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How to Build a Better Browser
TuringTest writes "Interface designer and IE ex-developer Scott Berkun
writes an essay on basic principles of web browser design, moved by the recent presence of Firefox and Opera in the headlines. Gives plenty of design constraints and guidelines, some insightful, some debatable. Personally some features that I'd like to see in my browser include colaborative filtering (a.k.a. del.icio.us integration), a unified tool for history+bookmarks in a single list (filtered by keyword tags), and automatic generation of keywords for the bookmarked pages (something that Open Text Summarizer can do)."
You mean like adhering to the W3C standards? You mean like not having your own proprietary code floating about?
Start with those two issues then get back to me.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
While I'm actually relatively indifferent if someone's site uses Javascript or DHTML that Firefox doesn't support, it is aggravating to have a single, badly-coded web page take out that browser window and everything else I was tabbing to at that moment, especially if I hadn't bookmarked what I was looking at. In this sense, Firefox has unwittingly upped the ante on application crashes, since you're more likely to have more pages browsed to at any given moment than with MSIE.
Don't get me wrong: I love Firefox and I have no plans to switch back to MSIE. But I would definitely suggest one of Firefox's greatest weaknesses would be the stability issue. At this point, anything to prevent the browser from utterly disappearing when it hits a malformed (or whatever) page would be a welcome addition to the code.
I'd like to see a searchable history feature. I may hit 500 web pages in a day, and trying to remember on what page I read something can be a maddening experience. It would be great to be able to search the cache.
It's a funny thing: any web programmer sees any web browser as a programming platform, not an app. But at the same time the rest of the planet sees the web browser, and most web sites, as just another kind of application. The conflict makes browser design tough: it's impossible to invest in the end-user experience and the developer experience to everyone's satisfaction (a burden consumer OS developers have). Hell, even if you were only trying to do one of those two things, you still wouldn't be able to do it to everyone's satisfaction.
This dichotomy exists, but does it necessarily mean that you cannot incorporate the two? "Programming Features" can be made transparent to the user -- only web programmers need to be familiar with them. The user doesn't care what browser or document properties you can access... all they want to see is content. So let's say you had a really good developer engine in the background - the user doesn't need to see that.
Furthermore in today's web-browsing experience you cannot divorce one from the other. A web browser HAS to be a programming platform if it needs to support things like DHTML or run Javascript. Saying that it's difficult to do, is no excuse.
Or maybe I'm reading this wrong.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
I think you misunderstand the author when he calls security and stability "red herrings". We're speaking theoretically on web browser design - the author basically claims that if security and stability ever become major marketing points, then the whole market has failed to meet minimal standards. "security and stability" are basically a given once you are talking about UI design.
The fact that Firefox can gain ground on IE based on security (spyware, exploits) shows that IE isn't meeting basic software quality control. The fact that Gecko still has rendering issue is the same. The fact that both MS and Mozilla.org think of these things as advocacy issues (Make spyware illegal! Stomp out IE specific pages!) only ignores the problem.
That, my friend, is called an (X/D)HTML renderer, not a browser.
A web browser, by definition, helps you browse web sites, not only view HTML pages.
Tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, themes and skins, etc., just make the whole browsing experience a lot more pleasurable.
Better solution:
:(
Browser uses standard HTML/xhtml/xml format for its bookmarks.
Browser is capable of using this file from anywhere, including through http, or from a local file.
Bookmark management is still done through the browser interface, but the location of the bookmarks becomes browser independant.
For the http version, you would want a simple server side script to handle through http requests all the bookmark management (edit/add/delete/move around etc). There is no reason for this to be a complex script; you could put it on your own site, or have it on a central site, it should be your choice. You can even SSL and/or password protect your bookmarks, should you need to.
This simple system could even (gosh!) be cross browser and cross platform (its only an xml file, all it needs is a standard format, developed independant of each browser and then used by some or all)
This would give you bookmarks that could be accessed from multiple machines no problem.
For those who don't want http bookmarks, its just an xml file; put it on a floppy disk, USB flash drive or even your bluetooth mobile phone and take your bookmarks with you when you travel.
By default the browser just uses a local file in its app directory, so no visible change for those who _don't_ want common bookmarks.
All common sense.
All great for the end user.
Will never get implemented by ANY browser ever, I'll bet you
Did you read the article? You are in the minority. You would be the person who writes their own browser for their own needs, and it would be unsuitable for almost everybody else on the planet.
You are looking for a custom-fit in an off-the-shelf computer world. It is similar to demanding that your girlfriend be a rich, nymphomaniac supermodel who models lingerie in Paris and Milan during the week, but plays Doom3 and mods cases on the weekend. Doesn't exist.
Look at your list: No tabs. This is considered by most to be basic functionality. No bookmarks! Come one here. Nobody is forcing you to use them, but bookmark code might take up 10K, if that. I would hardly consider bookmarks to be consideree bloat. The only solution for you is to become your own tailor. You will need to get down'n'dirty with a compiler and write your own (or hack something that already exists, but you don't like firefox, so I am assuming that anything Mozilla is out also).
I can agree with you on themes, skins, and mouse gestures though.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Imagine that everyone got a free TeeVee with every home/apartment. Now imagine that anyone with a bit of time could create a TeeVee station that worked with the free TeeVee. The people who didn't know what they were doing would make their stations compatible with the free TeeVee because they have it, and so does everyone they know.
Then their boss at work says, "make a TeeVee station to display information about our department." Because they all have the free TeeVee at work, that's what they use to view their station.
Finally, some upstarts (long-haired, unwashed, obviously communist, punks) say, "Hey, we have a TeeVee that is also free, but it is UHF/VHF compliant, and you won't get all those annoying commercials and stuff! Oh and people won't break into your home if you watch certain stations!
The masses look at these upstarts with wonder and bewilderment. Just what is this UHF/VHF that they're talking about? All they want to do is watch TeeVee, and what they have works fine. Oh sure, every once in a while, Cousin Midge's son (who is a TeeVee wiz) comes by and complains that there is always a nest of mice or other creatures in the living room ("They get in via the TeeVee," he says), but he always cleans them out and you give him a fivver for his troubles. Sometimes the TeeVee doesn't work, but if you wack it on the side enough times, it usually straightens out, but it seems...slow lately.
Yeah, right.
First I cannot believe the author is advocating bloaty, useless things like side-bars?
Sidebars are useless- why would you need to see a list of links permanently in the window you are browsing? The so-called theory this is based on is merely a bunch of assumptions that all lead to one simple solution... If you want to build a theory on navigation- go take some cognitive psychology courses, and do some real studies.
Research & Annotations... How much more unnecessary can things get? Why not just create a bookmark folder and save the website, or if you are using OS X create a PDF of the page. I personally do not want to be switching constanly between my web-browser/organizer and a text editor while I'm writing an essay.
RSS as an over-rated concept? I don't think so.
This essay is just flat out wrong. You cannot improve the user experience of the WWW by adding stupid features like side-bars and research tools-- RSS may not be innovative alone, but how browsers and search engines are using RSS is innovative-- Safari RSS, and Firefox Live bookmarks are time-saving, useful features.
The innovation will now come from the WWW itself. Google is a great attempt at centralizing information while making it easier to access, sites like Google and protocols like RSS will be the source of major usability innovations- not browsers.
I think it's time the author gets his head out of the '90s and looks at the browser as a simple conduit to information, and not a tool for organizing the web.
Geez, just look at his HTML. If you're afraid, let the Validator look at it for you: plain results (4.01 Transitional), forcing charset, forcing HTML 3.2.
What are standards good for, anyway? Just use your monopoly to push your nonstandard browser and do it your way.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics