Phoenix 0.5 Has Arrived 346
mattrix was among the legion of readers to submit news that "Phoenix 0.5 (Naples) has been released. New stuff since 0.4 includes multiple homepages, download fixes, history, size, memory, accessibility and performance improvements and more. Get it now for Windows or GNU/Linux (i686). Background info: Phoenix is a web browser based on the Mozilla engine, but smaller and faster than Mozilla Navigator." Multi-tab startup page seems worth the upgrade to me, all else aside.
Name change (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Name change (Score:5, Interesting)
I would guess either a) They are waiting to change the name with 0.6 -or- b) They are testing the patience of Phoenix Technologies [phoenix.com]
Either way, I don't like the idiotic request from PT. It's not like these two are competing technologies. And phoenix is a generic word. What are they going to do next? Patent the word "Technologies"?
In any event. Phoenix is a straight up IE killer, and it's all that matters.
Phoenix Technologies makes a web browser (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like these two are competing technologies.
Actually, they are. Phoenix FirstView Connect [phoenix.com] is a stripped-down web browser. Mozilla.org Phoenix is a stripped-down web browser.
Phoenix is a straight up IE killer
And Phoenix Technologies' product is a straight up Pocket IE killer. So will be Gecko, once the Weenies [mozilla.org] reduce its footprint.
Re:Name change (Score:4, Informative)
14)
I kept hearing that you were changing the name from Phoenix to something else. What happened?
That was just a giant publicity stunt. We've observed that in the past, the open-source community has instinctively favored David when big corporations complain of trademark infringement. We wanted to cash in on this sympathy by asking the community to send us money to fight the legal battle (obviously we'd really spend it on cool stuff), but with all the taxing issues and whatnot we decided to can the idea.
15)
Uhhhh...really?
No, not really. This isn't like an action flick where the evil madman reveals the intricacies of his plans to hostages and then leaves them alone with a bomb set to detonate in like 10 hours. When we're ripping you off, we won't explain how in the FAQ. The truth is that we'd already had this 0.5 released planned for awhile, so it was okay to release under the Phoenix name. But under no circumstances will any future release be called Phoenix.
So it would appear that they will be changing the name for
Re:Name change (Score:5, Redundant)
I kept hearing that you were changing the name from Phoenix to something else. What happened?
That was just a giant publicity stunt. We've observed that in the past, the open-source community has instinctively favored David when big corporations complain of trademark infringement. We wanted to cash in on this sympathy by asking the community to send us money to fight the legal battle (obviously we'd really spend it on cool stuff), but with all the taxing issues and whatnot we decided to can the idea.
Uhhhh...really?
No, not really. This isn't like an action flick where the evil madman reveals the intricacies of his plans to hostages and then leaves them alone with a bomb set to detonate in like 10 hours. When we're ripping you off, we won't explain how in the FAQ. The truth is that we'd already had this 0.5 released planned for awhile, so it was okay to release under the Phoenix name. But under no circumstances will any future release be called Phoenix.
-Mark
Performance improvements (Score:5, Funny)
"Performance improvements
0.5 is certainly our fastest release ever. You might especially notice a boost if you have a blank page (about:blank) as your homepage."
Does this mean that Phoenix renders a blank page faster than any other browser?
Re:Performance improvements (Score:5, Funny)
On a P4 3.06GHz (with SMT enabled), Radeon 9700 pro, 1GB PC2700, 18GB Cheetah X15 15,000 RPM SCSI hard drive, the Opera browser rendered a blank page 0.00000000234 nanoseconds faster than Phoenix 0.5. I suppose this means there's room for improvement before 0.6 in the blank page rendering benchmark.
Re:Performance improvements (Score:4, Insightful)
How did you measure 7 billionths of a processor cycle?
