Current OmniWeb engine status?

[jerome]

I'm curious what the current status and plans of the OmniWeb engine and what not. I used to use OmniWeb but switched back to Safari a while back partly due to speed issues with OW and the lack of a more complete AJAX support (my auto-complete code doesn't work). I recall hearing that OW was using a custom WebCore but slowly switching to the apple base code, not sure if that's the case, or if it's already using apple's or what. So I'm just wondering how things are going and hoping that I might be able to use it again (once javascript works better I probably would try it again).

I don't recall if I reported that particular problem or not though, but looking forward to trying OmniWeb again since I do like it quite a bit.

In regards of the slowness, might be with lots of tabs(if that's what you call them)

[JKT]

The next version of OmniWeb (5.5) is currently in sneakypeek (private beta) testing and is using WebKit with added OmniGroup goodness rather than a modified (and out-of-date) WebCore. I don't want to say any more than that for fear of stating something that OmniGroup don't want made known... I'll leave it to them to add any more info they are willing to divulge.

Edit: Stop Press! Ken has just given us permission to talk about the sneakypeeks. Yes, they are faster and more compatible - the version of WebKit being used at the moment is actually newer than that in the official Safari release.

There are still a number of problems with the sneakypeek (currently at sp3) and also a number of features missing, but overall, the browsing experience is much improved over 5.1.x (speed and compatibility wise). Stability of sp1 was pretty bad in relative terms, but sp3 has been pretty good for me.

Edit 2: If you have some sites that you'd like tested, post some links and expected behaviours (or the features that OmniWeb 5.1.3 can't handle). I can tell you now that Flickr slideshows are working in sp3 and there are a few other problem sites that are no longer problems...

[jerome]

The autocomplete i'm refering to is here: http://demo.script.aculo.us/ajax/autocompleter
which is the code the one I made into a site is based on, pretty much anything in scriptaculous and prototype javascript libraries i would love to see them work fully in OmniWeb like I believe they do in safari.

I ran across a CSS issue in current OmniWeb while trying some things, I have to make a public version of the site since it's private that demonstrates the issue before I can send in a report, it might not be an issue if the sneaky peaks are based on WebKit since it works in Safari and WebKit nightlies.

Is the sneaky peaks based on some recent build of the open source WebKit project? That stuff has been looking good and surprisingly stable, even a bug I reported a while back got fixed pretty quickly (CSS tooltip trick)

[JKT]

The current version of WebKit being used is r12177 - you can read a bit more about the state of the sp by looking at the release notes here (http://www.omnigroup.com/ftp/pub/software/MacOSX/.sneakypeek/). At the moment the sp download is password protected but the impression given by Ken is that either the next release or one soon after that is going to be made public (though that, of course is going to be up to OmniGroup... don't take that as gospel).

Btw, the link you provide works just the same in OmniWeb 5.5 sp3 as it does in Webkit r12177.

[Ken Case]

We're updating OmniWeb 5.5 to be based on WebKit revision 13269, but we might release one more sneaky peek based on 12177 first.

[Curlypaws]

I'm very much looking forward to seeing OmniWeb 5.5. Will it also be a universal application for Intel Macs?

[Ken Case]

Yes, 5.5 is Universal and has been for months. (The only reason we didn't release a Universal build of OmniWeb at the same time as all our other apps is that we weren't ready to release 5.5 yet, and didn't want to delay 5.5 by going back to make a Universal build of 5.1.)

[edenwaith]

Yes, 5.5 is Universal and has been for months. (The only reason we didn't release a Universal build of OmniWeb at the same time as all our other apps is that we weren't ready to release 5.5 yet, and didn't want to delay 5.5 by going back to make a Universal build of 5.1.)

I can understand programs like OmniOutliner or OmniGraffle needing to be concerned about file formats, and Intel vs. PPC, big endian, little endian, etc. But how much work was required to make OW into a UB?

[skatch]

Very glad to hear that a new OW release is coming soon. I'm a registered user but had to switch back to Safari a while ago when the speed difference became fairly large. My main question now is what will the situation be going forward? Is it now easy to keep up to date with the latest webkit releases, or is there enough custom add-ons that OW will slowly lag further and further behind? I'd hate to have that happen again.

[jerome]

Hmm, speaking of the usage of a recent WebKit build in OW, will that include the Web Inspector? because that'd be super awesome... that thing is handy, little slow/buggy last i used but not really that bad at all, does it's job really well.

[Forrest]

5.5, thus far, shows a noticeable speed improvement. I find myself needing to restart it once a day, but other than that it's about as snappy as Safari.

IIRC, Web Inspector can be enable.

[Ken Case]

But how much work was required to make OW into a UB?

All of our code ported to Intel pretty quickly (after all, some of it originally ran on Intel under NEXTSTEP), but Apple's JavaScriptCore and WebCore frameworks had a bunch of C++ code which needed to be ported to work with the latest version of the compiler, gcc 4 (which is required for Universal builds). We decided to just focus on getting the new version working rather than on trying to port the old WebCore framework to gcc 4.

