[Updated] Compatibility With Firefox 5

Update: Clippings is now compatible with Thunderbird 5. Also, the portable edition of Clippings, available from the Clippings web site, is now compatible with Portable Firefox 5 and Portable Thunderbird 5.


Yesterday, Mozilla unveiled the newest version of Firefox. Firefox 5 is the first release from the new rapid release development cycle that aims to push out new releases more frequently.

All extensions from AE Creations -- Clippings, Delicious Post, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs -- are compatible with Firefox 5.

Future Firefox Releases

For now, the policy for extension compatibility with upcoming Firefox releases will remain unchanged. They will not be compatible with the nightly (Aurora) builds. Extensions will be made compatible with beta releases once they have been tested and confirmed to be working with the beta releases.

What About Thunderbird 5?

Clippings currently is not compatible with the beta release of Thunderbird 5. This will be fixed once it is tested and confirmed functional on that release.

The forums are back!

Further to my last post regarding the outage in the AE Creation forums, I'm happy to report that the forums are now back online.

My apologies for the troubles the forum outage may have caused.

Forum posts not displaying

Forum posts in the AE Creations forums have recently disappeared from view. Old postings do not show up when going to a forum.

This is reportedly a problem affecting all projects hosted on Mozdev, including the ones from AE Creations. The latest word I've received is that the Mozdev admins are investigating the issue.

In the meantime, feel free to leave general comments and suggestions for improvements to Clippings, Delicious Post, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs in the comments area in the Mozilla Add-ons page for the respective add-on. Bug reports should be directed to Bugzilla. Note that Clippings has its own Bugzilla database.

[EDITED] The Delicious Post Extension: Implications of Yahoo!'s Sale of Delicious

Word came today that Delicious, the online social bookmarking website which Yahoo! acquired in 2005, has now been bought out by the founders of YouTube.

This caught my attention, since not only am I a loyal Delicious user, I am also maintaining a Firefox extension, Delicious Post, for adding bookmarks to Delicious. I was also interested to learn what this would mean for Delicious Post, because for quite some time I've been struggling to make it work with OAuth-based Yahoo! logins without much success. OAuth authentication is painful to implement, with so many steps to follow and a lot of room for errors, many of which are difficult to isolate given that they could originate from one's own code or from the code libraries being used (or unknowingly misused). The poorly-written Delicious OAuth documentation hasn't helped at all.

According to what I've read in a Delicious developer forum post, the old-skool Delicious logins will still function, but users with Yahoo! logins will have to migrate to using Delicious logins. So this means that I no longer have to worry about making Delicious Post work with OAuth authentication. Woo hoo!

What will this mean for current Delicious Post users? Since Delicious Post only supports the old-skool logins, current users can continue to use this Firefox add-on without any issues.

EDIT: Don't forget that you need to accept the new privacy policy and terms of service agreements in order to continue using Delicious beyond the transition from Yahoo! to AVOS, the company that is taking over Delicious. You should be prompted to do this when you visit your bookmarks on the Delicious website.

Clippings for Portable Firefox 4

As promised, Clippings is now compatible with Portable Firefox 4. Follow the download link in the Clippings installation page to download it to your Portable Firefox browser.

About Clippings Portable Edition

This special release of Clippings is intended for Portable Firefox users. The difference is that the common clippings feature is disabled; the Clippings data is stored in your Portable Firefox profile directory -- typically on your USB flash drive or other portable media in which Portable Firefox is installed. This ensures that your Clippings data stays in your portable media.

Clippings Portable Edition can also be used with Portable Thunderbird. Simply use the same download link as given above.

Firefox 4 is here!

The newest and the best-yet browser from Mozilla has just been released. Sporting a streamlined user interface, faster Web page display, and cool new capabilities for Web developers, Firefox 4 is now available from the Mozilla website.

All extensions from AE Creations are compatible with this new Firefox release. Some of the changes introduced by Firefox 4 necessitated new minor releases of Clippings and Panic Button.

Clippings for Portable Firefox Not Yet Available

The special portable edition of Clippings for Portable Firefox will be ready shortly. Watch this blog for further updates.

Compatibility with Firefox 4.0 beta 7

The seventh beta of the upcoming Firefox 4 release was released yesterday (10 November 2010). Clippings, Delicious Post, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs have all been tested against this new beta release, and are now compatible with it. If you upgrade to Firefox 4.0 beta 7, no further action is needed to make these extensions work.

Missing status bar in Firefox 4.0b7

The first thing most users will notice when starting Firefox 4.0 beta 7 for the first time is that the status bar is gone. And as a result, the Clippings status bar icon is missing, and so is the Delicious Post progress icon (that cute little icon with the animation that appears when posting a URL to your Delicious account).

You can make the status bar UI for those extensions reappear by enabling the so-called Add-on Bar. To do so, choose View -> Toolbars -> Add-on Bar in the Firefox browser window. The Clippings icon and the Delicious Post status icon will appear in the same places on the Add-on Bar as they would have in the browser status bar in older versions of Firefox.

Please note that I am NOT responsible for the missing status bar in Firefox. Direct any comments about this Firefox UI change to the appropriate Mozilla forum discussion. See also this Mozilla Support forum post.

Support for Firefox 3.0 discontinued

Firefox 3.0 is no longer supported by Mozilla; therefore, compatibility with this older version of Firefox has been dropped. All AE Creations extensions now require Firefox version 3.5 or newer.

Extension compatibility with Firefox 4.0 beta 6

With the sixth beta of Firefox 4 being out for some time, it was time to make my add-ons compatible with it. Clippings, Delicious Post, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs are now compatible with Firefox 4 beta 6.

Most of these extensions only needed to have their Firefox maxVersion values bumped up to 4.0b6. However, for Clippings and Panic Button, some minor work was needed to make them work as well as address a few bugs that surfaced in this Firefox beta release.

