Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

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mekineer

Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by mekineer » 2015-07-02, 21:08

Using some extensions, I've attached what the top of my Firefox browser looks like.
When it comes to Pale Moon, I don't know what is involved, or the benefits of, removing Australis from Firefox. I thought, maybe people just don't like how it looks. As you can see, though, through the use of Tab Mix Plus, it isn't quite so annoying. I also have an extensions called url-addon-bar, NoUn buttons, and URL Tooltip. I don't need the status bar anymore. Maybe, for the sake of maintaining complete compatibility with Firefox extensions/addons, that you could bring back Australis, and package some of these extensions, or assimilate some of their code. It's just a suggestion, since I don't know all the benefits of removing Australis.
Attachments
firefox-controls.jpg

x-15a2

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by x-15a2 » 2015-07-02, 22:24

Pale Moon can't "bring back" Australis because it never had it (thankfully). No thanks, if I wanted Australis I would have used FF. But I don't so I won't.

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Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by LimboSlam » 2015-07-02, 22:28

mekineer, I don't think the devs have any plans bringing Australis onto the mix or maintaining a third-party build for it, you can if you wish. :) And for extension compatibility, we're all working hard to make sure they stay compatible with Pale Moon. Either by contacting the devs of the add-ons and asking to support us out of the box or staying compatible with us, reporting it to the "Compatibility Reports for v25" and "Themes" page and will be assist asap, using an older working version of the add-on until it's compatible again and we have our very own add-on site specifically for Pale Moon.

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Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by Night Wing » 2015-07-02, 22:28

Firefox with Australis (and there are other reasons) is why I dumped Firefox as my backup browser to default Pale Moon in both Windows and Linux.
Linux Mint 21.3 (Virginia) Xfce w/ Linux Pale Moon, Linux Waterfox, Linux SeaLion, Linux Firefox
MX Linux 23.2 (Libretto) Xfce w/ Linux Pale Moon, Linux Waterfox, Linux SeaLion, Linux Firefox
Linux Debian 12.5 (Bookworm) Xfce w/ Linux Pale Moon, Linux Waterfox, Linux SeaLion, Linux Firefox

mekineer

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by mekineer » 2015-07-02, 22:43

My limited understanding, is that Australis is just the UI, and that Pale Moon focuses on performance under the hood. If Australis just changes the look of the UI without affecting performance, and, if not having Australis in Pale Moon causes extension compatibility issues, then, why not bring it back? You can move things around, like I did, to get it to look the way you want.

This idea may be flawed, but I'm not hearing from you, why it is flawed. I am hearing the what, but not the why. I've never been content without the why. I do appreciate striving to make Pale Moon compatible with as many extensions as possible (and it just makes sense to do so). I wouldn't even suggest bringing Australis back, unless it was possibly an optimal solution that was overlooked. Would it not be better, to stray the least from the Firefox code base, and only remove the bloat that is the most offensive? At least from the perspective of keeping it simple for the few developers, and in turn, assuring the future of Pale Moon.

ps. I am using a theme in Windows called "Milk", which is why the min max close buttons are round.

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Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by LimboSlam » 2015-07-02, 22:46

Pale Moon's new GUID

"In Pale Moon 25, the GUID was changed to reflect the continuing divergence between the browser and its sibling. Most of the time a modification to chrome.manifest or bootstrap.js to add/change the hard-coded GUID is a simple solution to issues with add-ons. This will be done for many of the most used add-ons where a developer has chosen not to support Pale Moon or the add-on has been abandoned. Creating a pseudo-static version of the add-on as a Pale Moon specific one."

