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-   -   Feature/UI Requests (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=28)

Jon Hicks 2006-03-24 12:50 PM

Feature/UI Requests
 
I'd like to start a thread for people to throw in their feature or UI requests for future Omniweb releases. I'll kick off:

Features

- Find as you type. I use it all the time in Camino (including in source view). Firefox has a great UI for this.
- Ability to send RSS feeds to an external reader
- Ability to apply custom CSS and/or javascript in site preferences

UI changes

- Fix pixellated search bar ends after resizing window
- Update Icons (most feel very 10.0)
- Implement Unified toolbar in Main Window, Preferences, Text Editor, View Source & Downloads.
- Download manager. I’d like to see something more like NetNewsWire/Safari/Unison (see this comparison image:)

[IMG]http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/else/omniweb/downloads.jpg[/IMG]

Larger icons, less text and alternate row colours, rather than a black dividing line. It’s particularly bad when OW is downloading. The text is badly compressed.
- Bookmarks toolbar. I’d like to see no ‘image well’ shadow in the bookmarks toolbar, and have 1px larger typesize.
- Splash screen. If there still needs to be a splash screen, can it use tranparency, not a cocoa window with an image on top?

In general I would love to see something more like the screenshots of Pathfinder 4: [url]http://www.cocoatech.com/news/archives/2005/04/28/index.php[/url]

JKT 2006-03-24 01:37 PM

1. CSS and Javascript to be formatted nicely by the source code editor.
2. Automator support.
3. The ability to have images scale to fit the window.
4. A more refined Workspace manager and more flexibility over moving of individual tabs from within the manager.
5. A triple click option for opening a tab in a new window rather than the (all too easily activated on my PowerBook) double-click method that is currently in use.
6. (Maybe) nested tabs.
7. The ability to share Workspaces with non-OW users (e.g. as a bookmark list).
8. A really good archiving mechanism and/or a print to PDF mechanism that includes active links.
9. The equivalent of the Safari "Mail Contents of this page" and "Private Browsing" features.
10. A return of the prompt to accept every Cookie option.
11. Improved page layout when printing (so that e.g. lines of text or tables don't get split over two pages).

JamesM 2006-03-24 01:42 PM

I would just like to let folks know that the forums are no substitute for sending us email. It's much much easier to respond to and file requests that are sent via email. Posting to the forums is great and we'll read them but it makes our job much easier if you send in an email as well.

Jon Hicks 2006-03-24 01:46 PM

I'm sure I've emailed these things before (as well as banged on about them on the mailing list). Is there are particular person we should send these to?

Scott Maier 2006-03-24 08:10 PM

All of these things should be sent to the normal address - [email]omniweb@omnigroup.com[/email]. Once 5.5 is out of the way we'll be a lot closer to being able to make other important changes to OmniWeb but for now, of course, the focus is on getting us on top of WebKit.

Ward 2006-03-25 08:29 AM

I'd like to encourage those creating a new thread to focus on a specific issue rather than a very broad topic. For example, "Feature/UI Requests" could easily expand to hundreds of threads of discussion.

-- Ward

Abhi Beckert 2006-04-12 01:15 PM

I'd really like to see the check-bookmarked-page-for-changes feature to look for changes in the RSS feed (if available) rather than the HTML of the page (which often changes without actual new content).

[QUOTE=Scott Maier]All of these things should be sent to the normal address - [email]omniweb@omnigroup.com[/email]. Once 5.5 is out of the way we'll be a lot closer to being able to make other important changes to OmniWeb but for now, of course, the focus is on getting us on top of WebKit.[/QUOTE]
But we can't discuss them if we use email!

Plainsman 2006-04-12 02:48 PM

[QUOTE=Ward]I'd like to encourage those creating a new thread to focus on a specific issue rather than a very broad topic. For example, "Feature/UI Requests" could easily expand to hundreds of threads of discussion.

-- Ward[/QUOTE]

The way I see it, a general feature request thread has its place; somewhere we can gripe about multiple things at the same time. Hundreds of threads with 5-6 posts each is hardly efficient.

That said, I hope the new unified toolbar look in 5.5 is an option (enable/disable) rather than the rule.

BwanaZulia 2006-04-13 04:26 AM

[QUOTE=Abhi Beckert]

But we can't discuss them if we use email![/QUOTE]

I second that.

