Minefield(Firefox) 3.7Pre seems to work

[MilesAhead]

Now ain't that the strangest thing!!!  I just tried Minefield nightly build.  Got the same thing where it put the default skin on and killed my AddOns.  Then for chuckles I used FEBE to just restore my GradientICool theme, and Bingo!!! My AddOns now work!!!!

I don't care why it works at this point!! I'll take it!!

[Innuendo]

Then for chuckles I used FEBE to just restore my GradientICool theme, and Bingo!!!

-MilesAhead (December 15, 2009, 07:00 PM)

Is it the Gradient iCool (Blue) theme by chance? There's a severe bug in v1.1.0 and before of that theme that prevents it from working with Firefox 3.6 & Tab Mix Plus. The world is waiting for v1.1.1 to be released which is supposed to fix that bug.

[MilesAhead]

Thanks for the heads-up.

https://addons.mozil...addons/versions/7403

[MilesAhead]

3.7 still not ready for Prime Time.  The descriptions on TV Guide site open a blank box.  Looks like I'm sticking with 3.6 Beta 2 for awhile.

[Innuendo]

3.7 still not ready for Prime Time.  The descriptions on TV Guide site open a blank box.  Looks like I'm sticking with 3.6 Beta 2 for awhile.

-MilesAhead (December 16, 2009, 11:32 PM)

Why not 3.6 Beta 4? Heck, even 3.6b6pre is available for download. I'm running that one right now. Too early to tell if it's bug-free enough for day-to-day use, though.

Version 3.7 just looks too alpha for me to try using yet.

[MilesAhead]

I'm using 3.6 Beta 2.  Works fine.  Even the TV Guide descriptions work.  Every now and again I try 3.7 to see if it's any snappier.  But I guess once you have a version where JIT is activated then it's as snappy as it's going to get for awhile.

It is kind of funny how these browsers develop.  Like with Opera, it has built in media player so I use it to listen to clips on AllMusic.com.  But, they seem obstinate in their refusal to put a Stop Button on the toolbar like just about every other browser.  Once you start a clip or any other action with the thing, the only way to make it quit is either close the browser or go to another page.  I've suggested a Stop Button on occasion but then I'm immediately classified as among the barbarians.  Weird!

[Innuendo]

I've suggested a Stop Button on occasion but then I'm immediately classified as among the barbarians.  Weird!

-MilesAhead (December 17, 2009, 01:08 PM)

That's why I never really took a shine to Opera. They programmed their browser to be weird and different than any other browser on the planet & even going extra-ordinary lengths to do so. And....they like it that way. No, thanks. Being different is fine, but intentionally crippling functionality to do so is not the right way to go about being different.

[MilesAhead]

Some things Opera has are really nice.  But stuff like clicking the mouse 4 times to copy a line of text to the clipboard just promotes CTS.  When I suggested an AutoCopy like FF has you'd think I advocated dissemination of small pox laced blankets.  I mean, it gets weird!

[MilesAhead]

Hmmmmmm, just trying 3.7Pre on my Vista64 machine.  I guess the big deal with this one is GPU rendering support if you have a direct3d 10 capable card.

It didn't kill my AddOns this time.  So far it seems solid.  The progress bars on Tabs zip across when opening several pages at once.  Feels a tad snappier anyway.  TV Guide descriptions still broken but I can live with that if it's fast.

[MilesAhead]

btw any FF aficionados know how to tell if hardware acceleration is enabled?  Is there an option in about:config?  I know I don't have the hottest graphics cards but every app that tells me it has an option for HW acceleration, if it's on or off Task Manager reports the same CPU and memory usage.  Just seems a bit weird.

This isn't just FF but media players etc..

[MilesAhead]

Looks like this build actually has 2D rendering GPU stuff enabled.  It seems a bit snappier but who knows?  Maybe if someone has a super duper gamer GPU you can tell the difference?

http://www.bassified...2.d2d.2009.12.20.zip

I got the link from the developer's blog.  What I did was download a Minefield nightly build and install it.  Then I deleted everything in the Minefield folder under Program Files, and unzipped the contents of the zip file and just layed it on.

The TV Guide java descriptions are still broken. You should probably keep whatever you are using as your default browser for the time being.  The TV Guide descriptions and the Silver Light video are the only 2 things I've found broken so far.  Seems solid other than that.

[Curt]

it doesn't have the promised super glass effects.  
However if you apply Glasser to the default theme it doesn't look half bad.

-MilesAhead (October 25, 2009, 09:06 PM)

I have really come to like the Glasser extension (not a theme):

click for large:

Minefield(Firefox) 3.7Pre seems to work


However, the author has so far failed to keep a homepage.

Edited:
The wallpaper 'behind' Firefox: http://www.flickr.co...s/viamoi/3545100197/

[MilesAhead]

Just recently I tried the FF 4 "Minefield" to check out the 2D GPU rendering.  It said it was enabled but I couldn't tell. Probably because I don't have game grade GPUs.  Nowadays I mainly keep FF for sites Chrome won't handle and also to fix up loss of favicons and that type of thing in Chrome.  LastPass will work in both but there doesn't seem to be a simple way to cross sync bookmarks that doesn't produce dupes and other side-effects.

But back to the glass.. the main thing that gripes me is when they try to get a large glass caption bar, a lot of apps, including Chrome, want to use a ribbon instead of the standard menu bar.  So now everything is crammed into one drop-down menu item.  It's a pita. I hope Windows8 adds easy to use APIs to draw text and graphics on glass without jumping through flaming hoops.