DateCountdown Wikimo Template

Posted on November 9, 2012 by

Have you ever wanted your wiki page to include an automatically updated countdown of the number of days until some event? Well now you can. I have added a DateCountdown template on wiki.mozilla.org that does just this. Using this template you specify a date and the wiki will automatically display the number of days left until that date. After the date passes, the wiki will display “0″. This is useful for event countdowns like, days to the next merge, days to next release, or days left in a sprint or iteration.

Use the DateCountdown template as follows:

{{DateCountdown|DATE}}

where DATE should be of the form yyyyMMdd. For example,

Days to Firefox 17 release: {{DateCountdown|20121120}}

The output of which is (today only):

Days to Firefox 17 release: 11

For a date that has passed, like the Firefox 16 release date:

Days to Firefox 16 release: {{DateCountdown|20121009}}

The output is:

Days to Firefox 16 release: 0

For live examples, see the platform meeting agenda, where the release management team has used the template to show the days left until the next merge and release. It has similarly been used for the coordination meeting agenda.

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Mobile Web Compatibility Nov 9, 2012 – Video update, UA detection tools, Phony for B2G?

Posted on November 9, 2012 by

Video update

I gave a short update about mobile Web compatibility during the Oct. 22, 2012, Mozilla project meeting. This update should bring you up-to-speed on the problem and the various initiatives that we have underway to tackle it. The video is available via Air Mozilla (skip to 4:00).

Help wanted: deep dive investigation

Are you a Web dev? We need your help deep dive testing a short list of sites. The goal of this exercise is to understand why after spoofing the user agent and aliasing Webkit prefixed CSS properties these sites are still broken. Details and the site list are in my post Call for Help: Broken Site Deep Dive Investigation.

Phony functionality in B2G

To better support mobile Web compatibility testing on B2G, we need Phony type functionality to switch the user agent. I have started a discussion on the dev-b2g list and filed bug 810075. If you have ideas or can help with the implementation, please comment.

Site testing and outreach

Over the past couple of week I have spoken with Categorizr, 51Degrees.mobi, and WURFL, all user agent detection tools/frameworks. Categorizr and 51degrees correctly identify Firefox for Android mobile + tablet and Firefox OS. I am working to provide WURFL with an update as well.

Joe Drew spoke with NextBus.com, who will start recognizing Firefox OS shortly.

Facebook has fixed their drop-downs for Friend Requests, Messages and Notifications (bug 715515).

Jason Smith and I held a test event in the Mozilla Mountain View office and on Air Mozilla on Oct. 23. Test results were submitted for 45 additional sites. Thank you to everyone who contributed.

Want more debugging tools for Firefox for Android? Mark Finkle blogged about the new remote console for Firefox for Android.

Interested in helping with site testing and evangelism? See Gerv Markham’s blog post Website Evangelism: Mobilizing Mozilla.

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Call for Help: Broken Site Deep Dive Investigation

Posted on November 5, 2012 by

Not too long ago we kicked off an analysis to answer the question,

Does aliasing a subset of Webkit CSS properties in Gecko improve mobile Web compatibility?

The preliminary results of our small study showed little improvement. The next step in this analysis is to understand why the sites that were tested are broken even when aliasing Webkit prefixes in Firefox.

This is a call for help and your call to action. The sites to test are listed below. We need to know as much detail about why each site is broken as possible. Ideally, the for each site we will have a report that includes the lines of code that are broken and a suggested fix. It will benefit us to know any JavaScript frameworks that have issues. As we have already seen, it is common that the resolution of one site issue causes a new issue to become exposed. We need a complete list of issues in order to best decide how to target fixes. Ultimately, we will need to answer question like, can we make a set of changes to Gecko, possibly including Webkit CSS prefix aliasing, that does make a significant difference for mobile Web compatibility? Are the issues primarily in site specific code or a common set of frameworks?

Results can be reported by filing bugs against the Tech Evangelism: Mobile component or by sending them to the compatibility mailing list.

