Muffinresearch Labs by Stuart Colville

Firefox 1.5 Launched | Comments (32)

Posted in Browsers on 30th November 2005, 1:38 pm by Stuart

Firefox 1.5 was released late last night and according to some sources is not any different to the RC3 version. I had waited for the official release so this is my first look at the new version.

Installation

There were quite a few extensions that didn’t work with 1.5 but for most of them it was just a case of editing the install.rdf so that the max version was greater than 1.0

If you don’t know how to do this it’s really easy so here’s how:

  1. Download to your desktop the extension you wish to get working
  2. Rename the .xpi file to .zip
  3. Open the zip file
  4. Either unpack the install.rdf file or open it for editing within your zip application if that is supported.
  5. Change the maxVersion to 1.6
  6. Repack the zip file or update the zip if you are editing within your archive app (should happen automatically – double check the file has been updated)
  7. Rename the .zip file to .xpi
  8. Test the extension. To install drag the xpi file onto an open window.

Fixing Broken Extensions

For convenience here are the web development related extensions that needed to be fixed to work for Firefox 1.5. I have included the PR Googlebar updated and working for Firefox 1.5 (The syntax of the install.rdf file had to be modified in addition to the maxVersion).

Review

1.5 has gained a few interesting features such as auto updates, a new caching mechanism for the the back and forward buttons, usability enhancements and improved support for Mac OSX. For web developers the key differences of note are the support for SVG, CANVAS a new element for programming graphics, Xforms parts of CSS3 including automatic column layouts and new accessibility features including DHTML accessibility and support for Window eyes 5.5.

As a web developer it’s hard to get too excited with the new standards features because until there more widespread support for them they are unlikely to be utilised fully. However, it’s good to see Mozilla keeping Firefox to the fore of these advancements. In my first day of use overall it does seem to be a touch faster, hopefully some of these speed enhancements will have found their way into the Mac OSX version.

Update: There’s a global change that can be made to Firefox in about:config to make all extensions work without going in an editing the .xpi files via Mark Wubben – How to make older extensions work in Firefox 1.5 beta

Update2: Please note that the versions of the Fangs extension is not completely working as it should be due to changes in the DOM. For more on this see the Fangs extension author’s site. See Update 3 below

Update3: Fang’s author, Peter Krantz over at Standard Schmandards has made the changes necessary to make Fangs work for Firefox 1.5. Get it at sourceforge.net

Translations:

Comments: Add yours

1. On November 30th, 2005 at 5:49 pm rakesh said:

Ya its true the Firefox 1.5 final is the same as RC3 both have the same md5 hash. As of now the only working extension i have got is flashgot and all the other extensions are not working though

2. On November 30th, 2005 at 6:08 pm Michael Hessling said:

My FireFTP and Bookmark Synchronizer extensions now work.

Thank you for this useful tip.

3. On November 30th, 2005 at 9:18 pm Stuart Colville said:

@Rakesh: Have you tried altering the maxVersion as I mentioned above, you’ll probably find that for 90% of the extensions that don’t work that’s all you need to do.

@Michael: You’re welcome, glad I could help : )

4. On December 1st, 2005 at 1:55 am Joe Grossberg said:

This worked great for some extensions (e.g. Gcache and About Site), but others are broken and some just *disappeared* when I upgraded. Ugh.

5. On December 1st, 2005 at 9:08 am Stuart said:

@Joe: Yes some extensions will have more issues with them. PR Googlebar said that the install.rdf was malformed. To fix it I had to re-write the install.rdf to the newer syntax using a working extension as a guide.

If you send me an email via the contact form I will take a look at the extensions you are having trouble with. No promises though : )

6. On December 1st, 2005 at 12:23 pm Michael said:

Keyboard shortcuts is not functional in your version of PRGoogleBar. Open search results in new tab with CTRL (or midlle button) is not functional.

7. On December 1st, 2005 at 12:27 pm Stuart Colville said:

@Michael: Thanks for the heads up – I’ll look into it

8. On December 1st, 2005 at 12:58 pm ira said:

What would be the fix to get autofill to work? I’m on OS X.
Thanks for your work.

