Sage-Too Blog

A few people reported some weirdness with the Sage-Too preview page, and after much head scratching, we managed to work out that the weirdness is caused by Torbutton. Torbutton isn’t doing anything wrong, but it has a security option that prevents local HTML files (i.e. Those opened using file:///) from accessing the network. Of course this causes problems with the preview page, because images and enclosures have to be fetched over the network.

Here is an example of what the preview page might look like when Torbutton is blocking file:/// access to your network (Click the image to view it full size): -

And here is how to fix the problem. In the Torbutton options, on the Security Settings tab, make sure that the Block access to network from file:// urls option is not selected.

If you’d like more info on the problem, it was originally reported here - http://www.wizzrss.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=77

Last night (South African time) I went into #addons and asked Archaeopteryx to review Sage-Too 1.0.0. Archaeopteryx is one of the more helpful people that hang-out in #addons, so when he said that he’d look into it, I went off to bed feeling assured that 1.0.0 would finally get out of the review queue.

Alas, on checking the status of 1.0.0 this morning, I found that its status is still Pending Review.

I went into #addons again this morning, to find out if anyone was available to review 1.0.0. In typical AMO fashion, I was ignored.

I’m sorry if it seems that I’m using Sage-Too to pursue a personal agenda with AMO. I can assure all of you that this definitely isn’t the case. However I do believe very strongly that AMO needs to take a serious look at itself and its disservice to extension and theme developers.

So I relent After all, there isn’t much point in bashing my head against a brick wall.

You can get Sage-Too 1.0.0. here - Sage-Too 1.0.0

I’ve just submitted Sage-Too version 1.0.0 to AMO. Of course it has landed in the AMO sandbox again I think that AMO should adopt a policy of automatically trusting signed extensions, but anyway, I digress…

Jeff T and Higmmer have once again added a huge load of yummy new functionality There is too much to list all of it on AMO, so I thought it would be a good idea to list it here. I’m really not sure who should get credit for what, so we’ll give both of them a very hearty “thank you for all the hard work!”

Here is a copy and paste of what Higmmer posted in the Sage-Too Forum: -

1. Feed View
1-1. Show only updated feeds
1-2. Show updated feed count on folders
1-3. Hide no-updated folders (works with above two)

2. User Interface
2-1. Cancellable “Check Feeds” button with distinct animation
2-2. New button to toggle all folders open/close
2-3. Smaller toolbar buttons
2-4. Feed filter is now associated with enter key as well as mouse click

3. Update Checker
3-1. “Automatically check feeds on opening sidebar” is now attached to every opening sidebar. If “Startup only” is checked, it only works on startup as in the former version.

4. Bug Fixes
4-1. Fails to import OPML that contains empty folders
4-2. Cannot resolve relative path of Atom that has no “xml:base” specifier

5. Others
(I think these are unnecessary to publish in AMO)
5-1. Disable NEXT button when importing OPML not to get duplicated feeds
5-2. Add ALT attribute to icon images (technorati and sbm_add)

Note: “Automatically check feeds” works only when the sideabar is opened. This is not a bug but a feature comes from some technological reason. It’s not easy to enable on current implementation (sorry to Diago).

Note2: This version also includes “Realtime refresh of counters” but it’s still disabled by default because I’m not sure it works well. I’m hoping it gets fixed in Fx3rc2.

Note3: I’m working on implementation of “Advanced Settings” so that users can configure all of new features (especially filter things) without “about:config”. I think it will take several days, so please feel free to release 1.0.0 without waiting my work.

Also, thanks very much to Phillipp who provided us with some cool new icons. Version 1.0.0. uses the new icon, which looks like this: -

At last, Sage-Too is out of the AMO sandbox.

Although, in terms of how long new extensions usually stay in the sandbox, Sage-Too was in and out like a flash. I guess that nagging every day in #addons helps? I drip on them like Chinese torture It’s a real pity that making a meaningful contribution to Firefox is such an uphill battle.

Thanks to EVERYONE who took the time to post comments Not a single bad one… Yet!

OK! So what next?

Firstly I’d like to apply all of the additional good stuff that both Higmmer and Jeff T have done. I’d also like to move the default Sage folder out of the Places root and put it into the Bookmarks Menu folder. I’d also like to bump maxVersion to 3.0.*. And then of course, a nice big code cleanup!

Jeff T and Higmmer: Can you guys point me to your latest code changes? Should we make the next release version 1.0.0?

0.9.0 is only one day old and you’ve released a new version already?

Yes! It’s to avoid being driven crazy by people telling me that 0.9.0 doesn’t work with Firefox 3.0rc1

0.9.1 is ONLY a maxVersion bump of 0.9.0. Jeff T has done some good stuff on adding even more functionality. I haven’t included Jeff T’s latest stuff in 0.9.1, but I will get around to it soon.

