Older blog entries for lucasr (starting at number 242)

HTML5 Form Validation in Firefox Mobile

My patches to add HTML5 form validation support to Firefox Mobile have landed in trunk yesterday. This feature has been available on desktop since Firefox 4 but it wasn’t implemented in Firefox Mobile until now.

In case you haven’t heard about it, HTML5 supports automatic input validation. This means that your browser can take care of validating form fields for you—no need to write custom JavaScript code to check for required fields or validate common types of input such as numbers, emails, URLs, etc.

So, how does HTML5 form validation look in Firefox Mobile? Very similar to Firefox on desktop. If you submit a form that contains any invalid data—an invalid email address, a required field that was not filled in, and so on—the form will not be submitted, all invalid fields will be marked with a subtle red border, and the first invalid element will be automatically focused showing its respective validation message (see image above).

As far as I know, the only mobile browsers that support HTML5 form validation right now are Firefox and Opera. You can try this feature on our mobile nightly build. As usual, general feedback, bug reports, and patches are welcome!

Syndicated 2011-09-20 14:38:18 from lucasr.org

Firefox for Tablets on Nightly

Firefox for Tablets

We, Firefox Mobile front-enders, have been working hard for the last few weeks to get the new Firefox UI for tablets in place for general testing. It has now reached a functional state that is good enough for getting some early feedback. So, how can you help us?

First of all, you can simply install Fennec’s nightly build on your Android tablet and give us some thoughtful feedback on the UI. File bugs for the missing bits from the planned design, report interaction problems, let us know about broken bits, etc.

Secondly, if you want to contribute code, have a look at our current list of tablet-related bugs—see the dependent bugs—and let us know what bugs you want to work on. Setting up a Fennec development environment is fairly simple, you can find instructions in the wiki.  Feel free to ask for help either on IRC (#mobile at irc.mozilla.org) or on the specific bug reports. Just ping mfinkle, mbrubeck, wesj, sriram, or me.

Keep in mind that this is very early stage work. There are lots of rough edges and design is continuously evolving. In case you missed it, Ian Barlow, from our Mobile design team, has blogged about the tablet UI design a couple of weeks ago—definitely worth reading. This is all looking very promising and we can’t wait to get it out to users once it’s ready!

Syndicated 2011-09-13 04:57:29 from lucasr.org

Hello Mozilla!

This is my first post aggregated on both Planet Mozilla and Planet Mozilla Mobile. I guess it’s a good time to introduce myself to the Mozilla community. I joined Mozilla about a month ago to work on Firefox  Mobile. I’ll be mostly focusing on UI-related bits and pieces of Fennec as part of the front-end group—which is in fact what I’m most passionate about.

Before Mozilla, I worked for three years at litl—a Boston-based startup—where I hacked on the cloud-based OS that powers the webbook. The litl OS is almost entirely written in JavaScript and it was while working on it that I really got hooked into the language. Before litl, I was part of Maemo’s UI framework team at Nokia where I worked throughout the entire development cycle of  the N810 internet tablet.

I’m also a long time GNOME contributor. I’ve done all sorts of things in the project such as being a member of GNOME Foundation’s Board of Directors, being part of GNOME’s release team, and maintaining a few official modules. I don’t hold any official positions in the project anymore but I’m still working on a cool spare-time project based on GNOME platform.

My first month at Mozilla has been great overall. To be honest, I felt a bit overwhelmed in the first couple of weeks. It’s a quite humbling experience to join such a large community full of extremely talented and passionate contributors. It’s a whole new world to me and I’m learning quite a bit everyday—which is the very reason I joined Mozilla anyway. I hope to be blogging soon about the latest news on Fennec development. For instance, there’s some really exciting work being done on the tablet UI for Fennec now! Stay tuned!

Syndicated 2011-08-23 00:11:00 from lucasr.org

Desktop Summit 2011

I could not attend GUADEC last year for a very good reason. So I’m really happy that I’ll be able to go to Berlin for the second Desktop Summit this year! This is my first GNOME conference without holding any official roles in the project since 2007. This means I’ll hopefully have more time to just hang out with my fellow hackers. I’ll arrive on the 6th of August and leave on the 10th.

I guess it’s a good time to announce that I’ll be giving two talks this year. The first one is about GNOME development in JavaScript with Gjs. It will be on the 7th of August (Sunday) at 9h40 in the morning. Hopefully, a few attendees will wake up earlier for this talk!

The second talk is about The Board, one of my current pet projects, which you have probably heard about. I’ll demonstrate the current features and talk about the future plans for the app. I hope to finish some awesome new features in time for the conference. Let’s see. This talk will be on the 8th of August (Monday) at 14h40.