(Apple has ported WebCore to gcc 4, of course, but that's in much newer versions of WebCore than we were using in 5.1—and updating to that newer code base was already the focus of 5.5.)

[JKT]

Hmm, speaking of the usage of a recent WebKit build in OW, will that include the Web Inspector? because that'd be super awesome... that thing is handy, little slow/buggy last i used but not really that bad at all, does it's job really well.
At the moment there is no UI for accessing it, but John Hicks managed to find the hidden preference for turning it on in sp1.

[troyb]

The web inspector will be available but not as an official feature of OmniWeb, you'll need to use a terminal command in order to enable it.

[jerome]

The web inspector will be available but not as an official feature of OmniWeb, you'll need to use a terminal command in order to enable it.
sweet, fair enough in my book. :)

[Abhi Beckert]

We're updating OmniWeb 5.5 to be based on WebKit revision 13269, but we might release one more sneaky peek based on 12177 first.

It's great to hear OmniWeb is soon to be based on WebKit. What I'd *really* like to see is to use whatever WebKit is installed on the machine, instead of bundling it with OW. Is there a chance you're working towards this direction?

I'd be willing to sacrifice a few features for the security of knowing OW will always have an up to date rendering engine.

[Plainsman]

It's great to hear OmniWeb is soon to be based on WebKit. What I'd *really* like to see is to use whatever WebKit is installed on the machine, instead of bundling it with OW. Is there a chance you're working towards this direction?

I'd be willing to sacrifice a few features for the security of knowing OW will always have an up to date rendering engine.

I would like this as well, but will be satisfied with a stable, speedy, WebKit version, regardless of version.

[steve]

I'm glad to hear that there is a new version coming out. Although I am a license owner I rarely use it. It seemed to be far less stable than safari. I just updated to 5.1.3— I'm anxious to see if the next version is more stable.

[TommyW]

than prior editions but it still goes for a loop every now and then.

I hope that goes in 5.5. But me? I'd settle for more speed.

[earthsaver]

OmniWeb 5.1.3 tonight is claiming that 5.5 sp4 is available as an update. However, its More Info page is a forum thread I don't have permission to access. Naturally, the sneakypeeks FTP directory doesn't have download links. Was this not intended to go public quite this way?

[NickM]

I'd be willing to sacrifice a few features for the security of knowing OW will always have an up to date rendering engine.

Actually, Omniweb will likely always have a newer rendering engine than Safari since changes to Webkit can be pushed to Omniweb a lot faster than they can be pushed to Safari.

That said, Omniweb will likely not be able to use the built-in Webkit, as they will have to make some changes to support features unique to Omniweb.

[ChadCN]

Could someone check espn.com for me? OW 5.1 rendering chokes pretty badly there. The app itself won't freeze up, but the espn page render will stay static. Meaning I can scroll, but the page doesn't scroll. I can change tabs, but the espn page stays up. I have to quit and load the app to fix it.

[TommyW]

I've the same when I check for updates. I'd love to sneak a peek myself...

[kbotc]

As a quick question, I heard that you will no longer be using ATSUI for font rendering to speed up the render. I was wondering if you could at least include a hidden preference for it plist key or something, as I really do enjoy the marginally better looking render? (Safari offers the option in the Debug menu)

[marc]

The web inspector will be available but not as an official feature of OmniWeb, you'll need to use a terminal command in order to enable it.

That's fair enough, you have your page inspector, which is useful itself, but one nice touch would be if the hidden option also revealed a toolbar button as well as the Contextual Menu item.

...just a little HUD button, superfluous, but 'nice'. :)

[King Mob]

Give with the public beta already! Please?

[depill]

I was wondering in the final build for OmniWeb will you be using 13269 WebKit build or will you be using a more updated build of the WebKit ( like 14*** like I am hoping ) ?

I am using OmniWeb 5.5 sp released on apr 27, and I like it a great deal. OmniWeb 5.1 wasn't working that great on my MacBook, but what a difference 5.5 sp makes. Altough there are some pages that do not render 100% correctly ( but they start to in WebKit 14*** that's why I am hoping for that release in OmniWeb )

[troyb]

I was wondering in the final build for OmniWeb will you be using 13269 WebKit build or will you be using a more updated build of the WebKit ( like 14*** like I am hoping ) ?

I am using OmniWeb 5.5 sp released on apr 27, and I like it a great deal. OmniWeb 5.1 wasn't working that great on my MacBook, but what a difference 5.5 sp makes. Altough there are some pages that do not render 100% correctly ( but they start to in WebKit 14*** that's why I am hoping for that release in OmniWeb )
We're actually on r13295 right now. We probably wont do any more major updates to our version of WebKit (At the time of our last update they were working on some stuff that could cause more problems than fix) but we will incorporate important bug fixes as necessary.

We'll keep an eye on how things develop though and update again when the time is right.

[julik]

Please note that the current nightlies of WebKit support Prototype insertions again. I would really hate to see OmniWeb released with a WebKit that breaks about any Rails application out there.