OmniGuys, it is one thing to not want to use post this in MacNN or Ars, but this is YOUR website and YOUR forums I think you can stay on top of it. :)

BZ

Ken Case 2006-04-13 06:53 AM

[QUOTE=BwanaZulia]OmniGuys, it is one thing to not want to use post this in MacNN or Ars, but this is YOUR website and YOUR forums I think you can stay on top of it. :)[/QUOTE]

I would certainly invite everyone to discuss things with each other on the forums (including bug reports which you've also sent to our support teams), and we do plan to read our own forums and to participate in conversations here (as I'm doing now). But that's not the same as providing technical support on our forums, and we just want to make sure that everyone knows that they should contact us directly whenever they actually need a response from us. (Especially if they'd like that response to be timely.)

We would love to be able to respond to every question posted to the forums, but forum support doesn't scale as well as email support. We don't know which messages need a response, so we'd need to spend time reviewing and classifying each message (whether or not it's directed at us). The forums lack all of the infrastructure (like message tracking, routing and prioritization) that a good support system requires, so we'd end up doing redundant work, perhaps unintentionally missing some messages, and so on.

Our support team works very hard to ensure timely and useful responses to email queries, and the feedback I've received from our customers indicates that they're doing an outstanding job. I just don't think it's possible to provide the same level of support if we ask them to use the wrong tool, so that's why I'm asking our customers to please contact us through email whenever you need to bring something to our attention.

Not that we plan to ignore the forums, of course: as I said above, we do plan to read them and to participate in conversations here—and the things we read here will influence our product development. We just need to be clear that the forums are intended to augment, not replace, our existing communication channels.

Thanks for your understanding!

Forrest 2006-04-13 07:59 AM

Hey Ken, a quick note on "we just want to make sure that everyone knows that they should contact us directly whenever they actually need a response from us." You may wish to disable your ability to receive PM's, otherwise people may think they're following a support channel.

bethkatz17582 2006-04-13 09:06 AM

[QUOTE=Plainsman]I hope the new unified toolbar look in 5.5 is an option (enable/disable) rather than the rule.[/QUOTE]
Disabling unified toolbar isn't an option that I could find in the Toolbar preferences of OW5.5sp4. And the gray of the active OW window is just a tad darker than the inactive Mail window.

Ken Case 2006-04-13 09:23 AM

Yes, this is exactly the same as what you see when you have multiple Mail windows open, but perhaps I'm the only person who does that.

I'm not sure whether this helps enough, but I thought I'd point out some visual cues which indicate the active Unified window:

* Inactive windows have stripes.

* Inactive windows dim the title and URL icon, as well as the hide/show toolbar control in the upper right corner.

* Inactive windows have clear window controls (close, minimize, zoom), rather than colored ones.

Does that help?

Forrest 2006-04-13 09:56 AM

Ken, you provided similar responses as I sent to someone on the mailing list. I'm filling in his responses...

[QUOTE=Ken Case]* Inactive windows have stripes.[/quote]
[i]I have always tried to use some type of theme to get rid of those ugly pin stripes and will continue to do so (even though the themes usually make it more difficult to discern the key window).[/i]

[quote]* Inactive windows have clear window controls (close, minimize, zoom), rather than colored ones.[/quote]
[i]have used Graphite since day one—I hate being distracted by the jelly beans.[/i]

I also brought up the shadow differences. The poster replied:
[i]sometimes turn off shadows on my old G4 I in a trade for perceived speed.[/i]

My take on all that is, there's a fine line between "apparent" and "distracting." If the button colors are a distinguishing mark, it's up to the user to choose if it's "apparent" or "distracting."

I like the graphite buttons for a while, and the colored ones were a bit odd. However, after using them as color for a while, I have grown used to them.

I'm also not a fan of catering to issues created by haxies.

bethkatz17582 2006-04-13 10:15 AM

Although it bothers me that there isn't much difference, I haven't actually been confused by which window has focus. And I often have many mail, textedit, and other windows open.

My husband suggested that there weren't a lot of choices for developers with respect to contrast on the title bars. I looked in Interface Builder, and even adding texture didn't seem to make a big difference. But to my eye, the OW title bar seems faint even when it has focus. Maybe that's because there is the whiteness of the search and location fields. The pinstripes don't stand out.

I think the biggest clue that I've been using without thinking about it is that the title is black instead of grey.

Forrest 2006-04-13 10:27 AM

I also put the address bar on its own line. Then it's an aqua blue instead of gray.

