Periodic OW 5.6 Inquiry
 

Oh, as I like to do about once a month, I am writing to find out if there is any news regarding OW5.6. Clearly, Omniplan is a higher priority for Omnigroup at the moment.

P

it's really time for OW 5.6
one of my favorit sites "http://www.wetterring.at" does not work with OW 5.5.x.

From what I understand, in order to update OW to the latest version of WebKit, they have to rewrite a substantial amount of OW to deal with the changes that have happened. Thus, it's taking longer for 5.6 than I'm sure anybody wants.

It worked for me!
 

[QUOTE=andreas_g]it's really time for OW 5.6
one of my favorit sites "http://www.wetterring.at" does not work with OW 5.5.x.[/QUOTE]


I went to the site in question with no problems using the following version so it may be one of your settings.

Product: OmniWeb-5.5
Tag: OmniWeb-5.5.4-v607.17
Date: 2007-02-14 13:47:05 -0800
Builder: rachael
Host: tb104.private.omnigroup.com
Revision: 83898MS


Cheers

@ mwayne:

did you see the white numbers on the map or did you see kind of input boxes all over the map?

[QUOTE=andreas_g]@ mwayne:

did you see the white numbers on the map or did you see kind of input boxes all over the map?[/QUOTE]

I see all kinds of input boxes all over the map with 5.5.4 (v607.17). Safari seems to display it the same way. By way of comparison Firefox 2.0.0.3 had no issues.

I can't wait for 5.6 either. However, I have a hunch that as soon as they have something to tell us regarding the status, they will.

The Omni guys want to get a kick-ass update out the door as much as we want to use it.

[QUOTE=danielandrews]I can't wait for 5.6 either. However, I have a hunch that as soon as they have something to tell us regarding the status, they will.

The Omni guys want to get a kick-ass update out the door as much as we want to use it.[/QUOTE]

I don't doubt that they want a kick ass update, what I doubt is their commitment to it.
It's very frustrating having to live with a self-imploding browser, while the company tinkers with all sorts of other applications. My guess is that they know they have a loyal following in their current customer base, and the app is "good enough" as it is, so instead of making improvements, they just let it be while they create other applications, so they can get more money from their captive user base...
Anyway, I've love to be proven wrong, and see Omni release at least the first sneaky peeks soon.

[QUOTE=asiufy]I don't doubt that they want a kick ass update, what I doubt is their commitment to it.
It's very frustrating having to live with a self-imploding browser, while the company tinkers with all sorts of other applications. My guess is that they know they have a loyal following in their current customer base, and the app is "good enough" as it is, so instead of making improvements, they just let it be while they create other applications, so they can get more money from their captive user base...
Anyway, I've love to be proven wrong, and see Omni release at least the first sneaky peeks soon.[/QUOTE]

I'm just guessing here, but I think you're partially right and wrong. One thing to note is that Len Case seems to have had a child, and he was one of the main OW guys. His forum profile here is no longer one of an Omni employee. So I think they may be a man down right now.

I also think that the changes to Web Kit that they now have to deal with, may not be solid and they're somewhat waiting for a better version of WebKit to use before they redo a bunch of work. That said, I do know progress is still being made on 5.6.

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the silence on our part. Forest has made a keen observation, the OmniWeb development team lost one of its two primary developers several months ago which has unfortunately slowed the process down a bit. This however doesn't affect our commitment to OmniWeb and we aren't ignoring our customer base. It's just taking time to get the release out.

We know users have issues with 5.5.4 and our hope is that 5.6 will correct many of them. The in development version of WebKit that we're based off of is getting very stable and many of the issues that exist in 5.5.4 have been corrected. During its development process new issues have been introduced and we felt it safer to stick with the modified version of WebKit we have in 5.5.4 rather than update too early. This brings fewer updates but we don't introduce a flood of new bugs and regressions into the mix, even if it means fixing others. We've also had to rework some OmniWeb features which has taken time.

So we've been keeping silent on public releases of 5.6 while we tidy up the bugs and issues that have appeared. Things are coming together though. 5.6 is becoming very usable and a beta is drawing closer. Some of the biggest issues with the update have been recently addressed or soon will be and we're in a position where WebKit is stabilizing which is great news!

Even though OmniFocus and OmniPlan are popular topics on our blog and elsewhere, we're still thinking about and working on OmniWeb too.