Web Developer / UI Engineer

Yesterday, Firefox 4 Beta was also released, in beta (duh!). They added a feedback button to enable easy feedback submisstion. Smart, since few will go out of their way to provide feedback, but they make it so easy that you can’t help but provide feedback if you find a quirk. I kind of wish Opera had that feature. And kind of wish Firefox didn’t.

Removing the Firefox Feedback Button

Removing the “Feedback” button is actually beyond easy. It’s simply an addon. And, since Firefox 4 beta is basically incompatible with all other addons, it’s the only one listed that you can disable.

To disable it, click on Tools > Add Ons. A new browser window entitled “Add-Ons Manager” will open with a list of all of your addons. The only one that is not disabled is the “Feedback 10rc1″ addon. Click on the “disable” button, and restart Firefox.

I thought that Firebug was going to be native in FF4, like Opera comes with DragonFly and Safari comes with Developer ToolBar, even Chrome and IE8 have an equivalent of Firebug, but Firefox 4 does not, and Firebug is not compatible. Because Firebug is not compatible with FF4 make sure to enable saving your current version of Firefox before downloading the new Beta.

While Firefox 4beta adds an HTML5 parser and full support for web video, audio, and drag & drop, there has been precious little improvement in Web Forms support. Similar to Safari 5, the beta release has removed some support from :link and :visited. In über cool fashion, it has added support for a non-spec CSS selector :-moz-any(), which basically allows you to say “pick any of these descendent selectors of this parent selector”, instead of having to write out the parent selector in front of every single of its descendants that you want to match separately separated by commas… that always gets long. Since we still have to write the longhad of the selectors for other browsers, unless this selector idea catches on and is added to the spec, it will be useless except for use as a hack to target Firefox 4.

Another added feature in FF4 beta is the CSS calc() value. Useful for when you want to define width of 100% on an element with padding, or when you want to ensure there is a fixed width gutter on a fluid layout, width: -moz-calc(25% – 15px); can help ensure that gutter.

By the way, why are you reading this blog? I’ve moved over to www.standardista.com. It’s prettier, more thorough, and even more interesting over there.

Opera

With Opera it’s almost easier to say what it doesn’t support, since they’re doing such a great job of supporting modern draft standards.

Opera supports all of the new input types except tel, color and search, but since they support pattern matching, you can enter your own pattern. Unfortunately the placeholder and multiples attributes are not yet supported. When placeholder is supported, the lack of support for tel since there is support for pattern may be almost a non-issue.

Definitely download Opera and take Dragonfly, their version of Firebug, for a spin. Not new to 10.6, but still very cool.

I’ll be testing further over the next few days, but since this one is a doozy if it is a bug, and undocumented (my Google skills are failing me at this hour), i wanted to let y’all know now instead of waiting for my full post. Does anyone know if this is a new security feature, or if it is a bug?

You can download safari.

UPDATE:

According to a somewhat hidden security file at Apple, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4196, this seems like it is actually a security feature:

WebKit: Available for: Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5.8, Mac OS X Server v10.5.8, Mac OS X v10.6.2 or later, Mac OS X Server v10.6.2 or later, Windows 7, Vista, XP SP2 or later
Impact: A maliciously crafted website may be able to determine which sites a user has visited

Description: A design issue exists in WebKit’s handling of the CSS :visited pseudo-class. A maliciously crafted website may be able to determine which sites a user has visited. This update limits the ability of web pages to style pages based on whether links are visited.

At the time of this writing, it was at the way bottom of the page.

@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
     .myClass { background-color: #FF0000; }
     #myId {color: #0000FF;}
     p, a, li {text-shadow: 3px 3px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4);}
}

Put the above code anywhere in your CSS file. The other browsers will read the rest, but only webkit reads the -webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio of the declaration, and therefore only Chrome and Safari will abide by the rules in the CSS code block.

The important stuff to learn:

@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
     /* put webkit CSS here*/
}

The “view source” functionality of browsers is near and dear to my heart, as it’s how I learned to code, it’s how I judge who to hire, and it’s how I help trouble shoot bugs and quirks when developers ask me for help.

Here’s the summary from the the interwebs:

View Source Has a Posse – http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/5005

“View source” is a feature of all modern browsers that few people use, and that more probably wouldn’t miss if it disappeared. Still, viewing other people’s source code has played an undeniable role in the Web’s development, spurring a culture of creativity and sharing, and cementing values of openness and transparency in developer practices.

However, as the Web becomes increasingly dedicated to social interaction and applications rather than static documents, the value of viewing machine-generated source code raises a critical question: will view source be relevant to the next generation of Web apps? And what might be lost if new Web applications refuse to include its functionality?

Panelists include Aza Raskin from Mozilla, Chris Wilson from Microsoft, Michael Lucaccini of Archetype, and Alex Russell of Dojo & Google, and ME!.
Questions addressed will include:

1. what is View Source?
2. how have web developers and designers use View Source?
3. what were the original intentions of the feature?
4. how has view source functionality changed with things like Firebug and Web Inspector?
5. what alternatives exist to support iterative hacking on other people’s code?
6. how might tools and communities like GitHub augment or replace View Source?
7. how important is view source to learning to program complex web applications?
8. UserStyles, UserScripts, JetPacks and similar end-user web customizations – will these kinds of innovations be stifled if View Source goes away?
9. how can view source functionality be added to other “non-web” software? How would it be different than open source software?
10. is there a larger point to be made about the relevance of open source in the social/cloud era of computing?

The panel is 3:30 on Saturday in room 12AB. I hope to see you there. Please do say ‘hi’.