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renpar61 · Oct 3, 2002, 09:39 AM

...WOW!
These guys are doing a great job. Works really well, text rendering and font control in the preferences has improved, speed is there, implemented new password management through the Keychain... what more do we need? I believe it's almost ready for primetime.

poocat · Oct 3, 2002, 09:41 AM

less crashing.

i can now crash chimera on command (and no i haven't reported it, and yes i understand that, and no this isn't really a complaint, i still use it constantly...)

seriously though,

i'm hoping for much improved stabililty after the .5 loss of control.

i'm quite excited though!

poocat.

malvolio · Oct 3, 2002, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by renpar61:
... what more do we need? I believe it's almost ready for primetime.

Java, better plugin support, more options for handling cookies...
But I do like it, and I am impressed by how fast the developers are improving it.

Mediaman_12 · Oct 3, 2002, 12:25 PM

Do these forums still render like sh*t?
I tried Chimera (during a mass test of every OSX browser), I liked the rendering speed

, I didn't like the horrible rendering of some sites (these forums where a severe example) and the lack of Prefs.
Chimera shows promise but it's back to the slightly slower but better looking and more configurable Omniweb for me until it 'matures'

Agasthya · Oct 3, 2002, 01:23 PM

Originally posted by renpar61:
...WOW!
These guys are doing a great job. Works really well, text rendering and font control in the preferences has improved, speed is there, implemented new password management through the Keychain... what more do we need? I believe it's almost ready for primetime.

The damn thing doesn't beep anymore when you hit enter in a search field...still crashes a ton.

solitere · Oct 3, 2002, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by poocat:
less crashing.

i can now crash chimera on command (and no i haven't reported it, and yes i understand that, and no this isn't really a complaint, i still use it constantly...)

seriously though,

i'm hoping for much improved stabililty after the .5 loss of control.

i'm quite excited though!

poocat.

You can reduce the Chimera application crashes by emtying the programs disc cache.. After that it crashes less (at least for me).

unfaded · Oct 3, 2002, 05:56 PM

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
Do these forums still render like sh*t?
I tried Chimera (during a mass test of every OSX browser), I liked the rendering speed , I didn't like the horrible rendering of some sites (these forums where a severe example) and the lack of Prefs.
Chimera shows promise but it's back to the slightly slower but better looking and more configurable Omniweb for me until it 'matures'

Actually, the forms look BEST under Chimera for me...perhaps it's your font settings?

fulmer · Oct 3, 2002, 09:22 PM

yes. the boards look good with chimera.

Gul Banana · Oct 4, 2002, 01:00 AM

Not compared to Omniweb - they look horrible because, for some reason, most of the text is not anti-aliased. Most sites look as good in Chimera as in Omniweb now, but not this one.

tinroots · Oct 4, 2002, 01:45 AM

yo, but whats up with no history window [there are history preferences - but no ability to get to it], no downloads window if you want to find one, no tab preferences... and a few other things but you cant get in to comment unless your 'qualified' or when i tried that was the case. certainly a super change and independant from the hanous ie --- afraid tho that it will mirror mozilla more [which is far behind chimera design + interface wise, imo]

AKcrab · Oct 4, 2002, 02:28 AM

Originally posted by tinroots:
yo, but whats up with no history window [there are history preferences - but no ability to get to it], no downloads window if you want to find one, no tab preferences... and a few other things but you cant get in to comment unless your 'qualified' or when i tried that was the case. certainly a super change and independant from the hanous ie --- afraid tho that it will mirror mozilla more [which is far behind chimera design + interface wise, imo]

Say what?

k2director · Oct 4, 2002, 03:22 AM

I want:

1) better font controls (it should be easier to specify a minimum font size so some pages don't require a magnifying glass to read).

2) better movie plug in support so I can watch movies (real, mpeg via Quicktime, etc.) without having to manually save them to my drive and open them... (ala IE)

3) Faster Flash performance

4) Chimera to stop leaving dialogue boxes hanging on the screen (clicking OK doesn't close them, they just won't go away).

