What’s new in Firefox 6?

The most notable addition to this new release are the <progress> element, touch events, Server-Sent Events as well as the return of WebSockets.

The <progress> element





This element can be used to give a visual cue of something in progress in the page. System progress bars are being used, which means that users of MacOS and Linux will see something different than what is pictured here.

Touch events

The standard Touch events are now available on both Firefox “desktop” and mobile, enabling users to interact with web pages using their fingers on a touch screen.



Try this minimalistic touch demo.

Server Sent Events

Server Sent Events are a mean for a server-side script to generate client-side events accompanied with data.



Messages generated on the server-side with a text/event-stream mime-type and consist of a list of events data.

data: data generated by the server data: this line will generate a second event

Have a look at the Twitter-like timeline built with server-sent events.

WebSockets are back!

WebSockets can be used to create an interactive communication channel between a browser and a server. They are already used to build “HTML5” chats, multiplayer games, and much much more.

Note that this API will be temporarily namespaced in prevision of upcoming changes to the specification.

Other changes

HTML The HTML5 <progress> element, which lets you create a progress bar, is now supported.

element, which lets you create a progress bar, is now supported. The parsing of the HTML5 <track> element, which specifies text tracks for media elements, is now supported. This element should appear in the DOM now, though its behavior is still not implemented.

element, which specifies text tracks for media elements, is now supported. This element should appear in the DOM now, though its behavior is still not implemented. The <iframe> element is now clipped correctly by its container when the container’s corners have been rounded using the border-radius property.

element is now clipped correctly by its container when the container’s corners have been rounded using the property. <form> elements’ text <input> fields no longer support the XUL maxwidth property; this was never intentional, and is in violation of the HTML specification. You should instead use the size attribute to set the maximum width of input fields.

elements’ text fields no longer support the XUL property; this was never intentional, and is in violation of the HTML specification. You should instead use the attribute to set the maximum width of input fields. The <canvas> CanvasRenderingContext2d properties fillStyle and strokeStyle used to ignore garbage included after a valid color definition; now this is correctly treated as an error. For example, “red blue” as a color used to be treated as “red”, when it should have been ignored.

properties and used to ignore garbage included after a valid color definition; now this is correctly treated as an error. For example, “red blue” as a color used to be treated as “red”, when it should have been ignored. The width and height of <canvas> elements can now properly be set to 0px; previously, these were getting arbitrarily set to 300px when you tried to do that.

elements can now properly be set to 0px; previously, these were getting arbitrarily set to 300px when you tried to do that. When a <textarea> element receives focus, the text insertion point is now placed, by default, at the beginning of the text rather than at the end. This makes Firefox’s behavior consistent with other browsers.

CSS -moz-text-decoration-color This new property lets you set the color used by text decorations, such as underlines, overlines, and strikethroughs. -moz-text-decoration-line This new property lets you set the kind of text decorations added to an element. -moz-text-decoration-style This new property lets you set the style of text decorations, such as underlines, overlines, and strikethroughs. Styles include single-strokes, double strokes, wavy lines, dotted lines, and so forth. -moz-hyphens This new property lets you control how hyphenation of words during line wrapping is handled. -moz-orient A new (currently Mozilla-specific) property which lets you control the vertical or horizontal orientation of certain elements (particularly <progress> ). ::-moz-progress-bar A Mozilla-specific pseudo-element that lets you style the area of an <progress> element representing the completed portion of a task. Other CSS changes The @-moz-document property has a new regexp() function, which lets you match the document’s URL to a regular expression.

property has a new function, which lets you match the document’s URL to a regular expression. The azimuth CSS property is no longer supported, as we have removed what little code we had for the aural media group. It was never significantly implemented, so it made more sense to remove the crufty implementation for the time being rather than try to patch it up.

CSS property is no longer supported, as we have removed what little code we had for the media group. It was never significantly implemented, so it made more sense to remove the crufty implementation for the time being rather than try to patch it up. In the past, the :hover pseudoclass was not applied to class selectors when in quirks mode; for example, .someclass:hover did not work. This quirk has been removed.

pseudoclass was not applied to class selectors when in quirks mode; for example, did not work. This quirk has been removed. The :indeterminate pseudo-class can be applied to <progress> elements. This is non-standard, but we hope it will be adopted by other browsers, because it will be useful.

JavaScript In the past, it was possible to use the new operator on several built-in functions (eval, parseInt, Date.parse…) that should not have allowed it, according to the specification. This behavior is no longer supported. Using the new operator in this way was never officially supported and was not widely done, so it’s unlikely that this change affects you.

operator on several built-in functions (eval, parseInt, Date.parse…) that should not have allowed it, according to the specification. This behavior is no longer supported. Using the operator in this way was never officially supported and was not widely done, so it’s unlikely that this change affects you. ECMAScript Harmony WeakMaps have been added as a prototype implementation.

SVG The pathLength attribute is now supported.

attribute is now supported. SVG patterns, gradients, and filters now work correctly when loaded from data: URLs.

MathML The implementation of <mstyle> has been corrected.

Accessibility (ARIA) A state change event is now correctly sent when the value of aria-busy changes.

changes. An attribute change event is now correctly sent when aria-sort occurs.

Net WebSockets WebSockets was updated to protocol version 07 for Firefox 6. Parsing of the Content-Disposition header has been fixed to properly interpret backslash-escaped ASCII characters as just that character itself. Previously it was incorrectly replacing that character with an underscore (“_”).

header has been fixed to properly interpret backslash-escaped ASCII characters as just that character itself. Previously it was incorrectly replacing that character with an underscore (“_”). The value of the path field on Set-Cookie headers is now interpreted correctly when quotes are used; previously, they were being treated as part of the path string instead of as delimiters. This change may affect compatibility with some web sites , so authors should check their code.

headers is now interpreted correctly when quotes are used; previously, they were being treated as part of the path string instead of as delimiters. , so authors should check their code. The Upgrade request header is now supported; you can request an upgrade of an HTTP channel to another protocol by calling nsIHttpChannelInternal.HTTPUpgrade() .

Other changes Support for microsummaries has been removed; these were never widely used, were not very discoverable, and continuing to support them was making improvements to the Places (bookmark and history) architecture difficult.

WebGL now supports the OES_texture_float extension.

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