I'll tell you what add-on I'm loving the most about the new Firefox3 besides the speed right now: No Squint. Look it up. It allows you to set text zoom and sizes for each individual website. So your fontsize presets that look good on one site but horrible on another are no longer an issue.
Omniweb had this for ages now. Probably the Omniweb per-site preferences are more advanced, I cannot confirm or deny since I have not yet tried FF3.
But it is good to see others catching up in usability.
Does OmniWeb also allow you to preset full page zooming? That's another thing No Squint does. So you get text and full page zooming with independent settings.
Does OmniWeb also allow you to preset full page zooming? That's another thing No Squint does. So you get text and full page zooming with independent settings.
I have Omniweb running now and this is what it offers as per-site preferences:
(1) Page appearance: font style, underline (or not) links, text zoom, page colors, images (load inline with page, load background images, use ColorSync), style sheet
(2) Ad blocking: block pop-up windows, animate images, block images and other inline content, blocked url list.
(3) Languages: text encoding for web pages and form submission, request web pages in preferred languages (according to International preference pane).
(4) Security: javascript behavior, enable/disable java, cookies options.
(5) Other: browser identity (one of the popular ones or custom) shown to web servers, behavior of links to other sites, download location. Also, one very nice Omniweb feature (and shame on Apple that has not implemented it yet for Safari) is that it automatically adds to Spotlight comments of each downloaded file the URL of origin. Extremely handy to keep track of your downloads.
Sounds like I have to look at it again. Just can't stand giving up my add-on choices available on Firefox for long.
Even with the benefits of other browsers, the vast extensions available to Firefox make it a must have for many people. I wish Apple would at least offer it as a native option, the way it has a plug-in folder.
Perhaps I'm wring, but setting up a few guidelines and making a part of the SDK test Safari Extensions does seem like a lot of work of Apple's part. It would also help get developers on XCode. If they are really serious about gaining more marketshare I think they need to do it.
I'd like to hear responses if you think it's too difficult, too costly and/or not worth Apple's time and effort.
my new firefox 3.0 that i offiically switched from safari for is now crashing and freezing up like my safari was doing. it happens about once a day, what gives? it can't be the browsers themselves... anyone?
my new firefox 3.0 that i offiically switched from safari for is now crashing and freezing up like my safari was doing. it happens about once a day, what gives? it can't be the browsers themselves... anyone?
It can certain be an issue with the browser. You'll need to check your crash log to get an idea what is happening.
Perhaps I've overwhelmed poor ol' Firefox with many add-ons.
This morning I did two tests, just after system boots. Both times, Safari startup took two icon bounces. One time, Firefox3 took 30. The other, it took 8.
Now, I must say I've overwhelmed ol' Firefox 3 with 17, count'em 17 extensions (plus, if relevant, 8 custom buttons on Google toolbar). No doubt, that's a contributing factor.
On the other hand, Firefox3 Web Developer can't be matched, for example, for ability to outline divs on a visible web page: a great aid in debugging, and for narrowing down and displaying the CSS for a specific div. For those of us heavy on CSS, this can be a heckuva quickie help, much better, even, than Amaya.
Firefox3 WITH Google Toolbar and Shareaholic has everything a bookmark fiend could want: these, poor ol' Safari can't handle. And Safari can't handle my many run-ins with Google Page Creator and various other online apps.
So, I guess I will keep Safari open in space 1 and Firefox open in space 4...
MIT has produced a PDF plugin for Firefox 3, which it put up on the web the night it launched by the looks of it. Firefox-Mac-PDF has just about everything its Safari equivalent has, with the exception of the handy little Leopard rollover menu at the bottom and contextual right-click saving (you have to Command-S in the old fashioned way).
Between that and the support for plugins like Zotero and the speed improvements and the FANTASTIC implementation of Opera's resolution-independent page-zooming feature that makes small-text pages SO MUCH EASIER to read, I am hooked on Firefox 3 at least until Safari 4 comes out. Also welcome is that the title and button bars override Leopard's excessive darkness and are therefore much easier to read.
The other impressive part is that none of Firefox 3's few bugs seem to be stability or compatibility-related.
Most of its problems are down to Mozilla's apparent ignorance of UI programming in Cocoa, with the result that smaller fonts don't look as good as they should and buttons and drop down menus are somewhat ugly rather than fitting with the Leopard look. This is one case where they threw the baby out with the bathwater on the Leopard UI.
