mozilla/browser

This project is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform.

Principles, Strategy, Tactics, and Concrete Design Decisions

  1. CVS access is restricted to a very small team. We'll grow as needed, based on reputation and meritorious hacks.
  2. This will be a single process for the browser only. Mail clients, web editors, etc, will be out-of-process. Hooks for other apps will be provided eventually, although that is not an immediate goal.
  3. No profile manager UI on startup, although you can still select multiple profiles from the command line.
  4. The default theme will be Classic. Additional themes will be supported but will not be part of mozilla/browser.
  5. The toolbar(s) will be configurable. That includes moving the location bar where the user wants it (not just splitting it so it takes a whole toolbar width).
  6. The personal toolbar is the personal toolbar, not the whorebar.
  7. All wallet-like functionality will be rewritten from scratch.
  8. We will have a sidebar, but it may work differently from Mozilla's current one.
  9. There won't be 239 access points for Search and for Bookmarks!
  10. We may drop the throbber.
  11. The interface will not be "geeky" nor will it have a "hacker-focus". Nor will it be "minimal". The idea is to design the best web browser for most people. (This doesn't mean every feature has to be enabled by default.)

Notes

We won't be redesigning the editor widget(s) or other parts of Gecko as part of this project.

FAQ

Q1. Why?

Some of us want to have fun and build an excellent, user-friendly browser without the constraints (such as unnecessary features, compatibility, marketing requirements, month long discussions, etc.) that the current browser development requires.

Others of us are simply using this as a prototype to demonstrate possible optimisations to the trunk, such as stripping overlays or separating the application into separate processes instead of running one monolithic suite.

Q2. Why only a small team?

The size of the team working on the trunk is one of the many reasons that development on the trunk is so slow. We feel that fewer dependencies (no marketing constraints), faster innovation (no UI committees), and more freedom to experiment (no backwards compatability requirements) will lead to a better end product.

Q3. Where do I file bugs on this?

You don't. We are not soliciting input at this time. See Q2.

Q4: Why are you guys wasting time making a FAQ?

Because we would waste tons of time answering these questions, if there were no FAQ.

Q5: Who are you?

None of your business.

Q6: So to whom do I send patches?

We are not currently accepting any input. No UI specs, no bugs, and definitely no patches. See Q3.

Q7: How do I get involved?

You don't except by invitation. This is a meritocracy -- only those gain the respect of those in the group can join the group. See Q6.

Getting the Source

  1. Go to the root of your mozilla tree.
  2. cvs up -Pd browser

Building mozilla/browser

UNIX, Windows (gmake), Mac (mach-o)

  1. Get a bog standard Mozilla tree built.
  2. if you have MOZ_OBJDIR set in your mozconfig file, cd to that directory
  3. sh -c "CONFIG_FILES=browser/Makefile ./config.status"
  4. cd browser
  5. make
  6. Run mozilla with arguments -chrome chrome://browser/content/
Note that steps 2 and 3 need only be run once.

Mac (CodeWarrior)

This platform is currently not supported.