Chimera/Camino

[jakeOSX]

This is irrelevant, unrelated and otherwise.

(rant on)

Ok, so I was reading last night about the Camino development. One day not too long ago I downloaded a nightly for fun to see what was up, since it had been a while since 0.7 came out.

The side bar that came out with bookmarks on it was gone. Replaced with a bookmark system that mimics Safari. Now I do not like that bookmark system, Sam I am, and don't really used Safari because of it. I use Camino (actually, I use Chimera, but that is another rant).

I liked the tabs in Camino too. Now after reading some I realize there is some programming issue with the tabs which will cause issue in Panther. Basically they took the easy route instead of making their own tab code. Fine fine. but! the proposed tab solution looks and works just like, you guessed it, Safari. They even stated that they should look over the Apple code to see how they did it.

Now Safari is a good little program, don't get me wrong. But I use Camino because it is Camino, not because it is Safari with white and blue buttons.

So I was reading last night about the 0.8 update, which is still several months away do to one (of five) lead programmers who was behind schedule. That sidebar? never coming back. Those tabs? Going, welcome Safarilla.

Which means I'll be using Chimera 0.6+ for quite some time.

I don't understand the reasoning of taking what was a unique browser in its size, appearance and written just for us Mac peeps and changing it to mimic another browser.

Not to meantion i cannot STAND Safari's bookmark tool (did i meantion that?) I mean, for organization, it is great. Setting up and working with the bookmarks, no problem. But using them, problem. I don't want my screen to go away when I am looking at my bookmarks, and I don't want to have to link them all to the top just to get to them.

And don't get me started on the fact that you can't create a folder when you are bookmarking a site...

Almost frustrating enough to make me want to go learn Apple programming skills. But then I'd have to give up sleep.

Which is, of course, still an option.

(rant off)

[nedrichards]

On the tabs (becuase it's an issue close to my heart).

You know who wrote the tab browsing code for Mozilla (appsuite) then the tabbed browsing code for Camino, then the tabbed browsing code for Firebird and then finally the tabbed browsing code for Safari. One man.

Dave Hyatt, king of the browsers.

He went on record when the camino tabbed browsing was done that he disliked it but there was only one *native* way of doing tabbed browsing in OS X and since Camino was a native browser they had to use it. Not a hack but just using the only API out there. This was less than satisfactory because the tab positions move when you add new ones, destroying muscle memory and reflex. There's a reason that the Firebird and Safari tabs both start from the left, having Camino start from the middle is usability madness. Also the Safari tabs look like the firebird ones, he did them first. Just like google search box up at the top right. It's been an influential little beast that Firebird.

I'm with you mostly on the bookmarks organisation thing except that the drawer just didn't scale to more than, oh, 5 bookmarks. But then again I don't really use bookmarks any more at all so it's less than urgent for me.

As to brushing up those skillz, go for it! (if poss) I know that Camino, like OOo OS X is just crying out for more developers.

[OPENSTEP]

Well, the Camino tabs didn't *have* to start in the middle like a regular Cocoa tab control...If you take a look at Opera they use Appearance Manager and do the tabs from the left. I think both Camino and Safari have a leg up on Opera in the tabs (not to mention browser department...) but I digress...

I think it is disturbing that they're beginning to copy the Safari interface for bookmarks and the like. Don't get me wrong...sometimes I think Apple's UI design "independence" is great and can produce some insanely useful things. But I think it's wrong to try to clone it...just like any other application developer, their UIs aren't necesarily the most utilitarian or the best. Sometimes their designers have a tendency to stretch a motif just a little too far, winding up complicating the interface instead of simplifying it or making it more intuitive. I can't share specifics yet, but some of the Xcode changes really strike me as such and run similar to my Safari gripes.

I think it's great to take some things that are good from an application's UI and incorporate them into your product (if they aren't trademarked or patented...). In the end, however, you need to make something distinctive and really *think* about how people need and want to use it instead of blindly copying someone else's solution.

ed

[nedrichards]

oooh ed i dion't know that about the opera tabs. consider me corrected.

with the bookmarks i seem to remember a blog post from the main guy behind camino talking about how it was only the start but in the last few months he's had less than no time. another mac project that needs devs.