firefox-dev Digest, Vol 96, Issue 5

[firefox-d...@mozilla.org]

Send firefox-dev mailing list submissions to
firef...@mozilla.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/firefox-dev
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
firefox-d...@mozilla.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
firefox-...@mozilla.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of firefox-dev digest..."


Today's Topics:

1. Soft code freeze for Firefox 85 starts December 10
(Julien Cristau)
2. Firefox Headlines (December 8th, 2020) (Doug Thayer)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 17:34:18 +0100
From: Julien Cristau <jcri...@mozilla.com>
To: firefox-dev <firef...@mozilla.org>, dev-platform
<dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org>
Subject: Soft code freeze for Firefox 85 starts December 10
Message-ID:
<CALf+9VSFiNynZsSwy+kiCMpG...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hi all,

With Firefox 84 RC week upon us, we are nearing the end of the Nightly 85
cycle.

In order to avoid invalidating the testing we get out of late Nightly and
to ensure that we can roll out Beta 84 to a wider audience with confidence,
we'd like to ask that any risky changes be avoided from Thursday December
10 until after the version bump to 86 on December 14.

Some reminders for the soft code freeze period:

Do:
- Be ready to back out patches that cause crash spikes, new crashes, severe
regressions
- Monitor new regressions and escalate merge blockers
- Support release management by prioritizing fixing of merge blockers

Do Not:
- Land a risky patch or a large patch
- Land new features (that affect the current Nightly version) ? be mindful
that code behind NIGHTLY_BUILD or RELEASE_OR_BETA ifdefs can lead to
unexpected CI results
- Flip prefs that enable new Features that were untested in the Nightly
cycle
- Plan to kick off new experiments that might impact a feature's merge
readiness

Please let us know if you have any questions/concerns.

Thanks,
Julien & the Release Management team
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/attachments/20201208/775b32fd/attachment-0001.html>

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 15:35:49 -0600
From: Doug Thayer <doth...@mozilla.com>
To: firefox-dev <firef...@mozilla.org>
Subject: Firefox Headlines (December 8th, 2020)
Message-ID:
<CAETm3XSD8foc1mvvG9m2-Y4LmW=7ba2qLJfj4e=TgoPZ...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hey Firefox Fans!

Wondering what's new in Firefox these days? Well we've got you covered! The
Firefox team recently met in our biweekly meeting, and a few of us (thanks
Mike Conley and Harry Twyford) stuck around to assemble the headlines. And
they are right here below this paragraph!
Highlights

-

Nightly users can now manage their homepage and newtab page from
about:preferences. This allows them to use the default homepage even if an
extension has provided one of its own. (Bug 1595858
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1595858>)
-

[Screenshot]
<https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/files/2020/12/headlines84_0.png>
-

Dropdown menu of newtab pages to use.


-

An option to hide the ?Other Bookmarks? folder has been made available
through the bookmarks toolbar context menu
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1674539>. We have a
follow-up <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1678659> to
remove the menu item from the main toolbar (View ? Toolbars ? Bookmarks
Toolbar) and only show it for the bookmarks toolbar.
-

[Screenshot]
<https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/files/2020/12/headlines84_1.png>
-

Context menu displaying a "Show Other Bookmarks" option.


-

A new pretty-print button has been introduced
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1577900> for the multiline
editor in the Console panel
-

[Screenshot]
<https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/files/2020/12/headlines84_2.png>
-

"Pretty print expression" button in devtools console.
-

In the AwesomeBar, it?s now possible
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1657790> to hide or unhide
local shortcut buttons (bookmarks, history, tabs) in the results panel,
using Search Preferences - and now they show their restriction character
as a keyword <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1678770>
-

[Screenshot]
<https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/files/2020/12/headlines84_3.png>
-

"Browsing history", "Bookmarks", "Open tabs", and "Top sites" address
bar suggestion options.
-

Did you know that you can enable multiple Picture-in-Picture player
windows in Firefox Nightly by going to about:preferences#experimental ?
Give it a shot, and then let us know if it?s useful for you
<https://forms.gle/4HDGoqT3ktpFYykZ8>.
-

Flash EOL has landed in Firefox Nightly! Blog post
<https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/11/17/ending-firefox-support-for-flash/>
.
-

The Internet Archive has started to host Flash content
<https://blog.archive.org/2020/11/19/flash-animations-live-forever-at-the-internet-archive/>
that can be played with the ruffle.rs runtime <https://ruffle.rs/>

