Over the last months, I've worked on a xul preferences panel for k-meleon (k-meleonSM in particular). I think, it's now time for the first public release. Integrating the extension into km is not easy to do, so I've assambled a themed exe for you (it's based on the latest k-meleonSM beta 6 of march, 20).

Please see my project site for a quick and easy demonstration.

The purpose of this pref panel is to reduce k-meleon's menu clutter and to give users a better overview over the numerous options.

This pref panel is unusual in two ways. First, you should know that your changes are applyed IMMEDIATELY - there's no need to confirm your input by pressing an OK button (in fact, there is none). Second, several of the options are accessable in two different places. Don't let this confuse you, this is to help you to find these options, at all. I had some discussion with Dorian about that. I'm now interested in your opinion!

Awaiting your feedback...

KKO,

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a "themed" executable for KMSM 1.0.6b, but I wonder about having 2 options to do things. Can this work? I will now download it and try it out and get back to you ASAP.

N

Do you know if Dorian plans on integrating it with his K-MeleonSM 1.0 once it's out of the development stage... or do you plan on simply having it on your website available separately?

Brian

kko combined it with exe and macros - so it is usable imidiately without work for us.

(so it is a "themed exe" like we had in the past - but it is not a pretty skin like my ww. or search macros like Fred ... or a translation ... but a native k-m pref panel).

I like the new panel! IMHO it is out of dev stage & we always used things with good functions. AFAIK all things that were in themed exes and liked by users were adopted from themes when possible - confer monkee-sage´s mimetypes editor.

kko´s panel reduces clutter and has the small size that we should aspire to achieve with chrome things for k-m! Female users seem to like it too! i have asked.

I've fixed a serious bug on page "Page Display Settings" and corrected two minor things in the menus. Please update!

@bst82551: Do you know if Dorian plans on integrating it with his K-MeleonSM 1.0 once it's out of the development stage... Yes, I know, and yes, he does. And that's why I need your feedback now!

The only problem I've had with it at all is that it isn't very fast, but that's to be expected of XUL. Other than that, this is an extremely useful tool.

Brian

Hey kko,
Finally we got your long-waiting first public release! From the first peek of this XUL preference, I thought this is a very good idea and very nice project for ordinarry K-Meleon users who don't want to modify menus and macros themselves. Very user-friendly. And I think this project should be incorporated into the final K-Meleon 1.0 release once it's stable.

Regards,

Hao

kko,

That's a very interesting and attractive piece of work which you have done.
I haven't tested it exhaustively by any means, but I think I understand what you are aiming for.

A couple of vague comments:
If there would be separate interfaces for 'Preferences' and 'Advanced Preferences', this would be confusing.
I expected to find the Privacy Options in your new panel too.

@bst82551:

The only problem I've had with it at all is that it isn't very fast, but that's to be expected of XUL.
Yes, that's it. I admit, it's no optimal solution for slow systems (I guess, you should have a PIII at least).


@Douglas:

If there would be separate interfaces for 'Preferences' and 'Advanced Preferences', this would be confusing.
I agree. This has technical reasons. The options, that can be configured with the exe's pref panel ('Preferences'), are cached internally. They can be changed by macros, but not by XUL ('Advanced Preferences'). That's why we will have both (until somebody recodes it

I expected to find the Privacy Options in your new panel too.
I've spared me that for now, because I don't see any advantage over our current menu/macro solution. I may integrate a 'Privacy' category in a later version (not soon).

I have a 266 mhz pentium 2 mendocino processor which is overclocked to run at 500 mhz and 256 MB of RAM, so my system isn't exactly the best for it.

Brian

And how the Hell have you managed to overclock a 266 Mhz CPU to run at 500 Mhz?

I can't believe it works!

Has not exploded yet?

Nope, no explosions. Everything works just fine. I do have the case off though... for extra ventilation, although by doing that, I'm probably just allowing more dust/dirt in there which could cause even more of a problem. Oh well. It runs a little warm sometimes, but it's okay.

Brian

Enaitz - if You look after mendocino in google = that cpu can be overclocked well.
it was known for that. they also branded surplus specimines down to sell them as 266 when they were in fact able to run faster.

I did not find any spam for days - was there none or did You guys just beat me and wiped /deleted it all before i ever got a chance? ; )

xul panel: it is few kb it does not seem to slow the browser when it is not open.
here on the p500 the pref panel is also fast enough (not really slow) - when open.
best Week End to You all

Well, it's impressive to do that with a CPU, I use a Dell Pentium III at 933 Mhz and runs OK for me, I'm afraid to overclock things (but I'm a firmware and BIOS update freak).