Comments
I'll tell you what add-on I'm loving the most about the new Firefox3 besides the speed right now: No Squint. Look it up. It allows you to set text zoom and sizes for each individual website. So your fontsize presets that look good on one site but horrible on another are no longer an issue.
Omniweb had this for ages now. Probably the Omniweb per-site preferences are more advanced, I cannot confirm or deny since I have not yet tried FF3.
But it is good to see others catching up in usability.
Shame it's still ugly as balls and still doesn't use UI elements properly. [e] Or even draw the window background properly.
It's free -isn't it?
Does OmniWeb also allow you to preset full page zooming? That's another thing No Squint does. So you get text and full page zooming with independent settings.
I have Omniweb running now and this is what it offers as per-site preferences:
(1) Page appearance: font style, underline (or not) links, text zoom, page colors, images (load inline with page, load background images, use ColorSync), style sheet
(2) Ad blocking: block pop-up windows, animate images, block images and other inline content, blocked url list.
(3) Languages: text encoding for web pages and form submission, request web pages in preferred languages (according to International preference pane).
(4) Security: javascript behavior, enable/disable java, cookies options.
(5) Other: browser identity (one of the popular ones or custom) shown to web servers, behavior of links to other sites, download location. Also, one very nice Omniweb feature (and shame on Apple that has not implemented it yet for Safari) is that it automatically adds to Spotlight comments of each downloaded file the URL of origin. Extremely handy to keep track of your downloads.
No, I don't see full page zoom, only text zoom.
Shame it's still ugly as balls and still doesn't use UI elements properly. [e] Or even draw the window background properly.
You can't be talking about Firefox. Have you bothered to look at the mac themes or (any themes for that matter) in the free add-on section?
Sounds like I have to look at it again. Just can't stand giving up my add-on choices available on Firefox for long.
Even with the benefits of other browsers, the vast extensions available to Firefox make it a must have for many people. I wish Apple would at least offer it as a native option, the way it has a plug-in folder.
Perhaps I'm wring, but setting up a few guidelines and making a part of the SDK test Safari Extensions does seem like a lot of work of Apple's part. It would also help get developers on XCode. If they are really serious about gaining more marketshare I think they need to do it.
I'd like to hear responses if you think it's too difficult, too costly and/or not worth Apple's time and effort.
my new firefox 3.0 that i offiically switched from safari for is now crashing and freezing up like my safari was doing. it happens about once a day, what gives? it can't be the browsers themselves... anyone?
It can certain be an issue with the browser. You'll need to check your crash log to get an idea what is happening.
This morning I did two tests, just after system boots. Both times, Safari startup took two icon bounces. One time, Firefox3 took 30. The other, it took 8.
Now, I must say I've overwhelmed ol' Firefox 3 with 17, count'em 17 extensions (plus, if relevant, 8 custom buttons on Google toolbar). No doubt, that's a contributing factor.
On the other hand, Firefox3 Web Developer can't be matched, for example, for ability to outline divs on a visible web page: a great aid in debugging, and for narrowing down and displaying the CSS for a specific div. For those of us heavy on CSS, this can be a heckuva quickie help, much better, even, than Amaya.
Firefox3 WITH Google Toolbar and Shareaholic has everything a bookmark fiend could want: these, poor ol' Safari can't handle. And Safari can't handle my many run-ins with Google Page Creator and various other online apps.
So, I guess I will keep Safari open in space 1 and Firefox open in space 4...
Between that and the support for plugins like Zotero and the speed improvements and the FANTASTIC implementation of Opera's resolution-independent page-zooming feature that makes small-text pages SO MUCH EASIER to read, I am hooked on Firefox 3 at least until Safari 4 comes out. Also welcome is that the title and button bars override Leopard's excessive darkness and are therefore much easier to read.
The other impressive part is that none of Firefox 3's few bugs seem to be stability or compatibility-related.
Most of its problems are down to Mozilla's apparent ignorance of UI programming in Cocoa, with the result that smaller fonts don't look as good as they should and buttons and drop down menus are somewhat ugly rather than fitting with the Leopard look. This is one case where they threw the baby out with the bathwater on the Leopard UI.