Re:Performance improvements (Score:5, Funny)
Top10 Answers:
10) With a Ruler
9) Very Carefully
8) Rather Quickly
7) With a Stopwatch
6) Listened Carefully
5) Did it 7 Billion times
4) Measured it against how long CmdrTaco lasts in bed
3) Had the Comp travelling at
2) Rough Guess
And the number 1 answer:
1) Rounded up from 6.9 billionths of a processor cycle
Re:Performance improvements (Score:5, Funny)
1) Rounded up from 6.9 billionths of a processor cycle
*sigh* I'm so disappointed! That should have read:
1) My Pentium rounded up from 6.9 billionths of a processor cycle, FDIV style
Kids these days...
Re:Performance improvements (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Performance improvements (Score:3, Informative)
If Mozilla or Phoenix ever forced me to "Check For Updates" with one of their releases, it would be the last time any of my computers ever loaded it.
Re:Performance improvements (Score:3, Informative)
Second browser option: "Check for Internet Explorer Updates". Amazing what one sees when they take 10 seconds to look. And out of the box, mozilla does check for updates.
Re:Performance improvements (Score:2, Informative)
For me I just filter out all *.cab URL's, which takes care of all the Microsoft auto-updates.
Re:Performance improvements (Score:2)
But given the tabbed browsing, it gains a 10-fold speed advantage over IE when time is concerned.
Once phoenix.exe shows up in the services, the loadtime beats IE. It's just the fist instance which is a bit slow. (Note that i'm not talking about page rendering time, rather than the browser loadtime set to about:mozilla for the homepage parameter)
Re:Performance improvements (Score:2, Interesting)
-Kaplan
Where? (Score:4, Funny)
So, where are Phoenix' other homepages?
Re:Where? (Score:5, Informative)
Tools/Preferences/General/Location(s):
You can enter the URL's separated by pipes (|). Or just click 'Use current page(s)' when you have your tab set open to the pages you want. It's way cool.
just unzipped.. (Score:3, Informative)
nothing fscked up.
seems to work just as nice as before.
great job.
if somebody is still holding back.. try it, you'll be glad, especially if you like to have your browser SIMPLE & FAST.
Re:just unzipped.. (Score:2)
Side note: I've noticed that as a general rule, the more time people spend doing real work online (not playing games or random browsing), the more likely they are to prefer a simpler browser. So there really is a user market for a fast and basic browser.
BTW thanks for the "nothing broke in this release" recommendation. Am presently downloading phoenix to give it a look, as a potential alternative for those few sites where I'm presently forced to switch to Mozilla. (We don't serve IE's kind around here.
Re:just unzipped.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Examples? Bug Reports?
If you don't tell anyone, it will never get fixed.
Re:just unzipped.. (Score:2)
*Soemtimes less is more and I really wish they would stop adding useless features to web browsers. How about a webbrowser which only has forward, back, stop, refresh, address line and bookmarks.*
There is one. It's called Phoenix [mozilla.org]**
this was what i was exactly trying to say with SIMPLE & FAST. ie is 'nice' because there's no extra (visible) crap.. phoenix is nice because of that same reason, and no non-visible crap either, and no need to worry that the website you visit daily gets hacked and same day happens to be the weekly nasty ie exploit in the wild day..
nice browser, but still too big (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:nice browser, but still too big (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong - I don't use windows at all. But builds of mozilla and phoenix ports are consistently larger than their windows counterparts. Why?
Linux statically links GTK+ (Score:2, Informative)
But builds of mozilla and phoenix ports are consistently larger than their windows counterparts. Why?
The Linux port of Mozilla statically links GTK+ and Glib.
MOD PARENT DOWN -1, Overrated (Score:3, Informative)
Re:nice browser, but still too big (Score:2)
Re:nice browser, but still too big (Score:4, Informative)
Moving to gcc 3.2 (once the Sun people get off their friggin' asses and compile Java with it) will help perf and footprint a lot (15% improvement or so last I heard).
Re:nice browser, but still too big (Score:3, Informative)
No, we have plenty more to trim out and we're slowly getting to it. Our current targets are 5mb for Windows and between 7 and 8mb for Linux, but these are just guesses. It's entirely possible that we'll beat those (case in point: we had previously targetted 6mb for Windows).
