Weekly Status Report, W16/2010

Here's a summary of SeaMonkey/Mozilla-related work I've done in week 16/2010 (April 19 - 25, 2010):

• Automated tests:
  Looking through my local patch queue, I decided to pick up one again that had been lingering around for quite some time - the context menu test, including its checks for duplicate accesskeys.
  I updated the patch and got review fast, so I checked it in. As I had somewhat suspected, it produces failures in Windows due to "Set As Wallpaper" on images only being present there right now. When I worked on fixing this, the whole can of worms that those accesskeys present opened again, and Neil started to propose removing some entries to fit accesskeys better. We finally settled on taking my current fix as I have it and take a look at what entries are reasonable in what cases in a followup.
  I also discovered that entries where we automatically change labels can end up empty in case of coding errors, so I added a check for that in the test, and ported that check to the Firefox version as well.
  I also discussed a few of our remaining test failures with Serge, I hope we can get all those out of the picture soon.
• Internal Help Content:
  Help updates for places history have now landed on 1.9.1 branch as well, so SeaMonkey 2.0.5 will have that. The (trunk-only) expiration-related help update was reverted to a positive review and so I checked it in.
• Using Services.jsm:
  After I saw a patch for using it in Firefox nsBrowserGlue landing, I decided to file a bug and create a patch for using Services.jsm in nsSuiteGlue. This is a nice cleanup and code readability improvement, got fast review and I checked it in. I also updated the nsSuiteGlue parts of my places work for this locally.
• Project Organization:
  I did some more work on project area tools, now we can dynamically manage a copy of the project areas list on my SeaMonkey development site. This has roughly the same data as the official list right now, but is a work in process and only meant for administration, not as the official reference.
  We discussed SeaMonkey 2.1 Alpha 1 planning in this week's status meeting and settled for May the 4th as code freeze for a first alpha. We tentatively put a second alpha and a single beta up as planned milestones in 6-8 week cycles after this first step. A final release can not be scheduled without knowing more about Mozilla platform 1.9.3 plans, though.
  For managing bugs for and planning those release, I have files a bug on new-style flags for SeaMonkey 2.1 but I underestimated how much work there is behind creating them, so they are not in place yet (should be near, though).
• Bug Triage:
  The Mozilla bugday on SeaMonkey "General" bugs on Tuesday was a shining success, I did help with a few bugs on the list, but the awesome people there did an amazing job and greatly reduced the amount of open bugs in the general component! Thanks a lot, guys!
  In the status meeting, we also decided that we'll go forward with my bug expiration proposal - with the exception of help bugs - and I posted a comment text I'd like to use but got no feedback on that yet.
• Places:
  I did some small local updates to my places bookmarks patchset, as well as ported some changes from the Firefox side to it, while feedback from the new try builds is good, some small issues reported are double-click on bookmarks in the manager not working, HTML import from bookmarks manager being broken, and personal bookmarks toolbar buttons wrongly reacting to "icons only" customization settings.
• German L10n:
  I landed a relatively large help update from Michael Opitz that brings 2.0.5 and trunk contents up to sync with what we have in the US English version.
• Various Discussions:
  Tabbrowser APIs, review speeds, Mnenhy, "site" vs. "web site" vs. "website", SeaMonkey 2.0 interview series, master password hack, comm-1.9.2 branching, drumbeat catchphrases, hackers and posters, etc.

So, the cut for the first alpha of SeaMonkey 2.1 is nearing, but we're still missing some flags for managing it and my rather large patchset that would do good with testing there will very probably not get reviews fast enough.
Still, a lot of good work is happening, people are putting hard work into our code and we have a ton of platform changes to show off. I think we're on a good way, we just need to pick up a bit more work in our own code, and we're of course happy about any help on that - as well as in areas like marketing, QA, and design!