3.0beta1 Release Notes

In versions up to and including beta1, Linux users may experience major problems with the display of notes.

It would be appreciated if you took a few minutes to fill out the Internote3 prerelease survey once you have used Internote3.

Previous Version - 3.0Alpha1/2 Release Notes

About Internote3beta1

The beta1 release adds a number of new features over the alpha2 release. Future beta releases will probably not add any major new features, and will instead concentrate on bug fixing, interface polishing and code cleanup in preparation for a stable release in the near future.

New Features Alpha2 → Beta1

• You can now import from and export to Internote3 format. This is the preferred option for transporting notes as it includes all information.
• Scrollbars have been redesigned with a new Internote scrollbar that fits in with the rest of the interface. There is no longer a "Use Scrollbar" preference, but now there is a preference allowing you to use the old operating system scrollbar if you need to for accessibility software, etc.
• You can now specify which pages you want a note to appear on, using right-clicking or the manager:
  • You can specify whether parameters (after the ? symbol) and anchors (after the # symbol) in a URL are relevant to whether the note appears. By default these are ignored, so a note set to http://www.blah.com/file.html?a=b#c will appear on the page http://www.blah.com/file.html?e=f#g.
  • By using a URL prefix, eg http://www.blah.com/dir/ will match http://www.blah.com/dir/dir/dir/
  • By using a site name, eg www.blah.com will match http://www.blah.com/dir/dir/dir/
  • By using a site suffix, eg blah.com will match http://www.blah.com/dir/dir/dir/
  • By specifying that the note will appear on all pages. This can be useful for important reminders or for moving notes between pages.
• Operating system scrollbars (where used) will now appear right up against the right border.
• Menus now have access keys, and so may more easily be operated by keyboard.
• On Mac, buttons will be placed more natively, eg close/minimize on the top left and the new Internote scrollbar will have scroll buttons combined together.
• British English translation.

Fixed Bugs Alpha2 → Beta1

• Failures to save, due to Firefox bug #580570, have hopefully been successfully worked around, although the randomly-occurring nature of this problem makes this difficult to test.
• A bunch of bugs running Internote on MacOS X have been fixed. Note that there are still cosmetic issues, including flickering on moving, due to the need to work around underlying bugs in Mac Firefox. See the known bugs section for more details.
• A few bugs running Internote on Linux have been fixed. However there are still major issues running Internote on Linux, and it is not currently recommended.
• A few bugs running Internote on Firefox 3.0 and possibly 3.5 have been fixed.
• A few small bugs running Internote on Firefox4 betas have been fixed.
• Manager dates are now locale formatted, and no longer overflow the dialog.

About Internote3

This rewrite of the Internote extension was created by Matthew Tuck, based on Tim Horton's Internote2, over the space of a year.

It is released free of charge, and licensed under the GNU GPLv2 (General Public License) which gives you the right to use, modify and redistribute the software. See the license and your favourite friendly neighbourhood copyright lawyer for more details.

Thank you to all testers, and hopefully we can get this software ready for wider release quickly.

Please note the following before installing this software:

• Beware, mortal! This is beta-level software that has received limited testing. Given this, it's theoretically possible that it may destroy your data, as well as eat your hard drive, scare your cat so much its hair falls out, and summon space aliens from the dimension X-43 to invade the Earth.
• It may well not work at all for some configurations. If you're unable to get it working, please let me know, I'll need your help in order to fix it!
• Internote is provided free of charge. Under its license, it is provided without warranty.
• At this stage, it is not recommended that you use this software to store data that is important to you. However, if you choose to do so, standard warnings about backing up all important files apply especially to this beta version, in particular:
  • If you were an Internote2 user, please back up your old notes file, stickies.
  • Please regularly back up your Internote3 storage file, named internote-storage.xml.
• This extension has been designed for Firefox. Using it within other Mozilla or Mozilla-based software may have random results, but you are welcome to edit the install.rdf file and try.
• This extension has been tested primarily on Firefox3.6. It has received some testing on Firefox 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0beta1/2, but some problems may be present with these versions.
• This extension definitely will not work under versions of Firefox before 3.0. This is unlikely to change as this is required for internal features that are critical to the Internote3 rewrite.
• This extension has been primarily tested on Windows. Some testing has been done for Mac and Linux - Mac should be operational, although some small cosmetic issues will be present, whereas Linux has some major cosmetic issues still. I would like to hear any experiences with other operating systems.

A Note on Translations

Due to a major redesign, all translations other than US English have been removed, until they are updated by the translators.

Translators may obtain the old translations from Internote2 in order to update them.

Translators should note that the list of entities and properties is not yet frozen, and as such translations are not being added to releases yet. Translators may update their translations from Internote2 before freeze-time but should realize they will likely need to update them again later.

Reporting Bugs, Limitations, Regressions and Experiences

Please email all experiences with the beta version to matty_is_a_geek AT fastmail DOT fm.

Please check the known bug and limitation lists (below) before reporting.

If you're submitting a bug, there is a way to quickly and easily obtain important information that can help diagnose the problem. First cause the problem to occur, as this may cause Internote to internally record useful messages. Then go to Tools/Add-ons, from the Add-ons dialog right-click on the Internote entry and choose About Internote from the menu. Then click the Copy Information button and paste that into an email.

Please provide detailed and clear explanations of bugs and limitations, as this will help me to quickly improve the product for you. If you wish to learn more about writing good bug reports that help get the problem solved, check out this page.

