Mozilla Hacks

Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 – web developer changes

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Posted on August 7, 2009 in CSS, Feature, Firefox, and TraceMonkey

As covered on the Mozilla Developer Center, Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 is now available for download. And we’ve been busy since Firefox 3.5.

Web developers will be interested in a number of features that are new in Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1:

  • The TraceMonkey JavaScript engine has continued to get faster.
  • We’ve made a huge number of improvements to overall DOM and element layout performance. In some cases we’re much, much faster. We’ll cover details on those in a later post.
  • The compositor landing has made it possible to fix a large number of interactions between web content, CSS and plugins. We’ll be talking about this in a later post as well.
  • We now support the -moz-background-size CSS property which lets you set the size of background images.
  • We now support CSS Gradients.
  • We now support multiple background images.
  • We now support the rem unit as a CSS unit.
  • image-rendering is supported for images, background images, videos and canvases.
  • We now send a reorder event to embedded frames and iframes when their document is loaded.
  • We’ve removed the getBoxObjectFor() method. It was non-standard and exposed all kinds of non-standard stuff to the web.
  • We now send a hashchange event to a page whenever the URI part after the # changes.
  • We now have Geolocation address support for user-readable position information.
  • We now support the complete attribute on document.readystate.

You can keep track of this list and other features for XUL and add-ons developers on the Firefox 3.6 for developers page on developer.mozilla.org

Unlike the year that passed between Firefox 3 and Firefox 3.5, we expect that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months. Our main focus for the 3.6 release will be end-user perceived performance, TraceMonkey and DOM performance and new web developer features.

Enjoy and test away!

53 comments

  1. […] Follow this link: Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 – web developer changes at hacks.mozilla.org […]

    August 7th, 2009 at 22:42

  2. W

    Native GTK menus ???

    August 8th, 2009 at 00:20

  3. Developer

    Thank you so much for hashchange! No more settimeout loop checks! You guys are so dependable!

    August 8th, 2009 at 04:30

  4. […] http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/08/firefox-36a1-for-developers/ […]

    August 8th, 2009 at 10:55

  5. Peter

    Interesting changes. I particularly like the multiple backgrounds.

    I am curious about the “haschange” event. I’m guessing that this will be a nice way to handle ajax requests and such. Would this be through the document object for example “document.haschange()”? And are we talking about a variable, like a boolean, or an event object being returned?

    Viva la fox.

    August 8th, 2009 at 11:09

  6. creaothceann

    Is there a status page for a “one thread/process per tab” feature? I’m sure it’s the main reason why Chrome & SRWare Iron have such a good “end-user perceived performance”.

    August 8th, 2009 at 15:19

  7. Olumide

    FF 3.6??? …

    Please consider fixing FF 3.5 first. My browser still spawns new windows whenever it chooses. It literally tears off the current tab I’m navigating and opens it in a new window!

    August 8th, 2009 at 19:48

  8. […] that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months,” Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post […]

    August 9th, 2009 at 03:19

  9. […] este modo, tal y como ha confirmado Chris Blizzard en el blog de la compañía, el desarrollo de la versión final, basada en la siguiente iteración el motor JavaScript […]

    August 9th, 2009 at 03:42

  10. […] that this 3.6 releasewill be released in a small number of months,” Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post […]

    August 9th, 2009 at 04:29

  11. N

    Are the multiple backgrounds REALLY supported? I read the daily “changelog” threads at MozillaZine and I don’t remember seeing multiple backgrounds there… there was some parsing patch but not full support IIRC. Enlighten me.

    August 9th, 2009 at 05:22

  12. Nehemoth

    After a some years using Firefox as my default browser (since Phoenix 0.1) I believe that I just need one more step, one more thing, I would like a way in which Firefox could be manage by active directory policies.

    I don’t know maybe an add one that simulate or accept policies made for Internet Explorer, in that way I could easily deploy on any company without worries.

    I hate Internet explorer, you guys should fine a way to help us kill IE.

    August 9th, 2009 at 05:56

  13. […] that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months,” Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post […]

    August 9th, 2009 at 06:34

  14. […] of the first alpha version of its new browser Firefox 3.6 in development. However, it is stated in Company blog that developing this new version will not be as long as the version of Firefox 3.5 which was almost […]

    August 9th, 2009 at 06:38

  15. Boris

    N, they’re really supported.

    August 9th, 2009 at 10:08

  16. crossing the walls

    Can you support the Mac .webloc web-link file-extension on _all_ platforms? This would be so helpful to all those living on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

    August 9th, 2009 at 10:18

  17. […] su nuevo navegador en fase de desarrollo, Firefox 3.6. Tal y como ha afirmado Chris Blizzard en el blog de la compañía, el desarrollo de esta nueva versión no va a ser tan largo como el de la versión Firefox 3.5, […]

    August 9th, 2009 at 10:48

  18. […] Hacks Blog: Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 – web developer changes Share and […]

    August 9th, 2009 at 12:24

  19. N

    Wow, that’s excellent news then.

    August 9th, 2009 at 22:04

  20. […] […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 00:05

  21. […] 3.6 hatten wir bereits in diesem Artikel ausführlich beschrieben. Die finale Version könnte laut Chris Blizzard bereits in wenigen Monaten […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 01:10

  22. […] can read about all of this in a lot more detail over at the hacks.mozilla.org blog, here. If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t mind using software that’s still in alpha, then you […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 01:52

  23. […] su nuevo navegador en fase de desarrollo, Firefox 3.6. Tal y como ha afirmado Chris Blizzard en el blog de la compañía, el desarrollo de esta nueva versión no va a ser tan largo como el de la versión Firefox 3.5, […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 02:26

  24. […] […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 03:05

  25. […] that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months,” Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 03:56

  26. […] weniger Monate entwickelt werden”, sagt Mozilla-Sprecher Chris Blizzard in einem Blog http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/08/firefox-36a1-for-developers. Eine erste Beta-Version werde bereits im September erwartet. Nach der geplanten Veröffentlichung […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 04:25

  27. voracity

    These all sound delicious.

