Posts

The add-on (extension) mechanism built into the Mozilla platform is very powerful. One of the optional features is support for options (preferences) dialogs. As discussed in my last post, Fennec doesn’t like dialogs. In addition, Fennec has a simple, clean preference system. While designing the Fennec Add-ons Manager, we discussed how we would support add-on options. We didn’t want popup dialogs of random and complicated XUL.

So much to do, so little time. My workspace is littered with projects I started but couldn’t find the time to keep going. It’s kinda sad and I do feel guilty.

Recently, we released Fennec Beta 3 for Maemo (Alpha 3 for Windows Mobile is very close). The new release has several internal changes that might be of interest to add-on developers - or people curious as to how the darn thing works.

Trying to debug problems in Fennec while running on a mobile device can be a pain. Using the JavaScript Error Console is one way you can track down problems, especially JS coding errors. Some applications, like Firefox, have a UI to launch the Error Console. Other applications don’t. You might not know this, but any Mozilla-based application automatically supports displaying and using the Error Console. Simply launch the application using the -jsconsole command line flag, and the Error Console will open.

Fennec nightly builds for Windows Mobile and Maemo have been available for some time now. Recently, we decided to make nightly desktop builds of Fennec available as well. The desktop builds can be used to test add-ons and localizations with the most up-to-date code changes.

Mozilla Japan and Clear Code held a mobile developer camp (translated) over the weekend. Fennec has been lucky to have several Japanese coders helping out for a while now. The DevCamp added even more contributors!

Performance is very critical in Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox. Every feature, every aspect of appearance, every piece of code… is all judged by the impact on performance. We’re lucky to have automated performance tests for Maemo and we’re close to getting the same tests working for Windows Mobile.