OmniWeb 4.5 Public Beta 1 released! (with Safari's WebCore)

ghost_user_name

For the people that don't own 4.x licenses and couldn't use the sneaky peek builds, Omni has finally released a public version for you all to try.



http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/download/



What's the big deal about 4.5? It chucks out the old rendering engine in favor of a tweaked version of WebCore, the engine that powers Apple's Safari. It's basically the same browser as 4.2.1 but with a new back-end for page display. It also has quite a number of bug fixes over 4.2.1. Complete details can be found at Omni's release notes for OmniWeb.



I recommend everyone at least give OmniWeb a try for a few days. It has a number of nice features over the other browsers. Two of my personal favorites are the privacy controls and the HTML editor. It's also got some cool gimmicky features for those of you who just like to show off such as speech recognition (also helpful for disabled users).



The greatest "feature" of all about OmniWeb in my opinion is how well it properly implements Aqua and Mac OS X technologies overall. Like Safari and unlike some other browsers, OmniWeb implements true Aqua elements in web pages. Services are available everywhere. It uses dock notification (for things like bookmark subscriptions). It has a much wider array of preferences than Safari or Camino (excluding Camino's cryptic user.js file that you have to edit by hand).



OmniWeb 4.5 doesn't really introduce any major new features. It's mostly just (and I use the term "just" lightly) a service update to 4.2.1 with the same feature set. The big new features (such as a tab-like implementation) are being held off until 5.0 which should actually arrive not too long after 4.5 goes GM.



Well, I could rant for a few more pages about how great I think OmniWeb is, but I'd like to hear some other people's opinions about it first.



So, what are you waiting for? Go download!

ibrowse

Awesome, thanks for the heads up. I'll post back later with my thoughts.

rok

checking it out now (heck, it's what i am using to post from). definitely faster than 4.2, but not as wicked fast as safari. no page broken so far (even threw espn.com at it, and it handled it like a champ).



like they say, not too shabby...

torifile

This is a great update from where it was the last time I used it. I can actually get into etrade.com and wachovia now. Everything seems to work ok. I just wish I could ctrl+click on an image I want to block and say block images from this server (Pith Helmet has me spoiled and Firebird/Mozilla before that). And I hate to say it, but I sorta miss tabs.

paul

Quote:

Originally posted by torifile

I just wish I could ctrl+click on an image I want to block and say block images from this server (Pith Helmet has me spoiled and Firebird/Mozilla before that). And I hate to say it, but I sorta miss tabs.

these are both coming....

wait for 5.0...



well, not really tabs... we will see soon enough...

chucker

I found the icon with the red sign in it funnier

mrmister

I'm still a Camino man, but it is pretty nice looking.

wmf

It's great. Congrats OmniGroup.

serrano

ghost_user_name

I find rendering speed in most cases (not surprisingly) to be about on par with Safari. On some sites it's a little faster; on a number of others it's a little slower. One thing worth noting is that I believe that Omni's version is threaded a bit better than Safari, specifically in image handling:



"We now load and process images in background threads using our image processing framework from 4.2."



I really like how it makes up for some shortcomings in Safari. I actually had trained myself with Safari not to do things like hit the Find while in frames since it was broken in Safari!



Well, I'm glad to see that a few others here were willing to give this a try.

chucker

Well, I for myself love it. It's almost a good browser. The real good browser has yet to be written.

thegelding

just trying now...as before, it is a beautiful program, and it seems fast to me...about the same as safari...



questions...pop up blocker?? dock aware??? import bookmarks from IE or safari or mozilla???



will play with it for awhile and get back with my simple minded thoughts





g

thegelding

it is beta....so take this with a certain amount of salt substitute



typing in text is fast and sweet

all the preferences and options are amazing



but..



doesn't seem to remember window size (i must resize window each time i open the app)

i would love a google search box in the toolbar like in safari

i would like the favorites toolbar just a bit bigger (small quibble)

for some reason i can't move the toolbar tools around once i have set them ( i could at first, now i can't?)

i have already managed to freeze it once and bomb it once!!



but i love the look, i love love typing and spell check and i think it could truly be a great browser when it is out of beta....as is, i will play with it some and still use safari also...it is just so sweet to not even think of IE except as an emergency use browser for the rare site that needs it





g

chucker

Quote:

Originally posted by thegelding

pop up blocker?? dock aware??? import bookmarks from IE or safari or mozilla???

Yes. See JavaScript Preferences.



Yes. (Shows amount of updated bookmarks.)



Yes. (Only tried Safari import; worked well.)

jll

Quote:

Originally posted by thegelding

doesn't seem to remember window size (i must resize window each time i open the app)

Browser -> Save Window Size

thegelding

thanks guys...keychain?? to remember my login and password at amazon, ebay and the 100 other places i spend lots of cash at??



g

thegelding

yes, found bookmark import,,,could be a bit less hidden...or i could try looking harder next time...it is fun to play with...but maybe it should have an "idiot" setting and an "advanced" setting...i refuse to answer which setting would be best for me





g

ghost_user_name

Heh. I'm glad everyone else chimed in with the answers to thegelding's questions so quickly. In the future, you might want to glanec over he FAQ. It answers such questions as the window size and bookmark import. The stuck toolbar icons baffles me, though, because it's a standard Cocoa toolbar. Command-drag or "Customize toolbar..." should work fine.



Remember that OmniWeb also comes with some good help documentation that doesn't use Apple's crappy Help Viewer app.

paul

Quote:

Originally posted by thegelding

i would love a google search box in the toolbar like in safari

type "google thegelding" in the url bar...



the best part is you can customize it so you could type "define agape" and it would take you to your preferred dictionary site and show you the definition... you can do it with anything. very useful... IMDB ..., amazon ..., knowledge base (kb) ... anything with a search box...

thuh freak

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul

type "google thegelding" in the url bar...



the best part is you can customize it so you could type "define agape" and it would take you to your preferred dictionary site and show you the definition... you can do it with anything. very useful... IMDB ..., amazon ..., knowledge base (kb) ... anything with a search box...

this idea alone was enough for me to go to omniweb. goodbye safari!

serrano

Safari has started to feel kludgy, like it's bogged down by something. Camino feels much cleaner, but OW renders much better, and keeps the same clean, responsive, feeling. After cleaning up the interface to my tastes and importing the bookmarks I'm going to try living with it for a while. However, I do love my tabs- we'll see how long this lasts. The plugins work, and I have previous/next in my contextual menu, where He intended it.







I hope the image isn't too large, I tried to keep the width and kb down.



An added bonus, OW doesn't crash while trying to store my proxy l/p like Safari does, and it actually saves them.