What has become of Camino?

[Wrong Robot]

Seems like forever since I've heard anything about it, was there a press release or somethign that I missed stating it's been discontinued?

I love camino, I'm using it right now, but it still lacks some things to make it perfect, whats the deal? will it ever be updated? was the name changed again?

[mrmister]

It's updated every night in the nightly build, and there are some significant speed improvements in the nightlies over the .7 release--they went back to the core and picked up the Mozilla 1.4 changes.

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/camino/nightly/latest/

It's neck and neck with Safari on my system speedwise, and its superior contextual menus make it a lock for best OSX browser...in my opinion, of course.

[klinux]

I am playing with Mozilla Firebird 0.6 on PC and Mac. Still buggy (to be expected) but I like it.

[Escher]

Originally posted by klinux
I am playing with Mozilla Firebird 0.6 on PC and Mac. Still buggy (to be expected) but I like it.

Unlike the real feathered bird, Mozilla Firebird is butt ugly. Camino is prettier, at least as fast, and more evolved. For anybody who thinks that Camino is languishing, download the latest nightly build (http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/camino/nightly/latest/) and see for yourself, as mrmister suggests.

Camino kicks other browsers' ass!

Escher

[Steve]

They should implement the Safari bookmarks repository, or at least share that same data (isn't it XML-based?). Then I'll start using it.

[Aquatic]

True. Bookmark management makes Safari scaleable, like iTunes with music. I have thousands of songs and hundreds of bookmarks, no other app can handle that.

[mrmister]

Though I doubt they will ever share the same bookmarks list unless Apple decides to create a unified central bookmarks repository, if you download the latest nightly of Camino you'll see they've adopted the Safari bookmark system.

[Wrong Robot]

Is there any way to have camino automatically d/l nightly builds?

[klinux]

Man - I have not met a group of people as obsessed as to how a program looks as some Mac users! If you don't like how Firebird looks - change it! :rolleyes:

[Brad]

Originally posted by klinux
I have not met a group of people as obsessed as to how a program looks as some Mac users! DUH. The interface and how it interacts with the user is what makes the Mac experience. If the UI isn't good, then neither is the app. The app could solve a hundred problems, but if the interface is bad, Mac users will trash it until someone makes it better.

If this wasn't true, Apple and the Mac OS wouldn't be alive today. Most of us would have jumped ship to Windows or Linux.

And, FYI, "skinning" Firebird still won't fix the awful behaviors of its interface. It's not just the way it looks that is un_mac-like; it's also the way it works.

[Escher]

Originally posted by Wrong Robust
Is there any way to have camino automatically d/l nightly builds?

CaminoKnight can download daily builds for you. Search for it on MacUpdates (or VersionTracker if you can stand its newly clumsy interface).

Escher

[mrmister]

"If you don't like how Firebird looks - change it!"

Hmm. I could build a skin that looks mac-like and not like unto ass, which almost all of the current skins do...or I could use Camino, which looks great now, behaves well and on my system is neck-and-neck for speed.

I'd also have to learn to design XUL skins, too.

I wonder which I will do.

[Aquatic]

Yeah linux users always crack me up. :lol: At least FireBird etc from Moz uses SHEETS though, instead of stupid ridiculous Safari. I mean come on what is this with an error being a separate window business, are we using IE here or what? :rolleyes:

Camino heisted Safari's bookmarking mechanism you say? The thing about Chimera is that it always used to crash on me. Well next time I'm on broadband I'll grab CaminoKnight (it lost its catchy name:p) from VersionTracker with their dumb new interface. God that new interface is dumb. Every time it changes it gets worse!I used to be able to click the size of the download and that was a DIRECT link.:rolleyes:

:smokey:

[Brad]

Slightly off-topic, but...
Originally posted by Aquatic
from VersionTracker with their dumb new interface. God that new interface is dumb. Every time it changes it gets worse!I used to be able to click the size of the download and that was a DIRECT link.
...that's why I gave up on VT and finally removed its link from my toolbar a little over a month ago. I'm all over MacUpdate (http://www.macupdate.com) nowadays instead. It's MUCH cleaner than that VersionTracker garbage. If there's ever an app on VT but not MU, I e-mail the developer and put in a request.

[BNOYHTUAWB]

It's neck and neck with Safari on my system speedwise, and its superior contextual menus make it a lock for best OSX browser...in my opinion, of course.