Other than that, I'm very happy with it. Nothing matches its speed, and I'm hooked on tabs.

Simon Mundy · Oct 4, 2002, 08:52 AM

Originally posted by k2director:
4) Chimera to stop leaving dialogue boxes hanging on the screen (clicking OK doesn't close them, they just won't go away)

The 4/10 build seems to have fixed that.

And they've reworked the preference panels. Very nice! Now it just needs filling out...

poocat · Oct 4, 2002, 12:53 PM

i seriously think chimera is busting out as the best osx browser. it has massive leaps on ie, etc.

but it needs:

stability, stability, stability.

i LOVE its speed/rendering. i don't really care about too many more options, though i'd love a way to default tabs. nothing should open a new window if i don't want it to (and i never do).

more font options would be nice, but are not necessary. better plug-in support is. flash (as mentioned above) and quicktime (perhaps this is fixed in a more recent build, but in .5, quicktime movies stay onscreen when you change tabs, which makes tabs... pretty worthless).

but seriously. i've hold out for stability instead of more features any day. i would love more ad blocking options (see icab for example) and i'd love more history/open here/there options. but that's SO minor compared to maintaining the speed/rendering/low cpu usage (which is GREAT) and improving stability.

the fora (for me) look GREAT in chimera. the fonts are aliased in this box (enter message) but not in the actual fora... that's ok though, as it renders everything FAST and correctly located. they've also made scrolling work well 99% of the time (for me) which is a great thing.

keep up the great work-that's what i'm saying.

poocat.

KidRed · Oct 4, 2002, 01:03 PM

Chimera still needs-

1) standard size buttons and pull menus not the current large size

2) A go menu or history tab/window/back button. This is the major reason I never liked Netscape/Mozilla. If it crashes you loose your history.

3) More icons like view source, add bookmark, autofill

4) needs autofill

5) Needs better mouse focus, as I'm typing in this window I can't scroll the page. I have to click on the window outside this text box in order to refocus the mouse to scroll. Annoying.

6) Prefs

I think that's it for now, not sure what or when these issues may be resolved but they make OW a more complete solution over IE. Fix these and it would be hard to say no.

SupahCoolX · Oct 4, 2002, 08:09 PM

My requests, in no particular order (except for #1) are:
1. Stability, of course. It's gotten much worse in recent weeks. I understand it's beta though, so I'm forgiving.
2. Setting it as the default browser and making it stick. Perhaps this isn't solely Chimera's fault though?
3. Plugins
Other than that, Chimera rocks the party that rocks the body

fulmer · Oct 5, 2002, 12:09 AM

chimera is very stable for me. months of use and only a few crashes. but then again, I've turned off Java and disabled plug-ins. guess those are a big help.

unfaded · Oct 5, 2002, 05:35 AM

Originally posted by KidRed:
Chimera still needs-

*snip*

3) More icons like view source, add bookmark, autofill

*snip*

*looks in toolbar, sees Add Bookmark and View Source*

Is that what you mean?...cos it's there. (Make sure you're talking about nightlies...I dunno what the hell the last released Chimera even had anymore.)

However, you're definitely right on the widgets - they need some SERIOUS working.

mrwalker · Oct 5, 2002, 08:12 AM

Originally posted by tinroots:
yo, but whats up with no history window [there are history preferences - but no ability to get to it]

Add this line "user_pref("chimera.show_history", true);" to prefs.js in the ~/library/application support/chimera/profiles/default/somerandomtext/ folder. Chimera must be closed while you do it; the prefs are saved when you exit.

You will now have a history tab in the sidebar. Don't know why this is off by default though.

JRT · Oct 5, 2002, 09:01 PM

Originally posted by mrwalker:

Add this line "user_pref("chimera.show_history", true);" to prefs.js in the ~/library/application support/chimera/profiles/default/somerandomtext/ folder. Chimera must be closed while you do it; the prefs are saved when you exit.

