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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!
I may be the only one wanting this, but there still seems to be no Mac OSX browser that is able to run Pogo games. Under 9 I could use IE, and it still works under Classic, but I prefer not to use Classic if I can help it. Oh well, just another gripe of mine.
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.
When the hell will they add tabs? Everybody else is doing it, why can't OmniGroup?
Way to go, Omni Group! IMHO, nothing can kill a small company faster than trying to reinvent the wheel. HTML rendering is a commodity. The public expectation is that it will happen correctly. Do it wrong (like OmniWeb used to with annoying frequency) and people will jump all over you. Let a bigger group/company do it for you and reap the rewards!
That way you can spend your developer time creating the application experience, which is where OmniWeb has excelled in the past and will continue to in the future. I expect to see great things, maybe great enough to make me part with $29.95!
HBH"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
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?!?!?!?
(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
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.
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.
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
"or Ill just wait for opera 7 for OSX..."
Youre going to be waiting quite some time. There is absolutely no room for another browser on the mac platform. I wish there was room for OmniWeb and I hope it suceeds - but Opera? Sorry but 1. its an ugly port and 2. they burned any credibility they had in the mac community when they bashed Apple for not licensing their HTML Engine.
And btw, mouse gestures can be added to any cocoa app (which OmniWeb is) just do a search for gestures on Versiontracker and im sure you will find it.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Cocoa Gestures is your answer... works in all cocoa apps -Rocks!!!
Well, you could have looked at an OmniWeb bookmarks file :)
My bookmarks file has, for example:
Attn: ad dept. Put the corny "heartfelt plea for filthy lucre" text here.
I guess that copy was approved.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
For some strange reason, OmniWeb and Metallifizer don't get along. The best workaround is to add OmniWeb to Metallifizer's "Exclude" list.
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.