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Omni Releases OmniWeb 4.5 Using Safari Engine

Posted by pudge on from the omni-lovin dept.

John C. Worsley writes "The Omni Group released version 4.5 of OmniWeb, based on Apple's WebCore and JavaScriptCore frameworks (the same KHTML-derived APIs that Safari uses)."

18 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Not zactly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    For the record, OmniWeb 4.5 does not use the "Safari engine." See, Safari is based on a framework called "WebKit." It's an Objective C framework. OmniWeb uses only WebCore and JavaScriptCore, open source libraries that are not really intended for public use.

    The correct course of action would have been for Omni Group to wait for WebKit's release, rather than using WebCore and JavaScriptCore themselves. Alas, they chose to do it the wrong way. The result will be compatibility problems and bugs, unfortunately.

    I applaud Omni Group for being really cool in many ways. This time, though, they really pulled a lame one.

    1. Re:Not zactly. by jcr · · Score: 3, Informative

      This time, though, they really pulled a lame one.

      Well...

      I don't quite agree with you, there. Omni went ahead and used WebCore because it was available many months ago, and WebKit only became available at WWDC.

      Sure, it was more work for them to use WebCore directly, but they're the ones with a product and a time-to-market issue. I hope they'll decide to use WebKit in their next major rev, but I'm not going to dismiss OmniWeb 4.5 as lame, by any means.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  2. Re:finally! by hype7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    omniweb has some stuff that apple could do well to integrate into safari - but they won't!

    which is why I'm glad they've opened the engine up for third party use, because it means Apple can focus on speed and integration with the OS, and 3rd parties can get on with innovating.

    The coolest feature in omniweb has to be the ability to customise urls in the url line; for example, I've set it up so if I type
    fedex 574849
    then it goes to the fedex order tracking site, and tracks order 574849. You can set these up for google, imdb, and anything else that gives results based on variables stored in the URL. It's awesome, and I haven't seen anything implemented like it anywhere else.

    -- james

  3. Re:finally! by Gogo+Dodo · · Score: 3, Informative
    how is safari any better at rendering pages when they both use the same render engine?

    He was referring to pre-4.5 release where OmniWeb had it's own render engine.

  4. Re:finally! by spencerogden · · Score: 3, Informative

    Konq also has this feature, with built in queries for many popular sites.

    --

    Spencer Ogden

  5. Re:finally! by Timothy+J.+Wood · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually ... checks CVS... (yes, I work for Omni)

    OmniWeb's shortcuts have been around since at least Apr, 1998 (compared to May, 2001 according to Old Mozilla Releases). They were around in less featureful incarnations back to 1996 or 1997, judging from what I see in CVS.

    Remember, OmniWeb is one of the oldest browsers still around:

    revision 1.1.1.1 date: 1994/02/16 21:53:53; author: kc; state: Exp; lines: +0 -0
    Here's OmniWeb!

    We love it when other browsers copy OmniWeb's features (and we've certainly copied features from other places). What is even better is that with WebCore/JavaScriptCore we have to spend less time futzing with web standards (if they can be called that) and can work on honest-to-goodness innovations.

  6. Re:finally! by Feztaa · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can do that in Mozilla, as well.

  7. Omniweb's Unique Features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    (1) Live-Searchable History
    (2) Form Spell Check (I'm Soaking in it)
    (3) Self Updating Bookmarks Through The Dock
    (4) Self-Fixing Bookmarks
    (5) Superior Cookie Management (Three Levels)
    (6) Programmable Address Bar Searches (Google, VersionTracker.. etc)
    (7) Ad Blocking (And Yes OmniWeb Has Pop-up Blocking Too)
    (8) Unbeatable Download Manager (Never seen it's Match)
    (9) Extensive Source View, Edit, Publishing Capabilities
    (10) Fully Voice Activated Interface and Link Navigation
    (11) Speakable Pages (Useful When Your Eyes Just Can't Read Anymore)
    (12) Browser Compatibility Settings
    (13) JavaScript Compatibility Settings (Can Tie in or out With #11)
    (14) JavaScript Bookmarklets
    (15) Application Helper Settings For Downloads
    (16) Network Activity Monitor (Similar to Mail.app's)
    (17) Much More that I'm Overlooking

    1. Re:Omniweb's Unique Features by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 1, Informative

      Safari's implementation of 'live-searchable' is laughable compared to OmniWeb's. With Safari, you have to type 'sla' etc. to get 'slashdot.org. With OmniWeb, I could type 'dot' and it would be listed as an option. It also checks the title of pages, rather than just the URL. For complex or obscure page names, this is an absolute Godsend and I frequently find myself longing for it. I'm very much torn between this (and the general awesomeness of the OmniWeb features and interface) and Safari's ability to use tabs. Grr.