Of Particular Interest to Test

While I appreciate all areas of testing, and am interested in hearing about all experiences with this software, I am particularly interested in the following:

• Did you attempt to import notes from the old stickies format? Did it work? Did you try the manual import in the manager, or did they automatically import by being in your profile directory?
• Other than the bugs mentioned below, do your notes ever go to incorrect positions more than momentarily? In particular, does maximizing, minimizing and dragging the window partially off-screen work satisfactorily?
• Other than the limitations mentioned below, are there any features missing that were in Internote2? Or are any features not working as well?
• Do you receive a message when you load a page with off-viewport notes? Is it useful? Annoying?
• Do the animations work well on your computer? The frame rate should automatically reduce for slower computers, eliminating the need for an animations off preference. Do you find them annoying?
• Have you found any situations where you could drag notes onto the page's scrollbars, or couldn't drag them onto the bottom or right of the viewport? Please record any such URLs.

What's New in Internote3

Internally Internote3 is a complete rewrite which should be easier to fix and extend. The rewrite includes, but isn't limited to, the following:

• Notes can now be minimized (shaded) individually or en masse to the bottom of the viewport.
• Various animations when actions are done to notes.
• Changes in one window (including the manager) will immediately take effect in any other windows displaying the affected notes.
• Moving and resizing notes can now be aborted with the ESC key.
• Translucency is now real so notes under notes will show.
• Internote will now sometimes give helpful pop-up balloons, including when there are notes on the page that are off-screen.
• Internote now uses a new storage format for notes, named internote-storage.xml. This is an XML file that should appear in your storage directory. Your old notes (in the stickies file) should be automatically imported, if present.
• Backups will also be made before every write in case of crash, and Internote should recover automatically if a crash occurs.
• Manager Improvements:
  • You can now specify in the manager what set of pages the notes appears on, through regular expressions, URL prefixes, sites, site suffixes, etc.
  • Actions have been redesigned to be clearer and more functional. You can now export, print, etc only selected notes.
  • Create/modification dates for notes are now displayed, though modification dates can't be available for notes created in Internote2.
• You can now right-click on notes to get a context menu. This menu now includes the ability to specify what set of pages the note appears on.
• Many bugfixes over Internote2, including:
  • Note count is now updated on note delete.
  • Will now correctly move and redraw notes on sidebar and similar chrome opening, window resize, etc.
  • The glassy highlights which form the top and bottom of note backgrounds are now as translucent as the rest of the background.
  • Z-order (which notes appear on top of other notes) is now persistent.
  • Notes should no longer appear over the tab bar.
  • Backquotes are no longer translated into apostrophes.
  • ... many more
• Vastly reduced potential for conflicts with other extensions.
• Note count tooltip is now localized.

Known Bugs in the Current Version

• Up to alpha3, there are major problems running Internote on Linux.
• Internote often sees a randomly-occurring major failure in the underlying Firefox platform (Firefox bug #580570), that may lead to ongoing failures and a need to restart the browser. In the alpha versions, this failure could result an inability to save, however this has hopefully been successfully worked around in beta1. This Firefox failure is still present, however it may no longer present a major issue.
• Due to unfortunate limitations in Firefox3 and onwards, the best way to display internotes is by using a permanent popup window. This should be mostly unnoticable, but there may be various minor and usually brief cosmetic issues with displaying notes. It is unlikely that many such issues will be fixed in the near future:
  • When the window is against the right-hand side of the screen, a small amount of a note may be cut off if it is against the right-hand side of the window, in the absence of a window scrollbar. This is due to an unfortunate workaround for a more serious issue.
  • When moving or scrolling the window, note positions may lag behind the window slightly.
  • When resizing the window, notes may appear improperly truncated for a short time.
  • When the window is moved offscreen, the notes may temporarily jump to an inappropriate position.
  • Notes may sometimes flicker, including when the delete confirmation dialog appears.
  • During continuous scrolling note positions may not always update until scrolling stops.
  • When the window straddles multiple monitors, unanticipated behaviour may result.
  • When the browser window is partially off the screen of a second monitor, the notes may be misplaced.
• Due to more unfortunate limitations in Mac Firefox, there are extra issues on Macs:
  • Any movement of a note, whether by user drag or animation, will be flickery. This is due to a workaround for Firefox bug #457600. This situation might be improved in a future version.
  • You can't use the TAB key to move between notes.
  • Scrolling multiple notes may be sluggish.
  • Scrolling when notes are overlapping may result briefly in the wrong note being on top.
  • Clicking on a note in a separate window may not correctly focus the new window.
• Zoom bugs:
  • Upon changing the zoom factor, no attempt is made to adjust the position or size of notes.
  • May throw off other things, such as the off-screen note message and scrollbar detection.
• Manager bugs:
  • The order of URL and notes is often random.
  • Doesn't behave sensibly when no rows are selected (eg because of Ctrl-Unselect).
  • Multiple selection doesn't always enable/disable as you would expect.
• When the current URL is just an image zoomed to full size, instead of a HTML page, some strange things may happen, including notes not moving correctly.
• When text is entered below the bottom of the note's text area, it doesn't jump to that text.
• When the first note appears on a page in a window in the background, the window jumps to the front. This is uncommon, but can happen due to having the same page open in two windows or having the page open while changing URL settings in manager.
• The off-viewport notes message is displayed once page loading is complete, and checks whether there are off-viewport notes at that time. If notes were previously visible but have been scrolled off before loading completed, this will therefore appear unnecessarily. This needs to be fixed.
• Changing note focus using the tab key does not raise the note.

Known Limitations in the Current Version

• Due a new system where manager changes take effect immediately on other windows, it is no longer possible to cancel manager changes. It is anticipated that a future version after the first stable release will include an undo system that will provide a more general and useful option.

••••• That's all folks! •••••