s e s s i o n   h i s t o r y   e x t e n s i o n

Current release version: 0.3.1.2 (install | umo)   Current development version: 0.3.2dev1 (install)

n e w s

As of late, development on Session History Extension has slowed somewhat because of other projects I'm working on as well as some personal items. I have been working on Session History Extension 0.4 for a while now, but it doesn't look like I'll be releasing it until 1.5.0.2 is released at the earliest. As I mentioned below, I'm going to be getting rid of my bug 320742 hack, which has woven its little tentacles into my code farther than I realized. Also, 0.4 is a major upgrade, adding lots of functionality to Session History Extension, and it takes work not only to introduce this functionality, but to do so in such a way that doesn't break other extensions. Because of all this, there will most likely be a testing period for the new version for debugging, localizing, etc. As I said above, I'm aiming to get 0.4 out when 1.5.0.2 is released, but, at a minimum, a 0.3.x version will be released that extinguishes the bug 320742 hack.  24 February 2006

Bug 320742 has been fixed and checked in for Firefox 1.5.0.2 (Gecko 1.8.0.2). Currently, the work-around I employ breaks compatibility with some extensions. As a result, I will getting rid of my hack around the bug and employ much better code to modify the session history in the next revision. This update will break compatibility with Firefox 1.5.0.1 and below. So to use the latest version of Session History Extension, you will have to update Firefox to 1.5.0.2. The minimum version will be updated to reflect this, and if you use an extension to override the version compatibility check, Session History Extension will not work as intended.  24 February 2006

d e s c r i p t i o n

Session History Extension is a Firefox extension that allows the user to manipulate how the session history works and looks. Allowing the user to adjust how the session history works to their preference creates a more intuitive UI on a per-user basis.

w h y ?

The session history has mostly been a long neglected feature of web browsers. The only real innovation in the past decade has been adding the dropdown menu to the back/forward buttons. It's quickly becoming outdated, especially with the increasing popularity of tabbed browsing and the new focus on the web browser as a means to manage information. Ultimately, my goal is to craft my extension such that it essentially serves as a complete rewrite of Firefox's session history implementation. My objective is to first append features over Firefox's session history and then, using that feature-set as a model, recode the session history from the ground up.

I don't anticipate having a rewrite of the session history done until we are much closer to Firefox 2. I anticipate that the new Places system, along with other features, will be needed to achieve the level of functionality and integration I desire. Currently, Firefox 1.5 doesn't have what I need, and even if it did, by the time I get around to it, I'd be able to use Fx2 as a foundation instead of Fx1.5.

As of yet, it is unclear if Fx2 will bring new features to the session history. Currently, I anticipate that, at most, a backend reworking will be done with no frontend improvements. And its certainly possible that little systemic improvement will be made at all. In light of these expectataions, I aim to bring a more utilitarian, versatile, and customizable session history without a substantive increase in memory or processing overhead. In the near future, I may lay out a more detailed description of my aims, but for now, that's being kept under wraps.

f e a t u r e s

Currently, Session History Extension (SHExt) doesn't have all the features that I have planned for it, since I've only started work on it recently. As I add and build up more features, I will be releasing incremental versions as well as development versions in the interim for testing and milestone purposes. The release versions will be available on addons.mozilla.org (UMO) and here, but the development versions will only be available for download here since UMO only takes stable and non-buggy versions of extensions. Check out the development versions for the newest features.

Current features include:

Many new features are already planned and in the works for future versions of SHExt. Any comments and/or suggestions are welcome. See below for contact information.

c h a n g e l o g

NOTES

  1. Development versions are released whenever I feel I have reached a relatively stable point which is appropriate for public testing. Hence, dev version numbering will not appear sequential in the changelog since it only reflects public versions.
  2. Features in dev versions are not reflected in the features list above.

0.3.2dev1 (7 March 2006)

0.3.1.2 (2 February 2006)

0.3.1.1 (23 January 2006)

0.3.1 (21 January 2006)

0.3.1dev6 (10 January 2006)

0.3.1dev4 (30 December 2005)

0.3 (21 December 2005)

s e s s i o n   h i s t o r y   e x t e n s i o n   a n d   f o r w a r d f o r k

SHExt is a completely new extension written for the same reason as was ForwardFork: to provide greater functionality of the session history to Firefox users. However, SHExt is a completely new extension, independent of ForwardFork, which, I believe, provides a more elegant solution to remedy the shortcomings in Firefox's (and all other web browsers') session history implementations. However, to show SHExt's roots from ForwardFork, the initial version is 0.3.

Based upon the complexity of merging the code, the ability to integrate it into the UI more effectively, and user demand, ForwardFork's functionality may be included in future versions of SHExt. However, new features will not be added to ForwardFork, and new versions will only be released to maintain current functionality of the extension.

For more information on ForwardFork, visit its homepage on mozdev.

c o n t a c t   i n f o r m a t i o n

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, you can email at waymost[AT]gmail[DOT]com.