Community:SummerOfCode11:Brainstorming

Goal: Finish the Qt Widget code, so that Firefox can run on Linux using Qt (whereas currently it must run using GTK).

A lot of work has been done to get Firefox to support Qt, in part due to Fennec's goal of supporting MeeGo (which is Qt-based). Firefox Qt builds exist already, but need more work to be ready for general use.

A pure Qt port of Firefox for Linux would be interesting from several standpoints: It might be faster than the current GTK builds, and also it would integrate better with KDE distros, which should make it popular.

Alon Zakai

The aim of this project is to port parts of Firefox C/C++ codebase to java to create java version of Firefox eventually. The way Firefox written (platform-specific code wrapped with Netscape Portable Runtime) makes possible to use effective code translation.

Project will create iterative and incremental process. Every cycle starts with working version of java Firefox (splitted up into legacy and ported parts). Cycle consist of following development tasks:

1. Choosing legacy module/sources to port.

2. Running source translator on it.

3. Fixing (porting) broken code. Beside fixing runtime for translated code (special library to reduce and simplify code modifications of translated sources) is updating.

4. Analysis new porting patterns and cases for translation using new runtime features.

5. Modify translator according discovered patterns so it will produce more applicable code.

6. Recover two java Firefox parts integrity if any problems. Update build scripts.

More detailed information you can read here.

Refs:

[1] http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/Java_Firefox_Extension

[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en/java_in_firefox_extensions

[3] http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/

[4] http://java.net/projects/squawk/

[5] http://tech.novosoft-us.com/product_c2j.jsp

[6] http://www.tangiblesoftwaresolutions.com/Product_Details/CPlusPlus_to_Java_Converter_Details.html

Firefox already stores the users' details and usage in profiles(-although the procedure is lengthy-). I want to give the user a management system where the user can log-in to the browser and the predefined settings would be loaded and the activity would be recorded to the profile .In a lot of universities,organizations and homes(parental control), the system adminstrator and the user are different, and the admin wants to authenticate or give some special rights to the user (-for which external clients or login-systems like cyberoam-). I can break down the whole system into 2 parts - form and settings. 

The form could be of multiple usage - from a simple username/pwd type to another having different fields required to authenticate the user.( it can also have a new registration option)

After Login, the user can do any pre-defined settings, he can have his own boomarks, own add-ons, own proxy settings, some saved passwords, sync options, security settings with his/her mobile and other settings which he/she chose.Also this can help universities/organizations to record users' activity specific to his profile.

Already a lot of people(bug list) are using profiles and these would give them a clean interface to do so.I believe this would be a great feature and can enhance the usability a lot. 

I recommend this as an improvement to the existing version of Firefox beta release. Add the page loading bar at the bottom of each page as well as place the user's internet bandwidth usage counter beside it. This data counter will display the usage for each webpage used in one browsing session. The data counter should be merged into a chart depicting the total webpage usage out of the user's internet plan's bandwidth. The features can be embedded into a jetpack. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript languages are needed. Source of programming languages: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Developing_add-ons Source of Firefox-plugin usage out of CPU usage (for my reference on OS resource usage for my proposal): https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Monitoring_plugins

Sawaiz (student)

As I Experienced, navigating a internet browser isn’t easy when using a touchpad, so I come up with an idea to make a tool helping this activity.

I’m going to define some (editable) gestures which would be simple to use on touchpad, some additional actions e.g. double click on the link to open it in new tab, little changes in context menu.

Krzysztof Piniecki (student)

Create CPU-time and memory resource tracker for add-ons. Result must be looking similar to Google Chrome Shift-Esc task manager. That is feature showing consumed resources per add-on. By contrast Chromium that use extension process separation and show process characteristics this project implementation will use js-profiling abilities of Firefox.

More detailed information you can read here.

Refs:

[1] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/venkman/

[2] https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/

[3] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

[4] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firebug/

[5] http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firebug/tracing-console-for-firebug/

[6] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xul-profiler-by-yoono/

[7] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/memory-profiler/

[8] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leak-monitor/

[9] https://engtech.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/howto-greasemonkey-profiler-firebug/

[10] http://seleniumhq.org/projects/ide/

[11] http://www.mozilla.org/performance/jsprofiler.html

Could involve tags, keywords, or even probably configurable arbitrary fields.