07/29/2008, 8:50pm, EDT
Tuesday, July 29th
Firefox 3.1 Alpha: new tabs, smart location, more
Mozilla has announced the release of Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1, "Shiretoko," for developers and testers. Built on the pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.1 platform, Shiretoko includes a variety of new features. Called an "early developer milestone," the release includes bug fixes, improved Web standards support,Text API for the Canvas Element, support for border images and JavaScript query selectors, and improvements to the tab-switching function and the Smart Location Bar. Shiretoko is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
The open source browser now gives users more precise control over search results in the Smart Location Bar. For example, results can be limited to show only a user's history and not any unvisited bookmarks. Improvements have also been make in Keyword and Smart Keyword Bookmark functions. The changes allow users to reduce the number hits and more accurately target searches.
The build includes a new tab-switching behavior that will force some users to change their habits. In the current version of FIrefox, Control-Tab opens up the next browser tab. Shiretoko changes this behavior, opening up a "filmstrip view" of a user's most-recently visited tabs. Pressing Tab repeatedly while holding down the Control key cycles through the various Tabs in a filmstrip. Developers say the filmstrip addition is a step toward "increased visual navigation and content organization."(Users who simply want to advance to the next tab can use Control-Page Down instead of Control-Tab).
For the more techically-minded, Shiretoko now includes Text APIs for the bitmap "canvas" used for rendering graphs, game graphics and other visual images "on-the-fly." Content in the Canvas Element is typically used by developers as background, or "fall-back" for areas of a document where other elements are not used. Firefox 3.1 also adds support for JavaScript query selectors and border images.
Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Alpha one is "intended developers and testers only" and is available now as a free download. Shiretoko requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, and runs on Power PC or Intel Macs.
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Well
It can't be much worse than 3.0. Can't get it to remember my screen position (if second monitor isn't connected, it opens up a tiny window to the far right, if second monitor is connected, it fills the screen).
Profile?
Might want to check if your user profile for FF is corrupt...