9. On December 1st, 2005 at 1:13 pm Stuart Colville said:

@Ira: There’s no such thing as autofill in this googlebar. For that you would need Google’s own Googlebar for Firefox.

10. On December 5th, 2005 at 4:17 pm Fl said:

Thanks for the link to my website. I liked very very much. And the other changes in Firefox configs are very simple.

11. On December 5th, 2005 at 4:25 pm Stuart said:

@Flavio: You’re welcome – glad the article was useful Thanks for helping it reach a wider audience.

12. On December 5th, 2005 at 8:15 pm Justin said:

How do you install the xpi files?

13. On December 5th, 2005 at 8:20 pm Stuart said:

@Justin: The easiest way that I do it is to drag the .xpi files onto the firefox window. This will bring up the install dialog.

14. On December 6th, 2005 at 10:05 pm Tricia said:

Worked great, you should include how to install the extension afterword, I was a bit confused about that after editing it. But thanks to Stuart’s comment, I just dragged it on to the browser and it workd. I wouldn’t have thought of that.

15. On December 9th, 2005 at 4:17 pm brenda said:

I successfully installed the prgooglebar. However, after being away from the computer for a few hours, it stopped working. I uninstalled, closed FF, and then reinstalled and nada.

One other thing, the main thing I wanted googlbar for was to translate pages. It never did work.

I hope you come up with a good one soon, because now I’m forced to use the Google toolbar and I hate it.

Thanks for all you’ve done. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I know programmers like bug reports.

16. On December 9th, 2005 at 4:49 pm Stuart said:

@Brenda: Sorry to hear you’ve been having problems with the PR-googlebar. I haven’t personally experienced any issues in using it myself and the translation does work. Although I note the comment above regarding keystrokes.

When you upgraded to Firefox did you create a new profile? I would suggest creating a new profile and try starting out installing extensions from scratch.

Before you start it may save you time to export a copy of your bookmarks so that you can quickly add them back into the new profile. This procedure doesn’t do anything to the existing profile so if you want to go back to it at a later date you can.

As you are on windows you can right-click the shortcut for Firefox and and add "-P" to the end of the path specified in target. It will probably end up looking like this:

"C:Program FilesMozilla Firefoxfirefox.exe" -P

Once you have done that close FireFox if it is currently open and then open it by double-clicking the modified shortcut.

This will present you with a screen that gives you the option of creating, renaming or deleting a profile. Press ‘Create Profile’, click ‘next’ and give the new profile a name. Click Finish and you will see the new profile has been created.

Highlight the profile you just created and press ‘Start Firefox’. Now you are running with a blank profile.

Install all of your extensions and bookmarks and when you are happy go back to the shortcut you edited and remove the ‘-P’ otherwise you will be asked which profile you wish to use everytime you start Firefox

If you still have trouble after this please contact me via my contact form (not comments!) and leave your email address and I will see if I can help you out.

17. On December 10th, 2005 at 4:31 am Brenda said:

I can’t thank you enough for your suggestions. I don’t pretend to be real hip when it comes to things tech. I do ok but after 15 years on the net I still have a lot to learn.

Also, I haven’t seen this anywhere else, I couldn’t install anything until I went to about:config and changed the value of "xpinstall.enabled" by double-clicking it to change it from false to true.

Weird about the translation feature working for you and not me. Not really, I’m one to which weird things happen :)

4 am here in Europe and I’m barely awake, so I will change my profile and do the other things after my 3rd cup of coffee.

If these don’t work, I’ll bend my rule of never giving out my address. Borderline privacy freak here.

Thanks again

18. On December 10th, 2005 at 11:30 am Stuart said:

@Brenda: Regarding xpinstall.enabled – I saw that on your site (google analytics shows which sites refer to this site) and that’s what made me wonder if your profile was mangled as that shouldn’t be set to false by default.

19. On December 10th, 2005 at 3:15 pm Brenda said:

Color me red! Just so you know, I updated and said how cool you were about this because I didn’t want people thinking this was a bad googlebar.

I was really curious how xpinstall enabled was set to false. I didn’t have any problems with installing the very few extensions I use on 1.07 or other versions.

Now that I’m awake again (long nap) I’m going to follow your advice about the profiles.

I can’t thank you enough.

