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Krypton · Mar 24, 2004, 04:06 PM

Originally posted by Deestar:
Hmmm, is it me but have Omni gone very quiet on us. No New public betas for over 3 weeks...

Either:
1. There isn't much to put in a new beta apart from refinements.
2. They're working on final.
3. Maybe people have lost interest and so there is no pressure now.

jcb9 · Mar 24, 2004, 04:07 PM

Originally posted by Deestar:
Hmmm, is it me but have Omni gone very quiet on us. No New public betas for over 3 weeks...

Well, beta 3 expires on April 1, so something new must be coming within the next month...

ratlater · Mar 24, 2004, 04:12 PM

Originally posted by Krypton:
Either:
1. There isn't much to put in a new beta apart from refinements.
2. They're working on final.
3. Maybe people have lost interest and so there is no pressure now.

I'm guessing they are just polishing the next beta. Still too soon to go final, maybe a release candidate. It would be foolhardy of them to let this beta expire before a new one is released, so I'd expect something in the next 3 or 4 days.

-matt

cpac · Mar 24, 2004, 04:25 PM

Originally posted by jcb9:
Well, beta 3 expires on April 1, so something new must be coming within the next month...

or just the next week...

They wont let it expire on us. (Though between 2 & 3 there were a few people closer to the international date line that were without OW 5.0 for a few hours)

Tim2 at Omni · Mar 24, 2004, 05:08 PM

Sorry for being so quiet -- we're still around, and working harder than ever on the next release.

There's some really cool (new) stuff in the latest build, but that's all I can say right now.

Deestar · Mar 24, 2004, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by Tim2 at Omni:
Sorry for being so quiet -- we're still around, and working harder than ever on the next release.

There's some really cool (new) stuff in the latest build, but that's all I can say right now.

Thanks for the update Tim

iTunesHacker · Mar 24, 2004, 05:58 PM

OmniWeb rulez! Beta 3 is quite ok, imo, overall. You can find a few good reviews here.

iTH

jcb9 · Mar 24, 2004, 06:50 PM

Originally posted by cpac:
or just the next week...

They wont let it expire on us.

Err, right, that's what I meant. I mistyped.

Gul Banana · Mar 25, 2004, 09:45 AM

For me, the only issues remaining in beta 3 are:
<input type="file"> hangs
remaining slowness

I'm so very glad command-option-c was put back in

ratlater · Mar 25, 2004, 01:15 PM

Originally posted by Gul Banana:
For me, the only issues remaining in beta 3 are:
<input type="file"> hangs
remaining slowness

I'm so very glad command-option-c was put back in

My biggest issue with beta 3 is the persistent cache. I run across quite a few sites, particularly Slashdot, that always need a manual refresh. Plus the cache can really bog down performance after a while and needs a manual flush.

Other than that the flickering flash is annoying and a few stability and polish improvements here and there and everything would be peachy.

-matt

Tim2 at Omni · Mar 25, 2004, 01:37 PM

We've done a lot of work on plugins. The flickery flash/quicktime is fixed, and we even support embedded Windows Media content now.

The file input bug has also been squashed.

MrBS · 02:01 PM

It sounds like a massacre over there. Why can't you just bring the bugs out into the garden? Why all the violence? What did they ever do to you???

~BS

[edit]But if you see that 'Attempt to insert a null value' bug skittering around break out the raid and the balpine hammers. Actually for your own safety go for the 5 lb sledge. That one's big and nasty.[/edit]

tikki · Mar 25, 2004, 07:40 PM

Originally posted by Tim2 at Omni:
and we even support embedded Windows Media content now.

Am I the only person that doesn't like embedded Windows Media content? I prefer it to open the application to play the stuff (ie. ESPNRadio's stream).

Tim2 at Omni · Mar 25, 2004, 07:54 PM

Originally posted by tikki:
Am I the only person that doesn't like embedded Windows Media content? I prefer it to open the application to play the stuff (ie. ESPNRadio's stream).

Me too, but lots of other people were requesting it.

You could always just delete your Windows Media Player plugin.

cpac · Mar 25, 2004, 08:40 PM

Originally posted by Tim2 at Omni:
You could always just delete your Windows Media Player plugin.

or disable it via OW's preferences?

pliny · Mar 26, 2004, 10:49 AM

It seems like a good idea for you guys at OG to provide inline content, and if people don't liek doing it that way they can just take the plugins out. Mightn't it be easier to update a line or two in the OW manual instead of having this as a pref?

iamnotmad · Mar 26, 2004, 11:39 AM

Hey OG, it appears that Quicktimes are not loading in tabs, Safari sadly does not do this either. FireFox does (i think recently). But this is huge!! I use this a lot at apples quicktime movie trailer site, I set of a bunch of trialers in tabs, but they don't load unless you are on that tab. Can this be fixed?

