Firefox 11 for developers
Firefox 11 shipped on March 13, 2012. This article provides information about the new features and key bugs fixed in this release, as well as links to more detailed documentation for both web developers and add-on developers.
Changes for Web developers
HTML
DOM
- The
element.outerHTML
property is now supported on HTML elements. XMLHttpRequest
supports HTML parsing.- Removed support for using the
XMLHttpRequest
responseType
andwithCredentials
attributes when performing synchronous requests. Attempting to do so throws anNS_ERROR_DOM_INVALID_ACCESS_ERR
exception. This change has been proposed to the W3C for standardization. - The new
window.navigator.mozVibrate()
method lets you vibrate the device where supported; this is implemented asmozVibrate()
on Gecko. window.navigator.mozApps
returns anApps
object you can use to install and manage open web applications.MozBeforePaint
events are no longer fired.mozRequestAnimationFrame()
consumers who used these should pass a callback function instead.- Support for canceling animation frame requests has been added;
window.mozRequestAnimationFrame()
now returns a request ID value, which you can pass towindow.mozCancelAnimationFrame()
to cancel the request. - Several
Event
constructors (Event
, HTML events,UIEvent
, andMouseEvent
) introduced in DOM4 specifications are now supported. - The
Battery API
is now enabled by default. - Support for the
defaultMuted
,loop
andmuted
properties onHTMLMediaElement
has been added. - Calling
Document/exitFullscreen
now restores the previously fullscreen element if some other element was in fullscreen mode when the current element'sElement/requestFullScreen
method was called. - The
window.mozRequestAnimationFrame()
method no longer supports a no-argument form. This form was not used much and is unlikely to become part of the standard. - SVG-as-an-image can now be drawn into a canvas without tainting the canvas.
- The non-standard
countryCode
property of theGeoPositionAddress
interface has been removed; seensIDOMGeoPositionAddress
. - Server-sent events now support CORS.
- In the past, when the user followed a link, the values set on the
window.navigator
object were retained by the new page. Now a newnavigator
object is created for the new page. This makes Firefox behave like all other browsers.
CSS
- the
text-size-adjust
property is now supported - CSS3 Conditional Rules are now better supported: nested statements can now be added to @media, @-moz-document. (See CSS Syntax and CSS at-rules).
JavaScript
No change.
SVG
- The
SVGSVGElement
DOM interface now support thegetElementById
method.
WebSocket
- WebSocket API now supports binary messages (see Firefox bug 676439).
- Both the protocol and the API has been updated to the latest draft of the specification and the API has been unprefixed (see Firefox bug 666349 and Firefox bug 695635).
- Previously, messages sent and received using WebSockets in Firefox were limited to 16 MB in size; they may now be up to 2 GB (although memory capacity limitations may prevent them from being that large, Firefox supports it).
IndexedDB
-
The support for IDBFactory.cmp() has been added.
-
An IndexedDB key can also be of one of the following types: Date, Arrays and Float (and not only String and Integer).
-
From now on, transactions are started when the transaction is created, not when the first request is placed; for example consider this:
jsvar trans1 = db.transaction("foo", READ_WRITE); var trans2 = db.transaction("foo", READ_WRITE); trans2.put("2", "key"); trans1.put("1", "key");
After the code is executed the object store should contain the value "2", since
trans2
should run aftertrans1
. -
Previous to Firefox 11, object store
autoIncrement
counters were shared across all object stores for a given database, whereas per spec each object store should have a separate counter. This is now fixed. -
It is now possible to create an index with an empty
keyPath
. -
It is now possible to create a multi-entry index (see
IDBObjectStore.createIndex
parameters.) -
The
abort
event now bubbles; in addition, anonabort
handler has been added. -
IndexedDB can now be used to store files/blobs.
-
IndexedDB now supports complex key paths, e.g.
foo.bar
to access propertybar
of propertyfoo
. -
IndexedDB can now accept an array as a
keyPath
when creating an object store or an index (Firefox bug 694138.)
Network
- The change in Firefox 8 that removed support for double quote characters as delimiters for RFC 2231 and RFC 5987 has been reverted, as this broke some sites, including Outlook Web Access.
- The user agent string in HTTP headers now includes an identifier that lets the server know if the Firefox accessing it is a phone or a tablet.
Developer tools
- The Page Inspector now offers a 3D view if your system supports WebGL.
- The new Style Editor provides a free-form way to edit and compose CSS style sheets in real-time.
- The View Source feature now uses the new HTML5 parser instead of the old HTML parser.
Changes for Mozilla and add-on developers
JavaScript code modules
NetUtil.jsm
readInputStreamToString()
has a new, optional, parameter to configure the character set interpretation while reading the input stream.
New JavaScript code modules
source-editor.jsm
-
Provides a convenient, easy-to-use source code editor that you can use in your add-ons. This is the same editor used by Scratchpad and other developer tools integrated into Firefox.
Interface changes
- The
mozIAsyncHistory
interface has a new methodmozIAsyncHistory.isURIVisited()
to check if a URI has been visited. - A new interface
mozIVisitStatusCallback
has been added to provide callback handling functionality formozIAsyncHistory.isURIVisited()
. - The
nsIMacDockSupport
interface now supports adding a text badge to the application's icon in the Dock using its newbadgeText
attribute. - In the
nsINavHistoryResultObserver
interface, you now need to implementnsINavHistoryResultObserver.containerStateChanged()
instead of the obsoletecontainerOpened()
andcontainerClosed()
methods.
Removed interfaces
The following interfaces were implementation details that are no longer needed:
nsICharsetResolver
nsIDOMNSElement
, see bug707576, usensIDOMElement
instead.
Theme-related changes
- The
omni.jar
file is now calledomni.ja
.
Preference changes
ui.tooltipDelay
-
Specifies the delay, in milliseconds, between the mouse cursor beginning to hover and the display of a tooltip.
Build system changes
- The
--enable-tracejit
build option has been removed.
Other changes
- Add-ons that have not been updated in a long time are no longer assumed to be compatible by default; this is currently add-ons that indicate a
maxVersion
of 4.0.