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citoc · Jan 23, 2001, 03:40 AM

Howdy all.

I've started a project to bring a new interface to browsing on OS X over on SourceForge. It can be found here: http://qbati2.sourceforge.net or http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/qbati2

Currently in the planing stages, the idea is to bring a more "standard" interface to a native port of Mozilla. The rendering engine works well, the interface is just a bit off.

Just thought I'd share, and see if I couldn't drum up a bit of support.

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ChangeIsTheOnlyConstant

(always takes a bit to get that formatting right)

[This message has been edited by citoc (edited 01-23-2001).]

[This message has been edited by citoc (edited 01-23-2001).]

Aldie G · Jan 23, 2001, 11:43 AM

Great idea! I had the same idea a while ago.. I like Mozilla's rendering engine, but it's interface is bloated and slow loading, partly because it's crossplatform. So why not put a beautiful aqua interface on the Mozilla engine and what you get is a superbrowser. There's a project that looks something like this idea allready available for Linux. ( http://galeon.sourceforge.net/ ) and I think it's great. But since I'm not a programmer.. I can only hope a team makes it reality for OSX. Good luck citoc.

conny · Jan 23, 2001, 03:12 PM

I'm a developer and think this is a really great initiative. I have some ideas in my head for a UI. I might mock something up in InterfaceBuilder. Can I post the nibs on sourcegorge, citoc?

citoc · Jan 23, 2001, 06:25 PM

conny: that would be great. You could either email it to me, or post it in the SourceForge fourm, etc.

Glad to see some interest is starting.

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ChangeIsTheOnlyConstant

davecom · Jan 23, 2001, 11:43 PM

Being a developer and knowing how difficult a task your undertaking all I can say is "Good Luck!".

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Think Different.

citoc · Jan 24, 2001, 01:51 AM

davecom: thanks, though more help is needed than luck . . .

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ChangeIsTheOnlyConstant

me · Jan 24, 2001, 03:03 AM

I looked at the page, I'm curious about few things. Are you taking Gecko (and some other components as needed) and building a new Browser around that, or taking Mozilla, doing a Cocoa/BSD port and putting a native UI on it?

Personally I'd like to see the former, make it Cocoa, and take full advantage of the system (ie sheets, spell checking, killer antialiased text).

BTW, could you explain some of the interface ideas you have planned? Who is the target audience of this program?

citoc · Jan 24, 2001, 09:21 AM

I think that a port of Gecko and other bits as needed (PSM, etc) with a native interface is what I'm leaning toward.

As for what are UI ideas; that is open to discusion. That, in fact, is one of the things I was hopping would be discused on the SourceForge forum in detail. My idea is for a global, vertical, docked toolbar for functions such as back forward, etc, and URL bar attached to windows. My thoughts.

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ChangeIsTheOnlyConstant

Jan 26, 2001, 09:12 AM

You can count me in!

me · Jan 26, 2001, 12:12 PM

Once again, who is the target user (market)? A number of UI decisions depend on that. I've considered putting the URL bar in a global docked toolbar wih the buttons "open" and "open in new window" (or at least I'd look at it). Though I think that would be a better UI move for newbies.