    An issue that has bubbled up to the top of my things-that-would-make-life-infinitely-easier stack would be having SVG as a regular image (backgrounds, img tag, etc.) Is there the slightest chance this will appear in 3.6?

    August 10th, 2009 at 05:38

  28. […] 3.5, we expect that this 3.6 release will be released in a few months,” Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 05:56

  29. […] The final version of Firefox 3.6 is supposed to hit the download shelves within a few month as spokesman Chris Blizzard of Mozilla promises in the blog post Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 – web developer changes. […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 05:58

  30. […] Firefox 3.5, we expect that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months," said Mozilla evangelist Chris […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 07:08

  31. […] Firefox 3.6 innerhalb weniger Monate entwickelt werden”, sagt Mozilla-Sprecher Chris Blizzard in einem Blog. Eine erste Beta-Version werde bereits im September erwartet. Nach der geplanten Veröffentlichung […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 07:49

  32. Boris

    voracity, I don’t think there’s an chance of that at this point, no.

    August 10th, 2009 at 08:07

  33. […] 3.6 innerhalb weniger Monate entwickelt werden”, sagt Mozilla-Sprecher Chris Blizzard in einem Blog. Eine erste Beta-Version werde bereits im September erwartet. Nach der geplanten Veröffentlichung […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 08:24

  34. Pat Gunn

    Of the CSS extensions, which are likely to make it into CSS standards in the future? It’s nice to see new features, but I’m not sure it’ll be nice if in five years we find our CSS still peppered with -webkit-* and -moz-* extensions.

    August 10th, 2009 at 12:23

  35. […] su nuevo navegador en fase de desarrollo, Firefox 3.6. Tal y como ha afirmado Chris Blizzard en el blog de la compañía, el desarrollo de esta nueva versión no va a ser tan largo como el de la versión Firefox 3.5, […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 13:32

  36. […] “Unlike the year that passed between Firefox 3 and Firefox 3.5, we expect that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months,” Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post. […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 15:05

  37. […] número de meses”, comentaba Chris Blizzard, uno de los máximos responsables de Firefox, en un post en el blog de la […]

    August 10th, 2009 at 15:25

  38. soso

    Better SVG Support would be great.

    August 10th, 2009 at 20:17

  39. Boris

    soso, better in what sense? What specific features are you thinking?

    August 10th, 2009 at 20:18

  40. Josh

    Nice work on the Awesomebar speedups

    August 10th, 2009 at 22:54

  41. voracity

    Ah well, I guess I’ll have to wait till 3.7 or 4.0. Plenty of other great things to look forward to in 3.6.

    August 11th, 2009 at 00:55

  42. […] los desarrolladores, estas versiones Alpha son muy reveladoras ya que se van incorporando nuevas funcionalidades que podremos usar en nuestras aplicaciones y que desde ya podemos ir […]

    August 11th, 2009 at 01:40

  43. […] los desarrolladores, estas versiones Alpha son muy reveladoras ya que se van incorporando nuevas funcionalidades que podremos usar en nuestras aplicaciones y que desde ya podemos ir […]

    August 11th, 2009 at 02:42

  44. Axel Rauschmayer

    I agree: SVG as images would be cool, it should not matter whether an img is a bitmap or a vector graphic. Under “if your browser rocks”, the following page shows text on Firefox and an image on Safari:
    http://e.metaclarity.org/52/cross-browser-svg-issues/

    August 11th, 2009 at 03:40

  45. […] “Unlike the year that passed between Firefox 3 and Firefox 3.5, we expect that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months,” Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post. […]

    August 11th, 2009 at 06:23

  46. M. A. Sridhar

    The hashchange event seems very useful for handling the ajax back button problem. Is it a standard event (as in W3C or whatever) or is it Firefox-specific? Do other browsers support a similar event?

    August 11th, 2009 at 09:05

  47. […] that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months,” Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard said in a blog post […]

    August 11th, 2009 at 10:35

  48. drago01

    “The TraceMonkey JavaScript engine has continued to get faster.”

    Does it finally have x86_64 support?

    August 11th, 2009 at 11:40

  49. Boris

    drago01, you could just look at the bug report…

    August 13th, 2009 at 08:26

    1. dirk

      no, still no 64-bit tracemonkey support i guess. Just as previous versions, firefox 3.6 still lags. I ran the V8 and Sunspider benchmark and saw the same slow figures for 3.6. It seems that it is now supported in the 3.7 development version: it is 2x faster in those benchmarks (~1500 vs. ~3500ms in sunspider). Of course Chrome is king and is 5-10x faster as 3.6.

      January 22nd, 2010 at 07:37

  50. […] Firefox 3.5, we expect that this 3.6 release will be released in a small number of months,” writes Mozilla’s Chris Blizzard in a recent blog […]

    August 15th, 2009 at 14:06

  51. […] Mozilla一篇部落格文章指出，Firefox 3.6主要的焦點將放在終端用戶使用上的滿意度，我們發現這款新版本較目前的版本Firefox 3.5快上10%。 […]

    February 10th, 2011 at 20:24

  52. […] su nuevo navegador en fase de desarrollo, Firefox 3.6. Tal y como ha afirmado Chris Blizzard en el blog de la compañía, el desarrollo de esta nueva versión no va a ser tan largo como el de la versión Firefox 3.5, […]

    June 1st, 2011 at 04:31

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