Aurora 10′s just landed and it includes the Page Visibility API – enabling JS apps to know when they’re in the background, and thus throttle down, or perhaps get on with some housekeeping that woudl otherwise interrupt the user.
Mozilla’s (predictable in hindsight) response to Google ChromeOS
The Web Console (aka JavaScript Console) is continuing to improve in Firefox, making firebug less of a necessity for casual users.
XUL flex box comes to CSS. The potential to simplify multi-column and dynamically sized tabular content, whilst not polluting the markup. Much rejoicing may follow.
Without a doubt in my mind this is one of the very best repositories of JavaScript detail for the learner & expert alike.
Making JavaScript better.
Mozilla launch a competition to visualise data from its testpilot feedback system..
A look at the underlying implementation of JS values in Mozilla.
Neato… the ability to get the contents of a canvas as a file, and send it to a server (or store it locally). var x = canvas.mozGetAsFile(“mypic.png”); xhr.send(x);
A benchmark for JS performance define by The Mozilla Foundation as a real-world alternative to other benchmarks.
Plots comparative speeds of different JS engines on different architectures over time when tested with sunspider and v8 benchmarks. At the time of writing it shows that firefox 4 is taking big steps to being as fast as the V8 engine in google chrome.
Something interesting from Mozilla Drumbeat – perhaps some funding for research and course development.
Use bespin on any page that has a text area that you’d normally enter html or javascript into.
The bespin project has a new name. Mozilla’s cloud based HTML5 editor ++ is now called Skywriter.
Example of building a Square Wave using sine wave addition using JavaScript, canvas and the Firefox Audio Data API
An Audio Data API for Firefox perhaps one day for all browsers.
Mozilla Developer Connection has a new name and a clear mission to be “a comprehensive, usable, and accurate resource for everyone developing for the Open Web.”
The User Agent string is changing in Firefox 4, not much, but enough to break some older scripts and sites.