OmniWeb - Updates?

OmniWeb is currently at version 4.1.1 (v424.6).

There are BIG plans for OmniWeb 5, but they are still far from complete. The most optimistic projected release date for a 5.0 built is "early 2003".

What kind of big plans? Well, Rick and Ken have said publicly that they are gutting the rendering engine and rewriting the bulk of it from scratch to fully support the modern web technologies. That includes full DOM, CSS, and XHTML support. Also, the new engine will be *vastly* faster at rendering pages than the current one because Omni will be trimming and rewriting the custom subclasses used in the page layout (currently each object is a full NSView and that accounts for a lot of overhead). OmniWeb 5 also rearranges how certain threads are handled, making the interface more responsive under certain conditions. In theory, OmniWeb 5 should easily blow Chimera out of the water unless the Chimera folk make an enormous effort to gut the cross-platform code from Mozilla (which I strongly doubt).

Unfortunately, I believe your license for OmniWeb 4 will not be valid for OmniWeb 5. Omni gives free 4.x and 4.x.x releases but not full integer releases. Though, it will still probably be free (with just the nag screen) and you can be happy that you supported the development of such a great browser.

It should be noted that Chimera has required only a tiny fraction of the work OmniWeb has. Remember, Chimera is basically just a pretty interface on top of the code from Mozilla/Gecko/Fizilla. All the "plumbing" was complete when folks started the Chimera project. The Omni Group, on the other hand, writes all of its code from scratch.

[ 10-30-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>

OH! How could I foget the new features Omni is adding?!

* resumable downloads
* tabbed browsing, different from Mozilla/Chimera's implementation.
* scrapbook
* some new form of saving pages as archives
* better implementation of autofill

Also, Rick has mentioned that there will probably be a 4.2 released before 5.0. Supposedly 4.2 will also be 10.2-only. Don't fret, though, because Omni's code is modular and fixes in the 4.x comebase carry over to the 5.x codebase.

[quote]Originally posted by Brad:
<strong>It should be noted that Chimera has required only a tiny fraction of the work OmniWeb has. Remember, Chimera is basically just a pretty interface on top of the code from Mozilla/Gecko/Fizilla. All the "plumbing" was complete when folks started the Chimera project. The Omni Group, on the other hand, writes all of its code from scratch.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Then again, the Chimera folks have a LOT of re-plumbing to do to get its Mac-ness up to par with OmniWeb's.

[quote]Originally posted by frawgz:
<strong>Then again, the Chimera folks have a LOT of re-plumbing to do to get its Mac-ness up to par with OmniWeb's.</strong><hr></blockquote>Exactly. The bulk of the work is still ahead of them, IMO. They still haven't even finished properly hooking the main GUI together, let alone clean out the cross-platform crud or add features to it.

From what I've heard, the Chimera team is also not very receptive to suggestions. It seems they don't want to even try implementing anything new unless *you* can show them how and send in your own bit of code to do it. Eh.

[ 10-30-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>

Omniweb 5 would make such a nice christmas present...

errrr by the way,

"Brad
Massive Porn Collection"

:eek: :confused: :eek:

[ 10-31-2002: Message edited by: Producer ]

[ 10-31-2002: Message edited by: Producer ]

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[ 10-31-2002: Message edited by: Producer ]

[ 10-31-2002: Message edited by: Producer ]</p>

re: member status
Jon's up to his old tricks again.

It's really quite funny to see how OmniWeb currently interprets and renders XHTML/CSS. It doesn't even support CSS1. Netscape 4 supported CSS1. Come on, people

I still prefer Chimera over Omniweb....

Chimera is fast. But it is so bare on features it's not even funny.

Eh--works for me. Glad i didn't pay for OW, since it sounds like it doesn't have anything I want until v.5, when we all get the chance to pay again.

[quote]Originally posted by Outsider:
<strong>Chimera is fast. But it is so bare on features it's not even funny.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Yep. But even though quite a few features are missing, Chimera's my default browser. And IE is my choice over OmniWeb too.

[quote]Originally posted by M3D Jack:
<strong>It's really quite funny to see how OmniWeb currently interprets and renders XHTML/CSS. It doesn't even support CSS1. Netscape 4 supported CSS1. Come on, people </strong><hr></blockquote>

Actually, I've had OK luck with OW's CSS1 support. It's far from comprehensive, but at least it's not Netscape 4's worse-than-nothing support.

I use OW a lot of the time, because the sites I visit tend not to fluster it. I keep Chimera around for when I do run across one (such as the new Wired site). That said, I can't wait for OW 5, because I want to jump over to XHTML with both feet.

Im on dail-up, and Omniweb is much much faster than IE. I have tried chimera but I got rid of it because of its lack of features. Im soo waiting for Omniweb 5.

I like OW best. Yeah it's rendering engine isn't as good as Chimera's, but it has far more features, and IMO better features.

My favorite OW feature is that it supports OS X's spell checker. I don't understand why other browsers don't, but for a bad speller like me, a spell checker is a must.

Based on what I've read, OW 5 is going to kick ass. The rendering engine promises to be the fastest of any OS X browser, and tabbed browsing will be implemented.....the only feature I currently miss in OW.

Meanwhile, IE is stagnating. It will be interesting to see what Apple does when OW 5 is out and fully refined, and Chimera finally matures. If two different browsers are superior to IE, will Apple bundle one of them as the default browser in OS X and ditch IE?

IE does have the best download manager with the ability to resume paused downloads. I can't stand that OW won't resume paused downloads--how hard can it be to add such a feature? I also dig IE's ability to save web pages recursively, meaning, to save the displayed page and links up to several links deep. It's a nice feature if you want to download a mondo-article from somewhere like Ars and then disconnect and read the article offline. OW doesn't even come close to this.

Hopefully, the Omni Group gets their shit together for OW 5. No updates recently means they're concentrating on OW5, so that's promising.

today's nov. 1 build of chimera is pretty fly....by far best yet...must be near .6 release...Im looking forward to OW5 as well...but this is keeping me pretty happy in the mean time

[ 11-01-2002: Message edited by: Producer ]</p>

I can't wait until OmniWeb 5 is released. I'll definitely be purchasing. OmniWeb has such a nice interface and has tons of organized/easy to use features. Only problem is that half of the sites I go to won't work with it and it is somewhat slow. It would be really nice if they put a built in instant messenger in version 5. Right now I'm constantly changing my browsers. I can't stand IE because of it's FUGLY interface. Navigator is fast but pretty bland. So I'm using Netscape. Switching between Netscape and Navigator works out well for me until OW 5 comes out.

[quote]Originally posted by Brad:
<strong>From what I've heard, the Chimera team is also not very receptive to suggestions. It seems they don't want to even try implementing anything new unless *you* can show them how and send in your own bit of code to do it. Eh.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Not exactly true. I was on the list for people using the nightly builds, and they do listen to feedback and take suggestions. However, it seems their design goal is to keep everything simple and tight. No features that add unnecessary bloat or that only a few users would need.

Personally, I love Subscriptions in IE. However, the Chimera team seems to feel that few users actually take advantage of them, thus it's bloat. In other instances, they went and added Keychain support because users asked quite often for it.

{Edited to fix a missing tag.}

[ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: Kesh ]</p>

holy crap... I just downloaded chimera for like the first time in ages.... it's fast as hell..

so this is what cable internet feels like... wow