Have you ever tried to put a user.js file alongsinde the prefs.js file in you profile directory listing the following items:

user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 36);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 12);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 8);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 6);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);


If you are on a speedy connection DSL/Cable this will make Mozilla fly (and I think Camino reacts to it as well!). Mozilla since 1.3.1 easily beats Safari in terms of speed (I run a 1Mbit connection). If you are on a really fast connection have s-tload of RAM in a fast Mac you may want to bump the number of connections even further (N. B. you could hit the wall with firewalls because your connection onslaught could be interpreted as a DOS attack ;-).

http://www.mozillazine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=4481 has a discussion on the nglayout.initialpaint.delay bit.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020113144936954 some other good stuff!


Cheers!

[klinux]

Originally posted by Brad
DUH. The interface and how it interacts with the user is what makes the Mac experience. If the UI isn't good, then neither is the app.

Well, I have to disagree with you here. You are essentially saying, in your opinion that to Mac users, form is what makes the user experience. Function does not matter at all.

I cannot see many other users agreeing on your definition of Mac experience.

DUH back to you. 8)

[1337_5L4Xx0R]

BNOYHTUAWB: you RULE!!! Thanks for the tip!

[CubeDude]

Originally posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R
BNOYHTUAWB: you RULE!!! Thanks for the tip!

I have no clue as to what that means.:D

[badtz]

Originally posted by Brad
Slightly off-topic, but...
If there's ever an app on VT but not MU, I e-mail the developer and put in a request.


I do the exact same ;)

[Aquatic]

snip

[Brad]

Originally posted by klinux
Well, I have to disagree with you here. You are essentially saying, in your opinion that to Mac users, form is what makes the user experience. Function does not matter at all.

I cannot see many other users agreeing on your definition of Mac experience.This is really something that should be meant for another thread, but I'll indulge briefly here.

Function is important, but "form" is equally important on Macs. It's been that way since Macintosh was first released. Why else do you think people today still fuss about Windows "stealing" the look of Mac OS but not the actual experience? UI not only describes how things look; it also encompases how all elements work together and interact with the user. One of the great boons to the Mac OS is its consistency of behavior. Last year's WWDC videos just became available to free ADC online members. I suggest you watch the one on Adopting Aqua.

I also would suggest you try to find some of the "uglier" RealBasic apps or older Carbon apps on VT and MU and just look at how many people rate them down poorly simply because the interface doesn't act as a proper Mac OS app should. You'll find a lot. I know for a fact that they're out there because I've spent many a time trying to defend these novice developers and immature apps by saying things like, "RealBasic isn't inherently bad; it's just that most RB programmers are beginners to the programming world and aren't experienced with correct UI design."

I ask you this: why do you think so many people (Sure, only 3% now, but that's still a heck of a lot more than 0%.) have stuck by the Mac through the rougher years? I'm talking when we didn't have these great digital hub apps and the unixy Mac OS X and Apple's pro line like FCP and DVDSP. Since the "heavy hitters" like Adobe and Microsoft and Macromedia and Quark and Lightwave and Maya have been on Windows for so long, why have some people stood by their Macs? Is it because the hardware is more powerful? Pfft. I think we can all get a resounding no on that. Is it because it "functions" better? Well, not with these apps. They work the same on Windows as they do on Mac OS. Is it beacuse the "form" is better, that the abstracted interface between the computer and the human is better and that this interface has stricter standards and more consistent rules to follow? I think yes. I'd like to see who else disagrees.

[Aquatic]

This is why Grandma will never use Linux. It is a slow buggy POS with a GUI that copies one of the worst interfaces: Windows! In fact it's even worse! Sorry to diss Linux and be Devil's Advocate, I've never seen anyone diss Linux but it had to be done. I have Redhat 8 on a 400 mhz AMD k6 Compaq and it just plain blows. I opened up a few OpenOffice apps and they never even loaded. It was ridiculously slow. I imagine OS X 10.0 on an iBook flies compared to this thing taking minutes to display a splash screen. My dad who is the Army Corps of Engineers webmaster set it up so I think it was set up right. I discovered Mah Jong though!:D And it plays CDs fine. Reminds of Windows, you use it just for solitaire. I don't see why Linux doesn't copy Aqua or Platinum, perhaps because of Apple's Legal Eagles. Redhat looks a lot like Windows. Which is good but bad.

