdev, you may file a bug report here (please make sure you specify Panic Button on the bug summary field).

Translations of Panic Button are not yet enabled due to the enhancements that required adding more UI strings. Panic Button will be resubmitted to Babelzilla when it is stable for final release. Thanks to the Babelzilla translation team for their efforts so far.

06 February 2008

Send Tab URLs 0.4.1 released

This minor release adds support for a few languages (made possible by the awesome translators at Babelzilla) and is compatible with Firefox 3.0 beta 2.

» Download: Send Tab URLs 0.4.1 (21.1 KB; English (United States); compatible with Firefox 2.0-3.0b2)

If you already have Send Tab URLs installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled in Firefox. Otherwise, open Extension Manager in Firefox, then right-click on the entry for Send Tab URLs in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Update.

What's New
  • Compatible with Firefox 3.0 beta 2
  • Removed support for Firefox 1.5 series, which is no longer maintained by Mozilla Corp.
  • Added support for Catalan, Chinese (simplified), Polish and Spanish locales

Known Issues

  • On Windows, Send Tab URLs has been confirmed to work with Mozilla Thunderbird, SeaMonkey Mail, Outlook Express and MS Office Outlook. Send Tab URLs may not work with other Windows-based email programs not listed here, especially if the URLs of the individual browser tabs are long. No such limitation have been found on Linux or Mac OS X.
  • On German and Russian locales, the toolbar button caption may appear in English.

See the Contact page on the AE Creations website for details on how to report a bug or obtain support.

05 February 2008

Yahoo + Microsoft?

I remember Yahoo! as being one of the first few Web sites I visited when I walked into the library at my high school one day to work on a research assignment. There was only one computer with Internet access (through this big, noisy external 28K modem with little red blinking lights), and Netscape Navigator 3, considered the most advanced Web browser at the time, was my window to the World Wide Web.

Those early days of the Web were simpler times, and Yahoo! was a reflection of that. Its home page had only a few, grainy images, and almost all text was rendered in Times Roman font. It was merely a vast directory of links to Web sites, not a true search engine like what Google presently is. It was simple, yet elegant -- and it was the tool I used to conduct my very first Web-based research.

At the beginning of my first year of university, I was so dissatisfied with the university's email service which was accessible only through a primitive, character-based Lynx browser that I decided to open a Hotmail account (all of my classmates seemed to have a hotmail.com address, so I followed the crowd). Back then, the company behind Hotmail was bought out by Microsoft just a few months earlier, so the original Hotmail UI was still intact. But after Microsoft overhauled the Hotmail interface in their gradual efforts to make it resemble an MS Office application, I bailed out -- and looked again to Yahoo!.

By this point, Yahoo! had grown bigger. Its home page continue to retain the simple yet elegant look, but by then it had various other Web-based services such as online shopping and email. Its email service was appealing, and so I signed up for a yahoo.com email address.

As time progressed, Yahoo! had grown and changed dramatically. Eventually it did away with the spartan, text-oriented home page and it became a graphic-heavy, commercialized, advertising-driven portal, presenting users with links to news, sports, video, autos, finance, travel, relationships, movies, TV shows, celebrities, jobs, classifieds, shopping, games, instant messaging and many, many other services. Its roots as a Web directory is all but forgotten, its link buried somewhere in its massive patchwork of services. Yahoo! went on a shopping spree of its own, buying up companies like GeoCities and eGroups, and assimilated their products into its own growing collection. Meanwhile, Yahoo! Mail has been transformed into a Web 2.0 app, trying desperately hard to appear and act like a desktop application. While its message preview feature is a major benefit for me, its bloated, extraneous features have annoyed me so much that I have since defected to Gmail -- although I still use my Yahoo! email account for personal messages (I have recently switched back to Yahoo! Mail Classic because the new Yahoo! Mail won't work on Firefox 3.0 beta 2). And Yahoo! Briefcase, the only other Yahoo! service that I use occasionally, has remained fairly static in this sea of change -- probably because it's been neglected while the company focuses on its other, more profitable, online offerings.

Despite weathering the dot com bust, Yahoo! has recently fallen into hard times. Even with Jerry Yang, its co-founder, at the helm again, Yahoo! has been performing poorly in the eyes of investors and mass layoffs are imminent. Its weakened state has now left it vulnerable to a takeover bid by Microsoft, which it has been eyeing for some time in its ongoing battle to outdo Google for Internet dominance.

It's inevitable that a Microsoft takeover of Yahoo! will succeed, one way or another -- because in the end, its shareholders are only interested in making a profit, and Yahoo! executives and employees with stock options would be eager to cash in and make a few quick bucks... indeed, both are strong incentives to see the deal go through. That leaves the question of what to do with all that overlap between MSN and Yahoo!. But as far as Microsoft is concerned, it could care less about Yahoo! Mail, Briefcase or all of those other services, because its only interest is in Yahoo!'s search engine and advertising businesses.

I view this prospect with some degree of sadness. As one of the early members of the Internet generation, I practically grew up on Yahoo!, and it would be shame to see it disappear into Internet history along with other relics like Netscape. But the stark reality is that many are seeing these events as a golden opportunity to profit from the misfortune of others.