Stainless does tabs right
There has been much rumination and wringing of hands over the positioning of the tabs in Safari 4 beta. It’s not just the fact that they’re at the top — there are other problems. First, there is no longer a proper title bar to grab onto for moving the window around. Second, the first tab takes in the three dot-widgets on the left, which makes it seem as if that tab alone has control of them. Third, the tabs expand to take over the entire width, which is non-intuitive. Fourth, you have to grab onto little tread marks to rearrange them.
So is there a better way? Yes there is, and you can try it out in Stainless — a web browser that started as a proof of concept and has progressed into a full-fledged project. It has some great features, but let’s start with the tabs. First, even though the tabs are at the top, there is still a strip above them for a proper title bar. Second, the first tab doesn’t take over the widgets. Third, the tabs are all the same size — unless, of course, you have so many that they have to adjust to fit. Fourth, you can grab the tabs anywhere if you want to rearrange them.
Why didn’t Apple think of that?
Stainless was originally designed to demonstrate how a Mac browser could have independent processes in each tab, just as Google’s Chrome does. With web-based apps now more prevalent, this will become an important technology. If one website crashes, you’ll be able to carry on your work in another tab. Stainless goes a step further by offering parallel sessions.
[They] allow you to log into a site using different credentials in separate tabs at the same time. This new technology is woven throughout Stainless, from the private cookie storage system, to session-aware bookmarks that remember the session in which they were saved.
Another neat trick is a shelf on the side where you can place favicons for your bookmarks.
Stainless is only at version 0.5.1, so there are still lots of features missing. It looks quite promising, though, and is definitely an app to keep on your radar. It’s a small download and launches wicked fast.
Posted Thursday, March 5, 2009 in Web-browsers
About those Safari 4 tabs
There is some lively discussion over at Macworld about the good and bad of placing tabs at the top in Safari 4. I’m thinking that even if you get used to it, and even if you came to prefer it, tabs at the top would still be a pain. Why? Because no other browser does it.
Let’s say you’re checking the news in NetNewsWire. You’ve got a bunch of tabs open — tabs in their traditional spot — and you decide to open one of them in Safari. It’ll work just fine, but along the way you’ll have to change your mindset to Safari’s way of handling tabs. And it could be that you’re actually more interested in the content of the article you’re reading than niggling details like the placement of tabs. It will be a minor nuisance every time.
It’s been said that part of good design is putting things where people expect to find them. Maybe Apple will convince every other browser maker to follow along, but it’s doubtful. In the end, Apple will have to relent and at least make tab placement a preference.
Posted Thursday, February 26, 2009 in Web-browsers
OmniWeb now free, but do you care?
The Omni Group has announced that four of its programs, including the OmniWeb browser, are now freeware. They say they have their hands full with other projects, and decided to cut loose some of the apps that weren’t getting the attention they deserved. No doubt the release of Google’s Chrome and, more recently, Apple’s Safari finally pushed them over the edge. Keeping up with the innovations in these browsers would take a massive amount of time and effort.
I remember when OmniWeb first came out, many people questioned the viability of charging for a web browser when their were good ones being offered for free. A similar fate befell Opera. At one time we were expected to pay because of its advanced features, but that business model didn’t work out.
In a press release, the developers say, “OmniWeb is a powerful web browser with many unique time-saving, customizable features.” This implies OmniWeb has features that can’t be found in other browsers, but most people would be hard pressed to tell you what those features might be. The latest versions of Safari, Firefox and Opera are so slick, it’s hard to believe OmniWeb has any features that can compete with them.
As outlined in the press release, here are three other apps that are now freeware:
• OmniDazzle is a set of visual screen effects that can be used for presentations or capturing screenshots.
• OmniDiskSweeper is a disk cleanup utility.
• OmniObjectMeter is a Mac OS X memory optimization developer tool.
Links to all these programs can be found here.
Posted Wednesday, February 25, 2009 in Web-browsers
Safari 4 beta: the first three steps
Step 1: Watch the cool animation that welcomes you to Safari 4, and allow yourself to be transported to its most impressive new feature — Top Sites. This gallery of favourite or most-visited sites (you choose) takes awhile to load the first time, but after that it appears almost instantly in all its eye-popping glory. Is Top Sites useful? Hard to say. It’s a good way of getting previews, but other than that . . .