About the spam, now I'm in the extreme south of Spain (I live in the extreme north of Spain normally) and I've to stay almost 16 hours a day on a computer waiting, at least is an custom build (by me :-) AMD Sempron 3000+ with 1Gb of RAM and 9250 ATI Radeon video card (all cost less than 500 € new, piece by piece). As it's a very boring ocupation I keep all day watching films (now I'm seeing all the seasons of South Park) checking eBay for rare guitars, updating my software, and deleting spam. Today I've deleted about 8 spam threads.

PS. I wonder if Everling could make a counter of the deleted spam, we could even make a competition of spam killing :-)

Yes it is! twice inital speed is a lot: even with a cpu known for overclcoking qualities.

You will win spam harvesting competition - i caught only one spammer in days - he called himself Moon - and he came via German proxy and was in pharmacy branch.

I've uploaded a new version of 'Advanced Preferences' panel to my project site. I've corrected some bugs (nothing serious). The archive offered for download is intended to update K-MeleonSM 1.0b7.

In case you experience any problems with the panel, please report to this thread or send me mail.

kko,

One question about KM PREF. You say it is not fully compatible with KM 0.9, GRE 1.7.xxx.

Can it be used at all with that browser version?

Tks,

N

Principally, yes. But integration is not easy to do. If you have the courage to try it, you can take SM 1.0b7 as a reference.

Important files are:
..\chrome\kmprefs.jar
..\defaults\pref\kmprefs.js
..\defaults\profile\chrome\
..\defaults\profile\gestures.cfg

Some options/features aren't supported by km 0.9/GRE 1.7. And you have to update your macros (SM 1.0 macros, that can be configured with kmPrefs, have new preference names).

kko,

Thanks, my habit is to set up a test folder to try this stuff out on. Don't want to muck up my regular installs!

N

@kko,

First, congratulations for your job.

Second, as my habits, I have begun to translate the jar. In fact, I have added a fr-FR folder to locale.

And I have some problems when I translate the page title (it seems to come with it). For example, if I translate Toolbars, I have an error message and the page isn't opened (toolbarsDTD).

I'm about to verify again what I can have missed, but I haven't found something...

If you have an idea ...

A+

@Alain:

as my habits, I have begun to translate the jar
I've hoped that you would do that! Thank you!

I have an error message
XML parser error?

If yes, try the following: Install only your fr-FR locales (in chrome\installed-chrome.txt), not en-US at the same time. Delete chrome\chrome.rdf and chrome\overlays.rdf. Also delete chrome.rdf in your user chrome (profile dir).

If no (or in case the above doesn't help): No idea! I suggest to send me your locales, so I can have a look at it...

Well, each time I made a modification to a jar file, I always delete:

-chrome.rdf (in chrome and profile folder)
-overlays.rdf (or folder overlayinfo for 1.7x)
-xul.mfl (not at the same place with 1.7 and 1.8)

and I eliminate with it a great number of errors and problems.

But here, that's not the case.

I must say that I have some problems to make fr-FR work correctly (I didn't have these problems with 1.7), and for the moment I use en-US chrome, and I choose fr-FR for Advanced preference.

Do you think it ought to be the reason ? In the past, I haven't any problem by mixing a locale for chrome and some others for extensions for example.

A+

Using different locales for an extension is normally not problematic. But out of the distance I can't say anything. Just send me your files and I check it...

I have found the problem, but I don't understand why:

<!ENTITY toolbar.buttonIcons "Voir les icones de bouton"> is ok

but

<!ENTITY toolbar.buttonIcons "Voir les icônes de bouton"> if ko (I don't say kko :-)

it accept some accent, but not this one, I haven't tried to transform it in utf-8, because it's not readable.

Yes, your right, melting some differents locale is not a problem, and I have make it some times.

I'll try to investigate more.

A+

I've tried, just to transform ô in utf-8, and it works...

<!ENTITY toolbar.buttonIcons "Voir les icônes de bouton">

I don't believe it ...

A+

In fact, in prefs.dtd, accents are accepted (utf-8 transformation is bad in display), but utf-8 is needed in all the others dtd.

It's not really coherent, it's perhaps due to the xthml header, which aren't the same elsewhere. Just an idea ...

A+

You always have to encode non-ASCII characters like ô in XUL! Don't save the dtd's as unicode, save them as normal text files (8 bit).