20. On December 10th, 2005 at 3:32 pm Stuart said:

Just in case anyone is looking for the un-official googlebar without the Page-rank feature then try this one which has also been updated to work with 1.5 and is a newer version of the toolbar compared to one the PR googlebar was originally based on:

Non Page-rank Google Toolbar for Firefox 1.5

21. On December 10th, 2005 at 4:05 pm Brenda said:

Stuart, thank you, thank you. It’s working fine now.

Btw, I tried the one -pr you mentioned and it seems to be for 1.5 beta. Am I wrong?

22. On December 10th, 2005 at 4:12 pm Stuart Colville said:

@Brenda: Glad everything’s ok now. Although that link says that it’s for 1.5 beta it’s fine for the final release of 1.5 too.

23. On December 10th, 2005 at 6:59 pm Brenda said:

Stuart. Thanks, I’m very happy now. This has been an ordeal for me. I’m sure glad it was over. You’ve been brilliant.

It’s good to know the other link is good for 1.5. I found that by unchecking "Googlebar Extensions" on yours, pr disappears.

Cheers!

24. On December 11th, 2005 at 2:08 pm Kete said:

Hello,

I followed these instructions, but it said my text file was messed up; and now, everytime that I start Firefox, it says my text file is messed up. What can I do to stop this? I tried for ChromEdit, and I think I’ve found a version that works; but I want the pop up to stop popping up. Please help.

Sincerely,
Kete

25. On December 11th, 2005 at 4:53 pm Stuart said:

@Kete: I’ve just tested the chromeedit available here:

Modified Chromedit thread on extensionsmirror.nl

I had no problems installing it and running it. I would therefore suggest you follow my instructions here:

How to create a new profile

And see if it works in a new profile.

26. On December 13th, 2005 at 5:24 pm Paul Irish said:

Stuart, Thanks for updating View Formatted Source! This works perfect.

27. On December 15th, 2005 at 6:50 pm Kourtney said:

I still have a bar across the base of my screen with a red ^ halfway up the left side. I have followed everyone’s instructions, but it is not going awya. What do I do now?

28. On January 4th, 2006 at 4:24 pm Tim said:

Thanks for the info.

Annoyingly, I keep on getting an error when trying this very useful hack.

Error reads "Firefox could not install this item because of a failure in Chrome Registration".

I’ve tried em:maxVersion="1.6.0" and em:maxVersion="1.6" and em:maxVersion="1.5" but all to no avail (all with the same error message).

29. On January 4th, 2006 at 4:26 pm Tim said:

Sorry, "message #28 referred to the View formatted source extension.

30. On January 4th, 2006 at 4:37 pm Stuart said:

@Tim and Kourtney: I would suggest that you need to start with a new profile as per the instructions above in comment #16. If you follow these instructions your existing profile will still be available if you need it.

Email me from the contact form if you are still having issues.

31. On February 11th, 2006 at 2:37 pm Bruce Bornstein said:

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for the tip. I like to keep an eye on my page rank.
Your tip worked like a charm.

Thanks again.

Capt. B

32. On February 24th, 2006 at 1:14 pm Peter Krantz said:

Hi, I am the developer of Fangs – the screen reader emulator. There is a new version of Fangs (1.0.0) which is compatible with Firefox 1.5.

Just updating the rdf file of a previous version will let you install the extension but it does not work as expected. Version 1.0.0 should be ok though. It is available from:

http://fangs.sourceforge.net/fangs.xpi

Using Loggerhead with mod_wsgi|(0)

Here’s a post I wrote over on the Project Fondue Blog about our use of Loggerhead with mod_wsgi under Apache. Loggerhead is the rather nice branch viewer for bazaar branches as used on Launchpad.net.

If you’re not already subscribed to the Project Fondue blog feed then I can recommend it, as there should be some interesting posts coming out of there in the coming months (yes I’m unashamedly biased!).

Ubuntu: Turn off changing workspace with mouse wheel|(1)

I found the changing with the workspace with the mouse wheel really annoying. To disable it go to System => Preferences => CompizConfig (available if the compizconfig-settings-manager package is installed) and uncheck “Viewport Switcher” which is under the “Desktop” heading.

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