zoomed text editor icon coming back in 5.6?

[danielandrews]

Hi all,

Is the zoomed text editor coming back, or is the new location in the status bar permanent? The reason I'm asking is that I don't usually have the status bar displayed.

[andreas_g]

i agree!
i also don't have the status bar visible usually.

[dangerous]

Is there any chance we will get resizable textareas like in Safari, rather than (or in addition to) the zoomed text editor? I love the resizable textareas, and they are far more elegant than the zoomed text editor IMO.

[Handycam]

Is there any chance we will get resizable textareas like in Safari, rather than (or in addition to) the zoomed text editor? I love the resizable textareas, and they are far more elegant than the zoomed text editor IMO.

Yes, I agree.

[troyb]

Hi all,

Is the zoomed text editor coming back, or is the new location in the status bar permanent? The reason I'm asking is that I don't usually have the status bar displayed.
Keep in mind that we also added a menu option in the Edit menu and Context menu for text areas. There's also the shortcut Command-Option-E.

[troyb]

Is there any chance we will get resizable textareas like in Safari, rather than (or in addition to) the zoomed text editor? I love the resizable textareas, and they are far more elegant than the zoomed text editor IMO.
For those interested in the Safari resizable text area. We're creating a hidden preference that will enable them in OmniWeb. Or you can create a custom style sheet that includes this:

textarea {
resize: both !important;
}

[troyb]

Looks like builds after r89238 will enable resizable textareas with this default command in the terminal:

defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5 ShowResizableTextAreas -bool true

[dangerous]

That's excellent news - the CSS hack also works very well with the current build!

[danielandrews]

2 great nuggets of info! Thanks for the update!

[Handycam]

Just downloaded the latest SP. Resizable text areas!!!

Thank you Omni, for including all these up-to-date webkit innovations.

[Frankenstein]

For those interested in the Safari resizable text area. We're creating a hidden preference that will enable them in OmniWeb.
That's very useful, and I can imagine that many people will be very happy to find this feature in OmniWeb as well. At the same time, it's not really easy to discover, and those who do not visit these forums on a regular basis will never find out about it. Why make it a hidden preference? Just enable it by default, or make it a visible preference in the preferences window!

[dangerous]

It might be because as a hidden preference it doesn't really matter if it sometimes breaks stuff - if it's default or in the prefs it needs a lot more testing. I imagine it would make it there in the end.

[troyb]

That's very useful, and I can imagine that many people will be very happy to find this feature in OmniWeb as well. At the same time, it's not really easy to discover, and those who do not visit these forums on a regular basis will never find out about it. Why make it a hidden preference? Just enable it by default, or make it a visible preference in the preferences window!
We may in the future but as dangerous says, it may break and we don't consider this a supported feature at the moment. It may show up on by default later though! Particularly if people find it useful to have available.

[Frankenstein]

We may in the future but as dangerous says, it may break and we don't consider this a supported feature at the moment. It may show up on by default later though! Particularly if people find it useful to have available.
Thanks for clarifying this. And by all means, do consider supporting this feature in the furture; as a matter of fact, I'm playing around with it just now as I'm typing this message. Not because I really need to, but because I can. ;-)

[Handycam]

It's absolutely golden. It's the way things like this should work. This is why I love the Mac!

[troyb]

I'm pretty sure Firefox 3 will support this property as well so maybe it will become a standard feature people expect to see down the road.

[slooude]

I think a button in the toolbar would be a good way to go with this also one for rss (maybe in the address bar like safari does?) feeds would be useful so I don't have to have the status bar showing.

[JKT]

It's worth pointing out at this stage that the major disadvantage that the zoomable text areas suffer from relative to the zoomed text editor is the inability to specify your own fonts and (more importantly) font sizes. I hope the intention is to keep both rather than drop the zoomed text editor in favour of the text area solution?

[troyb]

The zoomed editor will not be going anywhere. (It continues to be my preference as well.)

