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Omni Releases OmniWeb 4.5 Using Safari Engine
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)."
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this is awesome. i've been using omniweb since when openstep was a valid os and continued with it through os x because ie was such a beast. but safari is so much faster and better at rendering. if omni keeps their feature list (notably page change notification) this will make them the 800 lb gorilla of mac browsers.
2 1337 4 u!
Mozilla also works for most games, but it is painfully slow for Word Whomp, which is one of my favorites.
What problems are you seeing?
I haven't seriously used omniweb since before OSX was released. The speed was just too slow on my admittedly sluggish 233mhz G3.
I've got to say, 4.5 is a *huge* improvement in the speed department, but there are still a lot of things I'd like to see improved before I would replace Safari as my everyday browser. (much less. before I would pay for it)
For starters, it needs tabs, I've gotten addicted to them from various mozilla variants and Safari.
Then they need to support java 1.4.1, they're still using the old 1.3.1 carbon version, which just isn't up to par anymore imho. (Although, to be fair Omniweb does seem to work around alot of the problems the old carbon plugin had in Safari, IE, and Mozilla.)
They also need to provide for custom user style sheets, which I couldn't find an option for.
That said, there are some things OmniWeb does really well that I'd like to see in safari.
For instance, spell checking forum input as I type without my needing to manually request it (I can't believe they still haven't fixed this in Safari).
Also, auto checking and updating bookmarks would be nice.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
being lazy I have a keyword for PHP
php function_name
works like a charm.
Safari: free with Jaguar and an awesome browser
Mozilla: free and not quite as awesome
Internet Explorer: free but dead
OmniWeb: $29.95 based on same engine as Safari
Opera: still clueless as to why my friends pay for it
Furthermore, I can put together a web browser in less than five minutes with all the basic functionality I ever use (except tabs) using XCode, IB, and the WebKit. Why would I want to pay someone $29.95?!?!?!?
Yes, OmniWeb 4.5 is a major improvement in terms of quality of rendering and compatibility with more sites. And, as suggested, OmniGroup has indeed implemented features in their browser which would probably be impossible if they only used WebKit. This is a trivial one, but they automatically render hanging punctuation, rather than inline.
Go to http://www.happycog.com/lectures/dwws/ in both OmniWeb and Safari, and look at the placement of the opening quotation mark for the body copy to see this.
Minor feature only typographers will likely notice, but I'm sure there are many more instances where OmniGroup has added "fit-and-finish" to the raw materials provided by Apple.
I've rapidly been discovering that in Panther, I need tabs less and less. Expose really is a great way to deal with multiple windows and multiple apps. More and more, I find myself using Expose and a lot of windows instead of tabs, because tabs provide no visual recognition besides a title, which can very frequentlh be identical over multiple pages.
So maybe that trollish AC that replied below this about tabs being a stopgap for a bad window manager is partially correct, if somewhat socially inept. Between app hiding, app switching, and Expose functions for all apps, and-in my opinion, far more useful-just one app, tabs are actually more of an annoyance.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
You claim these are "unique" features, but I would say that several of them are found in other browsers.
I listed several features in a post recently that talked about the feature set beween iCab, Opera/Mac and OmniWeb.
While OmniWeb was a nice browser, it was missing a lot of the features that makes iCab "a control-freak's dream".
Right now I am using Safari+PithHelmet as my primary browser, and I still definitely miss the control that is offerred by iCab.
I have not had a chance to try out OmniWeb 4.5 yet, but I am guessing it is still not where iCab is in terms of flexibility and control.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman