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Firefox 3.1 beta 1 is now available for download

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Samuel Sidler

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Oct 14, 2008, 5:45:37 PM10/14/08
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[Please note: Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is a public preview release intended
for developer testing and community feedback. It includes many new
features as well as improvements to performance, web compatibility,
and speed. We recommend that you read the release notes and known
issues before installing this beta.]

Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is now available for download. This milestone is
focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new
features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3.1.
Ongoing planning for Firefox 3.1 can be followed at the Firefox 3.1
Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on
irc.mozilla.org in #shiretoko.

New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback
include:

* Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine
* Added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties
* A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab
you're switching to
* Improved control over the Smart Location Bar using special
characters to restrict your search
* Support for new web technologies such as the <video> and <audio>
elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, web
worker threads, SVG transforms and offline applications.

More information about new web developer features are available in the
Web Tech blog post.

http://developer.mozilla.org/web-tech/2008/10/14/firefox-31-beta-1-an-overview-of-features-for-web-developers

Testers can download Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 builds for Windows, Mac OS X
and Linux in 36 different languages at:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-beta.html

Developers should also read the Firefox 3 for Developers article on the
Mozilla Developer Center:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_3.1_for_developers

---------
Note: Please do not link directly to the download site. Instead we
strongly encourage you to link to this Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 milestone
at: http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2008/10/14/firefox-31-beta-1-now-available-for-download

Christopher A Bongaarts

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Oct 15, 2008, 11:14:33 AM10/15/08
to dev. planning
In the immortal words of Samuel Sidler:

> Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is now available for download. This milestone is

Is there a plan to release this on the beta updates channel?

%% Christopher A. Bongaarts %% c...@tc.umn.edu %%
%% Internet Services %% http://umn.edu/~cab %%
%% University of Minnesota %% +1 (612) 625-1809 %%

Samuel Sidler

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Oct 15, 2008, 11:17:16 AM10/15/08
to Christopher A Bongaarts, dev. planning
On Oct 15, 2008, at 8:14 AM, Christopher A Bongaarts wrote:

> In the immortal words of Samuel Sidler:
>
>> Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is now available for download. This milestone is
>
> Is there a plan to release this on the beta updates channel?

Technically, the release *was* on the beta channel.

However, your question is if we plan on offering the update to users
of the 3.0.x beta channel. The answer to that is "no". We will offer
such an update when we're beta testing major update from 3.0.x to 3.1.x.

-Sam

Christopher A Bongaarts

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Oct 15, 2008, 11:54:04 AM10/15/08
to Samuel Sidler, dev. planning
In the immortal words of Samuel Sidler:
> On Oct 15, 2008, at 8:14 AM, Christopher A Bongaarts wrote:
>
> >In the immortal words of Samuel Sidler:
> >
> >>Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is now available for download. This milestone is
> >
> >Is there a plan to release this on the beta updates channel?
>
> Technically, the release *was* on the beta channel.
>
> However, your question is if we plan on offering the update to users
> of the 3.0.x beta channel. The answer to that is "no". We will offer
> such an update when we're beta testing major update from 3.0.x to 3.1.x.

Is there more than one beta channel? Only one I'm aware of is simply
"beta", which according to

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Software_Update

includes "every beta, release candidate, and release version of the
product".

Can I switch to using a "3.1" beta channel? Does it use a different
channel tag?

Samuel Sidler

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Oct 15, 2008, 11:57:47 AM10/15/08
to Christopher A Bongaarts, dev. planning
On Oct 15, 2008, at 8:54 AM, Christopher A Bongaarts wrote:

> Is there more than one beta channel? Only one I'm aware of is simply
> "beta", which according to
>
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Software_Update
>
> includes "every beta, release candidate, and release version of the
> product".
>
> Can I switch to using a "3.1" beta channel? Does it use a different
> channel tag?

There is only one channel, technically, but we can choose which
products to serve updates to.

If you'd like to test the 3.1 beta, simply install it. We will serve
updates from any forthcoming beta to 3.1 users on the beta channel.

-Sam

Daniel Veditz

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Oct 15, 2008, 4:10:14 PM10/15/08
to
Samuel Sidler wrote:
> However, your question is if we plan on offering the update to users of
> the 3.0.x beta channel. The answer to that is "no". We will offer such
> an update when we're beta testing major update from 3.0.x to 3.1.x.

Which is not planned until after we ship 3.1 -- but Christopher raises a
good point. If all those folks were interested in beta testing 3.0 they
may be a very good potential audience for beta testing 3.1.

I wouldn't offer it now for the true betas, but when we get to the
Release Candidate stage why not do a beta-channel major update?

John O'Duinn

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Oct 15, 2008, 4:47:08 PM10/15/08
to Daniel Veditz, dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
hi;

We use "major update for beta" as an important part of testing work when
doing the real "major update for release". I'd prefer to not lose that
testing capability, so prefer not to do beta-channel major update with
release candidates.


If someone who is currently testing FF3.0.x beta feels that they want to
be beta testing the FF3.1 release, I would prefer that they manually
install FF3.1b1, and get updated as we produce FF3.1b2, etc.

Hope all that makes sense?


tc
John.
=====

> _______________________________________________
> dev-planning mailing list
> dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-planning

Daniel Veditz

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Oct 15, 2008, 10:56:38 PM10/15/08
to
John O'Duinn wrote:
> We use "major update for beta" as an important part of testing work when
> doing the real "major update for release". I'd prefer to not lose that
> testing capability, so prefer not to do beta-channel major update with
> release candidates.

But in return we'd get more testing of the next release when it could do
some good. Don't worry, a lot of people will turn down the update (half
at least, probably more because more of their favorite addons won't be
compatible). There will be plenty left for testing the actual major
update a few releases later.

> If someone who is currently testing FF3.0.x beta feels that they want to
> be beta testing the FF3.1 release, I would prefer that they manually
> install FF3.1b1, and get updated as we produce FF3.1b2, etc.

I'm not proposing it for actual 3.1 betas, strictly the final release
candidate release which roughly corresponds to the "betas" on the branch
stability updates. For 3.1b1 and 3.1b2 yes, definitely only adventurous
people who seek them out should be using them.

Gervase Markham

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Oct 16, 2008, 5:45:34 AM10/16/08
to
John O'Duinn wrote:
> We use "major update for beta" as an important part of testing work when
> doing the real "major update for release". I'd prefer to not lose that
> testing capability, so prefer not to do beta-channel major update with
> release candidates.

Is there no way of subdividing people on a channel? So we could e.g.
serve an update to everyone coming from 1.1.1.1 to 126.254.254.254 and
not to the other half of the Internet?

Gerv

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