You will now have a history tab in the sidebar. Don't know why this is off by default though.

Wow! That is very cool. History is one of the things that I missed in Chimera.

Any other good things that can be added with other magic pref lines?

clarkgoble · Oct 5, 2002, 10:13 PM

I have to admit that the reason I kept with OmniWeb over Chimera was for two reasons. First the "nightly build" I got apparently had some font problems which were subsequently fixed. (Sorry for the griping guys - I thought that was typical)

The other problem though is that it doesn't appear to anti-alias Geneva. At smaller font sizes it appears that sites like MacNN Forums render about the same as they do in IE. To me after getting used to anti-aliased fonts seeing the forum the way it is in Chimera was disconcerting. I must admit that I am loath to even use IE on my WinXP machine now just because of how spoiled I am about Omniweb.

Now Omniweb does have rendering problems. As many have mentioned with screws up the spacing in tables on sites like ESPN.com or even MSN.com. It screws up complex CSS pages as well. And it has next to no Java support, making it hard to use on Bank websites or other ASP based sites.

However to be fair, while Chimera renders more pages correctly, it has only moderately better Java/Javascript support than Omniweb. And realistically the number of sites that don't render properly in Omniweb are small. Those that don't tend to frequently not render properly in Chimera either - so I have to keep IE anyway.

I don't want three browsers, so I just trashed Chimera and kept Omniweb and IE, since I need IE anyway. If Chimera could render nicely the pages that Omniweb does a better job on I'd consider switching. But we'll see what happens on the next major release of both.

Ideally what I'd like is a browser that renders everything that IE can, but with the speed of alternative browsers and a more Mac-like interface. I recognize that may be a bit off though. So we'll see. Ideally Apple ought to pour some money into either the OmniWeb or Chimera projects to help bring a Mac-like browser to bear.

hyteckit · Oct 6, 2002, 12:15 AM

Chimera is turning out to be an awesome browser for OSX. My only complaint currently is stability and compatibility. Anyone else have problems with Chimera crashing on http://www.macdevcenter.com ?

aravizzza · Oct 6, 2002, 12:26 PM

Hytec, yes, your example site crashes for me too, as well an several NOAA (weather) sites. The nightly updates still have stability problems, but the Chimera is faster than ever in rendering pages.

voodoo · Oct 6, 2002, 01:16 PM

Originally posted by hyteckit:
Chimera is turning out to be an awesome browser for OSX. My only complaint currently is stability and compatibility. Anyone else have problems with Chimera crashing on http://www.macdevcenter.com ?

no. not with me. using navigator 0.5

hyteckit · Oct 6, 2002, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by voodoo:

no. not with me. using navigator 0.5

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was talking about the latest Chimera Nightlies. 10/3 - 10/5 build. The older builds might not have this problem.

unfaded · Oct 6, 2002, 09:32 PM

Originally posted by hyteckit:
Chimera is turning out to be an awesome browser for OSX. My only complaint currently is stability and compatibility. Anyone else have problems with Chimera crashing on http://www.macdevcenter.com ?

No.

But I have java off. Could be the source if there's java on the page.

babywriter · Oct 7, 2002, 12:05 AM

I downloaded the nightly from 10/4 or so (I had been using 0.4) and I am so impressed with the improvements that are being made. True, a few sites (like macdevcenter) do crash...but the rendering speed is just too good to give up.

And I just discovered tabbed browsing...I am well and truly hooked.

Besides Youpi Key, this is easily the most useful piece of freeware I've ever downloaded for Mac OS X. Can't wait till it reaches 1.0!

- KAI

hyteckit · Oct 7, 2002, 03:56 AM

Originally posted by unfaded:

No.

But I have java off. Could be the source if there's java on the page.

Interesting! http://www.macdevcenter.com doesn't crash anymore after turning Java off. Thanks unfaded for the tip. Guess Java is the culprit.