Firefox 3.0 public Alpha
Due Credit:
Mozilla
Mozilla has officially released the first public alpha build of Firefox 3.0. Codenamed Gran Paradiso, Firefox 3 includes the new
Gecko 1.9 rendering engine which leverages the open-source Cairo rendering framework and features heavily refactored reflow algorithms that improve Firefox layout functionality and resolve some long-standing CSS bugs.
The reflow improvements in Gecko 1.9 (included in the latest Gran Paradiso nightly build, but not the alpha release) finally enable Firefox to pass the Acid 2 test, a CSS test case developed by the Web Standards Project to illuminate flaws in HTML/CSS rendering engines. To pass the Acid 2 test, browsers must comply with W3C standards and provide support for a wide variety of features that are considered relevant by Web designers. The Acid 2 test has been passed by several other browsers, including Safari, Konqueror, and Opera, but not Internet Explorer. Passing Acid 2 is considered to be a significant milestone in Firefox development.
Gecko 1.9 also includes a new threading model, support for Cocoa widgets on OS X, and some unit fixes (still under development) that could eventually facilitate a full-page zoom feature like the one found in Opera.
Firefox's transition to Cairo is significant. Written in the C programming language, the versatile Cairo graphics library is a vector-based drawing API that supports a wide variety of backends. Cairo can take advantage of hardware acceleration where available and simplifies cross-platform graphics application development by providing an internally consistent and cohesive framework that emphasizes platform-independence. Similar in function to Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly called Avalon) and Apple's Quartz 2D, Cairo has been widely adopted within the open source community and is currently used in numerous open source applications and frameworks including the GTK toolkit and GNOME desktop environment.
Firefox uses Thebes, a C wrapper for Cairo. It is hoped that incorporating Cairo into Firefox will decrease the amount of graphics code that needs to be maintained by the Firefox developers, simplifying the Firefox code base and making it easier to further improve Gecko rendering. Cairo opens the door for hardware-accelerated rendering in Firefox using Glitz, Quartz, or an accelerated X server like Xgl. Cairo will also eliminate some awkward rendering bugs, provide new drawing functionality, increase the general quality of anti-aliasing, and improve native SVG support.
Update: The Firefox 3 schedule at the Mozilla wiki has been iff=44484&oldid=34623" target="_blank">changed and no longer includes an estimated release date. At the time this article was written, the schedule listed May 2007 as the tentative release date.
The reflow improvements in Gecko 1.9 (included in the latest Gran Paradiso nightly build, but not the alpha release) finally enable Firefox to pass the Acid 2 test, a CSS test case developed by the Web Standards Project to illuminate flaws in HTML/CSS rendering engines. To pass the Acid 2 test, browsers must comply with W3C standards and provide support for a wide variety of features that are considered relevant by Web designers. The Acid 2 test has been passed by several other browsers, including Safari, Konqueror, and Opera, but not Internet Explorer. Passing Acid 2 is considered to be a significant milestone in Firefox development.
Gecko 1.9 also includes a new threading model, support for Cocoa widgets on OS X, and some unit fixes (still under development) that could eventually facilitate a full-page zoom feature like the one found in Opera.
Firefox's transition to Cairo is significant. Written in the C programming language, the versatile Cairo graphics library is a vector-based drawing API that supports a wide variety of backends. Cairo can take advantage of hardware acceleration where available and simplifies cross-platform graphics application development by providing an internally consistent and cohesive framework that emphasizes platform-independence. Similar in function to Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly called Avalon) and Apple's Quartz 2D, Cairo has been widely adopted within the open source community and is currently used in numerous open source applications and frameworks including the GTK toolkit and GNOME desktop environment.
Firefox uses Thebes, a C wrapper for Cairo. It is hoped that incorporating Cairo into Firefox will decrease the amount of graphics code that needs to be maintained by the Firefox developers, simplifying the Firefox code base and making it easier to further improve Gecko rendering. Cairo opens the door for hardware-accelerated rendering in Firefox using Glitz, Quartz, or an accelerated X server like Xgl. Cairo will also eliminate some awkward rendering bugs, provide new drawing functionality, increase the general quality of anti-aliasing, and improve native SVG support.
Update: The Firefox 3 schedule at the Mozilla wiki has been iff=44484&oldid=34623" target="_blank">changed and no longer includes an estimated release date. At the time this article was written, the schedule listed May 2007 as the tentative release date.
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Maybe within few months Firefox 3.0 will be available for public release. The significant changes will be internal structure and script universality. Since a lot of script now run on IE or Opera but don't run on Firefox and vice versa. This will eliminate in Firefox 3.0.