Mozilla creating Firefox PDF viewer in HTML5

Mozilla is developing a browser-based PDF reader, looking to help Firefox users avoid the security and performance issues associated with current plug-ins.

The PDF reader will be created in HTML5 and JavaScript, Mozilla said.

However, it's only four weeks into development, and a Mozilla spokesperson said it will be months before this feature arrives in Firefox. The development files are already available through GitHub, and an early demo version is available online, but it didn't properly display files we tested it with.

Read more: PC Pro

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Mozilla Firefox 5

    

Mozilla Firefox 5 officially released

Read more: Mozilla

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How to Create a Toolbar with XUL

The first time that I was asked to make a toolbar for Firefox my first thought was, "sounds like fun!"  However, I didn’t have a clue about where to start and how to find the information about it.  I wrote this post to share my experience and help anybody who finds himself in a similar situation

Toolset

For this tutorial is recommended that you have the following software installed:

Firefox 3.6 or later

Extension Developer (ADD-ONS for Firefox)

Visual Studio 2008 or 2010

Text Editor

How to Create a Toolbar with XUL

To create a toolbar we will use the following,

• toolbox: A box that contains toolbars.
• toolbar: A single toolbar that contains toolbar items such as buttons.
• toolbarbutton: A button on a toolbar, which has all the same features of a regular button but is usually drawn differently.
• toolbarseparator:  Creates a separator between groups of toolbar items.
• toolbarspring: A flexible space between toolbar items.
• menu: Despite the name, this is actually only the title of the menu on the menubar/toolbar. This element can be placed on a menubar/toolbar or can be placed separately.  
• menupopup: The popup box that appears when you click on the menu title. This box contains the list of menu commands.
• menuitem: An individual command on a menu. This would be placed in a menupopup.
• menuseparator: A separator bar on a menu. This would be placed in a menupopup.

To start, do the following,

Open Firefox

Open Real-time XUL Editor of Extension Developer or any page of XUL Edit online like (e.g., http://ted.mielczarek.org/code/mozilla/xuledit/index.html)

Copy the following source,

<?xml-stylesheet href="chrome://global/skin/" type="text/css"?>

<window id="yourwindow" xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

  <toolbox>

    <toolbar>

      <toolbarbutton tooltiptext="tooltiptext1" oncommand="functionJS_1()" label="LabelButton1"/>

      <toolbarseparator/>

      <toolbarbutton tooltiptext="tooltiptext2" oncommand="functionJS_2()" label="LabelButton2"/>

      <toolbarbutton tooltiptext="tooltiptextN" oncommand="functionJS_N()" label="LabelButtonN"/>

      <toolbarspring/>

      <menu label="LabelMenu" tooltiptext="tooltiptextMenu">

        <menupopup>

          <menuitem label="LabelMenuitemCheckbox1" type="checkbox"/>

          <menuitem label="LabelMenuitemCheckbox2" type="checkbox"/>

          <menuitem label="LabelMenuitem" oncommand="functionMenuitem();"/>

        </menupopup>

      </menu>

      <toolbarseparator/>

      <menu label="Help" tooltiptext="About this toolbar">

        <menupopup>

          <menuitem label="Visit blog of nearsoft" oncommand="OpenNS();"/>

          <menuseparator/>

          <menuitem label="About this toolbar"/>

        </menupopup>

      </menu>      

    </toolbar>

  </toolbox>

</window>

After you paste the source on the XUL Editor it will show you the preview, which will look like this,

Read more: closerisbetter

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Angry Birds on IE9

I was asked recently where "angry birds for ie9" was. My answer was Angry Birds is already there, kind of, for IE9.   Actually its there for HTML5 browsers.  Angry Birds was released as a HTML5/Flash app targeted for Chrome at http://chrome.angrybirds.com recently.

Accordingly, ChromeBirds works pretty good on IE9 too. Simply point your IE9 browser to http://chrome.angrybirds.com and you'll have Angry Birds up and going in IE9. 

Why Blog this? Truthfully I was asked if there was angrybirds for IE9. I'm using this article this as a ref to email them.

Read more: DevFish on MSDN ...>««(o>... 

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30 Very Useful Add-ons That Works Great With Firefox 4

The totally redesigned Firefox 4 was launched on 23rd March, 2010 and some of you may be giving it a try. I hope you are liking the new version of Firefox that has come up with great speed enhancements, new and minimal looks, pin-up your favorite web apps like Windows 7, panaroma view of your tab pages to battle tab clutter, do not track features to block your browsing behaviors and much more. Personally, I like Firefox 4 because of its minimal look and speed but I founded few quirks that annoyed me while using Firefox such as Google search box, blurry fonts and others.

1. Adblock Plus : Annoyed by adverts? Troubled by tracking? Bothered by banners? Install Adblock Plus now to regain control of the internet and change the way that you view the web.