Guys (Which of course also includes gals), we need to get Sage-Too out of the AMO Sandbox! Getting ANYTHING out of the AMO Sandbox is best described as a frustrating exercise in bashing-head-against-wall. So please review Sage-Too, it’ll help to rid it of the kitty litter. I guess nagging at #amo might also help, but don’t tell ‘em that I sent you!

It was going to be Sage 2.0.0, but because of recent events regarding the continuation of development with the original Sage, it has become Sage-Too 0.9.0.

Sage-Too also has a new UUID. This is to avoid any conflict with the original Sage. For those who are interested, the Sage-Too UUID is 0f9daf7e-2ee2-4fcf-9d4f-d43d93963420

So, at long last, Sage-Too has been submitted to AMO. Unfortunately it is in the Sandbox, and it can be found here - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7263

The following problems have been fixed in Sage-Too 0.9.0: -

• Thanks to ty the Chrome URL CSS problem was solved and contentaccessible=yes was added to chrome.manifest.
• Higmmer fixed a two year old bug with the OPML export. The OPML export would delete all files and subdirectories when exporting to a manually selected path.

At last I’ve managed to replicate the bug reported by ray913 here - http://www.wizzrss.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=30

The bug only applies to Firefox 3.0pre, and this is what is happening: -

When the Use custom style sheet option is not being used, by default Sage uses the CSS from chrome://sage/content/res/sage.css

For some weird reason, Firefox 3.0pre is refusing to load CSS using a chrome URL.

When the Use custom style sheet option is being used, Sage gets the CSS from a file URL and everything is cool.

I have hacked a workaround (Yeah… Another one… Sigh!) to get around the bug by reading the text from sage.css and inserting it into style tags inside the HTML template. Yeah, I know it’s ugly, but it works.

Somehow I need to remember to undo all the hacks when the bugs in Firefox 3 get fixed… If ever

After getting another reply from Peter Andrews I’ve decided to follow Ludwig’s advice. Peter Andrews reply reads as follows: -

Yeah, unfortunately the volume of Sage email is too great for me to
respond to most of the messages I get. I’m glad to see that you’ve
taken a stab at a FF3 compatible version. I’d encourage you to submit
patches to see what we might want to merge in to the current code
base:

A stab?!

Ludwig’s advice reads as follows: -

Works great, thanks for fixing the folder selection bug… and for the automatic check feature!

I’d suggest submitting the new extension to amo anyways, with another name like Sage NG. The original sage devs had the great idea and a good product but the proved not to be reliable enough to keep it up and pay attention to their users… years passed since they last showed up! …. Who knows if sage 1.4 will ever see the light of day? and now i just don’t care that much

cheers

So I thought that Sage Too might be a nice name

Of course this all depends on whether or not Higmmer and Jeff T agree. If both of you agree, please give me your author details so that I can add the extension to AMO and update the Created By section of the about information for the extension. Please also supply a list of the capabilities of Sage so that they can be listed in the description section on AMO.

Release candidate one

It probably sounds a little pretentious, but hey! I think a lot of good work has gone into making it ready for Firefox 3. A special word of thanks to both Jeff T and Higmmer who have added some much sought after functionality, making Sage, in my opinion, a much better feed reader. Thanks also to everyone who has contributed by reporting bugs and testing various “fixes.”

At this point I’d like to freeze any further development on version 2.0.0. From now until submission to AMO, only bug fixes please. So if you find any bugs, please report them here - http://www.wizzrss.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=17

Hopefully we won’t find any bugs, but if we do, we’ll fix ‘em and release 2.0.0rc2. Once everyone is happy that the code is bug free, we’ll ask the guys at AMO to update the Sage account with the new code.

All of Higmmer’s additions to Sage 2 have been documented here - http://himag.blog26.fc2.com/file/sagepp-customize-reference.html?lang=en. Please read through the documentation. I’m sure it’ll help in making full use of the goodies he has added.

You can get 2.0.0rc1 here - http://blat.co.za/XPIs/sage200rc1.xpi

At last I found the Select Feed Folder bug! Of course it was staring me right in the face!

For those of you who’d like to fix the bug yourself, do this: -

In settings.js change this line

findFolders(node.itemId, aPopup, aDepth + 1);

to

findFolders(aItemId, aPopup, aDepth + 1);

I will make a patched version of 1.9.4 available, but I’d also like to include all of the changes made by Jeff T and Higmmer. So a bit later today I’ll pull all of the changes together, including the Select Feed Folder bugfix , and I’ll make it available for download.