This is also my first open source conference as a Mozillian. So, if you want to know a bit more about Firefox Mobile, just find me at the conference venue for a chat. All in all, I’m very excited about the conference this year! See you all there!

Syndicated 2011-08-02 05:17:01 from lucasr.org

Orixá Mutante

Orixá Mutante

Davi Moraes is mostly known as the guitarist who played with famous Brazilian artists like Caetano Veloso and Vanessa da Mata. He’s a remarkable sideman but his solo albums are well worth having a look. Orixá Mutante is Davi’s second album released in 2004.

The album opens with Ganzá which has one of the grooviest guitar riffs I’ve ever seen. Som das Ruas follows with high-vibe funky beat. Pretoriana and I’m Still in Love with You bring the reggae sauce to the pot. Tô na Sua is a slow tempo funky balad with amazing vocalized guitar solos. Liquidificador de Orixás is a punchy afrobeat a la Femi Kuti. The album also features the original recording of Café com Pão which became a big hit a few years later in Salvador’s carnival.

Orixá Mutante is a great showcase of what I consider the best side of axé music. A fusion of all sorts of music genres, from Afro-Caribbean to funk. Style-wise, this album is similar to some of the best stuff by Carlinhos Brown such as Omelete Man which is, in my opinion, Brown’s greatest masterpiece. What differentiates Davi from Brown is his lyrical style as well as his strong focus on the overlayed guitar riffs.

This album should definitely be in your playlist if you enjoy good afro-groovy music!

Syndicated 2011-07-05 22:31:47 from lucasr.org

London’s Best Coffees

Monmouth Coffee by Erik Hartberg (CC-BY-NC-ND)

As a good Brazilian, I love good coffee. Here’s a short list of my favourite coffee shops in London. Most of them are in central London because they are close to litl’s office in Tottenham Court Road, where I worked for more than two years.

Monmouth. I usually go to their Covent Garden branch at Monmouth Street. Small, cosy, and earthy. They have two other branches. They import and provide coffee for restaurants too. For instance, my favourite pizza place in London serves Monmouth’s coffee. Perfect combination!

Milk Bar. Tiny coffee shop at Bateman street. Young and indie atmosphere. They expose art work from local artists in their shop, pretty cool.

Tapped & Packed. They are at Rathbone Place, number 26. Keep the street number in mind because the name of the shop is not shown anywhere—as far as I could see. They serve the tallest Victoria sponge I’ve ever seen!

Sacred. This is a little coffee place inside the Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush. They have the creamiest flat white. Delicious!

If you have any other suggestions, please post them as comments. I’m definitely looking forward to hearing about other good coffee places in the city!

Syndicated 2011-06-29 23:26:36 from lucasr.at.mundo

Joining Mozilla

I’m really excited to announce that I’m joining the Mozilla folks to work on Firefox Mobile! There are several reasons why I’m excited about it, here are a few of them.

Big Challenges. All major mobile platforms have their own built-in web browser. Being a third-party browser in the mobile space means that you have to offer an extremely compelling product in order to convince users to switch. And I do believe Mozilla can make it happen. Allowing users to seamlessly go from desktop to mobile without interruption is a major step on the right direction. I’m sure more compelling features will come out.

Space for innovation. The web browsing experience on mobile devices carries much less legacy than on desktop. This means there are less barriers and constraints for innovation and a lot of space for experimentation. For instance, tablets bring a whole world of possibilities in terms of new features and interaction models for larger touchscreens.

Global, public benefit, open source. It feels good to work for a public benefit organization that is fully committed to improving the web. Mozilla is also a huge open source community. I’m sure it will be a great opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. As a long-time open source contributor, I’m eager to learn more about the Mozilla community and hopefully be able to contribute in a meaningful way.

My first day at Mozilla will only be in July as I want to take a well-deserved break between jobs to clear my head a bit before starting. It will be a good to spend more time with my girls, travel a bit, and maybe work on some of my pet projects.

Exciting times ahead!

Syndicated 2011-06-14 11:36:31 from lucasr.at.mundo

Leaving litl

After three years at litl, it’s time for me to move on. Writing a blog post to announce that you’re leaving is always a bit tricky. In this case, it’s because the experience at litl was so rich in so many ways that to it’s hard to know where start from.

Back in the beginning of 2008, I had already decided to leave the Maemo team at Nokia and started looking for my next gig. I heard about litl for the first time from OpenedHand’s Matthew. He said Havoc was working on something pretty cool there. I had started conversations with a couple of prospective employers but I thought it would be cool to talk to Havoc and get to know a bit more about the company’s plans anyway. I honestly thought it was very unlikely that litl would be my next thing mostly because I was under the impression that they were only hiring in the US.

