Hello,
Kurt Cagle - author of the upcoming Apress book titled "Pro Firefox
Extension and Application Development" - writes in the blog story
"Netscape Emergent":
Impartiality is a hard won concept, and even harder to retain once
possessed. Last night, I celebrated with a team of about eighty others
the release of the Netscape 8.0 browser, the project which has occupied
my life for the last two months and many of my colleagues for the last
year or more. As a member of the Mercurial team, I cannot be impartial
on Netscape, but I feel as a blogger it is incumbant upon me to put out
something that isn't a sales tool either.
The Netscape 8.0 browser is an odd beast. Initiated by the Netscape
division of America Online, the Netscape Browser serves several purposes
- providing the foundation for AOL to build an independent browser,
getting away from the security headaches of IE, and more recently taking
advantage of the advances on the Mozilla Firefox side, which has a
step-sibling relationship with AOL/Netscape.
The target for Netscape was an easy to use browser that provided strong
security while at the same time taking advantage of the many features
that Mozilla opened up, including the underlying XUL model, the ability
to update the browsers with individual components utilizing XPIs, most
of the services,and the security model.
Given that, there was also a lot that was added into the mix - fixing
many of the holes that existed in the Firefox API (there were more than
a few places where there were empty stub functions that were referred to
by other pieces of code, and in several places documentation for
functions which bordered the cryptic) - most of these have in turn been
passed to Mozilla Foundation for the Firefox 1.1 build.
One of the interesting facets that were included there were the notion
of server-side programming user interfaces - or as we refer to them
affectionately here - SPUIs. The first model that we helped incorporate
into Netscape 8.0 reflects what I see as an increasingly important
concept - remote XUL components. What exists there now is solid, though
as with any such concept significant innovations are expected in this
area, and when I get the chance I will be outlining a few thoughts on
remote XUL components for this column.
Another facet worth exploring, has been the use of a dual gecko/trident
engine, with the option of being able to switch in real time between
them. This was a difficult decision for a lot of us to make, as the
existing Trident base is still some distance from being compliant with
anything approaching contemporary standards, but ultimately it comes
down to the ability to shape the user experience - there are pages that
cannot be run from Firefox because they rely upon IE extensions or
functionality, and as such the Trident engine was a nod to the reality
of the web as it stands. I am hoping that we get a chance to work with
the Microsoft 7.0 browser and get the opportunity to incorporate it into
the next major release of the browser, as in my experience it has proven
to be handy being able to run IE within a more secure environment from
time-to-time.
Netscape is a browser undergoing intense, on-going development at this
stage, and the synergy between Firefox and Netscape will continue for
some time. I have my own personal wish list for Netscape that I came in
too late to have much effect with, but moving it so that it is working
with ALL contemporary open standards is definitely on the plate for near
future releases.
While I am somewhat hampered by I can say by the dread NDA, I ask that
if you have questions about the new Netscape Browser, please contact me
at [EMAIL PROTECTED] I can't promise an answer, but I will try to
answer as much as I can.
Kurt Cagle
Open Standards Evangelist
Source:
http://www.understandingxml.com/archives/2005/05/netscape_emerge_1.html
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