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AAATheFAQ
Frequently asked user questions. READ ME FIRST!
Please don't modify this document unless you are authorized to do so. FAQThis page will be for frequent user questions. Some of these are also answered on the main site, but are also here for convenient reference. What is Classilla?Classilla is an updated open-source Mozilla-based web browser for the classic Macintosh OS (not Mac OS X, although it will run under Classic through 10.4). It is targeted for Mac OS 9, but will include 8.6 compatibility where possible. The name is, naturally, a portmanteau of Classic (for the classic MacOS) and Mozilla. What is Mozilla?Mozilla is the force behind the Gecko layout engine, which powers (among others) Mozilla Firefox, currently the second most popular web browser in the world behind Microsoft Internet Explorer. This makes it a very popular foundation for building other browsers and browser-like software upon. What is Clecko?Clecko is the fork of Gecko used in Classilla. Mozilla ended official Mac OS 9 support with 1.2, although versions through 1.3.1 would still generally build if the patches for OS X (the old Fizzilla build) were removed. Because Mozilla 1.4 and up include so much OS X specific code that won't work with the CarbonLib available for Mac OS 9, the decision was made to split Gecko off at 1.3.1 (using the Gecko that was maintained in the venerable old WaMCom build) and backport later changes to it rather than use the Mozilla code base directly, which won't build. This version of Gecko thus has a significantly different lineage despite having a common ancestor, and while its sources are similar, its provenance and feature set are therefore necessarily different. To avoid confusion with the main Gecko, even though this forked Gecko is still mostly official Mozilla code, Classilla's version of Gecko was renamed Clecko. What was WaMCom?WaMCom was Kai Engert's maintained version of Mozilla 1.3.1; the Mac build of WaMCom is the direct ancestor of Classilla. It is no longer supported or developed. Does Mozilla support Classilla or Clecko?No, and it is highly unlikely they will even support OS 9 at all again given the niche user base. For this reason, you should not ask Mozilla for support of Classilla/Clecko, nor should you ever file Bugzilla entries. If there is a specific issue that merits Bugzilla notation, let the Classilla project leads determine that on your behalf. When will new versions of Classilla come out?See Roadmap. What is Bugzilla? What are Bugzilla numbers?Strictly speaking Bugzilla refers to either the Bugzilla software package, or Mozilla's own Bugzilla installation which is used for tracking Mozilla bugs. In our usage, we almost always mean the latter sense. A Bugzilla number refers to the ID number of a specific issue in the Bugzilla database, with its associated patch(es), if any. If your bug report corresponds to a specific Bugzilla number, including that in your report helps immensely as there may already be a patch that can be adapted. Again, you should not file Bugzilla issues for Classilla. Does Classilla support Flash?Yes, but OS 9 support was dropped after Flash 7. There are known security problems in that version of Adobe Flash Player and its use is strongly discouraged. Still, this is enough to surf many sites and even view many videos, although people have reported synchronization issues with certain codecs. Your humble author, however, does not use it. Will Classilla support HTML 5?Certain portions will be supported (and some actually already are invisibly). The most visible features such as CANVAS tags, however, will require extensive work for Clecko's non-Cairo-based graphics architecture, and features such as VIDEO and AUDIO tags may never be supported due to poor codec availability for OS 9. Networking support may also be difficult to integrate with the older Clecko codebase. There are no promises, let alone an ETA, for any of these features. On the other hand, most document-based tags are easy to incorporate into Classilla's parser and many of these are or will be supported. Currently, however, the highest priority is making sure that HTML 4.01 and CSS 2 are supported to a functional level; this is incomplete, but improving. Will Classilla still support Chatzilla?Chatzilla support is deprecated as of 9.0.4, and removed completely in versions thereafter due to multiple known security flaws and difficulty integrating later versions with Classilla's older code base. There are many better IRC clients for Mac OS 9; you should use one of those instead. Will Classilla still support mail and news?Currently, yes. There are enough users and enough user demand that Classilla will continue to support it for the immediate future. However, we do need testers to find and report bugs, as well as regular user reports. You can help! Will Classilla ever be as up-to-date as Firefox?That depends on the devotion and hardwork of the maintainers, leads and programmers. We're always looking for a few good Mac nerds. Can I run Classilla on OS X?Yes. In fact, Classilla may be the best browser option for you if you are running a very old version of OS X such as 10.0 or 10.1, but you must run it in Classic as it is not Carbonized. If you are using 10.2, however, you should probably consider Firefox 2 as its compatibility is currently better than Classilla, and if you are using 10.3 Camino 1.6.x is a far better choice and currently supported. 