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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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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.
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
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:
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.
(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
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.
Why would I want to pay someone $29.95
There were three main reasons for me.
1) Cookie control. "Take the cookie and toss it when I quit the app" is a great thing.
2) Killing banner ads.
3) Showing me when pages have changed. Big time-saver for me.
YMMV, but for my money, OmniWeb would be worth $50, easy.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."