SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3
These release notes describe system requirements, installation instructions, and known issues for SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3. These notes are updated when we receive feedback, so please check back for new information.
For daily use, we strongly advise you to download the current stable release instead.
- What's New in SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3
- Downloading
- System Requirements, Installation and Uninstallation
- Extensions and Themes
- Known Issues
- Troubleshooting
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Other Resources and Links
What's New in SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3
SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3 contains the following major changes relative to SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 2:
- When you start SeaMonkey in Safe Mode, you are now presented with a dialog that allows you to permanently apply some of the Safe Mode changes. Furthermore you can enter Safe Mode directly from the Help menu now.
- If a plugins crashes, you are now presented with several options right there (e.g. reloading the page).
- Built-in extensions (ChatZilla, JavaScript Debugger, DOM Inspector and DebugQA) are now installed into the profile.
- SeaMonkey Sync supports the easy setup process (J-PAKE) now.
- Windows 7 Jump Lists support was added.
- Outdated plugins are detected now.
- Tabs can now be switched using mouse scrolling (in addition to scrolling the tab bar).
- WebGL support via ANGLE has been added.
- An optional search bar (including suggestions if the search engine supports it) is available in browser toolbar customization, and an engine manager for OpenSearch is available.
- The delete action in the MailNews Advanced Search dialog has been fixed.
- Plugins now work in feeds shown in MailNews windows.
- ChatZilla is working again.
- The JavaScript Debugger Venkman is working again.
- Download progress is now shown in the Windows 7 taskbar.
- Cascaded Session Restore improves restoring large browsing sessions.
See the SeaMonkey
Trunk Tracker blog for more details about the changes between those
pre-releases.
The changes page lists an overview of
new features and fixes relative to our last stable release,
SeaMonkey 2.0.13.
Downloading
System Requirements, Installation and Uninstallation
Extensions and Themes
Known Issues
- Select Element by Click doesn't flash the element in DOM Inspector on Windows (bug 594299).
- Data loss warning: If you use a profile with this beta or any later version and then try to go back to SeaMonkey 2.0, SeaMonkey will rename your history file to places.sqlite.corrupt and create a new places.sqlite file, effectively resetting your browsing history. This is because the internal format changed and the upgrade process only works in one direction.
- To use a Sync account with multiple devices you need to make sure all of them use the latest version of Sync (i.e. always use the latest beta of SeaMonkey 2.1 in combination with Firefox 4, desktop and mobile) (bug 615950).
- Composer removes link information when pasting a link to a local file or anchor (bug 647682).
- Mac:
- When you quit SeaMonkey with the preferences "Always clear my private data when I close SeaMonkey" and "Ask me before clearing private data" active, the application might hang (bug 636210).
- When hardware acceleration is off, background colors in the UI (toolbar, status bar etc.) might not update correctly when you switch focus from/to a window. Users running Macs with certain older hardware (e.g. Intel GMA 950) will experience this even if they haven't turned off hardware acceleration in Preferences (Appearance/Content) (bug 626096).
- Linux:
- The video control buttons may not work when viewing QuickTime videos with libtotem (bug 625036).
- Users compiling from source might need a newer gcc and libstdc++ as the build requirements have changed (bug 578880).
Troubleshooting
- Some anti-virus software keeps detecting our installers as containing a "Trojan" or "Downloader". This is a false positive and is some wrong detection mechanism in the anti-virus software. The code in question is actually from 7-Zip and decompresses the installer so that its contents can run and install SeaMonkey. That technology is widely used and probably can be used to compress bad as well as good software, but the 7-Zip code itself is perfectly safe. Mozilla scans all our files routinely when putting them on the FTP server and we assure you that our installers are as clean as the official Firefox downloads that are scanned by the same mechanisms.
-
Poorly designed or incompatible extensions can cause problems with
SeaMonkey, including make it crash, slow down page display, etc.
If you encounter strange problems relating to parts of SeaMonkey no longer
working, the browser not starting, windows with strange or distorted
appearance, degraded performance, etc, you may be suffering from Extension
or Theme trouble.
Restart SeaMonkey in Safe Mode. On Windows, start using the "Safe Mode"
shortcut created in your Start menu or by running
seamonkey.exe -safe-mode
. On Linux, start with./seamonkey -safe-mode
and on Mac OS X, run:
When started in Safe Mode all extensions are disabled and the Default theme is used. Disable the Extension/Theme that is causing trouble and then start normally.cd /Applications/SeaMonkey.app/Contents/MacOS/
./seamonkey-bin -safe-mode - If you uninstall an extension that is installed with your user profile (i.e. you installed it from a Web page) and then wish to install it for all user profiles using the -install-global-extension command line flag, you must restart SeaMonkey once to cleanse the profile extensions datasource of traces of that extension before installing with the switch. If you do not do this you may end up with a jammed entry in the Extensions list and will be unable to install the extension globally.
- If you encounter strange problems relating to bookmarks, downloads, window placement, toolbars, history, or other settings, it is recommended that you try creating a new profile and attempting to reproduce the problem before filing bugs. Create a new profile by running SeaMonkey with the -P command line argument, choose the "Manage Profiles" button and then choose "Create Profile...". Migrate your settings files (Bookmarks, Saved Passwords, etc) over one by one, checking each time to see if the problems resurface. If you do find a particular profile data file is causing a problem, file a bug and attach the file.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What can I do to help?
- We need help from developers and the testing community to provide as much feedback as possible to make SeaMonkey even better. Please read these notes and the bug filing instructions before reporting any bugs to Bugzilla. You can also give us your feedback through this feedback form.
- Why haven't you responded to the mail I sent you?
- Use the newsgroup. The SeaMonkey team reads it regularly, and your email may have gotten lost.
- Where can I get extensions and themes (add-ons)?
- Extensions and Themes can be downloaded from SeaMonkey Add-ons.
- Who makes SeaMonkey?
- Lots of people. See Help->About SeaMonkey, contributors for a list of some of the people who have contributed to Mozilla and SeaMonkey.
- Where's the SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3 source code?
- A tarball of the SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3 source code is available at the download page. The latest development code can be obtained from the source repository. SeaMonkey-specific source is in the "suite" directory. Please follow the build instructions.