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Important Mozilla jargon |
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| MozTips | Open Works |
Mozilla Jargon:
- Build - A Build is a version of Mozilla, which is compiled; i.e. a version of Mozilla which you can run on your computer.
- Binaries- Mozilla.org often refers to "Binaries". A Binary is a synonym for "Build" and means a version of Mozilla which is compiled and can be run on your computer as opposed to the source code (blueprints) to Mozilla. For all practical purposes, "Binaries" translate into what most (normal) people call "programs".
- Branch (build) - The Mozilla development process calls for stable versions to be created every 6 weeks or so. These extra-stable versions are called Milestone Builds, and the versions leading up to them are called branch builds. For a detailed explanation of this, please see my newsgroup post.
- Chrome: Visible Part of the Mozilla User Interace: The buttons, the menus, and so on.
- Gecko: Also known as NGLayout, Gecko refers
to the core of Mozilla and Netscape, and is the part responsible for displaying
webpages. Hence it is often referred to as the "display engine" or "rendering
engine" for Mozilla and Netscape.
As you may have heard recently, AOL has incorporated Gecko into a new test version of AOL 7.0, replacing Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) as the display engine. The "official"/ current version of AOL stills uses MSIE, however. A recent News.com article confirmed that the latest version of Compuserve has been shipped with Gecko, though!
- Milestone (build) - An especially stable version of Mozilla, made available every six weeks or so. The latest Mozilla Milestone is 0.9.9 . For a detailed explanation of this, please see my newsgroup post.
- Nightly (build) - A version of Mozilla which is made available every night, and which is usually not as stable as a Milestone version.
- Regression - Tim Powell provided the following
useful explanation in Mozillazine,
on March 8, 2002:
A regression is when the software "relapses to a less perfect or developed state". (American Heritage Dictionary) This usually means that a feature or function was working in earlier builds and is now broken. It may also mean that speed or stability has gotten worse. It's often useful to notice that something is a regression, because it may point out that a bug "fix" was actually not appropriate or proper.
- Roadmap - A publicly available plan for the development of Mozilla.
- QA Quality Assurance. QA involves testing a software product to make sure it works as expected, and reliably. Check out the new Quality Assurance Glossary.
- Trunk (build): For an explanation of this, please see my newsgroup post.
- Theme: A Mozilla Theme is what most people know as a "Skin". A Theme lets you change how Mozilla looks. For a visual explanation of this, see page 2 of the Mozilla Tour.
- UI: User Interface. The user interface of a program is the part of it with which a user (person) interacts, such as a menu, button or toolbar. Mozilla's user interface is often referred to as the Chrome.
- XPI - Cross Platform Installable File for Mozilla. For example an XPI file is available for adding the "Calendar" or Spell Checker to Mozilla.
- XUL From the Mozilla.org Jargon file : XML-based User Interface Language. XUL (pronounced "zuul") is the user interface description language used for creating user interfaces with Mozilla's Cross Platform Front End. For more information on XUL and Mozilla's Themes, check out XULPlanet.