[Needlesearch] Sneak preview of NeedleSearch 2.5

[Eelco van Kuik]

Dear all,

Finally the next release is here: NeedleSearch 2.5. I've been very busy and
this has held up development to some (great) extent.

I am sending you this since I was hoping that you could assist me with
testing before I set it live. Due to the media exposure of NeedleSearch
specifically and the increased interest in Firefox and Mozilla as a browser
in general I am now having an average of 5000 visitors a month for this
plugin. Not bad! But I am a little hesitant to set this live immediately.

If you would like to have a look at the latest version of NeedleSearch
please read on.

First of all, THIS CAN'T BE INSTALLED ON A BROWSER WITH A NEEDLESEARCH
VERSION OLDER THAN THIS ONE. You will have to install this on a clean
install of Mozilla or Firefox. All following versions of NeedleSearch will
have no problem installing. This has something to do with the fact that
Firefox completely changed the install procedure.

This has been tested on: Firefox 0.9 and Mozilla 1.7 and above on Windows
and Linux and it worked.
I also found out that IT DOES NOT WORK ON Firefox 0.8 and Mozilla 1.4.
People with browsers of that version can still use the old NeedleSearch I
will keep it being available. I didn't test it on Mozilla 1.5 & 1.6, so the
NeedleSearch Toolbar should stop working somewhere between version 1.4 and
1.7.

Future versions of NeedleSearch will always be based on this version, so the
browser support will probably keep being the same.

Now about this version: what's new!

- Complete code rewrite; The code is now much tidyer, clearer and easier to
maintain. Thereby making it possible for other programmers to contribute
without being in each others way.
- Support for the new Installer of Firefox. I recommend using NeedleSearch
with Firefox from now on, since that browser will take over from Mozilla.
- Install option for Mozilla to install NS either in the user directory or
the program directory. This is very practical on computers other than
Windows with administrator rights. As a result you will start with a clean
Bookmarkslist every time you create a new profile. But this is not a
problem, because of the next feature:
- Import/export function for your NeedleSearch Bookmarks. If you want to
keep your current NSBookmarks that is no problem. Just start up the import
function from the editor/manager (File > Import...) and go to the directory
where you have your current browser installed. Then go to
chrome/needlesearch/content. You will see a file here called:
NeedleSearchData.rdf, import it and you have back your own bookmark-list.
- And last but not least, the editor has improved.

If you would like to have a look at the new NeedleSearch Toolbar I would
very much appreciate it if you could fill in the testgaps I mentioned above.
I haven't tested it on a Mac, Mozilla versions before 1.7, etc.

:Eelco van Kuik
Project owner of the NeedleSearch Toolbar
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