JKT 2006-04-13 10:38 AM

I wonder if I am the only one who actually misses the translucent title bars of background windows in the OS X of yore? God forbid Apple brought them back for the frontmost window or made the ridiculous UI mistake of Vista's overdone transparent title bars, but it was actually useful in the background windows.

bethkatz17582 2006-04-13 10:40 AM

How do you put the address bar (location field?) on its own line? Or are you fiddling in Interface Builder? I was fiddling with another app to see what options were available. I don't mess with other people's apps in Interface Builder.

BwanaZulia 2006-04-13 10:42 AM

[QUOTE=Ken Case]Thanks for your understanding![/QUOTE]

Mostly what I am saying is not about support, obviously email is the best for one on one support, but for requests of features and discussion of those requests, the forums are much better.

I have sent countless feature requests to the OmniDudes over the years and will continue to do so, but I also like seeing other people's ideas.

BZ

JKT 2006-04-13 11:00 AM

[QUOTE=bethkatz17582]How do you put the address bar (location field?) on its own line? Or are you fiddling in Interface Builder? I was fiddling with another app to see what options were available. I don't mess with other people's apps in Interface Builder.[/QUOTE]
View>Toolbars>Location Bar

Select that and it is on its own.

bethkatz17582 2006-04-13 12:09 PM

Cool. That changes the way I'll arrange my toolbar. In "If you give a mouse a cookie" fashion ... Can we have a preference to change the location bar color? That blue clashes with the other blues of the icons.

Chrysogonus 2006-04-13 12:31 PM

For me, the main thing is that I'd like to see something a bit more compact in the way of tabs (for those of us using 1024x768). Also, two very small things that haven't been mentioned yet: have an option to disable the splash screen, and make the placeholder for unloaded and blocked images less intrusive (probably transparent).

BwanaZulia 2006-04-15 05:09 AM

Here are some of my requests for future versions of Omniweb.

- Speed: It has to be AT LEAST as fast as Safari. At least.
- Better RSS. Something along the lines of Safari, although if they figured out a way to do a better "portal" type RSS feed look, that would be great (see [url]http://www.netvibes.com)[/url].
- More bookmark features. Check for duplicates etc.
- Editing, moving bookmarks in the drop downs (right click).
- More integration of features found in FireFox Extensions (auto-update, html code, more status reports).
- Make good on "Smart" stuff. Smart History. Smart Bookmarks. Smart Websites (reaching for that last one).
- Inline searching (a la Firefox, that is way too cool. Make it better. Make it "Omni").

BZ

BwanaZulia 2006-04-15 05:14 AM

Let me add another.

The expanded edit field is ok, a neat feature but could be KILLER if you added the following to it.

- Auto text. Pre-set bits of text that could be built and customized to be inserted from the toolbar or via a contextual menu.

- Auto text for HTML, BB stuff. All from a right click. Check out the firefox extension for this.

- An option to launch something else like BBEdit. Kinda of how like iPhoto can launch different editors.

BZ

JKT 2006-04-15 05:51 AM

[QUOTE=BwanaZulia]- Auto text. Pre-set bits of text that could be built and customized to be inserted from the toolbar or via a contextual menu.[/quote]
[url=http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19147]Textpander[/url]. Why limit yourself to only being able to do this in OmniWeb?

It may work for your html stuff as well, but I take it you mean to wrap text in the desired code, which Textpander couldn't do.

marc 2006-04-17 04:15 AM

1 Attachment(s)
[QUOTE=JKT]I wonder if I am the only one who actually misses the translucent title bars of background windows in the OS X of yore? God forbid Apple brought them back for the frontmost window or made the ridiculous UI mistake of Vista's overdone transparent title bars, but it was actually useful in the background windows.[/QUOTE]

I tend to agree with you in theory that transparency seems like it could play a useful role in distinguishing active windows/apps, but in practice it is hard to use it effectively, as both of the cited examples tend to prove! :)

Of course you can play around with this a little yourself, either with the for-pay WindowShade, or the free InvisRay [URL="http://www.davidestes.net/"]http://www.davidestes.net/[/URL].

Anyway, this is stuff out of OG's control, and they don't really have many options, so IMHO the best option is 'greyed out' toolbar buttons, as noted before.

It's pretty simple to do, so I figured I's test it, and IMHO it seems like a workable solution with minimal effort and negative impact (you can still differentiate unavailable buttons/controls in background windows.)

[CENTER][URL="http://www.nothrop.com/bgicons.jpg"][IMG]http://www.nothrop.com/bgiconssm.jpg[/IMG]
[SIZE="1"][B]Click to enlarge...[/B][/SIZE][/URL][/CENTER]

You'd also want to have lighter drawer thumbnail icons to help avoid the confusion when a background drawer appears to belong to the active window.