There is a reason they are called readmes...
Name Change? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This is the last Phoenix (Score:3, Informative)
0.5 will be the last release to be called Phoenix. Version 0.6, expected in January, will have a new name. And they really mean it this time.
Re:This is the last Phoenix (Score:2)
It's Latin.
Re:Name Change? (Score:2, Informative)
From the FAQ [mozilla.org]:
Phoenix forums, themes and extensions (Score:5, Informative)
Extensions are available here [texturizer.net] -- including radial context and mouse gestures.
Themes are available here [texturizer.net] and there's a beautiful page of similar-but-different themes here [freewebz.com].
What About Scrolling? (Score:2)
Re:Phoenix forums, themes and extensions (Score:2)
Re:Phoenix forums, themes and extensions (Score:2)
How are you calling start.earthlink.net? Is it your homepage, a bookmark, do you type it into the location bar? New or existing window/tab?
Themes... (Score:4, Informative)
And don't forget to head on over to themes.mozdev.org [mozdev.org] for some tasty chrome! Orbit 3+1 is my personal favourite.
Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla) (Score:5, Interesting)
Jake
Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla) (Score:2)
That's my major reason for preferring mozilla too. The other personal gripe is mozillas ctrl-enter in the addressbar for opening a site in a new tab has been removed from phoenix since 0.4.
Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla) (Score:4, Interesting)
My guess is that the work pattern is different on a Win32 desktop, and that you normally start an app, use it, then close it before you start another. Is it due to the lack of virtual desktops, or some other UI-related issue? I would not think it's resources, as Windows should swap out unused apps just like other OS:s.
It's not just you. (Score:2)
The work pattern needn't be any different on Win32. I don't get this fixation with startup times either. My preference is Opera, and I usually start it once per boot. Then I have it running.
The nice thing about Opera though, is should I decide to shut it down, it will come up -- when I run it the next time -- in the exact same status as when I shut it down, including positioning inside documents. Can moz/phoenix do that yet? That's a pretty important feature to me.
Also, there's no lack of virtual desktops, should one want them. They're even included in the nVidia graphics drivers nowadays, so there's a nontrivial amount of people who _could_ use virtual desktops on Win32 without the need to switch "explorer" or install any extra software whatsoever.
Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla) (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, exactly... people are whining because Mozilla doesn't start as fast as IE because its binary is 2x the size and actually takes much longer to be loaded off disk. Quicklaunch just adds that same amount of delay to the startup time after you log into your computer by preloading the massive binary. Phoenix on the other hand seems to take about as long to load the first time from a cold boot as IE does. And if you already have pheonix loaded it takes steps to speed it up even more and spawns a new thread from the existing browser.
My guess is that the work pattern is different on a Win32 desktop, and that you normally start an app, use it, then close it before you start another. Is it due to the lack of virtual desktops, or some other UI-related issue? I would not think it's resources, as Windows should swap out unused apps just like other OS:s.
My guess is that you're right about the work pattern. In older versions of windows resource handling was so poor that it seemed common to close apps when you weren't using them - of course this is all fixed now - but here's the rub: with quicklaunch enabled you aren't even conserving resources by closing Mozilla! Also worth noting is that virtual desktops are available as a powertoy for XP... but again the work pattern issue rises - people don't know how to use a modern system effectively.
Who knows, maybe people will wise up eventually.
Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla) (Score:2)
*snort* snicker chuckle
Ahh....
Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla) (Score:3, Informative)
30 seconds? What kind of hardware are you running? I see anywhere from 1 to 8 seconds on my fastest to slowest machines.
--Asa
Re:Pheonix vs Mozilla on Win32 (I prefer mozilla) (Score:3, Informative)
Just run "phoenix.exe -turbo"
Differences from K-Meleon Browser? (Score:4, Interesting)
Could someone enlighten me to any differences between this broskwer and The K Meleon [sourceforge.net] Browser? I have been using the latter a lot recently and am wondering why phoenix gets so much more press..