Site list with visible issues (as reported by Mozilla QA)

  • http://www.directv.com
    1. Completely broken on FF Android. Appears to be broken by looking for the Webkit JavaScript value “WebkitPoint” that does not exist in Gecko.
  • m.doctissimo.fr
    1. White screen renders on page
  • ocn.ne.jp
    1. Slideshow of icon shortcuts don’t allow swiping left and right
    2. Missing colors on certain buttons.
  • jutarnji.hr
    1. ads and transitions within ads are not shown correctly
  • m.allhiphop.com
    1. colors for refresh button are not right
    2. text is occasionally blacked out when scrolling page
  • beyond.com
    1. ads don’t render
  • carsensor.net
    1. very obvious layout issues in comparison to Android stock browser
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Come Test the Mobile Web! Tues Oct 23, 2012 – 12pm PT

Posted on October 23, 2012 by

To support our mobile Web compatibility evangelism efforts, we need to understand the top site issues. Come out tomorrow at 12pm PT to test the mobile Web and report issues. No experience necessary. We’ll help you get your test environment set up and get testing with Firefox for Android.

For those in Mountain View, we’ll be in 10 forward with what I’m told is most excellent pizza. We’ll also be streaming live on Air Mozilla.

Want to learn more about mobile Web compatibility? Watch my presentation from today’s Mozilla project call.

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Mobile Web Compatibility Oct 19, 2012 – H.264, navigator.platform, Spade, Phony

Posted on October 19, 2012 by

Here’s what’s new in mobile Web compatibility this week.

H.264 video playback

Maire Reavy (media product manager) provided a list of video sites to test for video playback compatibility. Aaron Train has bucketed them as follows:

H.264 video that’s working

  • Metacafe (Desktop site served)
  • Videobash.com (Mobile site served)
  • Ovguide (Mobile site served)
  • Vevo (Mobile site served)

H.264 video with issues

  • tv.com (Mobile, but don’t see any video)
  • ustream (Mobile site served, should be H.264 but don’t see any video playback)
  • Veoh (Mobile, H.264 offered but video content downloads rather than plays)

Flash video

  • Hulu (Desktop only site)
  • video.yahoo.com (Desktop site served)
  • vids.myspace.com (Desktop site served)
  • Break.com (Desktop site served)
  • Justin.tv (Desktop site served)

Silverlight video

  • Netflix (Desktop only)

The current focus of our video playback test effort is Advanced Video Coding (AVC) profile support across different devices and operating systems. You can track progress on the Mozilla QA H.264 wiki page.

You can contribute by filing a bug when you encounter an H.264 video playback error or a message that H.264 is not supported in Firefox.

navigator.platform

Firefox OS does not include any operating system identifier in its user agent string. Gervase Markham provided a detailed explanation for this decision. It follows from this explanation that Firefox OS should not expose itself to Web clients in any manner. Therefore, navigator.platform will return an empty string when called on Firefox OS.

Any comments on this function can be directed to bug 801614.

Spade update

Clint Talbert and the A-Team made some notable progress on Spade, an automated tool to analyze CSS property usage and UA sniffing practices on the Web. Spade completed a test run of 100 sites, which is 10x the previous test run size. The A-Team is continuing to work on running this tool at Web scale with a short term goal to analyze the top 500-1000 sites on the internet.

Phony

Matt Brubeck has updated the Firefox for Android Phony add-on, which allows you to change the UA served by Firefox, to include the Firefox OS UA as an option. With this change, you can now use your Android device to test the impact of UA sniffing on the content served to Firefox OS.

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Mobile Web Compatibility Oct 12, 2012 – Issue Tracking, Brightcove H.264, Firefox OS UA Whitelist

Posted on October 12, 2012 by

Site testing and outreach

Firefox mobile evangelism issues are currently tracked in the Firefox for Android -> Evangelism component in Bugzilla. However, there is another notable mobile Firefox platform: Firefox OS. In addition, there exists a Tech Evangelism product in Bugzilla, where several mobile evangelism issues have been filed. In order to consolidate our effort, a new Tech Evanglism -> Mobile component has been created. Evangelism bugs should be filed in this component. In addition, when filing a bug, please set the OS field to Android, Gonk (for Firefox OS), or All for issues with both platforms.

Brightcove served H.264 encoded media was failing to play in Firefox for Android. The source was determined to be a bug in the Gecko video element’s canPlayType function (bug 794171). This fix will be in today’s Firefox Nightly builds. This fix has also received approval for Firefox Aurora and Beta and should land there shortly.

Bug 40919 was filed against Wikipedia to recognize Firefox OS as a mobile browser.