Thanks!

edit - oh! When do you expect the next beta?

cpac · Mar 26, 2004, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by pliny:
Mightn't it be easier to update a line or two in the OW manual instead of having this as a pref?

I just meant that you can *already* disable plug-ins via OW's preferences.

pliny · Mar 29, 2004, 09:43 PM

My beta expires in a few days, I wonder what new stuff these guys have been working on? Should be about time for beta4. Hooray.

F_Elz · Mar 30, 2004, 12:51 AM

They are adding some stuff... or so I heard. Beta 4 is going to be great

.

cpac · Mar 30, 2004, 01:48 AM

Originally posted by F_Elz:
They are adding some stuff... or so I heard.

Maybe just from Tim's post further up the thread?

Originally posted by Tim2atOmni:
There's some really cool (new) stuff in the latest build, but that's all I can say right now.

Two days and counting... (though maybe we'll get that handy tuesday release thing, or, since it is April 1st, maybe beta 3 wont really expire.... (or is a huge trojan horse)

F_Elz · Mar 30, 2004, 02:32 AM

That and some email I got back...

Neo.cmg · Mar 31, 2004, 01:20 AM

OmniWeb 5.0 b4 is out...

ctbritt · Mar 31, 2004, 02:39 AM

Posting with b4 right now.

Hm. Seems zippier, a little more optimized. Scrolling is smoother and switching between tabs is improved. Nigh instant switching now. Rendering feels a bit faster, too. Still having trouble signing into some secure sites, which is bothersome.

Big news: Synchronization of bookmarks via WebDAV or iDisk. That's going to be pretty damn cool. Typing in the expand-o-text field is MUCH improved. Keeps up with me now.

Nice work, fellas!

F_Elz · Mar 31, 2004, 03:05 AM

Hmm... I like it a lot :-D
Still some flickering when loading pages though.

starfleetX · Mar 31, 2004, 07:42 AM

Too bad ad blocking is almost entirely broken in b4.

pliny · Mar 31, 2004, 08:44 AM

The zoom box is much improved. Scrolling, rendering and general responsiveness are much improved. There's new pref icons. Nice work all in all from what I can tell so far.
Will need more time to test it out as I am still

JKT · Mar 31, 2004, 08:57 AM

The single most important improvement in b4 is the caching - it is significantly improved and although there is a slight speed hit once you start hitting your physical RAM ceiling (and paging starts), it is nowhere near as bad as it was in earlier betas.

Words of advice before running it for the first time:

1. Make backup copies of your OmniWeb 5 Application Support folder and preferences (~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb 5 and ~/Library/Preferences/com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5.plist), just in case.

2. Delete your Groups.plist file from ~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb 5 folder if you have been suffering from the duplicating bookmarks folder issue in the Bookmark sidebar.

3. Delete the ~/Library/Caches/com.omnigroup.OmniWeb 5 folder to avoid potential favicon issues (if you don't do this, you may not get your favicons saved between sessions).

You should then be good to go.

JKT · Mar 31, 2004, 01:46 PM

Woot - the site specific download preference now works too.

cpac · Mar 31, 2004, 02:31 PM

Originally posted by starfleetX:
Too bad ad blocking is almost entirely broken in b4.

It doesn't seem entirely broken for me (still catches many ads) but it certainly isn't working as expected.

Can an omniperson confirm that ad blocking is known not to work in this version? (since it's not in the known issues list) or let us know if the requisite syntax has changed?

superfula · Mar 31, 2004, 02:58 PM

Scrolling while a webpage is still loading is quite broken for me. If scrolling down, only the bottom 1/8th of the page will scroll. Likewise, if scrolling up while the page is still loading, only the top 1/8th of the page will scroll, while the rest....won't.

Anyone else seeing this?

Deestar · Mar 31, 2004, 04:23 PM

Im really liking OW 5 Beta 4 quite fast and stable. There are however a couple of things I've noticed that hasn't been said yet:

1) Safari Bookmarks seem to disappear after you relaunch
2) It would be great to be able to have the option on a bookmark folder to "open all in tabs" both as a default option and on the bookmark menu as well.
3) Option to open a double clicked bookmark into a new tab.
4) In the bookmark window/section if you close the info bar at the bottom there is no UI to bring it back other than to use the menu or CMD+i.
5) Quicktime movies still seem to play not quite as smooth as Safari.