Re:Differences from K-Meleon Browser? (Score:5, Interesting)
and am wondering why phoenix gets so much more press.
IIRC KM was almost dead for quite a time. Both browsers are more or less the same. Phoenix uses XUL for its interface, KM doesn't. KM uses its own scripting that is very easy to do, so KM becomes easily costumizable by everybody. I use Phoenix now, because KM repeatedly crashed, and it corrupted also my bookmarks-file (especially letters like ä, ö, ü, etc and arabic or chinese characters were rendered unreadable (I use one bookmark-file for all browsers).
Clean up the skins mess for christ sake (Score:4, Insightful)
-josh
Re:Clean up the skins mess for christ sake (Score:2)
No, 1.x are stable releases. Development releases are denoted by "nightly build," "alpha," "beta," or "release candidate." Mozilla does not follow the same versioning scheme as the Linux kernel, if that's what you're thinking.
Jason.
What's Mozilla On? (Score:5, Funny)
(remove tongue from cheek)
Re:What's Mozilla On? (Score:2)
Embedded systems are getting powerful
enough to run something like Phoenix.
Re:What's Mozilla On? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's nice to see that someone is actually making size and speed a priority rather than an afterthought, and without sacrificing functionality!
So far so good!
=Smidge=
Re:What's Mozilla On? (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those! It would be almost as fast as my laptop.
Re:What's Mozilla On? (Score:2)
But it still won't be able to open files larger than 32K.
Anti-Aliased Fonts for Phoenix on Linux/i386 (Score:5, Informative)
Xft Enabled RPMs and tarballs [ragweed.net] built under RedHat 8.
Xft Enabled tarball [mspencer.net] built under Debian unstable.
If you aren't running RedHat 8 or Debian unstable, then you may have to do some work to get these pre-built binaries to run.
I am running the Debian unstable Xft-enabled Phoenix 0.5 binary. It works just fine, and looks ever so good.
Re:Other Debian packages? (Score:2)
Re:Other Debian packages? (Score:2)
http://people.debian.org/~eric/debian/i386
Re:Anti-Aliased Fonts for Phoenix on Linux/i386 (Score:2)
Do yourself a favor and upgrade to the new renderer. This might be tricky if you are using nightlies, but you can probably just bring over libgfx_gtk.so as you upgrade.
what does phoenix look like? (Score:2)
Re:what does phoenix look like? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:what does phoenix look like? (Score:2)
I don't know, couldn't they just put a visible link from the phoenix page to the themes area? And if the link is there, i can swear it's really not visible or intuitive. They just tell "Download", "Changelog", "Develop" and some other remarks like how it's not a stripped down mozilla.
They need a better webpage (but the program looks really good, I'll give it a try!!!)
Re:what does phoenix look like? (Score:2)
The full screen bug is not fixed. (Score:3, Informative)
Window sizing is still a mess, and if I quit the browser in fullscreen mode, the next time I start it up and then go to fullscreen, the titlebar is rendered over the top of the screen making the window unmovable until I re-exit and restart the program.
Also, there is STILL no fullscreen button available in the toolbar customization options, forcing me to leave the mouse and go to the keyboard (F11) whenever I want to do that.
Oddly, in bugzilla I've seen references to a fullscreen button, but I have no idea what they are talking about.
It's also interesting that I submitted this story 10 hours ago (moments after the DL was available) and it was rejected. I suppose the
And finally, kudos to the Phoenix/Mozilla folk. It used to be that I always had to switch back to IE because there were things that only IE could do and I had to get them done. Starting with the 0.4 Phoenix release, I starting having to open up Phoenix from time to time to get things done because IE couldn't do them. Finally about two weeks ago I removed the IE icon from my quicklaunch because I just didn't use it any more -- Phoenix now does so many things that IE cannot do: Tabbed browsing, Password managing that actually works, spyware control though a decent cookie manager, no popups (!), obnoxious blinking banner add removal, bookmarks-menu-navigation all lined up on one toolbar, etc.