Thanks for your patience.

Clippings 3.1.3 released!

A new version of Clippings is available from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

Portable Firefox/Thunderbird users: Please note that the special portable version of Clippings is not available yet.

If you already have Clippings installed, you should receive the update if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, choose Tools → Add-ons from the main Firefox window, select Clippings in the list of installed extensions, right click and select Find Update.

What's New

• Now compatible with Firefox 4.0 beta 6
  

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Clippings should be directed to the AE Creations forums.

[RESOLVED] AE Creations website problems

Update: Web site problems have been resolved.

Recent visitors to the AE Creations website may notice that pages appear broken and some links are missing.

This is due to some unexpected changes made to project webpages hosted on Mozdev. I've put in a request to have this fixed. In the meantime, here are links to AE Creations extensions on the Mozilla Add-ons website:

• Clippings - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1347/
• Panic Button - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6990/
  
• Send Tab URLs - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4437/
  
• Delicious Post - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11753/
  

The AE Creations forums are still functional and can be accessed at http://aecreations.mozdev.org/drupal/forum.

HELP WANTED testing experimental bug fix

As described in the previous blog post, some users have reported that the Clippings Manager window would not appear when invoking it, either through the web page textbox context menu or by double-clicking the Clippings icon on the status bar. This was caused by the Clippings Manager window being positioned outside the viewable screen area.

This problem seems sporadic, as I have not been able to reproduce it. I have entered this as bug 23103.

I have uploaded a test build of Clippings which contains an experimental fix for this bug. You can download and install it by clicking here.

If you are affected by the problem described above, please install this build and let me know by replying to this Clippings forum post if the Clippings Manager display problem is resolved.

Clippings, Clippings Manager, and Firefox 4 beta

A few devoted Clippings users have been anxiously waiting for compatibility with Firefox 4 beta releases. Here is an update on that, as well as news about a recently-reported bug affecting the display of the Clippings Manager window.

Compatibility with Firefox 4 beta

There were some changes to Firefox 4 with the way XPCOM components are registered which affected Clippings. Clippings will not function as-is on Firefox 4, so this change will require a new minor release.

Clippings Manager display problems

Some users on Windows and Mac OS have reported in the forums that Clippings Manager would not appear on their screens when it is invoked, either from the web page textbox context menu or from double-clicking the Clippings icon on the status bar. If this happens to you, follow these steps to work around it:

1. In the address bar in Firefox, type about:config and press ENTER.
2. In the filter textbox, type clippings.clipmgr.window_position
3. Double-click on resulting row. In the dialog box that appears, enter 0,0 (without any spaces after the comma) and click OK.

A proper fix for this bug (Bugzilla 23103) will be included in the same release as the one to address Firefox 4 beta compatibility.

Delicious Post 1.1 released

A new version of Delicious Post is now available from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

If you already have an older version of Delicious Post, it will be automatically updated for you if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, choose Tools → Add-ons from the main Firefox window, select Delicious Post in the list of installed extensions, right click and select Find Update. If you still encounter difficulties in getting the latest version, uninstall Delicious Post, then install the new version.

What's New

• Shortcut key, ALT+SHIFT+D, to invoke the Post to Delicious dialog
• The first-focused field in the Post to Delicious dialog has been changed to the Tags textbox

Things You Should Know About

To use Delicious Post, you must have a Delicious account with an "old-skool" Delicious login ID. Delicious Post will not work if you use a Yahoo! ID to log in to delicious.com.

Please Note: AE Creations is not affiliated with Delicious.com. Inquiries specific to the Delicious online social bookmarking service should be directed there.

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Delicious Post should be directed to the AE Creations forums.

Clippings 3.1.2 released

A new version of Clippings is available from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

Portable Firefox/Thunderbird users: There is a special version of Clippings designed for Portable Firefox/Thunderbird. See the Download and Install page on the Clippings website for the download link.

If you already have Clippings installed, you should receive the update if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, choose Tools → Add-ons from the main Firefox window, select Clippings in the list of installed extensions, right click and select Find Update.

What's New

• Added ability to adjust the Clippings Manager tree list width; click and drag the splitter to the right of the tree list to change the width
• If a clipping contains multiple occurrences of the same placeholder, you will only be prompted once for the placeholder value

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Clippings should be directed to the AE Creations forums.

Changing the Clippings shortcut key prefix using Keyconfig

Many Clippings users have asked for a different prefix shortcut key combination, replacing the current CTRL+ALT+V prefix (Mac users need to hold down the Control and Option keys while pressing V), to trigger keyboard insert.

There is an extension for Firefox and Thunderbird, Keyconfig, that lets you change shortcut keys. More information on Keyconfig is available in the Mozillazine forums. After installing it, go to Tools -> Keyconfig and look for "Insert Clipping" in the list of command names. Select that to change the shortcut key combination. Here's a screen shot:

Clippings 3.1.1 released

A minor update to Clippings is released and is available from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

Portable Firefox/Thunderbird users: There is a special version of Clippings designed for Portable Firefox/Thunderbird. See the Download and Install page on the Clippings website for the download link.

If you already have Clippings installed, you should receive the update if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, choose Tools → Add-ons from the main Firefox window, select Clippings in the list of installed extensions, right click and select Find Update.

What's New

• Compatible with Firefox 3.6.x and Thunderbird 3.0.x
• Minor bug fixes, including a fix for a bug described in this blog post
  

Please note that Firefox 2.0.x is no longer supported. Users must have at least Firefox 3.0 to be able to use Clippings.

For help and support, please go to the AE Creations forums.

Compatibility Status of Other Extensions

Delicious Post, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs are all compatible with Firefox 3.6.