Step 2: Click on the bookmarks icon and marvel at the Clover Flow implementation. Yes, it works just like in iTunes and the Finder. As you visit various sites, Safari adds previews and you can flip through them for previews. Again you might wonder why you need previews and be tempted to see this is little more than eye candy. But, hey, whoever said there was anything wrong with eye candy?
Step 3: Start browsing! Check out some of your favourite sites and see how they do. Look at where your tabs are — they’re way up on the top and it’ll take some getting used to. Also, Apple is once again claiming that Safari is the fastest browser around. I have to say it does seem snappier than Safari. But I’ve found that only time — say a few weeks — can truly judge the speed of a browser. After all, they all seem faster at first.
There is no Step 4, but if there were, it would be go nuts and have fun.
(Oh, and one more thing: Agile, please update 1Password to work with Safari 4. I fear I may be lost without it . . .)
Posted Tuesday, February 24, 2009 in Web-browsers
18 bugs hold up Firefox 3.1
We’ve been using the Firefox 3.1 beta for a few months now in the thriftmac lab, and have found it to be quite stable. Mozilla developers, however, have determined that there are still 18 bugs left that are serious enough to be showstoppers — and so a third beta that was promised for this month has been delayed. A final version of 3.1 is still tentatively on track for this quarter. Get the details from Macworld UK.
Posted Friday, January 30, 2009 in Web-browsers
Cruisin' with Cruz
Just in case you thought web browser innovation had reached a plateau, yet another app based on Webkit has been released with a bunch of features that should make the competition sit up and take notice. Cruz is only at version 0.1, so don’t expect a lot at this stage — but here is some of the amazing stuff listed on the site:
- Open plug-in architecture
- Built-in userscripting
- User styles
- ÜberView for plug-in split views
- Global keyboard shortcut
- Single-window browsing mode
- BrowsaBrowsa plug-in for sidebars
- Session restore
- Full-screen mode
- Customizable shortcuts
- Integrated gears-loading (InputManager)
- Hidden “closed” windows
- Thumbnail plug-in for CoverFlow
- TinyURL creation/expansion
- Automatic software updates
- Custom user-agent strings
- Full WebInspector
- Custom window opacity/level/style
And I found even more under the File menu:
- Mail link to this page . . .
- Create tiny URL for this page
- Down for everyone or just me
I couldn’t get the first two to work, but the third did indeed inform me that the site I was on was working fine.
Particularly encouraging is the fact that Cruz is being developed by Todd Ditchendorf, who created the wonderful Fluid, which allows you to create site-specific mini-browsers.
Posted Thursday, October 30, 2008 in Web-browsers
Cool new features in Camino and Firefox
Camino 2 is still in the alpha stage, but the list of upcoming features makes this browser one to keep an eye on. Among them is tab overview, which displays thumbnail pictures of all the websites you have open in your tabs. A similar feature can be found in Opera. Also in the works is full zoom. This means that when you hit Command-plus, the entire web page gets bigger — not just the text. You can still just increase text size, but you’ll have to hold down the option key as well. I can see where this could take some getting used to.
Meanwhile, Firefox hasn’t been standing still, with version 3.1 now in beta. One overlooked feature is support for text shadows. Once Firefox 3.1 becomes widespread, I predict we’ll a lot more drop shadows on headings and text. Used judiciously, they can add a touch of elegance to web design. Text shadows are already supported by the latest versions of Safari and Opera. Users of Internet Explorer, though, will have to be content with the Plain Jane text they’ve had all along. Not even IE8 will support it — at least that’s what the Microsoft Developer Network says.
Oh, and one more thing . . . a special experimental version of Firefox has been released that supports multi-touch on the latest MacBooks. For example, you can swipe left to go back, swipe up to go to the top of a page, pinch apart to zoom in, and twist right to go to the next tab. Very cool. It’s iffy, though, as to whether multi-touch will make it into version 2.1.
Posted Wednesday, October 22, 2008 in Web-browsers
Chrome, meet Stainless
The standout feature in Google’s new web browser, Chrome, is independent processes for each tab. In a nutshell, that means that if one site crashes, it won’t bring down the whole browser. Chrome isn’t yet available for the Mac, except as a port by CrossOver called Chromium. But that hasn’t stopped one enterprising Mac developer from creating his own multi-processor browser called Stainless. Smoking Apples has a nice little review comparing it with Chrome and Apple’s Safari.
Posted Thursday, October 2, 2008 in Web-browsers
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