Friends of the Firefox teamResolved bugs (excluding employees)
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?title=Resolved%20bugs%20%28excluding%20employees%29&quicksearch=1390611%2C1577900%2C1623250%2C1649589%2C1650956%2C1661225%2C1666637%2C1672623%2C1674611%2C1674622%2C1676102%2C1676476%2C1676629%2C1677247%2C1677526%2C1677571%2C1677582%2C1677725%2C1677931%2C1678523%2C1678613%2C1678860&list_id=15507389>Fixed
more than one bug

-

Michael Goossens
-

Oriol Brufau [:Oriol]
-

Tim Nguyen :ntim
-

Special thanks for leading the charge on removing xul:grid!
<https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2020-December/007612.html>

New contributors (? = first patch)

-

? Liz Krane fixed ?Undo Close Tabs? to be more reliable
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1650956> when an extension
closes multiple tabs.
-

Niklas Baumgardner fixed an issue where the wrong Picture-in-Picture
telemetry was being recorded
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1661225>.
-

Reid Shinabarker made sure the PiP toggle points in the correct direction
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1666637>, including in RTL
locales.
-

Chris Jackson fixed an issue where closing a PiP windowing containing a
video conference cut off the mic and camera
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1672623>.
-

? Ankush Singhal fixed a formatting issue
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1674611> in
nsNavHistoryResult.cpp.
-

? Florent Viard fixed har export from DevTools Netmonitor.
-

? Kartik Gautam replaced :not(:is(X)) with :not(X)
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1677247> throughout the
entire Firefox codebase.

Project UpdatesAdd-ons / Web ExtensionsAddon Manager & about:addons

-

Mark Striemer did land the remaining small changes needed to remove XUL
deck usage from about:addons (Bug 1674890
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1674890>) and ntim did
some more cleanups on the about:addons (Bug 1677582
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1677582>, Bug 1677571
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1677571>, Bug 1677526
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1677526>), in preparation
to move the HTML views to the top level document (Bug 1525179
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1525179>).

WebExtension APIs

-

Liz Krane contributed changes to browser.tabs.remove to make sure that
(after an extension did call it to remove multiple tabs at once) ?Undo
Close Tabs? will be able to reopen all of them at once (Bug 1650956
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1650956>). Thanks Liz for
contributing this small enhancement!!!
-

browser.browsingData.removePluginData API method is a no-op starting
from Firefox 85 (Bug 1675106
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675106>), part of the
cleanup related to removing all flash plugin support in mozilla-central
(tracked by Bug 1677160
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1677160>).
-

Christoph Kerschbaumer added a new browser.privacy.network.httpsOnlyMode
read-only privacy browser setting, which will allow an extension to be
aware if the https only mode is currently enabled (Bug 1678306
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1678306>).

Developer Tools

-

DevTools Fission - Making DevTools Fission compatible


-

Significant simplification of the Network panel logic used to send
collected data from the backend (DevTools Server) to the front-end
(DevTools Toolbox). Data is now sent as-is with no transformation in the
middle and the UI (React components) are consuming exactly the same
structure as generated on the server side. Modification has positively
impacted RDP traffic and protocol performance.

Fission

-

Neil is working on:
-

Smarter tab unloading
-

UI to make it easier to submit crash reports for crashed subframes

Password Manager <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Toolkit:Password_Manager>

-

tgiles has landed a patch that allows a user to remove all of their
logins at once <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1613620>

PDFs & Printing

-

emalysz updated the system dialog link to not need to wait for the
initial preview <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222>
to finish, which could take a while on large pages
-

sfoster updated the Cancel button to say Close once a print starts
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675636>, since clicking
it won?t cancel the print
-

mstriemer added frontend support for pages-per-sheet
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1673713> (thanks dholbert
for the platform support)
-

This is behind the print.pages_per_sheet.enabled pref while more
options are added

Performance

-

bigiri is working on a patch to stop loading OSFile.jsm in the
SharedDataMap module
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1649610>
-

emalysz made it possible to stash and restore the built-in theme colours
in the Windows registry
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1665461> for the pre-XUL
skeleton UI
-

florian has made it much easier to associate BHR hang reports on his
dashboard with existing bugs <http://queze.net/bhr/test/>
-

This is done by setting a whiteboard flag with [bhr:<frame name>] in
the associated bug
-

Go check out the dashboard! Is there a hang in this list for one of
your components? File a bug if there isn?t one already, and please
prioritize. Reach out to the performance team if you want ideas on how to
relieve the hang.
-

mconley has landed multiple patches in an attempt to solve an AsyncShutdown
hang caused by the about:home startup cache
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1673716>. The latest patch
will hopefully take care of it.
-

mconley is working on updating the BHR schema definition
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675103> so that it can be
stored in an easier-to-use format in our databases
-

Reminder: emalysz is mentoring people on an effort to move us off of
OSFile.jsm, and onto IOUtils. Know someone who might be interested? Here?s
the metabug <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=986145>!

