Okay, if it isn't too early, I have started some extensive work on a 0.8 milestone. The new functionality is both visible and under-the-hood.
First, I am trying to uncompress my modified JAR files, which will result in speed increases when starting Donzilla. The archive size will probably be the same as if I had compessed them, because Advanced Installer automatically compresses archives with Microsoft's CAB compression scheme.
Second, I have specified what should be written to a new profile. Currently, if you create a new profile, you'll get lots of links to Mozilla.org and other Mozilla-related resources. Donzilla has links to some useful places, like HH2K, SillyDog701, and some other non-tech places (more like Netscape's approach to built-in boomkarks) such as CNN and The Weather Channel. These defaults will not override your current bookmarks.
Third, two new sidebars are included: Antony's
SillyDog701 Sidebar and my
HH2K Sidebar. They will be displayed automatically on new profiles, and can be selected via the Tabs drop-down for existing profiles.
Fourth, I have managed to modify and install two extensions to allow for distribution (normally they would install to your profile without asking). These are the
MAF Extension, which adds support for Microsoft's MHT format and MAF's own MAFF format, and the
Forumzilla Extension, which brings RSS support to Donzilla. Unlike other RSS aggregators for Mozilla, Forumzilla operates through the existing mail UI (which I consider to be a lot cleaner than the others that operate through tabs or the sidebar).
Fifth and last, I did a bit of work with the theme elements of Donzilla. The new default theme for new profiles is Modern. Chatzilla's default theme has been changed to the green-on-black theme that HH uses, except that the text uses monospace instead of OCR A Extended. OCR A Extended is OK for titles and such, but for reading any sort of text longer than a few lines, I'll admit it's annoying. For later on (namely, one of the 0.9 milestones), I am attempting to create my own theme that is HH-styled. Of course, the regular Classic and Modern themes would still be available. Chances are it will be based heavily on Negative Modern.
I also found a bug in how Windows XP handles Donzilla's mail client and calls it "HardwareHacks 2000 Mail" instead of "Donzilla Mail" in the Start Menu. This has been fixed, and if I need to I may release an 0.7.1 to remedy the problem in 0.7 as well. Unfortunately, I do not know why XP will recognize the browser as "Donzilla" in the Start Menu, but recognizes it as "Mozilla" in taskbar grouping and Windows Explorer. I haven't been able to test this bug in VMWare as of yet, so I am unaware whether it is because I installed and register Donzilla as "Mozilla" before customizing it.
Chances are, 0.8 will only have one preview release, as development seems to be going quite smoothly. The only for-sure exceptions to this are if PR1 has a number of large bugs, or if Mozilla publishes 1.7.12 and I am not ready to release 0.8 Final. The ETA for 0.8 PR1 is probably sometime next week, and 0.8 Final will hopefully be before September 6th. If it isn't, then there will probably be large delays.
Hopefully soon, Softpedia will receive at least one of my updates to Donzilla. I submitted once, and after not hearing back for awhile, I submitted again. I haven't heard anything on either one. Likewise, I haven't heard anything on the status of Donzilla's C|Net listing.
More to come . . .
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050728 Donzilla/0.8PR1 (WML/1.3)
Laptop: HP Compaq nx6325 - Turion 64 X2 @ 2GHz, 2GB DDR2, 100GB HD, ATI Radeon X300, 15" LCD, Seven Pro
Handheld: Palm Treo 650 - Intel PXA270 @ 312MHz, 10MB RAM, 32MB flash, 2.7" LCD, Palm OS 5.4
by Pu7o » Fri 22 Jul, 2005 4:07 pm 
