Neil's Place

If I had to start developing a new commercial app I would seriously look at XUL.
- Joel Spolsky

A woman called doing a pizza survey:

Woman: From where would you order a pizza for delivery?
Me: I've never ordered a pizza.
Woman: But where would you order a pizza from?
Me: I wouldn't.
Woman: But if you did, where would you order it from?
Me: But I wouldn't order one.
Woman: Well let's say you did. Where from?
Me: I wouldn't order one from anywhere, because I wouldn't order one!

This went on for a while. Eventually I gave in and made something up. That was two years ago. Recently I ordered a pizza. I feel so guilty.

I think I'm beginning to understand the purpose of Phoenix now. Its goal is only to make a browser that is simpler, not to make one that is more usable.

Got a weird popup suddenly the other day wanting me to call somewhere. At least now I know where it came from: http://www.jmu.edu/computing/security/info/winmsg.shtml.

The following trick lets you add shortcut keys to resize textareas. By pressing Alt and the cursor keys, you can resize a textarea to fit the text you want to add. One might use this in Mozillazine forums or a WebMail system. First, add the following lines to userContent.css in your profile's chrome directory:

textarea {
  -moz-binding: url('resource:///res/builtin/myHTMLBindings.xml#textAreas');
}

Now, create a file res/builtin/myHTMLBindings.html in the Mozilla directory (or another file pointed to by the binding above). Add the following to it:

<xml version="1.0"?>
<bindings id="htmlBindings"
   xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/xbl"
   xmlns:xul="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">
<binding id="textAreas"
    extends="resource:///res/builtin/platformHTMLBindings.xml#textAreas">
  <handlers>
    <handler event="keypress" keycode="VK_LEFT" modifiers="alt">
      var siz=parseInt(window.getComputedStyle(this,null).
        getPropertyValue("width"));
      if (siz > 36) this.style.width=(siz-8)+"px";
      event.preventDefault();
    </handler>
    <handler event="keypress" keycode="VK_RIGHT" modifiers="alt">
      var siz=parseInt(window.getComputedStyle(this,null).
        getPropertyValue("width"));
      this.style.width=(siz+16)+"px";
      event.preventDefault();
    </handler>
    <handler event="keypress" keycode="VK_UP" modifiers="alt">
      var siz=parseInt(window.getComputedStyle(this,null).
        getPropertyValue("height"));
      if (siz > 36) this.style.height=(siz-8)+"px";
      event.preventDefault();
    </handler>
    <handler event="keypress" keycode="VK_DOWN" modifiers="alt">
      var siz=parseInt(window.getComputedStyle(this,null).
        getPropertyValue("height"));
      this.style.height=(siz+16)+"px";
      event.preventDefault();
    </handler>
  </handlers>
</binding>
</bindings>

You might want to change the keys used. A similar technique can be used for other text fields.

The toolbargrippy element has been removed from Mozilla.

Here is a quiz. Which of the following systems is operating more effectively?

1. A system with 128 MB of memory, running 3 applications using a total of 60 MB of memory.
2. A system with 64 MB of memory, running the same 3 applications using a total of 60 MB of memory.
3. A system with 128 MB of memory, running the same 3 applications using a total of 120 MB of memory.

There's been a lot of talk lately about various products named after mythical beasts (Phoenix, Thunderbird, Chimera). Right now, I have no compelling reason to use them though. Perhaps when the mail/news client is ready, I will. By then, I won't have any compelling reason not to use it either.

I wonder why the preferences in Phoenix are so strangely organized? Or why they used the Orbit theme icons instead of these?