10.4 is currently supported by all major browsers. Please note that depending on your version of OS X, the Classic environment may (in some cases noticibly) degrade Classilla's performance. Classilla is naturally always fastest in a native, non-emulated environment. To run Classilla on an Intel Macintosh or on 10.5 or later, since neither support Classic, you must use an emulator such as SheepShaver. Although it is not officially supported, people have used Classilla on SheepShaver and demonstrated that it runs well. SheepShaver on BeOS is also compatible. Again, its performance under emulation may be significantly impacted. Classilla does not run under Basilisk II, because that is a 68K Mac emulator (see the next question). Can I run Classilla on a 68K Macintosh?No. Classilla is currently built with a version of CodeWarrior that only supports PowerPC, and relies on certain specific features of OS 8.5 and later such as Unicode support. It is possible to backport these features to OS 8.1 or possibly earlier, but that task is demonstrably non-trivial, and the memory demands may seriously restrict which machines could run Classilla even if those constraints were otherwise met. However, if you have a 68K Mac with a PowerPC card such as any of the 601-based PDS cards out there, those Macs can run Classilla as long as you have sufficient memory and can boot 8.6 on them (the Sonnet PPC cards can with their enabler, for example). Please note that their performance will be, at best, pedestrian. Why does StuffIt Expander think Classilla's disk image is encrypted?This is a bug in StuffIt Expander. Use the .sit encoded version, not the .bin (BinHex) encoded one. Eventually these downloads will be removed. How can I help with Classilla? I only know HTML.You can still be a big help as a distiller. See BeAPart. How can I help with Classilla? I'd like to code and build my own.To build your own Classilla on your own system, you need to set up a sane build environment. See HowToBuild. Once you have Classilla built and want to do your own stuff to send in, you have to obey certain conventions for code (and to ensure that resource forks are not trampled upon). See BeAPart and HowToSubmit. My question is not answered by this document.If you have a specific issue with Classilla which you think is a bug, look under the Issues tab for what the coders are currently working on. If you don't see a bug listed and you're sure you've found one, please use Report-A-Bug (don't file bugs here unless you are authorized to do so; Report-A-Bug allows a reviewer to triage your bug so that the worklist is more efficiently updated). If you have questions about Classilla or how it is administered, see http://www.classilla.org/ or send a message to classilla at floodgap dawt com. |
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Any chance we'll see Clasilla for 68k Macs running 7.5.x and up?
Regrettably not without a lot of work. The main problem is that major portions of the Mozilla runtime depend on major OS features such as Unicode support, which would have to be written from scratch for 8.1 or earlier. Similarly, Mozilla code is notoriously memory hungry, so impaired systems such as Performas would barely be able to squeeze it into RAM. It's something I've thought about, though.
On the other hand, I do have a little gift for 68K Maccies which I'll try to get to after 9.0.4 is out. That'll be announced separately. :)
Does Classilla support browser extensions (.xpi) ? Or are those only for the main Mozilla 1.0 trunk and up?
Yes and no. People have used .xpis with !WaMCom and some worked, but others tanked their installs (requiring restoration of their chrome folder, which was not always possible). I know I did this myself when I was using !WaMCom.
For that reason, Classilla has an internal block on extensions currently. Eventually this will be lifted, but even when it is remember that a lot of current extensions just will not work, either due to JavaScript incompatibilities (which will be fixed) or missing XUL gadgets (which won't).
In the meantime, if you have a suggestion for an extension that should just come with Classilla (like NoScript already does, for example), please suggest it in issue 21: http://code.google.com/p/classilla/issues/detail?id=21 If I can convert it to work with Classilla and it seems generally useful, I'll add it to the base browser.
Will support for Mac OS 8.6 ever be dropped? :(
I don't have any plans to. It would only be dropped if there were a critical feature needed that 8.6 did not support. So far the updates that have been landed have been made to common or cross-platform code, so this issue has never been a problem and I don't expect it to be imminently.