FireBible 1.2 Released

A long overdue release of FireBible, version 1.2 adds support for Firefox versions 4 through 6 (yes, 6); so overall it is compatible with Firefox 3 and above. In this version, I also added the ability to view Bibles side by side. If you have FireBible installed, please check for updates to install version 1.2, or head on to FireBible to get it!

What’s next for FireBible:

• Easier installation – most users have trouble with the separate JSword installation that is required, future versions will have JSword integrated; this concern has also been raised by the Mozilla add-ons review team.
• Work towards support for Catholic Bibles by helping with deutrocanonical support in the JSword backend.
• Several bug fixes and user requested enhancements; these have unfortunately been ignored for 1.2 because I did not want to delay Firefox 4 support by trying to pack everything into a single release.

Supporting a major new Firefox release has, unfortunately, never been too easy and Firefox 4 was no different:

1. Protocol handling techniques changed and finding a solution that worked for both Firefox 3.x and 4.x was irritating.
2. This bug threatened to make Java inaccessible to extensions, would have knocked FireBible out of Firefox for good.
3. Bookmark / folder manipulation was made more difficult by removal of a method that I was actively using.
4. Annotations handling code (used internally to classify FireBible URLs) had to moved to keep it working.
5. Several other minor issues.

Ultimately, nothing required rocket science to fix, but the number of changes required to keep FireBible working was frustrating.