92 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
92 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
From rssfeeds@jmason.org Thu Sep 26 16:43:15 2002
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<jm@jmason.org>; Thu, 26 Sep 2002 16:27:42 +0100
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To: yyyy@example.com
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From: "hyatt@mozilla" <rssfeeds@example.com>
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Subject: Priceless
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Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 15:27:41 -0000
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Content-Type: text/plain; encoding=utf-8
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tests=AWL
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version=2.50-cvs
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X-Spam-Level:
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URL: http://www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/hyatt/#85443744
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Date: Not supplied
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I just finished reading an article about Mozilla[1] for Salon.com[2]. This
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excerpt was rather amusing.
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_It is a good question, because in almost every way, Mozilla is a better
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browser than Navigator. For example, Netscape's best new feature, tabbed
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browsing -- which lets you have several Web pages open in the same browser
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window, and allows you to bookmark all the pages under one name -- was in
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Mozilla many months ago, and the Mozilla project that created it (called
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MultiZilla) already has an improved version available. When asked about this,
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Yecies, of Netscape, said, "That's true, but the engineer who's working on it
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[for Mozilla] is a Netscape employee. It was always done with the intention of
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fostering general browsing usability for Netscape."
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_
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Yes, ok, I suppose that's true if by "Netscape employee" you really meant
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"Apple employee." and by "always done with the intention of fostering general
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browsing usability for Netscape" you meant "was done in a weekend for Mozilla
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because I thought MultiZilla was cool."
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Here's how the whole tabbed browsing thing happened. One night I finally
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downloaded an extension called MultiZilla (go check it out on mozdev.org[3]. I
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was particularly impressed with a feature contained in MultiZilla called tabbed
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browsing. I started doing research and discovered NetCaptor[4], a tabbed
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browser that embedded WinIE.
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MultiZilla was cool but at the time suffered from two fundamental flaws that
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prevented the code from being incorporated into the Mozilla tree. The first was
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a UI flaw, namely that at the time it had ripped off NetCaptor down to the last
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context menu item. The GUI was similar enough that there would have been
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definite concerns about so obviously copying some of NetCaptor's more obscure
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capabilities (like sticky names and tab locking). The second concern was that
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the tab behavior wasn't encapsulated cleanly into a widget.
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I produced a simplified version of tabbed browsing on my own time (did it in a
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weekend) that removed some of the geekier NetCaptor features and that
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encapsulated the tab behavior so that the changes to other Navigator files
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would be minimal. Once I established that it didn't degrade performance in the
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single tab case, I checked it in as an experiment.
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The response was overwhelming, as were the bugs that started being filed. So
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much so that at first I wanted to back tabbed browsing out of the tree. I was
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overruled by Mozilla, which turned out to be a good thing for all I think. :)
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Even with all the excitement and hoopla surrounding the advent of tabbed
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browsing on the engineering side (and in the Mozilla community), Netscape still
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didn't get it. Netscape marketing prioritized all sorts of useless work that
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nobody had even started above tabbed browsing in their marketing document. They
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continued to do so for months, simply not getting it. It was this odd curiosity
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that one of their engineers had checked in, and they didn't know what to make
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of it.
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Only after the press raved about it did Netscape really jump on board. I'm sure
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Netscape is doing the same thing now with popup blocking. Can't you just see it
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now? We'll have a Popup Manager, and a Manager to manage the Popup Manager, and
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twenty-seven preferences for fine-grained control of all aspects of popups.
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Can you believe how disfunctional Netscape is? When their engineers say "you
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should do this" or "you should do that", they get completely ignored (or blown
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off), but when CNet says "We didn't like this, or we didn't like that.",
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Netscape scurries to meet their demands. That is simply pathetic.
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[1] http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/09/10/browser_wars/
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[2] http://www.salon.com
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[3] http://www.mozdev.org
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[4] http://www.netcaptor.com
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