2. Barlesque : Barlesque is an extension for Mozilla Firefox 4.x that reclaims useful window space by collapsing the wide grey add-on bar into a neat set of add-on buttons. This extension is Firefox 4.x-only, as add-on bar is a new feature.

3. Status-4-Evar : That status bar was removed in Firefox 4.0. While some of the status bar items did find new homes, some did not, and you might not like where they ended up. Status-4-Evar aims to bring back (some of) the old status bar items, give you more control over the built-in Firefox features, and provide new alternatives.

4. Tab Scope : Shows a popup on tabs and enables you to preview and navigate tab contents through popup.

5. Better Gmail 2 : Add useful extra features to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, an unread message icon on your browser tab, file attachment icons, and more. Better Gmail 2 compiles the best Greasemonkey user scripts for Gmail into a single package.

6. Personal Menu (Personal Firefox Button) : Personalize Firefox Button in Firefox 4 and change it to your personal and powerful one! Create your personalized menu to replace Menu Bar in Firefox 4.

Read more: WebTabLab

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Drawing lines in Mozilla based browsers and the Internet Explorer

Introduction
In this article, I want to explain and deduce the line drawing algorithm by Bresenham. Afterwards, I will show an optimized version which can be used to draw lines in Gecko based browsers like Mozilla or Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. As you know, HTML itself is not able to describe lines. Therefore, there is no built-in features in the above-mentioned browsers for drawing lines. By implementing the Bresenham algorithm with JavaScript while applying some tricks, we will be able to draw lines in a good manner in respect to the browser's runtime and memory footprints.

The Bresenham algorithm
The Bresenham algorithm aims at drawing an approximation of the mathematically correct line, which can be described in the form of a linear mathematical function. The demand for this algorithm came to hand when the first raster display or digital plotters were developed. These devices were unable to draw a continuous line in a strict mathematical sense. Rather, they were designed to plot a single pixel with a certain height and width on a screen coordinate. The approximation is based on finding the best and closest path on this raster display from the starting point to the end point.

The ideal line
The mathematical formula for describing a line is the following linear equation: y = m*x + b. In other words, a mathematical line is defined by a slope (variable m) and a pitch from the x-axis (variable b). By choosing two different points, we can, therefore, exactly define a line. To determine the two missing pieces of information (the slope and the pitch), we have to solve the following two equations:

I) y1 = m*x1 + b
II) y2 = m*x2 + b
=> I)
b = y1 - m*x1
=> II)
y2 = m*x2 + y1 - m*x1
y2 = m*(x2 - x1) + y1
m = (y2 - y1) / (x2 - x1)      | x1 != x2

Read more: Codeproject

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intro Firefox Pranks!

Using add-ons in Firefox to enhance your experience is boring. For April Fools' Day, lets make the experience a little more bizarre.
Since these add-ons were meant to be installed on a victim's computer you'll only need two things:

- a victim who uses Firefox as his or her regular browser
- access to the victim's computer

To keep it simple, here are the links to all of the add-ons for your one-stop shopping pleasure. Each step will explain what each of these does. Just click on a link to install it in Firefox.

- Two Steps Back
- Rick Rollr (Video removed by YouTube)
- The Devil's Inbox
- Highs and Lows
- Sarcasm Enhancer
- What Did You Say?
- For real
- Watch it
- Dsmvwlr
- Total Confusion Combo Pack! (Updated 3/30)
- Total Confusion Combo Pack! (non April Fools' Day version)

If you want to hit your victim with everything, you can go for the Total Confusion Combo Pack. The combo pack is set to only work on April 1st, so you can install it now, and nothing will happen until then. Also, throughout the day, the pranks become more and more frequent!
IMPORTANT: All of these can be removed simply by going to Tools > Add-ons and uninstalling them.

Read more: Instructables.com

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Firefox Home Dash experiment offers a radical new UI for your Mozilla browser

It's a little hard to describe what Firefox Home Dash is -- beyond the basics, anyway. It's an experimental add-on born from Mozilla's Prospector project which replaces (or removes) nearly all of the Firefox UI. You're left with a title bar, scrollbar, the big orange button, and not much else. The goal is to get the browser out of the way and just give you the Web.

Hover over the Firefox logo in the top-left of your window or press Ctrl+T, and Dash will appear. The Firefox Awesome Bar floats to the left, offering all the same functionality you find in the browser right now. It'll search your history, bookmarks, or submit your query to any search engine with the click of a favicon. The right half of your Dash is populated by your currently open tabs (in a strip along the top -- pinned tabs on the left) and frequently visited pages (shown below). Sites you visit most often will be placed in one of the four larger, central slides. As you can see from my screenshot, Dash doesn't always render thumbnails -- but this is the first release of an experimental add-on, so we were expecting a few bugs.