Performance Tools

-

Firefox Profiler has a new and more powerful C++ marker API now! You can
create your own custom marker type and specify how to display it in the
front-end without touching any front-end code. Take a look at the docs
to see how to use it.

<https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/tools/profiler/markers-guide.html>Example
code:
// Record a simple marker with the category of DOM.

PROFILER_MARKER_UNTYPED("Marker Name", DOM);

// Create a marker with some additional text information.

PROFILER_MARKER_TEXT("Marker Name", JS, MarkerOptions{}, "Additional text
information.");

// Record a custom marker of type `ExampleNumberMarker` (see definition in
the documentation).

PROFILER_MARKER("Number", OTHER, MarkerOptions{}, ExampleNumberMarker, 42);

-

The ChromeUtils.addProfilerMarker API has been extended
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1674476>. It now supports
capturing a stack trace and setting the marker category.
-

Example:

let startTime = performance.now();

?
ChromeUtils.addProfilerMarker(?Marker Name?, {startTime, captureStack:
true, category: ?Test?}, ?Marker text?);

Currently supported values for the category are "Idle", "Other", "Test",
"Layout", "JavaScript", "GC / CC", "Network", "Graphics", "DOM", "IPC",
"Media". Using an unknown category name will fallback to the ?Other?
category.
Picture-in-Picture

-

Our MSU Capstone students are going to be wrapping up in a few weeks. A
big thank you to them for all of their great work this semester! They are:
-

Niklas Baumgardner (:baumga91)
-

Chris Jackson (:jack1391)
-

Hunter Jones (:whjones526)
-

Manish Rajendran (:rajendran.manish)
-

Reid Shinabarker (:reidshina6)
-

Recently fixed bugs:
-

Bug 1661225 - [PI-713] The ?move? PiP telemetry event is registered
when the PiP window is opened or closed
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1661225>
-

Bug 1666637 - [RTL] The new PIP toggle points in the wrong direction,
even for RTL documents
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1666637>
-

Bug 1672623 - Closing the picture-in-picture window pauses the cloned
video element which is questionable for video conferences
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1672623>
-

In progress
-

Bug 1666739 - PiP player is enabled when clicking Skip Ads button
while PiP description is shown and the firefox window is smaller
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1666739>
-

Bug 1604247 - Provide an easy way to snap a PiP window back to a
corner after moving it elsewhere
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1604247>
-

Bug 1670108 - Create infrastructure for site-specific video player
adapters <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1670108>
-

Bug 1677107 - Add Telemetry for tracking multiple PiP support usage
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1677107>

Search and Navigation

-

Fixed a race condition leaving the address bar in Search Mode when
switching tabs - Bug 1675926
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1675926>
-

The address bar doesn?t default to search anymore for strings like
www.something - Bug 1643850
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1643850>
-

URL autofill is now properly case-insensitive - Bug 1606231
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1606231>
-

QuickSuggest is the project name for contextual suggestions in the
urlbar, things like weather, unit conversion, or shopping helpers fall into
this project. The team is working on experiments that will run in the next
few weeks, and various partners are involved.
-

Some regressions related to Korean IME have been reported, we?re looking
into them. - Bug 1673669
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1673669>, Bug 1679697
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1679697>

Below the fold

-

[jaws] Firefox engineering productivity tools/scripts lightning talks?
Waiting a few weeks to see if January All Hands is on, if it is on then we
will request a slot within the All Hands, otherwise we will find our own
time
-

(jaws added a roundtable item at the top of the document)
-

[mak / gijs] Repeat from last week (because it?s that confusing it?s
worth bringing up twice!): Promises created in windows may never be
resolved if the window is destroyed. Or more generally Promises are not
resolved/rejected if their global is destroyed. Pay particular attention
when collecting promises from a window into a jsm module that has a longer
life, common examples are Sqlite.jsm and AsyncShutdown.jsm. If the module
awaits one of these promises, it will be stuck and eventually crash on
async shutdown.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/attachments/20201208/9433b621/attachment.html>

------------------------------

Subject: Digest Footer

_______________________________________________
firefox-dev mailing list
firef...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/firefox-dev


------------------------------

End of firefox-dev Digest, Vol 96, Issue 5
******************************************