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doublep · Mar 21, 2005, 05:04 AM

Hi all,

I've been very impressed by the latest builds of Camino:

http://www.fiberoptikz.tk/~slowmo/Camino.html

The latest build (March 20) is very fast and has solved problems I used to have accessing my bank's site.

Apparently, the latest builds also use fast Quartz rendering (whatever that means...)

Camino is now (once again) my default browser!

doublep · Mar 21, 2005, 05:08 AM

By the way, you can also install CaminoExtraPrefs to gain access to further controls:

http://www.nada.de/mac/camino/cep.html

TETENAL · Mar 21, 2005, 06:14 AM

Originally posted by doublep:
Apparently, the latest builds also use fast Quartz rendering (whatever that means...)

I seriously doubt that. Where did you hear that?

monkeybrain · Mar 21, 2005, 11:00 AM

Yes, I believe the latest nightlies and G4 optimised builds are now using Quartz to render images (but not text).

Krypton · Mar 21, 2005, 12:46 PM

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I seriously doubt that. Where did you hear that?

From what I understand, there are Quartz builds available but the functionality isn't built by default in the official nightlies.

TheIceMan · Mar 21, 2005, 01:44 PM

Also interesting is that they set up a new website called, www.caminobrowser.org. I really miss Camino and hope that they continue to work on it.

Catfish_Man · Mar 21, 2005, 02:19 PM

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I seriously doubt that. Where did you hear that?

Image rendering on trunk switched to Quartz a little while back. Got them a few % speed boost and some fixes. It's still mostly QD though.

OptimusG4 · Mar 21, 2005, 02:33 PM

Originally posted by TheIceMan:
Also interesting is that they set up a new website called, www.caminobrowser.org. I really miss Camino and hope that they continue to work on it.

Ok, that is nice. Now we just need them to work full swing on it

TETENAL · Mar 21, 2005, 02:51 PM

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
Image rendering on trunk switched to Quartz a little while back. Got them a few % speed boost and some fixes. It's still mostly QD though.

OK, that I believe, but that's by far not as interesting as switching to ATSUI text rendering. That is what will bring the Mozillas a big step forward with regard to the good look of web pages.

Millennium · Mar 21, 2005, 03:12 PM

Originally posted by TETENAL:
OK, that I believe, but that's by far not as interesting as switching to ATSUI text rendering. That is what will bring the Mozillas a big step forward with regard to the good look of web pages.

They actually tried ATSUI several years ago. I remember using it, but the results weren't impressive, as performance was abysmal. The current state of things -Quartz-style anti-aliasing but no ATSUI- was a compromise solution.

I'd like to see ATSUI text rendering in a browser, but not at the kind of performance hit that it meant back in those days. It's possible that the situation has improved, though; it has been two or three years, after all. I wonder if the old code is still in the source but disabled?

brettcamp · Mar 21, 2005, 05:52 PM

I finally got tired of Safari's weird recent slowdowns. I tried all the solutions I could find mentioned here in the forums (emptying cache, getting rid of favicons, etc etc), but for some reason, occasional pages just hang and hang when I try to load them.

I tried Firefox but it didn't help much, and I didn't like the interface much. Then I tried Camino, imported my Safari bookmarks, and I'm using it now. It has the occasional hang, too, but not nearly as much as Safari so far. I'm now using it when safari hangs, because I don't want to have to go through and re-enter passwords for various sites, but if Safari continues to slow me down, and if Camino keeps working well, I'll switch over to it as my default browser. It's generally noticeably faster than Safari. Oddly, when I type in text here on MacNN forums, the cursor is jittery in Camino, but not Safari -- anyone else notice this?

One thing I like about Camino is that if you hold down the command key when selecting a site from a folder full of bookmarks in the bookmarks bar, it'll open the newly selected site in a separate tab. Doesn't work in Safari (though it does when doing that from the bookmarks menu). But I'd miss the automatic backup of Safari bookmarks via iSync.

What other features would I be gaining or losing by switching to Camino for real? And what default fonts (proportional and monospace) do y'all recommend for web page display in Camino?

RedHerring · Mar 21, 2005, 07:36 PM

The latest nightly of Camino (3/21) is MUCH speedier than previous versions.

The odd super-flashing cursor in text boxes is still around (maybe even worse?). But rendering speed is improved quite a bit!

Definately worth a look by anyone who hasn't looked into in a while.

angelmb · Mar 22, 2005, 05:21 AM

Originally posted by RedHerring:
The latest nightly of Camino (3/21) is MUCH speedier than previous versions
(...)
Definately worth a look by anyone who hasn't looked into in a while.

Oh, time to try Camino again. Is there a nice way to use/export the Firefox bookmarks as Camino ones?

Thanks.

angelmb · Mar 22, 2005, 05:49 AM

Originally posted by angelmb:
Oh, time to try Camino again. Is there a nice way to use/export the Firefox bookmarks as Camino ones?

Thanks.

Auto-reply mode. I did it with Bookit.app, once I start Camino a error bookmark format is shown but nayway the new bookmarks are there.

Need to try a nighty build to feel the speed, thought.

RedHerring · Mar 22, 2005, 05:54 AM

Originally posted by angelmb:
Auto-reply mode. I did it with Bookit.app, once I start Camino a error bookmark format is shown but nayway the new bookmarks are there.

Need to try a nighty build to feel the speed, thought.

Yeah... the nightly is where the speed is. You should be able to use the Import Bookmark feature in Camino to share your bookmarks.

(I'm not 100% sure about that... I don't have Firefox installed, so it doesn't show up in my Import dialog... but Safari does... and if it can import bookmarks from Safari, *surely* it can import them from Firefox?)

Jim Paradise · Mar 22, 2005, 06:30 AM

Still my default browser, and the text input has somewhat improved.

delete · Mar 22, 2005, 10:06 AM

Wow. As a very long time Firefox user I finally downloaded the latest nightly and I'm very impressed with Camino's speed. It seems that with my setup (I can't speak for everyone) pages load faster and the "lookup" part of site loading is quicker than with Firefox. I'm going to try it out for a while and see if it might be a replacement for Firefox but overall it's a nice surprise.

I do wish the download manager worked as well as the one in Firefox with the Download Manager Tweak extension.

Wevah · Mar 22, 2005, 02:19 PM

Originally posted by delete:
I do wish the download manager worked as well as the one in Firefox with the Download Manager Tweak extension.

The DL manager does need a few tweaks of its own, however, some stuff is just a larger priority. :/

I'm going to take a gander at Download Manager Tweak, though, to glean a few ideas from.

angelmb · Mar 22, 2005, 02:24 PM

Tried it. I fear that no browser is going to feel really fast with my crappy adsl connection.

the_glassman · Mar 22, 2005, 02:57 PM

Does it still lack spell check? Any plug-ins that work with it? That was always my only gripe.

yaro · Mar 22, 2005, 05:55 PM

I do not think Camino is a 100% cocoa. The reason being, it does not support the maximice auto scroll application and dictionary applications.

brettcamp · Mar 23, 2005, 01:36 AM

I'm using the .8.2 version and I don't see spellcheck under the edit menu.
One advantage of Camino over Firefox I forgot to mention is that Camino allows you to use Services, which I use a lot in web browsing to capture and send text and other info.

juanvaldes · Mar 24, 2005, 05:31 AM

Originally posted by yaro:
I do not think Camino is a 100% cocoa. The reason being, it does not support the maximice auto scroll application and dictionary applications.

It has always been a cocoa front end to gecko. C++ -> Obj-C++