    2. Re:Omniweb's Unique Features by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 2, Informative
      I write my posts, etc., in text editors first, and then paste things in. I find text editors are more stable (and manipulate text better) than Web browsers. (And OmniWeb does like to crash, you know.)

      Text editors can be overkill sometimes, especially if you're just typing something short.

      (7) Ad Blocking (And Yes OmniWeb Has Pop-up Blocking Too)

      Hey.

      The solution you suggested would not be used by 99% of users and is a pain to set up. With OmniWeb, all you need is a couple of clicks within the GUI. Simple.

      You haven't seen Hydra, I take it.

      Hydra is a rendezvous enabled collaborative text editor, AFAIK. OmniWeb allows you to view source of a page, with nice formatting and colour coding and then allows you to edit and save the update, all within the browser. How is Hydra relevant here?

      What activity are you monitoring?

      Page components being downloaded. And of course generic downloads. Can be handy for troubleshooting if a page is having trouble loading, if you're not sure if OmniWeb has frozen, or if you just want to tinker.

      I used it for a long time, and loved it, but honestly, it doesn't have anything worth $30 that other browsers or programs have for free or less money.

      There was a lot of love and a lot of effort put into OmniWeb and it shows, especially in the interface which I maintain is the best of any browser I've ever seen. If I had a job, I'd pay for it. But I'm stuck on a less than 4000 student loan in my final year on uni. My living expenses go up and my loan goes down. Grr.

    3. Re:Omniweb's Unique Features by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 2, Informative
      Mozilla has a composition component, too. If you're writing code, why not use a program that's designed for it, anyway? One app for one job.

      Mozilla is bulky and slow and a full web page designer is overkill sometimes. If all I want to do is change a link or update some text, which makes up the majority of what I've needed to do the last wee while, then OmniWeb is perfect for the job.

      Sorry, I should have assumed you'd done no research into other browsers before declaring all the things I need to pay for in a browser

      When did I declare you needed to pay for all these things? Perhaps you should check the author of comments. Then you'll see that the original list of 17 was not by me. I merely disagreed (with good reason) with some of your points. Please stop making assumptions before you even think about starting them.

      Little, if anything, OW does can't be had by other, less costly or free, and at least as easy to use programs.

      There are things it does better and the point is that it can do all of them - you don't need a dozen different programs. And in my experience, the UI is considerably better than most apps. Though that is of course a matter of opinion.

    4. Re:Omniweb's Unique Features by reiggin · · Score: 2, Informative
      (18) No tabs.

      boo. hiss. boo.

      Or did I miss something? I can't find them.

  8. Re:Page change notification? Are you nuts? by davebo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Um, I hate to break it to you - but Omni's page change notification system is hopelessly broken. It relies on websites returning a "304" response to indicate pages haven't been changed since a certain date, and a "200" response if they have. This worked back in the 90's. It doesn't anymore.

    Many many many web sites now always return "200" no matter what. Google? 200. Any blogs you happen to read at Xanga, Blogspot, etc? 200. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Slashdot, Yahoo, Apple? 200. Always. Without fail. Check every second - check every half-second, the website will still say it's been updated.

    Don't believe me? Go through and set some of your bookmarks to check every minute, rather than the every couple of hours they're set at now. Then come back and tell me how great Omni's update checking is.

    Builds of Camino existed with this feature. It matched Omniweb's behavior exactly. The feature was pulled because it was found to be worthless.

  9. Re:Page change notification? Are you nuts? by Timothy+J.+Wood · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think this was true several years ago, but we've been using the word count of the page (after stripping markup) for a long time now (since at least Apr 2000 according to CVS).


    This approach generates some false positives, but in general, it's pretty good. Still, this is something that we'll be able to improve upon now that we can leave a bunch of the ugly stuff to Apple's WebCore/JavaScriptCore.

  10. Need Gestures??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Cocoa Gestures is your answer... works in all cocoa apps -Rocks!!!

  11. Re:Page change notification? Are you nuts? by Timothy+J.+Wood · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, you could have looked at an OmniWeb bookmarks file :)

    My bookmarks file has, for example:

    ...

    <dt><a href="http://slashdot.org/" lastCheckedTime=68508144 wordCount=12088 checkFrequency=4h>Slashdot.org</a>
    ...
  12. Re:In short by webfiend · · Score: 2, Informative

    For some strange reason, OmniWeb and Metallifizer don't get along. The best workaround is to add OmniWeb to Metallifizer's "Exclude" list.

  13. Well, what do you expect? by mbessey · · Score: 2, Informative

    You're running Metallifizer, which attempts to change the appearance of running applications by loading code into them. I'd hardly consider that an OmniWeb problem. On a normally-functioning OS X system, OmniWeb renders fine.