Read more: DownloadSquad

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How to install firefox 4.0 beta in ubuntu using PPA

This tutorial will explain How to install firefox 4.0 beta using PPA
Note:- Firefox 4.0 is still in beta version so it is not recommended for production use
Open the terminal and run the following commands

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox-4.0

Read more: Ubuntu geek

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Move Firefox and Chrome's Cache to a RAM Disk for Faster Browsing

We've previously shown you how to move your Firefox cache to system memory, but a dedicated RAM disk might be a better solution for serious browsing speed. The Hack a Day blog points out the how-tos for Mac and Linux.

If you've got a solid-state drive (SSD), you'll definitely want to create a RAM disk—a section of system memory that's used like a small hard drive, just faster—rather than your SSD to reduce wear. That previous post covered a Windows method of creating a RAM disk, but there are means for Mac and Linux, too. They're not for those looking to lightly twiddle with some settings—you have to follow step by step, or possibly bring down your browser. But for those willing to tweak, it may be a nice performance boost.
Hack a Day points to Esperance DV (CNET link, as the original seems down) for creating a System Preference on a Mac to create a RAM disk, and a batch of Terminal commands at Linux Readers blog for getting the job done on Linux.

Read more: Lifehacker

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Beta Version of Nevercookie Released

Anonymizer has released a beta version of Nevercookie, the recently announced Firefox plugin designed to protect against the Evercookie, a JavaScript API built and made available to prove that the more you store and the more places you store it, the harder it is for users to control a Web site's ability to uniquely identify their computer. Evercookie is a more persistent form of cookie that enables the storage of cookie data in a number of different locations, such as Flash cookies and various locations of HTML5 storage. This allows websites to track user behavior even when users have enabled private browsing. Because an Evercookie stores data in locations outside of where standard cookies are stored, an Evercookie can rebuild itself unless users go through a number of steps to completely clear and reset their local storage

Read more: Slashdot

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HTML5 forms validation in Firefox 4

Mounir Lamouri looks at native browser-side form validation in Firefox4  – while re-iterating the need for re-validating on the server-side too. The objective of the browser-side form validation is to relieve JavaScript of the need to do a lot of basic form checking. Lanouri writes:
”All new input types introduced with HTML5 forms except search and tel benefit from internal validation. Firefox 4 is going to support email and url and the validation will check if the value is a valid email or url respectively.”
Read more: Ajaxian

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How to move the Firefox or Chrome cache to a RAM disk and speed up surfing by 20% or more

If you're old enough, you probably remember what a RAM disk is. Back in the olden days, to squeeze every last bit of juice out of your computer (usually for the purpose of playing Doom), you could load a program into a RAM disk -- a virtual drive made out of spare RAM. As I'm sure you know, RAM is a lot faster than your hard drive
Fast forward to today, and most computers have a lot of spare RAM. Unless you're editing large multimedia files, you're probably using only a fraction of your RAM. Why don't we use a little bit of it to speed up our surfing of the Web?
Browsers save a lot of data to the hard drive. Every image, so that you don't have to download it every time you visit a page, is saved to the hard drive. That's when you experience the 'grind' of loading (or reloading) a tab that you haven't looked at recently -- the browser is loading data from the hard drive.
With a RAM disk, you can make the browser always load from memory. This speeds up the entire browsing experience by a significant margin. The browser starts in a flash, switching between tabs feels faster, and page load times can be reduced by 20% or more!
To get started, you need Dataram's excellent RAMDisk software. It's free, unless you want to create RAM disks over 4GB in size (which you really don't need to do).
Read more: DownloadSquad

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Run Any Browser Directly from the Web

Want to quickly test your website in IE 6 or Firefox 2 or Google Chrome 5 or Safari 4 or Opera? Spoon is a cool website that lets you run specific versions of the popular web browsers directly in your web browser via a plugin. Great for geeks like me.
Read more: Spoon Browser Sandbox

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Debugging Silverlight in Firefox

Just a little tip I learned recently but if you are an avid firefox user and you want to debug Silverlight 4 applications in the firefox browser, then here are a few steps you need to take to make that happen, since it doesn't work right out of the gate.
Step 1
In firefox, at the address bar type "about:config" without the quotes. If done correctly you will see a little warning.
Step 2
Accept the warning. Tell it you will be careful, you promise.
Step 3
In the filter field, type "dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npctrl.dll" and you should see only 1 entry.
Step 4
Change the value from "true" to "false". You can do this by just double-clicking the entry.
Step 5
Restart the browser and you should be good to go.
Of course you could ignore all that and manually attach the visual studio debugger to "plugin-container.exe" but that would be painful and the above way is much easier.
Read more: XAMLmammal

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