Re:The full screen bug is not fixed. (Score:2)
Oh duh! I kept thinking they meant a toolbar button.
Not to be a troll, but (Score:2)
Do we really need an update everytime there is a point upgrade in this browser.
0.4 [slashdot.org] October 30th
0.3 [slashdot.org] October 16th
0.2 [slashdot.org] October 7th
This doesn't even include the two seperate submissions to discuss the name change.
I mean come on the last time there was an anouncement for Internet explorer that wasn't about a gaping security hole was over a year ago. Let's get some equal coverage here on this unbiased "news" site called Slashdot
Re:Not to be a troll, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot has NEVER claimed to be unbiased. From the FAQ:
If you're not happy about that, you don't have to keep coming back.
Re:Not to be a troll, but (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, you don't have to read what doesn't interest you. Just like you don't have use IE if you don't like it. Even if Phoenix sucks and even if 0.1 releases are meaningless, it's still one more option for folk who don't like other browsers.
(See, I wasn't either off topic.
A sugestion to slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A sugestion to slashdot. (Score:2)
Galeon's faster for me (Score:2)
Mouse Gestures in Phoenix (Score:5, Informative)
If, like me, you've been using Mozilla's mouse gestures feature for a while you're probably hooked. The good news it that they are available for Phoenix as well:
http://texturizer.net/phoenix/extensions.html#gest ures [texturizer.net]
Unfortunately there is no menu option to trigger them with the right mouse button (they default to being activated by the left button). If you want them on the right mouse button you will have to edit your prefs.js file. On Windows (depending on what version you are running) this can be found in C:\Windows\Application Data\Phoenix\Profiles\???\???\prefs.js
Before editing the prefs.js file you will need to install the gestures XPI, then restart your browser and shut it down again (this will create the default mouse gesture preferences in the prefs.js file). Now open the file in a text editor and look for the following line:
user_pref("mozgest.mousebutton", 0);
Change the number to 2 for right mouse button (or 1 for middle mouse button) and you're done.
a note on two posts below (Score:3, Informative)
2) I do not understand the description of the "fullscreen bug" post below. When I go to fullscreen, there is no window titlebar, because it is IN FULLSCREEN MODE. Why would you want to move a full-screen window around? Where would you move it to? When I exit in fullscreen and then start phoenix up again, and then go to fullscreen mode again, it looks the exact same. I have the option to minimize, close, or 'restore' the window in the upper right,which brings back the titlebar, and that works perfectly. What, exactly is the problem?
This is a fantastic browser so far... so much smooter than original mozilla or galeon, which I've loved for a long time now. The installation of new themes and extensions works almost flawlessly, excepting that occasionally replacing one theme with another results in only a half-success and requires more than one attempt. All of the new menu additions from the extensions site worked perfectly.
I am very impressed, considering this is still a .5 release. Rock on, Mozilla people. Keep these .1 releases coming.
Not faster (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not faster (Score:2)
Re:Not faster (Score:2)
Less Memory ? (Score:2, Informative)
- Jalil
memory footprint still the same... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:memory footprint still the same... (Score:2)
My Phoenix is Hiding in the Ashes (Score:3, Informative)
Phoenix with the pie menus, tab extensions and popup blocking has spoiled me. It has changed my browsing habits and expectations enough to make using other browsers annoying at best and at worst, well, lets just not say it. When I do need to run another browser (say IE for those pages that don't work right) it takes me about two pages before I'm ready to shoot it.
BUT! Caveat Downloader!
I just downloaded Phoenix 0.5 and installed the RadialContext extension. (Linux)
And now phoenix won't start. Or, more exactly, it starts, shows one of those incredibly annoying "Did you know...." hints window and retreats into the background where it spawns a bunch of threads and stops. I'll be reporting this as a bug, but would like to find a way to fix it (if possible) first so I can use the browser I've come to rely on.
If I don't load the radial context stuff (as now) the browser works fine.
Sigh.