That all for the moment, having said all of that OW 5 is shaping up nicely and I'm considering using it full time. To be honest only the render speed and site compatibility may hold me back, once the new webcore has been added then I can see myself using it for sure.

Keep up the good work guys.

OAW · Mar 31, 2004, 05:01 PM

OW5 b. 4 is looking great! My only complaint thus far is how Command+Click a folder in the Bookmarks Bar insists upon opening up the pages in new tabs instead of replacing the existing tabs like Safari. If I have all my "General News" sites open in tabs and now want to Command+Click on the "IT News" sites I want the first set to go away ... and I don't want to have to close them all one by one first. When you have 5 or 6 tabs open already, the last thing I want to do is open up 5 or 6 more when opening up all the bookmarks in a folder! Please allow Command+Click on a folder to work like Safari ... even if it is implemented as a preference for those to accommodate those who like the current behavior.

OAW

cpac · Mar 31, 2004, 05:07 PM

Originally posted by OAW:
OW5 b. 4 is looking great! My only complaint thus far is how Command+Click a folder in the Bookmarks Bar insists upon opening up the pages in new tabs instead of replacing the existing tabs like Safari. If I have all my "General News" sites open in tabs and now want to Command+Click on the "IT News" sites I want the first set to go away ... and I don't want to have to close them all one by one first. When you have 5 or 6 tabs open already, the last thing I want to do is open up 5 or 6 more when opening up all the bookmarks in a folder! Please allow Command+Click on a folder to work like Safari ... even if it is implemented as a preference for those to accommodate those who like the current behavior.

OAW

Actually the behavior's already there.

Double-click on bookmark bar folder = close current tabs, open all sites in folder in new tabs.

Command-click on bookmark bar folder = open all sites in folder in new tabs without closing any existing tabs.

JangoFett124 · Mar 31, 2004, 06:44 PM

This version is so much more usable than before.

Some bugs and suggestions:

Clicking a link from the bookmark menu when no window is open does nothing.
The bookmarks menu shows a separator under my items for where favorites go (I don't have any). No separator should be shown if there's nothing to separate.
When I type in an address, it would be nice if auto-complete auto-fills the address that I go to most for the text I already have entered. What I mean is it would be nice if it acts like Safari.
If I have it set so that it only shows the drawer when there's more than one tab, it should close it automatically when a tab is closed and there's only one left.

Good stuff, though.

runejoha · Mar 31, 2004, 07:41 PM

Aggh, whith FireFox I dont understand that there are market for webrowsers developers living on this. This browser looks good, and I like how the tabs save space etc, but the FireFox is still easier and more flexible, faster.

Originally posted by entrox:
Generally, I like the direction OmniWeb is heading with the exception of the butt-ugly icons (but they will be fixed). But this beta is still way too buggy to be usable for day-to-day surfing. It reminds me of the very first sneaky-peak of 4.5. Here's a small list of the things I encountered, which are not in the release notes:
Toggling between a page and the bookmark pane does a reload every time. This should happen instantly.

Page layout often gets torn apart while scrolling.

Favicons get lost after quitting.

Way too aggressive caching - I always had to hit reload explicitly on the forum to get new content.

The loading indicator sometimes spins forever, because it failed to load some items. Bringing up the activity window shows a lot of 'orphans', which cannot be removed.

General slowness. I think this can be attributed to the beta status.

As a registered user I like it, but I'm waiting for 5.1 ;-)

squilla · Mar 31, 2004, 08:01 PM

cpac said:

"Double-click on bookmark bar folder = close current tabs, open all sites in folder in new tabs."

Actually, it doesn't work very well-- I have to double-click very fast several times to make it happen, and even then it isn't reliable.

And sometimes, instead of the site I'm supposed to get in a tab, I get an empty tab and I can't load the site I wanted at all-- even after closing all tabs. I need to quit OW and restart it to get things back to normal.

Tim2 at Omni · Mar 31, 2004, 09:54 PM

Originally posted by squilla:
Actually, it doesn't work very well-- I have to double-click very fast several times to make it happen, and even then it isn't reliable.

If you don't like the double-click thing, you can Command-Option-click on either a folder or a favorite and OmniWeb will replace all tabs with whatever you clicked on.

