John Dyer

Early next week, I'll be releasing the last 3.x release of FreeTextBox. The main issues that will be addressed are ASP.NET 2.0 Beta 2 compatilibity issues:

• There are some issues with the dynamic file handler
  
• Visual Studio Design time support

After that all work will be on FreeTextBox 4.0. Here are some of the initial goals:

• No bugs ;)
  
• Safari support
• Totally new toolbar system
• Toolbars usable for other things (not tied to FreeTextBox, can function as a separate control)
• One toolbar for multiple FreeTextBox editors
  
• Multiple toolbars for each FreeTextBox
• Draggable (floating)
  
• Work in a separate frame
• Full XHTML support (even for IE)
• Localized text in JavaScript windows
• Rich dropdownlists instead of standard select boxes (also functional as a separate control)
  
• New popup window UI (for insertions)
  
• Themeable through CSS/stylesheets (instead of lots of .NET properties)
• Full-screen editing
• Much, much more...
  

Here's a screenshot of the early UI (two editors, three toolbars):

Working with FreeTextBox and other JavaScript controls requires a lot of os/brower testing. Below are some of the tools I use to get the job done on one machine.

• PC
  • Internet Explorer
    • I have IE 6.0 installed on my development machine, but I test IE 4.0, 5.0, IE 5.5, and IE 7.0 (beta 1) using the technique described in this tutorial (download).
    • The IE team has released a new developer toolbar that has some of the feature of the Mozilla toolbar (and a few tasty new ones).
  • Netscape 4.x
    • Still available for download at Netscape's FTP site (version 4.8)
    • I don't write for NS4 (I gave up on "layer" madness a long time ago), but since we have a lot of foriegn visitors, we need to ensure our sites are still functional - another great reason to code with standards.
  • Opera
    • Now that its ad-free, testing is a lot nicer. Download. (older versions)
  • Mozilla
    • Still the easiest to test, generally the same across Windows, Linux, and Mac.
• Mac
• PearPC - PearPC is a free Mac emulator for the PC. It's possible, though very difficult to get OSX running inside PearPC. Great tutorial on setting it up.
• Synergy - if you do have a Mac you can use for testing, you can control the Mac from your PC (or viceversa) as if it were a second monitor. Synergy is the coolest Open Source app I've seen. I can't believe someone is not making millions off of the idea! If you need to have multiple testers, then I'd recommend using VNC.
• Safari 1.x and 2.0 support HTML editing and I'm working to include this in the next version of FreeTextBox. We also need to test XHTML/CSS on Safari, IE5, and Mozilla. JavaScript testing is also crucial, but it requries a little work to get it up. Apple has a good Developer FAQ.
• Enable Safari debug window
• Linux
  • The two things I'm looking for in Linux is ensuring that code works the same in all Mozilla version (which it does 99% of the time) and that other browsers (Konquerer, etc.) don't do anything weird.
  • When looking to download a Linux disto its sometimes hard to find a link to a free download. The best place to find downloads is LinuxISO.
  • Knoppix - knoppix is a linux distro designed to fit on a single bootable CD. All you need to do is download it, burn it, and reboot. It has most of the utilities you need (including several browser versions) and even lets you install plugins like Flash.
  • VMWare - if you don't want to reboot your machine, VMWare is the answer for Linux (and older versions of Windows if you need it). It does require you to pick a distro and figure out how to install it, but most distros come with all the apps/browsers you need. We use either Novell's SuSE (since that's our server flavor) or Red Hat since it's easy to use.
  • Virtual PC - I haven't used Microsoft's Virtual PC, but I hear it's pretty good.
  • Synergy - again, if you have another PC lying around, Synery is a great way to test it without using terminals and such.

Link Summary

• Standalone IE verions tutorial (download)
• Old Browser Archive
• LinuxISO
• VMWare
• Knoppix
• Synergy
• Enable Safari debug window

Note: This post doesn't cover mono/ASP.NET on Linux. It's only for browser testing.

In a time of great need, it is interesting to compare the home pages of several companies to see how their ideologies about how business works affect their responses to these real world situations. I read slashdot and digg amoung other tech news websites and there are usually a few posts a day and plenty of follow-up replies about how Microsoft or Wal-mart are terrible and how FOSS software and the FOSS community is wonderful.

Here are the home pages of a few large corporations:

Microsoft	Wal-Mart
Dell	Starbucks

All of those companies have links to hurricane Katrina relief efforts prominently placed on their homepage. Both Microsoft and Wal-mart (as well as Oracle, Sun, and even SCO) have donated huge amounts of resources, people, and cash to the victims.

In contrast here are a few sites that the MS-hater crowd loves ;)

Eric S. Raymond (self-proclaimed "Microsoft's worst nightmare")	The Register
Linux.org	Red Hat
Debian	Slashdot

I'm not seeing a whole lot of effort to help those in need. I realize that its not the goal of these websites or companies to make enough money to be able to help people with it. They are news sites and non-funded projects. But it is striking to see that while something major is going on in the real world, the leaders in the OSS movement just keep on blasting big corporations, while those big corporations are the ones actually helping people. There's not even a link that says "Hey while we're busy demonizing companies with a different business model, let's take a few minutes out to consider what's actually happening and donate a few bucks to the Red Cross."

Don't get me wrong. I hate that the MS Office format is closed. I wish IE 7 would have come out 2 years ago. I hate that Wal-mart doesn't let employees unionize. At the same time, I love open source software. I've participated in several open source projects. I run Linux and Open Office in certain situtations. I'm a "right tool for the job" kind of guy. That's why I think those who love to hate these companies should reconsider their claims that Microsoft, Wal-mart, Google, Starbucks, etc. are the devil. Sure, they're not perfect... but the propriatary software companies come through in the clutch, something I can't say for most of the Open Source companies.