has anyone using mozilla firebird noticed that the 'bold' and 'url' (among others) buttons do not appear above the new or edit entry window?

known problem, a search for firefox or netscape and buttons or edit should find you a hack to fix it, if you like hacking mt.

is it also the case that tags, like < b >, entered into a comment window are not going to show up when posted if the user is using firefox?

You need to allow them in sanitize specs, best done in mt.cfg. Make sure you uncomment the line and add what you want.

i was just coming back to say that i made a mistake:

in my exclusions, i was entering 'acronym, title' instead of 'acronym title'

i would still like to see the buttons working in firefox, though; that would be handy.