As for your other issues -- weird! Send feedback! Get that bug on my plate, and I'll try to fix it!

cpac · Mar 31, 2004, 10:17 PM

Originally posted by runejoha:
Aggh, whith FireFox I dont understand that there are market for webrowsers developers living on this. This browser looks good, and I like how the tabs save space etc, but the FireFox is still easier and more flexible, faster.

Don't use OW then. There are many of us who find it's superior features and interface are worth it.

(Also, that quote, was w/r/t some earlier beta - and realize, it's *still* in beta)

jcb9 · Apr 1, 2004, 01:00 PM

As far as ad blocking being broken, I'm finding that, with this beta, when I command-click on an image and tell Omniweb to filter it, nothing generally happens. This same feature worked fine for me in previous betas; is anyone else finding this?

cpac · Apr 1, 2004, 01:55 PM

yep - same problem - it just seems like OW is ignoring all my ad filters (except the size based one)

On the other hand I'm noticing much improved rendering of frame-set page (which seems odd--maybe I've just been lucky? Or maybe Westlaw just fixed their code?)

ctbritt · Apr 1, 2004, 02:39 PM

my bookmarks sometimes get hosed. I lose a lot of them, and sometimes they get rearranged around the Favorites bar. This has been a constant since b2, I think.

King Bob On The Cob · Apr 1, 2004, 08:21 PM

This last release of OmniWeb seems like 1 step forward two steps back.

I'm having glitchy scrolls again, I'm having problems with "Waiting for connection" again, and Ad blocking seems to be broken. Looks like back to beta 3 for me...

Tim2 at Omni · Apr 1, 2004, 09:24 PM

Ad blocking has been fixed -- it was a simple mistake which we somehow missed before the release. Sorry about that, everyone.

We'll get a new beta out to you ASAP!

cpac · Apr 1, 2004, 09:25 PM

Originally posted by Tim2 at Omni:
Ad blocking has been fixed -- it was a simple mistake which we somehow missed before the release. Sorry about that, everyone.

We'll get a new beta out to you ASAP!

great to hear!

here's to beta 4.1

Spirit_VW · Apr 1, 2004, 11:43 PM

So, does this new "persistent disk cache" actually work yet as of the betas? I'm on dial-up (yeah, still), and the cache seems to do nothing. I can visit a site, and re-visit it five minutes later and every single thing is reloaded fresh from the server. Makes browsing ultra-super-slow compared to almost any other browser.

Other than that one thing, I LOVE version 5. If the cache did something I would use it over everything else - the other features are simply wonderful.

cpac · Apr 2, 2004, 12:07 AM

Originally posted by Spirit_VW:
So, does this new "persistent disk cache" actually work yet as of the betas? I'm on dial-up (yeah, still), and the cache seems to do nothing. I can visit a site, and re-visit it five minutes later and every single thing is reloaded fresh from the server. Makes browsing ultra-super-slow compared to almost any other browser.

Other than that one thing, I LOVE version 5. If the cache did something I would use it over everything else - the other features are simply wonderful.

Oh it's there alright.

Try looking at your history preferences to make sure you haven't set it's size to 0 or something

Spirit_VW · Apr 2, 2004, 01:26 AM

Originally posted by cpac:
Oh it's there alright.

Try looking at your history preferences to make sure you haven't set it's size to 0 or something

I'm looking at History prefs at the moment..."Discard history when quitting" is unchecked, "Save history entries" is set for 30 days, Disk cache limit is 25 MB, validate is on auto.

Does the disk cache get erased when you quit OW? Maybe that's my problem. Or perhaps there is some corrupt file I should trash.

Still no apparent effect. Went to Apple's site not ten minutes ago, and now going back OW is downloading what looks like 3/4 of the images again. Hadn't been to Apple.com in Safari in a few hours, and it just popped up in a few seconds just now, not downloading much at all.

Aaaargh, I want to use OW so badly, but this cache thing makes it tough. Oh, to be on broadband...

JKT · Apr 2, 2004, 04:46 AM

The cache doesn't get deleted on quit and that may be your problem - perhaps it is corrupted somehow? Quit OW and delete the ~/Library/Caches/com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5 folder, then try again.

FWIW to everyone in general, this is also the first thing to do before re-launching if you experience a crash.

iamnotmad · Apr 2, 2004, 08:32 AM

Hey Tim or other Omni dudes, any info on quicktimes not loading in tabs? I often use this on apples move trailer page. Open a bunch of trailers in tabs, but in OW (and safari sadly) they will not download unless the tab is in focus.
Thanks!