6 Things You’ll Love About Bon Echo a2

With things being prepared for the release of Bon Echo a2 in a day or two, I figured I’d post a little preview of the new features added since a1 that’ll be sure to turn some heads.

1. In-line spell check

Just start typing in any <textarea> and Firefox will automatically underline any words you spell incorrectly. Right click on any mispelled word and you’ll be given a few options from the currently loaded dictionary. You can spellcheck <input> fields by right clicking on them as well.

2. Better search engine management

Tired of having to dig though your searchplugins to delete search plugins? With the new search engine manager, this is a thing of the past. With the ability to delete and reorder plugins and the new backend support for formats such as OpenSearch, that handy search bar just got handier!

3. Search suggestions

The search backend now provides search plugins the abilty to specifiy an autocomplete URL. This allows plugins to provide a feature similar to Google Suggest directly in the browser UI. A2 will ship with this feature enabled for the Google and Yahoo! plugins.

4. Improved feed discovery and presentation

Firefox has now gained the ability to sniff out and display feed previews within the browser. Features such as selecting a default external reader or web reader service (In the options menu under Feed Reader) aren’t fully implemented yet, but with a little work you may be able to get it up and running.

5. Session restore

Currently session restore is currently only enabled for crashes, but soon restarts for extension installs/app updates will be able to use the session restore service.

6. Improved extension/themes manager UI

The extension manager and themes manager have been merged into a new ‘Add-ons’ manager which features improved update notifications, server-side blacklisting of malicious extensions and a streamlined installation process.

Bringing it all together

So far there haven’t been many major UI changes since a1 (and 1.5 for that matter) but as we draw nearer to a finshed product, things should really start to fall into place. The next few weeks should prove to be pretty amazing in terms of finishing up the final feature set and refreshing the look of the browser.

edit: A2 has now been officially released, you can download it via the link on this announcement.

And You Thought Bugzilla was Bad?

Microsoft announced the opening of their new IE public feedback/bug database this week and I must say it makes our copy of Bugzilla look like a sexy, Web 2.0, AJAX-ified beast.

For starters, a Passport account is required to even get close to seeing the thing. Once you’ve completed that registration process, you should be able to view and submit feedback now, right? Wrong. Next you’re required to sign in to Microsoft Connect and specify that you want to enroll in the IE Feedback program. Now (after ignoring the invalid SSL cert dialog) you can at least view and submit feedback. Of course in order to submit, you must search prior to being offered a link to submit a report. Once through the initial search for a bug or after submitting one, you’ll be presented with a screen fairly devoid of what you’d really expect to see along with a bug report – it’s current status and a specific reason why that status was decided upon, all without having to dig through various other links.

Now of course it wouldn’t be fair to discuss how awful MS’ system is without discussing Mozilla’s Bugzilla. Which has a few usability faux pas of its own and can be pretty intimidating for the first-time user. But after a few months and a thousand or so triaged bugs later, I must say that it at least gets the job done without making you jump through an ungodly number of hoops.

Server Carnage

It’s always refreshing to see a webhost who knows what to do with an obsolete server.

Heck, it’s refreshing to see a webhost that knows what to do period. Having switched from 1&1 to Site5 after going through bad-RAM-host-denial hell, I couldn’t be more satisfied with them. They’re even got a nice flock of Firefox users to boot! What more could you ask for? 🙂