Australis

"In Firefox 29, Mozilla adopted a nearly completely rewritten user interface and theme as well as some technologies that Pale Moon has chosen not to implement. Add-ons targeting these features without fall-backs to the more time-tested and more commonly used features in all Mozilla-based programs will not be supported."
Last edited by LimboSlam on 2015-07-02, 22:53, edited 1 time in total.
With Pale Moon by my side, surfing the web is quite enjoyable and takes my headaches away! :)
God is not punishing you, He is preparing you. Trust His plan, not your pain.#‎TrentShelton #‎RehabTime

mekineer

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by mekineer » 2015-07-02, 22:49

Thanks LimboSlam, those explanations are along the lines I like. I'd love to hear more detail, if someone has the time/patience.

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Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by LimboSlam » 2015-07-02, 22:55

Your welcome and I'm sure devs or someone will have the more technical details for you.
With Pale Moon by my side, surfing the web is quite enjoyable and takes my headaches away! :)
God is not punishing you, He is preparing you. Trust His plan, not your pain.#‎TrentShelton #‎RehabTime

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Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by Moonchild » 2015-07-02, 23:11

The deal with Australis reaches beyond the user interface. If the Mozilla code was as modular as it may look at first glance, then it would not be much of a problem to keep a uniform front-end and APIs. But what Mozilla has done with Australis (and a few versions before then) is much more than a restyling of the UI; they've systematically not only added, but also removed technologies to make way for this rewrite of the front-end, including changes to the actual toolkit and underlying Gecko components. As stated before, we never "removed Australis" because we never adopted these (considered detrimental) changes.
The sad part is that these far-reaching changes were not even strictly necessary; especially if you consider the fact that an Australis theme was already available for Firefox for a long time before then. But instead of focusing on using the flexibility of the XUL framework, Mozilla decided in their infinite wisdom that it would be better to do something arbitrary and custom, to try and redefine parts of the framework instead of making use of the proper cross-platform support that already existed. Bouncing rainbow unicorns ensued.

What Pale Moon does is essentially different from what other "Firefox alternatives" have done, who have just bundled additional components to layer changes on top of Australis to try and re-style it to something more sane (and otherwise not develop much, if at all anything, themselves). As you can probably imagine, this cannot bring back the actual components that were removed from the core, and will always be a band-aid on top of an otherwise different system.
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mekineer

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by mekineer » 2015-07-03, 01:06

Yeah, ok, now it makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. :-)

edit: Sorry I overlooked the following page. I went for a run, then came back and found it in a search. I did get an even better explanation though!
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7818
"Rumor: "Pale Moon will have to adopt Australis or die"
FALSE
Unlike other "Firefox alternatives" that basically ride Firefox's release cycle and add extra layers on top of that like Classic Theme Restorer, Pale Moon's front-end and user interface is its own, is built on the fully-customizable XUL/toolkit framework of pre-Australis versions of Firefox, and there is no reason at all why this would have to change as Pale Moon continues to develop.
edit2:
https://8pecxstudios.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=330

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Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by Moonchild » 2015-07-03, 08:56

Don't be fooled by marketing. :)

"Default Australis" is the actual front-end they have. "Classic" is achieved by pre-installing/embedding the "Classic Theme Restorer" extension, which is a layer on top of Australis to try to restore pre-Australis functionality. I made sure to actually verify that this is still the case, and yes, it is: Cyberfox 39 includes CTR to provide the "classic" theme, which it can only do as far as the Australis front-end allows.

It seems the extent of the work put in is a lot of user-front-end tweaks exposed through their custom options dialog (of which 90% is CTR options), like a whole section on tinkering with about:home... but that certainly doesn't mean that Australis was not adopted, and saying such (as the post linked to seems to suggest) is very incorrect. So is their front page talking about the classic theme -- maybe for people who have forgotten what it really looked/worked like it will be "close enough"? :)

EDIT: As an aside, I wonder what they will be doing when Firefox drops support for bundled extensions. Which they most certainly are planning to do (if not already landed on nightly)
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
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squarefractal

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by squarefractal » 2015-07-03, 09:52