Re:My Phoenix is Hiding in the Ashes (Score:3, Interesting)
Not what I'd expected to spend the morning doing, but I learned something about the way mozilla/phoenix do things and its always a Good Thing to learn new stuff.
Helpful hints - at last! (Score:3, Insightful)
See? Now was it really so hard?
If only all /. articles did not assume basic telepathy on the part of the reader.
Tim
Re:multi tab startup (Score:4, Insightful)
On that platform we need MORE browsers, not fewer, in the hopes that ONE will actually be good: fast, stable, compatible, and feature complete.
Mozilla is feature riddled but has compatibility issues (TrekBBS.com; MS using propietary plug-in format for WMP on Mac OS) and S-L-O-W. Chimera is fast, not entirely stable, but lacking features or their poorly implemented (History, Location bar).
Re:multi tab startup (Score:2, Insightful)
Problem being that there's a finite number of monkies that can code at a given time on a finite number of computers of which few are Macs
Re:multi tab startup (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you remember when the Aqua Mozilla themes were pulled? Apple didn't want skins that LOOKED like Aqua but didn't ACT like Aqua. The real concern was Mozilla on MacOS behaving inconsistently with the GUI it imitates.
Mozilla on MacOS X now has a custom front end, native to Aqua. Chimera is dependant on the Aqua front of Mozilla. If or when Phoenix ports to MacOS X, they and Apple will want Phoenix to have a native Aqua interface.
It's kind of stinky, but it's the best name brand policy both for Apple and Phoenix on MacOS X. However, I agree with you. Phoenix is leagues ahead and above of Mozilla, Chimera, IE5.5:mac, and Omniweb, in order of 0wn4g3. MacOS X needs Phoenix.
Re:multi tab startup (Score:2)
Amen. Chimera is great, and my primary browser on my OSX box, but it doesn't hold a candle to Phoenix in terms of stability, speed, or release times. (Well, okay, on second thought, it's not fair to compare speed across different architectures like that, but Chimera only gets a new release every couple of months... Phoenix is already surpassing it.)
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2, Insightful)
You probably won't want mozilla on an embedded device, but Phoenix will suit your needs. Plus Mozilla has been the testing ground for the coding practices, technology and design of Phoenix.
Why not have both?
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Mozilla project's goal is not to make a browser for end users. It's essentially a technology preview. Always has been - always will be. It shows off Gecko, XUL, the portable runtime, and a few other nifty things. Phoenix is an implementation of all that technology; it shares a common codebase but there are massive changes and additions that make it a new and separate project. All this work has made Phoenix an excellent replacement for Internet Explorer on any version of Windows -- Mozilla isn't.
The one thing I wish someone would write is a XUL based file manager. Something on the order of Phoenix. That's all that needs to be added really and you could mostly leave explorer unused on a Windows box. It would be nice to be able to use the same user interface to do things on Windows/Linux/Unix/Mac/etc... Microsoft was worried about Netscape becoming the desktop, and it could still happen.
This really isn't true in practice (Score:2)
As it stands, with xft builds, Mozilla is in fact more user-oriented than Phoenix on linux.
Users decide what an application is, not the coders. If users decie that Mozilla is the de facto open source browser, then it is.
Re:icons (Score:3, Interesting)
They're changing the name, maybe after that happens? Maybe for the 1.0 release? Who knows when they're going to change the icon... why the hell does it matter?
But more importantly: you can use any icon you want. Make a shortcut to the Phoenix exe. Then open properties and simply click the 'Change Icon...' button and find one that suits you.
Free software for creating ICO images (Score:3, Interesting)
you can use any icon you want. Make a shortcut to the Ph??n?x exe. Then open properties and simply click the 'Change Icon...' button and find one that suits you.
But why does this Google query [google.com] turn up a whole bunch of $20-$30 products before this GPL tool for windows and linux [winterdrache.de]?
Re:Importing bookmarks. (Score:2)
Re:slashdot front page big fonts? (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot uses antiquated HTML and CSS practices. Slashdot specifies font style and size explicitly. You can change font size with text zoom, which is CTRL + mwheel[up,down] or CTRL + [+,-].
