Here’s the next version of my Color Management extension. This is just a compatibility update, supporting Firefox 3 RC1. In the next week I plan on releasing another version with some feature enhancements.
I’ve been having trouble uploading the new version to the Firefox Add-ons Site (the connection keeps timing out), so for now it’ll only be available here.
I own an HP tx1000z Tablet PC. It’s a really great notebook, but the touchscreen isn’t all I thought it would be. I’d heard about this software called Touchkit that could increase screen sensitivity (among other options), and until today was unable to successfully find it.
Touchkit, made by EETI, has versions for Linux, Mac, and Windows (including Vista). I recommend disabling cursor stabilization if you’re going to be writing: open the Calibration Utility, click the Setting tab, then click Option.
Well, fixing the bugs in my Color Management extension went a lot faster than I though, and in 3 short days I had a usable release. Last night I posted my extension to the Firefox Add-ons site and the Songbird Add-ons site. It’s nice to see that in the 10 hours since I first posted it, my extension has been downloaded 7 times from the Songbird site.
I was able to add in the file browser fairly quickly, which is something I wasn’t planning on doing until after the first release. It’s a really simple extension, so all that’s left to do is add more localizations and fix bugs if there are any. If anyone finds any bugs or has a localization to add, just post below and I’ll add it in. The only other thing I can think of is linking to the ICC test page and/or putting the test image right in the extension.
Download the Color Management extension (Firefox 3.0b4, Songbird 0.5)
Below are links to information on Color Management that I found useful:
Firefox 3: color managed web browser coming near to you
FireFox 3 – Color Management Done Right
Gfx.color_management.display_profile
Safari ushers in better browser colors
So, I set up this blog about 7 months ago and forgot about it. I intended to talk about projects I was working on but got really busy with classes and never posted anything, not wanting to talk about what I was going to do without actually doing it. I’m about to launch my first small time project though, possibly within a week, and I now have more free time to write about other technology and business related topics of interest to me since I’ve started my co-op, so I decided now’s the time to start posting.
For a long time I’ve had a strong interest in XUL, the language used in applications such as Firefox, Thunderbird, and Songbird. I’ve been reading tutorials for the past 2 weeks and started my first Firefox extension, entitled Color Management. It’s a very simple extension that simply provides a GUI front end for users to enable the color management feature that’s included with Firefox 3, but is disabled by default. Down the road I hope to add new features that might be applicable to color management.
In case you’re wondering, color management allows images to be displayed with the same color profiles used to create them, meaning images will display in your browser the way they were meant to. This article has a test image showing how different color profiles are displayed in browsers without color management.
Seán Hayes 