Reading about what’s coming in Firefox 2, makes me think that we may want to brainstorm a bit on what performancing might do to stay ahead of the curve on XUL development.
Well, I don’t know the internal PFF structure, but my file (!) handling list would go like this:
session.ID for open PFF instances. If more than one instance/session is open check for conflicts (below). As long as one session is open check for not closed files (below).
session.ID + file.ID for open PFF files. Auto-save would allow restore of older versions.
file.ID + tmp.ID for changes in open PFF files. Auto-save would allow restore of changes.
The session.ID might only be necessary for informative purposes.
A feature request: Use XML as file format. Allow XML view and editing. Allow XML templates. Save all article/note/whatever preferences in the XML. In the future this might make sense if you want to FTP manual RSS feeds or Google sitemaps.
BTW: FTPing Google sitemaps + Google ping would be a GREAT publishing feature for PFF!
If FF 2.0 comes with an internal database all these storage problems will hopefully be solved if you use that database 🙂
PS: (the TXP mission 🙂 Check out and get in contact with the Textpattern crew because of the new XML-RPC. Textpattern is a superior system 🙂 I want PFF for Textpattern …
Markus.
Yeah, I need to think about that one.
I guess one thing I could do as a temporary fix is on PFF load, check to see if other instances of PFF are loading, and if so, alert the user that having two open can cause data loss and suggest to close one of the instances.
Then I’ll think of how to handle multiple instances gracefully (or not allow them at all).
@Raj: Always welcome 😉
@Jed: ‘concur’, a nice new word. What’s the difference to ‘agree’?
Jed, can you do something about that? I think that many people using PFF won’t follow the forum here and such bad behavior might result in bad words.
Like file locking, tmp files which will be consolidated when the last session exits/minimizes.
Or is it better for us to wait until FF 2.0
As I found out today, after 6 hours of note-taking in parallel PFF tabs, this was a very bad idea. I lost all of my new edits to one “notes” file.
I concur with Markus.
While you can use multiple instances of PFF for blogging.
They will not communicate between the two of them so editing notes, etc. could result in data loss (i.e. create a new note in one, then edit a different note in the other and you may loose the first note).
Don’t post to different servers from open PFF tabs or from PFF open in different FF windows. I had posts for one blog showing up on another!
I didn’t test that behavior for a long time but be careful when using parallel instances of PFF!
Thanks for the tip, Nick!! Now I can have several PFF tabs open in Firefox simultaneously. Wow. Guess I should’ve read the user guide
Interesting.
@Nick, yeah, in firefox 2.0 it would be alot more effecient to
Agreed, storage could be a fun thing to flirt with. The specific link you gave I believe is more for webapps info storage. If i’m not mistaken, sqlLite will be included in 2.0 which could be huge for local firefox extension storage, etc.
Yeah, allpeers has there stuff together. Should be cool once it’s out of beta and more people get onboard. I think the power of allpeers is leveraging their p2p platform, they (and others) will be able to build lots of kick-ass applications around their platform.
I’ll brain storm on some other things that could apply to pff as well.
citrus, just right-click the little notepad icon at the bottom right of your FF and choose how you want it to open
Raj, good points on metrics
i was thinking more of something apart from pff/metrics, and more along the lines of local storage… Allpeers are doing good things i hear, but i dont have an invite so cant verify, but we dont want to go that route
there are lots of things we could do though im sure
Sorry, but what I love about PFF is that it sits in the same plane as the web browser. That’s its beauty, and the reason I find my blogging productivity higher because of it. Don’t change it. (Note: It’s annoying on a small screen, such as with a laptop. But on a desktop, with 17″ or more, you should find it ideal.)
However, I’m more interested in the improvement of existing features, maybe having folders, and the re-introduction of the ability to adjust the width of the right-hand panes.
XUL-wise, maybe we can have a future feature to monitor the performancing of all our metrics in a single view. Or even better, the ability using XUL to configure the view that we want.
I wish for a full page performancing. Pain in butt to have to share it with the web page of Firefox… whatever is on at the moment. Messy.
11 thoughts on “Staying Ahead of the XUL Curve”
Well, I don’t know the internal PFF structure, but my file (!) handling list would go like this:
The session.ID might only be necessary for informative purposes.
A feature request: Use XML as file format. Allow XML view and editing. Allow XML templates. Save all article/note/whatever preferences in the XML. In the future this might make sense if you want to FTP manual RSS feeds or Google sitemaps.
BTW: FTPing Google sitemaps + Google ping would be a GREAT publishing feature for PFF!
If FF 2.0 comes with an internal database all these storage problems will hopefully be solved if you use that database 🙂
PS: (the TXP mission 🙂 Check out and get in contact with the Textpattern crew because of the new XML-RPC. Textpattern is a superior system 🙂 I want PFF for Textpattern …
Markus.
Yeah, I need to think about that one.
I guess one thing I could do as a temporary fix is on PFF load, check to see if other instances of PFF are loading, and if so, alert the user that having two open can cause data loss and suggest to close one of the instances.
Then I’ll think of how to handle multiple instances gracefully (or not allow them at all).
@Raj: Always welcome 😉
@Jed: ‘concur’, a nice new word. What’s the difference to ‘agree’?
Jed, can you do something about that? I think that many people using PFF won’t follow the forum here and such bad behavior might result in bad words.
Like file locking, tmp files which will be consolidated when the last session exits/minimizes.
Or is it better for us to wait until FF 2.0
As I found out today, after 6 hours of note-taking in parallel PFF tabs, this was a very bad idea. I lost all of my new edits to one “notes” file.
I concur with Markus.
While you can use multiple instances of PFF for blogging.
They will not communicate between the two of them so editing notes, etc. could result in data loss (i.e. create a new note in one, then edit a different note in the other and you may loose the first note).
Don’t post to different servers from open PFF tabs or from PFF open in different FF windows. I had posts for one blog showing up on another!
I didn’t test that behavior for a long time but be careful when using parallel instances of PFF!
Thanks for the tip, Nick!! Now I can have several PFF tabs open in Firefox simultaneously. Wow. Guess I should’ve read the user guide
Interesting.
@Nick, yeah, in firefox 2.0 it would be alot more effecient to
Agreed, storage could be a fun thing to flirt with. The specific link you gave I believe is more for webapps info storage. If i’m not mistaken, sqlLite will be included in 2.0 which could be huge for local firefox extension storage, etc.
Yeah, allpeers has there stuff together. Should be cool once it’s out of beta and more people get onboard. I think the power of allpeers is leveraging their p2p platform, they (and others) will be able to build lots of kick-ass applications around their platform.
I’ll brain storm on some other things that could apply to pff as well.
citrus, just right-click the little notepad icon at the bottom right of your FF and choose how you want it to open
Raj, good points on metrics
i was thinking more of something apart from pff/metrics, and more along the lines of local storage… Allpeers are doing good things i hear, but i dont have an invite so cant verify, but we dont want to go that route
there are lots of things we could do though im sure
Sorry, but what I love about PFF is that it sits in the same plane as the web browser. That’s its beauty, and the reason I find my blogging productivity higher because of it. Don’t change it. (Note: It’s annoying on a small screen, such as with a laptop. But on a desktop, with 17″ or more, you should find it ideal.)
However, I’m more interested in the improvement of existing features, maybe having folders, and the re-introduction of the ability to adjust the width of the right-hand panes.
XUL-wise, maybe we can have a future feature to monitor the performancing of all our metrics in a single view. Or even better, the ability using XUL to configure the view that we want.
I wish for a full page performancing. Pain in butt to have to share it with the web page of Firefox… whatever is on at the moment. Messy.
Citrus
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