In Preferences|Fonts and Colors, you can also specify minimum font size and DPI. Small fonts will not remain proportional if they're page-specified smaller than your minimum. Changing DPI will alter the number of pixels occupied per point size. Be wary of this, as most pages make the bad assumption that your browser renders fonts at either 72dpi (Mac) or 96dpi (PC). Slashdot is among these.
Font sizes have been the bane of W3 design since the <font> tag appeared, largely due to it. Calculating point size for monitors is convoluted to begin with. A point is 1/72 of an inch. Apple simplified this by making 1px equal 1pt. Pixels are, everywhere else, one-dimensional coordinates with color value, with no intristic dimensions or aspect ratio. So, on a PC, it's anyone's guess how many pixels per inch your screen is.
With CSS, we gain the ability to specify anything, including font sizes, in pixels, points, percents, millimeters, ems, exs, "absolutes". Most of them are out the window when DPI isn't knowable. Percentages, "absolutes", ems, and exes are relative, so they are usable. Ignoring Netscape 4, which got everything wrong: Percentages were fucked up by IE, absolutes by Opera, leaving ems and exs. One em is the height of the capital letter 'M'. One ex is the height of the lower case letter 'x'. Clear as mud?
I hope that was helpful and educational. I hope slashdot moves to XHTML 1.1. It's embarrassing that such a prominent site, proponent of standards, bemoaner of poor implimentations, should itself be guilty of poor HTML and CSS practices.
Re:slashdot front page big fonts? (Score:3, Interesting)
In other browsers (incl. Mozilla) I'm much more often annoyed by spasms of tiny print. That may be fine for kids, but middle-aged eyes don't like it at all. Switch my default font size? Yeah, for every page I visit? cuz that's about what it would come to.
There's much to be said for leaving certain formatting elements alone. And I don't care how pretty your page is, if I can't easily read it.
Re:slashdot front page big fonts? (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately not very well known, you can easily override all CSS, effectively disabling as much as you want. Customizing Mozilla [mozilla.org], completely applicable to Phoenix. This page covers a lot. Place overriding CSS rules on userContent.css, with '!important' after the rules, before the semicolon. Opera provides for this mechanism very well.
Re:slashdot front page big fonts? (Score:3, Informative)
You should try 12pt Verdana. Times is a sans-serifed font, and sans-serif has been proven to be harder to read on computer screens.
In other browsers (incl. Mozilla) I'm much more often annoyed by spasms of tiny print. That may be fine for kids, but middle-aged eyes don't like it at all. Switch my default font size? Yeah, for every page I visit? cuz that's about what it would come to.
In Mozilla, you shouldn't need to, because it can resize fonts specified in pixels. Both IE and Mozilla (IIRC) keep you font size the same, so you don't have the enlarge it on every page.
BTW, there should be an option to have a toggle button on the toolbar that enables/dissables css., along with image and javascript toggles, having to go into the prefs each time is such a pain I never bother.
Re:slashdot front page big fonts? (Score:3, Insightful)
i agree with you about using verdana over times-roman for on screen reading
however i think you got yr explanation mixed up - verdana is sans-serif (sans is french for without), and times roman is a serif font - serifs are the little things that hang off letters (like at either end of the top crossbar of a capital T in times roman) - they make a typeface more readable on very high resolution media such as paper but tend to make the typeface too 'muddy' on coarse resoultion media (such as CRTs and LCDs)
anyways, i'm sure you know all this and just mistakenly typed the wrong term - cheers
Re:Windows/Linux sizes? (Score:5, Interesting)
A number of reasons. One reason is that the msvc++ compiler can make a smaller (disk and memory footprint) and faster Phoenix binary than it's linux counterpart.Another reason is that there are code and compatability issues that prevent us from statically compiling more of the linux binary like we do for windows.
--Asa
Re:Galeon (Score:3, Informative)
and Phoenix has about 150 search options. See mycroft.mozdev.org
--Asa