[JKT]

Glad to hear it. Admittedly, the scalable text areas feature is very cool now I have activated it. ;)

[dangerous]

It's worth pointing out at this stage that the major disadvantage that the zoomable text areas suffer from relative to the zoomed text editor is the inability to specify your own fonts and (more importantly) font sizes. I hope the intention is to keep both rather than drop the zoomed text editor in favour of the text area solution?

You can put into your custom style sheet a rule such as

textarea {
font-family: Rockwell ! important;
font-size: 18px ! important;
}

This allows you to style textareas. Of course, it's not as flexible as the Zoomed editor, but once you have decided on a good font and size for typing with, I don't see why you would change it.

[JKT]

dangerous - thanks for the info, but I don't use a custom style sheet.

One other disadvantage (or is it a bug) - the scaling of the text areas is never remembered between sessions or globally for the site. It gets annoying that you have to scale it each and every time. Is this likely to be corrected or is it something that can't be corrected?

[dangerous]

dangerous - thanks for the info, but I don't use a custom style sheet.
Fair enough you might prefer the zoomed text editor but if you can improve the situation by using a custom stylesheet there is no reason in the world (that I can think of) not to use them. Once you have it set up and out of the way (mine is in ~/Library/Application Support) it's totally transparent and an easy way to make changes such as the one above to improve your browsing experience. It's just a basic text file containing a number of rules. If you put the rule above into a file on its own, with nothing else at all, it would be a valid stylesheet.

One other disadvantage (or is it a bug) - the scaling of the text areas is never remembered between sessions or globally for the site. It gets annoying that you have to scale it each and every time. Is this likely to be corrected or is it something that can't be corrected?
I'd say it was a disadvantage, not a bug. It would be a very nice feature though if that was implemented!

[JKT]

Well, I've just tried it (style sheet) thanks and it works. Having both the scalable text area (for quick entry) and zoomable text editor (for when I need more space) is the best of both worlds, so I am happy :-)

[dangerous]

Cool! You may want to try something other than 18px Rockwell though :D That was just a random selection to show that you didn't have to stick to just "web" fonts like Arial, Verdana etc.

[JKT]

Don't worry - I assigned Myriad Pro at 16pt rather than Rockwell at 24px (so that scaling works in the semi-mythical resolution independent UI, if and when it arrives ;)

[David Latapie]

The two are complementary. I use the text editor not to have a bigger window, but to have bigger text. I also change it from black to dark gray, to reduce contrast.

So, please keep it that way :)

Of course, a resizable window on top of a zoom text editor, why not. Personally, I don't care for this feature, but other may. Or maybe a preference to choose which one one prefer.

[daiyi666@yahoo.com]

Is there any chance we will get resizable textareas like in Safari, rather than (or in addition to) the zoomed text editor? I love the resizable textareas, and they are far more elegant than the zoomed text editor IMO.

Perhaps they are more elegant, but for longer passages of text I much prefer the zoomed text editor. I've run out of real estate before using Safari with the resizable text area. Well, at least there will be a choice so all parties will be satisfied.

Thanks, OG.

[sarahg]

This is the exact tip I needed; omniweb is now leaps & bounds ahead of any other browser I've used. Thanks!

-- Sarah


Looks like builds after r89238 will enable resizable textareas with this default command in the terminal:

defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5 ShowResizableTextAreas -bool true

[Drayon]

This is the exact tip I needed; omniweb is now leaps & bounds ahead of any other browser I've used. Thanks!

-- Sarah

Yes indeed it is. However someone here reported the feature showing up in a sneakypeak, which is strange because used most SP's and this never showed up for me and it still is not available in 5.8 until I added the preference to the plist.

[whpalmer4]

Yes indeed it is. However someone here reported the feature showing up in a sneakypeak, which is strange because used most SP's and this never showed up for me and it still is not available in 5.8 until I added the preference to the plist.

The report was that they had downloaded a certain sneaky peek and it had the resizable textarea support, but the preceding message from the Omnifolk mentioned that you had to set the hidden preference with a defaults write command. I think the previous poster took it for granted that you were going to follow those directions and was mostly reporting that as of whatever build he had downloaded, the resizable textarea support was present and working and putting a big goofy grin on his face :-)