Namoroka

After Firefox3.5 ("Shiretoko") is released, the next version of Firefox will be developed under the project name "Namoroka". The Firefox version number will be "3.6" and the Gecko Platform version number will be "1.9.2". The release will be shipped as a minor update to users, replacing Firefox 3.5 ("Shiretoko").

Namoroka is to be an incremental release, building upon the success of Firefox 3.5.

Goals

Namoroka will focus on the following areas:

Performance

Observable improvements in user-perceptible performance metrics such as startup, time to open a new tab, and responsiveness when interacting with the user interface. Common user tasks should feel faster and more responsive.

Personalization & Customization

Integration of the Mozilla Labs Personas project, improvements to the Awesomebar and form autocomplete.

Development Schedule

Namoroka will be based on Gecko 1.9.2 (see Platform), with an intended release target of late 2009. As always, we will only release the finished product when it's ready.

Namoroka will employ a highly iterative, milestone based development process which will rely on feedback from developers, testers and users to ensure that we are properly investing time and resources. An initial exploration phase will be used to investigate development cost and benefit, as well as to create user interaction prototypes. This will be followed by an alpha development phase for early user testing and feedback, and then a beta phase for broader compatibility testing.

This information is outdated

Alpha 1 (early August 2009)

• major platform pieces landed
• stabilized for early feedback from web and add-on developers

Beta 1 (early September 2009)

• all UI iteration pieces landed
• string-complete for localization

Beta 2 (late September 2009)

• polish release
• all major stabilization issues resolved
• final API changes for add-on developers

Release Candidate (mid/late October 2009)

• aiming at final release for November 2009

Milestone Definitions

• Alpha: major platform and user interface changes will occur between milestones
• Beta: minor user interface changes will occur between milestones, based on user feedback. Platform changes will be limited to correctness fixes only (no new features)
• Release Candidate: only functional correctness changes

Firefox.next Development Areas of Interest

Anyone can propose an area of interest for development, though until the documentation is complete, it will not be considered for inclusion in the product.

Performance

• [P1] achieve dramatic, human-perceivable (>50ms) speed increases on startup
• [P1] achieve dramatic, human-perceivable (>50ms) speed increases on common user tasks
  • opening a new tab
  • loading a bookmarked page
  • autocompleting a location in the Awesomebar
  • play rich media content
• animation and other interaction techniques to reduce lag between action and feedback, and to improve perceived speed

Personalization and Customization

• [P1] "light weight" themes which do not require a restart to install
• [P2] customize browser behaviours based on personal history
  • opening a new tab / navigation tasks
  • search related tasks
  • form fill tasks
  • about:me personal portal
• [P2] identity management

Task Based Navigation

• [P1] add ability to search for an existing tab
• [P2] allow users to create, save, restore groups of tabs
• [P2] support file management tasks (delete, move, etc) in download manager

Other

• [P1] merge common site-specific controls with identity button
• [P2] optimize security UI for common user certificate management tasks

Firefox.next Platform Requirements

User Experience Enablement

• support user interface animations in XUL
• compositor (to support layered/cropped user interface window elements)

Performance

• chrome JIT
• ability to register chrome components without restart
• network resource pre-caching to reduce page load times when clicking a link
• improved cache pinning support
• make cache more reliable so that it can be used when restoring a user session on a restart or after a crash
• solidifying nsIRunnable and thread support before Mozilla 2

System Integration

• OSX Dictionary integration
• OSX Services & AppleScript integration
• OSX Keychain integration
• Windows Aero Glass
• Windows Aero Peek
• Windows 7
• Windows CE

Firefox.next Build Infrastructure Requirements

• bigger server pool for tryserver builds (due to increased reliance on incubator repositories)