Firefox OS user agent whitelist

As I wrote last week, a whitelist mechanism has been added to override the Firefox OS user agent (UA) on a per site basis. The introduction of this whitelist is a mitigation strategy to deal with sites that do not send mobile content to this platform. After discussion on the mailing lists and in Bugzilla, Gerv Markham has published the policy for adding sites to this list.

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Mobile Web Compatibility Oct 5, 2012 – MozCamp, User Agents, Microsoft.com, Google Images and Maps

Posted on October 5, 2012 by

For various reasons I did not blog about mobile Web compatibility updates in September. Here then, are some highlights of what’s new in mobile Web compatibility this past month.

MozCamp Europe 2012, Warsaw

Jason Smith and I presented Opening Up the Mobile Web for Firefox at MozCamp EU 2012, in Warsaw, Poland. (My summary of MozCamp EU.) The session was well attended and, going off script, resulted in a lively discussion about the implications of mobile Web compatibility for Firefox and for the Web. Jason and I are looking for additional opportunities to share this material and get people actively involved in testing mobile sites.

User agents

The Firefox OS user agent (UA) has dropped the “Android” token again. In order to mitigate against sites that will not serve mobile content to Firefox OS before it ships but do serve mobile content to Firefox for Android, a whitelist mechanism has been added to override the UA on a per site basis. The policy for how a site is added to this list is being discussed on the dev-platform mailing list.

There has also been discussion on the dev-platform mailing list about whether to include hardware tokens in the UA. It seems some hardware vendors use this type of mechanism for various promotions. For example, customers of a specific hardware vendor may have free access to an event’s videos. There are, as expected, a number of arguments against this type of change to the UA.

Spade (automated test tool)

The A-Team had a bit of a setback with the development of Spade due to a loss of resources. Clint Talbert and Mihnea Dobrescu-Balaur are now working to stand this tool up. As I write this the tool is running a test job. If all goes well the initial results should be available in a week or two. We expect this tool to give us insight into the percentage of the top Web sites that have a mobile version, the percentage that make use of UA sniffing, and the percentage that make use of non standard CSS properties.

Site testing and outreach

microsoft.com has been rebuilt as a responsive site that seems absent of any UA sniffing. This is great news and I hope starts a trend with other Microsoft Web sites.

Brightcove, a prominent video platform, is currently broken on Firefox for Android as it does not detect that Firefox can play H.264 content. Investigation is tracked in bug 794171.

The layout of Google images search is nicer in the Android Stock and Chrome browsers. More images returned per page, the grid layout is structured better, and the page menu is more easily accessible.

Similarly, Google maps design is not as pretty in Firefox as it is in the Google browsers. Firefox also does not have access to street view, which was recently released as part of the mobile Web based maps app.

In order to handle video served by YouTube, the Firefox OS team has built a video Web activity into the platform.

As a great example of the community taking ownership over a portion of test coverage, Pavel Cvrcek has started testing Czech Web sites for mobile compatibility. His results are tracked in bug 794622.

Firefox for Android

Firefox Input now displays any URL submitted by the user along with their sad feedback. This is a new and good source of site issue reports.

I suggested that it would be beneficial to know for what sites a user selects the Request Desktop Site option in Firefox for Android. Knowing the sites should give us a view into whether the mobile version of the site is broken or whether users prefer the desktop site in some cases. Brad Lassey has a speculative patch for a feature that prompts the user to submit the site. Discussion is taking place in bug 790614.

The Firefox for Android team has received user feedback that desktop sites have usability problems on mobile. One specific case that was mentioned is that it is difficult to interact with menus that appear when the mouse hovers above them. While this type of issue is expected from desktop sites in a touch environment, the question is how should the team address this concern? Do users prefer the desktop site? (It may be preferable on a tablet.) Are users requesting desktop sites with the Request Desktop Site feature vs being served desktop sites by default? Are users using this feature because the mobile site is broken? Is the mobile site preferred by the user? The answer to these questions should give us guidance on how to proceed with technical and evangelism solutions to these issues. Please leave a comment or submit Firefox Input (in Firefox, Help->Submit Feedback…) with your feedback.

CSS3 Flexbox

The CSS3 flexbox implementation has landed on the Firefox Nightly 18 channel. This feature is currently disabled due to some test failures and the layout team is working hard to enable it shortly.

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