URL autocomplete from history

[Michael B]

I would really like the option to bypass the automatic "www" and "com" and have the default autocomplete from History, so that I just have to press Return rather than having to press down arrow first.

[Len Case]

The first item merely shows what you will get it you hit return--you don't have to select it.

Edit: Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you want here, you want us to automatically choose the top hit of the matching history items instead of having to arrow to it.

Hrm. I'll think about it--but I really hate that behavior personally so I'm pretty sure it won't be the default.

[Len Case]

Another problem is that we match anywhere in the url, not just items that have what was typed as a prefix, so it would be hard to go to a new url without something else matching and getting in the way.

[Forrest]

Hrm. I'll think about it--but I really hate that behavior personally so I'm pretty sure it won't be the default.

The #1 complaint I hear about Safari is this issue. So depending on exactly what he's asking... if it's the more in-line auto-complete rather than having to go down to select something... yeah, bugs many other too.

[Len Case]

I'll plug our shortcut feature here as well...

If you have some sites that you go to a lot but don't want to type the whole url or find in bookmarks, you can add a shortcut to the bookmark. So, you could make "g" take you to "www.google.com" or "gm" take you to "www.gmail.com".

Even cooler, you can create search shortcuts so that (for example) to find all the pizza restaurants from www.dexonline.com, all you have to type is "dex pizza".

[Forrest]

I'll plug our shortcut feature here as well...

If you have some sites that you go to a lot but don't want to type the whole url or find in bookmarks, you can add a shortcut to the bookmark. So, you could make "g" take you to "www.google.com" or "gm" take you to "www.gmail.com".

Even cooler, you can create search shortcuts so that (for example) to find all the pizza restaurants from www.dexonline.com, all you have to type is "dex pizza".

Or just use a ton of tabs, windows and workspaces... and just have every site up all the time ;)

I know one guy who has, quite possibly, thousands of sites open in different windows, tabs and workspaces.

[Len Case]

I stopped using bookmarks altogether--the only bookmarks I use are on the favorites bar.

I just create a new workspace instead of closing windows (actually, I usually do it by holding shift on startup). I got up to "Untitled Workspace 95" on my 10.3 partition on my machine at home.

[Forrest]

I stopped using bookmarks altogether--the only bookmarks I use are on the favorites bar.

I just create a new workspace instead of closing windows (actually, I usually do it by holding shift on startup). I got up to "Untitled Workspace 95" on my 10.3 partition on my machine at home.

Yeah, I haven't really used bookmarks for years. That said, I have started using them some again, but only in situations where I want to share them or if they're really important.

[Michael B]

Hmm, maybe I need to play about with workspaces a bit. At the moment my way of working in Safari is that I bookmark pages, but 9 times out of 10 I have a rough idea of the URL, so I start typing it and it gets autocompleted. Hence my desire for this behaviour. Maybe it's a habit thing...
and I almost never type a web address in without the "www." despite the fact that you can do this in Safari and it works. It's just inaccurate (in my mind).

So, I guess this is quite a major suggestion (not really a request, I suppose) but it would be really cool to be able to set an order of priority for autocompletion, e.g.

Bookmarks
History
Address Book

or whatever. But I can see that matching anywhere in the URL is going to result in behaviour that confuses me slightly, given my current way of doing things. Will have to see if I adapt. :)

[marsonist]

Maybe making an option to provide safari style autocomplete. I know 3 other OmniWeb users personally and they were all frustrated by the autocomplete while making the switch.

One suggestion for making the existing address bar autocomplete a bit more functional would be to list root domains prior to listing subs and or branched addresses. Typing in "sla" gives me "it.slashdot.org/it/06/11/09/1757202.shtml" and seven of its closest brothers before giving me "slashdot.org" as an option. Sometimes I have to skim through a list of 20 someodd addresses before finding the root... it's a bit of a pain. (probably the only thing that I don't absolutely love about your browser)

Another option would be to order the list based on frequency with which "slashdot.org" is selected when "sla" is typed in as opposed to the other pages.

Setting shortcuts is a workaround, but robs the user of the convenience that autocomplete is supposed to provide.

just a thought :D

++steve

[ghostdog75]

I like Safari's in-line autocomplete in the address bar. I find it fast and useful when I want to go to page that I don't visit often that's not a shortcut but in my bookmarks. I'm hoping it'll be added as an option. Love OW. I'm diehard Safari user. It's probably just comfort zone but I'm going to use OW for a week. OW has all the features that my pimped out Safari has but I like it because it's tightly integrated and seems more polished than the 3rd party Safari plugins. I love Inquisitor but I think I won't miss it much if OW becomes my default.

[JKT]

It is probably familiarity. Personally, I hate the fact that I have to remember the exact URL to be able to autocomplete anything in Safari, whereas in OmniWeb all I need to remember is any word(s) in the URL or title or contents of the page. For example, if I type apple in the location bar of Safari, the only sites it will pull up from my bookmarks or history are anything starting with www.apple in the URL, whereas in OmniWeb it will pull up those sites, plus any that have apple anywhere else in the URL, plus any that didn't have apple in the URL but did have it in the title of the page, plus any that didn't have apple in the URL but did have it in the contents of the page... a lot like a Spotlight search for a document for which you don't remember the exact title, but do know (some of) the contents. If you want to narrow the field, just keep adding keywords until you get down to the one(s) you want.