Newsdetails

New betas of Firefox and Seamonkey are now available. They feature the latest Mozilla code plus small refinements to the OS/2 features seen in previous betas.

* Firefox v4.0b12pre:

ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/incoming/mozilla/firefox-20110210.zip

or

e-vertise.com/warpzilla/firefox-20110210.zip

* Seamonkey v2.1b3pre:

ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/incoming/mozilla/seamonkey-20110210.zip

or

e-vertise.com/warpzilla/seamonkey-20110210.zip

New

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Printing at 600 dpi is now supported, provided the page requires no more than 144mb to compose (an A4- or Letter-sized page uses 132mb at 600dpi but only 34mb at 300dpi).

If you use the apps' built-in Postscript support and print directly to a PS printer, an experimental option may enable you to use printer features such as duplexing. See 'PRINTING.TXT' in the exe's directory for details.

SNAP users should no longer experience video corruption caused by the mouse pointer when DIVE is enabled. The apps are now able to detect whether SNAP is using a hardware- or software-generated mouse pointer.

These releases include a beta version of Exceptq v7.1 to create an exception report whenever a crash occurs within the app. They also include debugging files that have a '.xqs' extension. Please do not delete them. If you don't want these reports to be created, add "SET NSPR_NO_EXCEPTQ=Y" to your config.sys.

Previous Enhancements

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Video: Dramatic reductions in CPU usage will be seen when viewing OGG videos, and to a lesser extent, WebM videos. Overall video performance should be noticeably improved for SNAP and GenGradd users running their displays in full-color mode, thanks to the implementation of DIVE.

Printing Support: All native printer drivers will work if their output resolution is set to 600 DPI or less. Mozilla's built-in Postscript support is also available for use, as is its PDF support. Please read PRINTING.txt in the exe's directory for details.

Memory Management: With a few trivial exceptions, the Mozilla apps no longer use any shared memory beyond what is needed to load their dlls. Problems that have been attributed to low or no shared memory should not occur.

Font Selection: The apps should do a better job of selecting DBCS fonts and fonts with less common font weights such as "Thin" or "Heavy".

Copy Link Location: A bug that caused characters to be deleted from URLs when using the 'Copy Link Location' menu item has been fixed.

Bugs

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Both apps will occasionally "smear" the video when scrolling. In most cases, the easiest workaround is to resize the window slightly to force its redisplay.

Notes
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DIVE lets an app bypass PM's graphics subsystem and write directly to your video card's memory. This improves display speed but can cause problems on some systems. Use the following to disable DIVE:

   In Seamonkey, this is in Preferences under 'Appearance->Content'.

- start the app in "safe mode" (use "/safe-mode" on the command line)

- add "SET MOZ_ACCELERATED=0" to config.sys.

Support

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Community support for these betas and all Mozilla apps is available through the newsgroups 'mozilla.dev.ports.os2' or 'comp.os.os2.apps '.

Messages posted to other forums may not be seen by the developers.

Rich Walsh