Fast forward several weeks, I accepted an offer and started working at litl—a few months in Helsinki waiting for my UK work permit then finally in London. And I was not alone, the whole Maemo UI framework and toolkit teams—Tommi, Xan, Johan and I—got hired at the same time! Interestingly, this was not a collective move in any way. We only found out about each other’s interest in litl once we started having our first interviews. It was funny to see the rumors that were founding a Maemo-focused company of some sort.

The first two years at litl were quite intense! Each of us would be working on something totally different each week or month—cache management, webcam, photo app, contacts app, sync protocol, web browser, core UI, plugin framework, etc. All this while we were still trying to finalize the design and interaction model for the product. We finally released the litl webbook, our cloud-based computer, in November 2009. This is, by the way, long before Google actually released Chrome OS.

litl’s team is just awesome, full of extremely talented and generous people—quite a few of them are well-known for their contributions to GNOME and other F/OSS projects. Throughout those years, the team gradually grew on all fronts with people coming from Amazon, Novell, Red Hat, OLPC, US startups, and many others.

I’d like to make a special mention of a few people with whom a worked more closely since I joined. First of all, it was a great pleasure to work with Johan B. and Tommi for almost 5 years, both at Nokia and litl. I learnt a lot with them. Secondly, working with Havoc was an awesome experience. He has this huge talent for solving complex problems besides being simply a nice guy. Last but not least, I loved working with Marco. He is, with no doubt, one of the most passionate developers I’ve ever met.

A lot has changed in the company since the release of webbook. litl is now starting to explore new areas and markets. I feel that I have now ended an important career cycle and it’s time to move on to something new. All in all, I can only thank everyone at litl for the great time I had!

What I’ll be doing next? I guess that’s a topic for my next post :-)

Syndicated 2011-06-13 15:50:26 from lucasr.at.mundo

My Favourite “Tutu”

Dreyfus Night in Paris

The magic of jazz comes mainly from the fact that it’s fundamentally built around improvisation. Reinventing the same tunes over and over again is a core part of the culture among the jazz musicians. This is maybe why I find it so cool to track all the ways by which certain tunes have been performed at different gigs in various moments of jazz’s history. I talked about my favourite performance of the classic So What in a previous post. Now I’d like to talk a bit about my favourite Tutu.

Tutu was composed by the genius Marcus Miller in 1986. It was originally recorded as part of a Miles Davis’ album with same name that was all composed, arranged, and co-produced by Miller. What I find special about Tutu (the tune) is that it shares a lot of the qualities of So What by working as a sort of minimalist platform for great improvisation. The core foundation of Tutu comes from the 3-note bass line with a chord progression that provides the perfect ground for intense solos. My favourite performance of Tutu is in an album called Dreyfus Night in Paris recorded in 1994, three years after Miles’ death.

So, what makes this specific performance so cool? The personnel is fantastic: Marcus Miller (bass), Michel Petrucciani (piano), Kenny Garrett (sax), Bireli Lagrene (guitar), and Lenny White (drums). White and Garret have played with Miles and other giants, Lagrene has a very interesting work with Pastorius, and Petrucciani is just legendary. If you haven’t heard of some of those guys, you should definitely go look for them. You won’t be disappointed!

The solos are fantastic! All of them start setting a quiet atmosphere, with sparse notes and rhythm then go into more complex rhythmic and melodic explorations until reaching a climax with high-pitched notes full of energy. Garret’s dissonant arpeggios are overwhelmingly cool. Lagrene brings in a highly melodic solo full of tempo-bending riffs. Petrucciani has such a Hancockian precision in his solo that it almost feels like he’s composing a new tune while improving. Finally, Miller turns his bass into a percussion instrument while still playing the bass line.

So, in summary, Tutu in Dreyfus Night in Paris is 16 minutes of pure energy with remarkable solos. Other people have positively reviewed this album before—good reads if you want to know a bit more about the album.

Syndicated 2011-06-05 22:38:31 from lucasr.at.mundo

The Board 0.1.3

The Board 0.1.3

Time for a new development snapshot release of The Board! I’ve just uploaded the 0.1.3 tarball. Get it while it’s hot! So, what are user-visible changes?

The main feature of this release is the webcam support in photo elements with Cheese. It’s fun, it’s magic! A couple of useful key shortcuts were added: Ctrl+N to add a new page and Delete key to remove selected elements. An important crasher fix—caused by an update in gobject-introspection—is also included.

I should be updating The Board’s PPA with the new release in the next days. Other distros should have updated packages soon. The sad news is that the webcam support will not be available on Natty as it doesn’t ship Cheese 3.0. Everything else should work fine.

What’s next? I will be working on the implementation of a storage layer based on Tracker and a few important UI improvements. On other news, I’ll be giving a talk about The Board in the next Desktop Summit. Yay!

Syndicated 2011-04-28 21:10:58 from lucasr.at.mundo