For Firefox 2 users: what you can expect from Firefox 3, pt4

[clevin]

Previously I talked about:
Turbo Speed and Less Memory, Full Page Zoom and Drag everywhere (Pt 1 & 2)
Awesome Bar and Security in a Box (Pt 3)
Here and there, all the rest (Pt5)

There are many changes that are subtle but very nice, hopefully you won't miss them! This part I will introduce two features that intended to improve the ease of use.

7. Passwords....

When we type in a pair of username/password and click "login", Firefox 2 will pop up a dialogue ask if you want to "save the password", "not now", "never for this website"..
​

However, what if you are not sure whether the passwords/usernames you just entered is right or not? popup won't go away until you pick a choice...
​

Now, In firefox 3, it will only display a info bar on the top of the page, it will stay there until you leave the page or choose an action. And it will NOT force you to make choice before the successful login process!

Never again remember the wrong passwords
​

​

8. Download Manager

Download Manager has been re-designed. Many handy tools you might like...

Note: firefox will not automatically remove file's name from download histoty list, due to improved mechanism of database, now you can keep all your download histoy (you can still right click to remove them manually)
​

Now first take a look at this manager

right click individual download will give you these options

​

In the download manager, you can find the information related to each download, they are:

when each of the files was downloaded.
Names of the files
websites from which the files were downloaded
Size of the downloads
​

Now, did you see the search field at the bottom of download manager? and YES, you can search your download by all the info listed above.

search by its name

Search by the time you download it

Search by the websites from which the file was downloaded

Search by size of the downloaded files

​

There are even more new exciting things about the downloading in firefox 3

Now you can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.

And You can check the status of active download from status bar

​

I will be talking about some even subtle changes in firefox next time, stay tuned.

PS. Maybe I should reorganize everything later...

 

[FJ218700]

thanks for the update Clevin,

I'm using beta 5 and am loving it.

any idea how long until it's out of beta?

 

[clevin]

thanks for the update Clevin,

I'm using beta 5 and am loving it.

any idea how long until it's out of beta?

You are very welcome

RC1 will be out in about 2 weeks. Final is still targeting JUNE...

 

[Aronnax]

Hi,
when Bug 406730 – Correctly style unfocused window on OS X
comes into the builds - maybe with the Firefox 3 RC1 or later- but it comes for sure

will be this as well possible:

(a screenshot with a special GrApple Yummy (blue) theme version and together with a special FF version with this patch)

A really great advancement ;-)

Many thanks to Markus Stange who created this new possibility.

Cheers

 

[KingYaba]

Can FF3 do multiple home pages?

 

[clevin]

Can FF3 do multiple home pages?

yes, just like fx2. i didn't see any loss of functions so far, except from some glitches with some website due to its switch from javascript 1.7 to 1.8 (at least thats what I think...)

 

[Mac In School]

Ahhhhh... I've been wondering how to clear the list. Right-click. Whodathunkit. Thanks.

 

[clevin]

Ahhhhh... I've been wondering how to clear the list. Right-click. Whodathunkit. Thanks.

no p, cmd+click or shift+click also works in download manager if you want to massively remove multiple items (not sure about beta 5, but will be working in RCs)

 

[mgirg]

quick question for clevin, which may be a silly question.

i am about to make the switch from pc to mac and have been using firefox on pc as my main browser. now on the pc there are some websites which dont work well with firefox and fiirefox 2 gave you the option of rendering the page as IE would. does firefox 3 have the same option or is it irrelevant on the mac version of firefox?

 

[clevin]

no, render as IE is probably the function from the extension you installed (maybe "ieTab)". It simply calls the ie.exe (or iexplorer.exe... ) from windows system and display the page inside firefox.

Obviously, that will not work on a mac with OSX since it doesn't have ie.exe to begin with..

If firefox can't render them, you can try opera and safari, but chances are they won't neither.

Then you have to use IE (>v6) to visit those pages if they are very important to you. Method includes

1. install windows through bootcamp or VMs
2. install ie6 through crossover office
3. looking for something called ie4osx, you can google it.

IE8 will operate in "standard mode" by default, hopefully that will reduce the IE-only pages more in the future.