Off-topic:
Moonchild wrote:As an aside, I wonder what they will be doing when Firefox drops support for bundled extensions. Which they most certainly are planning to do (if not already landed on nightly)
patch -R < disable-bundled-extensions.patch ;)
Unlike some other builds whose maintainers don't know what they're doing, the Cyberfox developer does know what he is doing. You have even effectively accepted a patch from them in the Pale Moon source tree :)

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Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by Moonchild » 2015-07-03, 11:20

Off-topic:
squarefractal wrote:patch -R < disable-bundled-extensions.patch ;)
Unlike some other builds whose maintainers don't know what they're doing, the Cyberfox developer does know what he is doing.
Well, let's hope so! I just wish fewer people would lie about their products.
squarefractal wrote:You have even effectively accepted a patch from them in the Pale Moon source tree
Pray tell: which commit?
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
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squarefractal

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by squarefractal » 2015-07-03, 12:34

Off-topic:

Code: Select all

$ git log --author=InternalError503
commit 5381f287885ef27afe97a26d8e197bc4a3596839
Author: Toady <InternalError503@users.noreply.github.com>
Date:   Sun May 10 19:34:03 2015 +1000

    Bug 1062355 - Crash in d3dcompiler, nested-functions-should-not-crash.html test of WebGL Conformance Test

commit 140d088ea579e6210c00c2bb91758c81dab33fb3
Author: Toady <InternalError503@users.noreply.github.com>
Date:   Sun May 10 00:31:48 2015 +1000

    Bug 1131965 Crash during WebGL Conformance Tests - /conformance/glsl/bugs/undefined-index-should-not-crash.html
It's most likely an upstream patch, but at least it shows that the developer has an interest in Mozilla applications ("Such and such bug? Interesting -- do any of the other Mozilla applications have this problem?"), as opposed to developers of some rebuilds who draw line graphs out of benchmark scores.

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Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by Moonchild » 2015-07-03, 14:17

Off-topic:
Oh, those. Heh.
Yes, they are upstream patches, that would probably apply cleanly because they are so small.
I appreciate sharing the 5 minutes of research after probably running into this with a conformance test he ran anyway, hence the mention in the release notes, but it's a far cry from actually being able to assert "knowing what they are doing" - anyone can figure out how to apply a ready patch. In addition, one of those two didn't even provide a working build for us, so it was not tested, and just "passing the buck" and caused me more work to find out it was one of those patches that broke WebGL for us.
Knowing Mozilla, going against the grain will likely not be as simple as applying what they would apply themselves anyway. So, here's hoping that they indeed know what they are doing and are able to keep a viable "layered approach" as they have now.
In my book, more alternatives to Mozilla and their increasing BS is something to cheer for, even if the effort is only just giving a little resistance :) -- I actualy think that all the smaller rebuilds-with-edits should band together and make a single product out of it. What's the real significant differences between Waterfox and Cyberfox, for example, apart from each being their own project by name? And i mean in code, not in execution.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

mekineer

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by mekineer » 2015-07-05, 00:11

Cyberfox installed size: 93 Mb
Firefox installed size: ~85 Mb
Pale Moon installed size: 44 Mb

(All 32 bit versions)

_Poke_

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by _Poke_ » 2015-07-05, 03:29

File size isn't very meaningful when it comes to programs like these. For example:
Moonchild wrote:There has been a relatively recent change in Pale Moon that it no longer comes with a pre-compiled startup cache which is compiled on-the-fly when you launch the browser.
This saves space, yet the resulting program is capable of the same.

Cyberfox's file size could represent a lot of custom code, but it could just be bundled extensions, themes and etc. or even pictures that have been less thoroughly compressed. File size alone doesn't tell you anything.

mekineer

Re: Australis and restoring full extension compatibility

Unread post by mekineer » 2015-07-05, 03:37

I only use it as a rough estimate... but, obviously, there's been a lot cleared on Pale Moon.
ps. My content-prefs.sqlite file reached 130 Mb. I renamed it to start fresh (and I'll delete it if I don't see anything bad happen).

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