Macs just work. Easily. That's what Brad is saying. Interface is just as important as function. Every Windows or X Windows program behaves differently and just looks fugly. klinux if you get a Mac you'll start to see this and like it! ;)

[Barto]

I don't think it's quite that bad. Sure, BlueCurve (in RedHat 8 and 9) is no Aqua, but it's better than Windoze!

And if you find linux slow, maybe you should get a halfway decent computer!* ;)

Barto

*A K6/400 is roughly equivalent to a Macintosh Performa in speed.

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Originally posted by mrmister
Though I doubt they will ever share the same bookmarks list unless Apple decides to create a unified central bookmarks repository, if you download the latest nightly of Camino you'll see they've adopted the Safari bookmark system.
It already excist. Its called the favorites folder. (Maybe there's also one for bookmarks I think, but I could be wrong. Im on my GF's PC right now)
The problem is, no browser uses it.. Not even Safari.. :/

[mrmister]

True that. Sigh.

Form and function are inextricably linked--or they should be, if your system is any good. ;)

[klinux]

Ah, Brad, so much said but the argument is so much simpler.

Here is what you originally stated: "If the UI isn't good, then neither is the app". This essentially distills to the following: function of the object is irrelavant if its form does not look good.

You then later said: "Function is important, but "form" is equally important on Macs." I would agree with that although I can see why some other (Windows, for example) user may not.

Anyone can see that the two statements you made are incongruent with each other.

[klinux]

Originally posted by Aquatic I have Redhat 8 on a 400 mhz AMD k6 Compaq and it just plain blows. I opened up a few OpenOffice apps and they never even loaded. It was ridiculously slow.

Your problem is with the processor. Even a modern low end machine (say Celeron 1.8 ) is easily 5 times the speed of a K6-400. See http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-25.html for MP3 encoding speed comparison.

Originally posted by Aquatic
klinux if you get a Mac you'll start to see this and like it!

Whoa - those are dem fighting words!! :mad: I am a proud owner an 2002 iBook and a 20 GB iPod. Thank you very much. How do you want me to prove it?!?

[mrmister]

"Here is what you originally stated: "If the UI isn't good, then neither is the app". This essentially distills to the following: function of the object is irrelavant if its form does not look good."

UI is about a lot more than looking good.

[Barto]

Originally posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R
BNOYHTUAWB: you RULE!!! Thanks for the tip!

LOL the only google link to "BNOYHTUAWB" is this page!

[Barto]

Originally posted by klinux
Whoa - those are dem fighting words!! :mad: I am a proud owner an 2002 iBook and a 20 GB iPod. Thank you very much. How do you want me to prove it?!?

Are you running X or YDL (or something crappy like Mandrake or Debian)?

Barto

[Brad]

Originally posted by mrmister
"Here is what you originally stated: "If the UI isn't good, then neither is the app". This essentially distills to the following: function of the object is irrelavant if its form does not look good."

UI is about a lot more than looking good. Bingo. I think this is the point that klinux is missing.

[klinux]

Shessh - there is just no way of please you people! :)

Barto: I am running OS X and not any other *nix variants. Want to wager on that?

Brad: I am aware that UI is more than just looking good.

You are, however, avoiding the point I have raised through obfuscation and diversion.

You cannot justify the clearly contradicting statements "If the UI isn't good, then neither is the app" and "Function is important, but "form" is equally important".

[Brad]

Originally posted by klinux
You cannot justify the clearly contradicting statements "If the UI isn't good, then neither is the app" and "Function is important, but "form" is equally important". Those statements are not contradictory. They serve to support each other.

UI is form, right?
form:
* The shape and structure of an object.
* The essence of something.
* Manners or conduct as governed by etiquette, decorum, or custom.
* Behavior according to a fixed or accepted standard:That sure sounds like UI to me: the way an app is structured and looks and the way it behaves (or interacts with the user).

So, user interface is "form".
Form is of equal importance to Mac users as is function.
Take out the form by giving an app a terrible, nonstandard UI and you have "half" an app.
Half an app like this is not acceptable (or just borderline) for a number of Mac users.
Thus, if the UI isn't good, then neither is the app.

Do you see what I'm trying to say here?