The other most visible element that would help to highlight the active window would be to reduce the opacity/fill of the page thumbnails in background tab drawers, which would be a much more visible indication of the active window.

The argument can be made that this is non-standard behaviour, but there is an evident issue in the UI conventions with denoting the active window, made even more evident with the Unified Toolbar theme (which is otherwise superior IMHO, offering a larger drag target, and reducing visual noise in the toolbar.)

I tend to think of this as an extension of the existing convention of greying out window controls and titles, or OTOH that convention is incompletely implemented, and should already have been extended to the toolbars.

Any thoughts?

Forrest 2006-04-17 08:46 AM

:( I thought cross-posting was considered bad forum etiquette?

marc 2006-04-17 08:53 AM

[QUOTE=Forrest]:( I thought cross-posting was considered bad forum etiquette?[/QUOTE]
Ordinarily it would be, but it's cross posted in a closed forum, and I figured it was relevant to all versions, not just the SP... happy to retract if I'm wrong. :)

Forrest 2006-04-17 09:07 AM

[QUOTE=marc]Ordinarily it would be, but it's cross posted in a closed forum, and I figured it was relevant to all versions, not just the SP... happy to retract if I'm wrong. :)[/QUOTE]

I'm not a position to say anything is right or wrong on this forum. I'm glad to hear you applied some logic to doing so (I've run into a lot of posters who just do it only thinking "I want more people to see this.") Personally, I wouldn't have cross-posted it but I can see why you did.

The main reason I replied was to let my opinion known that I don't like cross-posting (so hopefully it doesn't be come a huge trend.)

jstarrantino 2006-04-21 09:04 AM

I'd like to see OW add in an interface to OS X Dictionary program. I like the way Pages and Safari both do this, and I find it very convenient.

Its the one Safari feature I've really missed since I've started using OW regularly.

Jack P. Starrantino

Forrest 2006-04-21 09:30 AM

How does Safari interface with the OS X Dictionary?

JKT 2006-04-21 10:52 AM

[QUOTE=jstarrantino]I'd like to see OW add in an interface to OS X Dictionary program. I like the way Pages and Safari both do this, and I find it very convenient.

Its the one Safari feature I've really missed since I've started using OW regularly.

Jack P. Starrantino[/QUOTE]
It's working at the moment in sp4 of OmniWeb 5.5.

Forrest - check whatever your keyboard shortcut is for Look Up in Dictionary (check your Keyboard and Mouse Prefs>Keyboard Shortcuts).

When you hover your mouse pointer over a word, pressing that combo will either launch the Dictionary (or if you have chosen that pref, pop up the definition under the mouse). It would be a nice feature if it actually did English instead of American but it is useless unless you are from the US.

I'll stick to OmniDictionary until Apple sorts out other language support.

jstarrantino 2006-04-21 10:59 AM

If you select a word in Safari, and then right click, you get a small pop-up menu that includes "Look Up in Dictionary".

There are three other options on the menu. One is "Copy". The other two are to search for the word using Spotlight or Google.

Playing the same game in OW brings up a much larger pop-up, and most of the options are not related to the fact that there is a selected region of text.

Now that I play with it, the OW behavior is to bring up a pop-up with page/frame options in response to a right click in a page. If you happen to select a region before the click, the resulting pop-up will have two new options that apply to the selected region; copy and speak.

Safari brings up different menus in these two cases. IMHO, I think Apple got this right.

Jack P. Starrantino

Forrest 2006-04-21 12:18 PM

I understand now. The request is to have the dictionary lookup in the contextual menu. Although I'm not a fan of adding more stuff to the menu (unless it's super helpful...) I do like the idea of the menu being more different if text is selected.

troyb 2006-04-21 05:19 PM

[QUOTE=jstarrantino]I'd like to see OW add in an interface to OS X Dictionary program. I like the way Pages and Safari both do this, and I find it very convenient.

Its the one Safari feature I've really missed since I've started using OW regularly.

Jack P. Starrantino[/QUOTE]

The shortcut (Command-Control-D) will work in OmniWeb 5.5 when highlighting a word.

FredH 2006-04-21 05:36 PM

I'm sure the developers don't want to comment on possible features in future releases, but has anyone ever mentioned if a regular tab bar will ever be an option? Inquiring 12" PB users want to know...

Nutrimentia 2006-04-21 09:21 PM

[QUOTE=Jon Hicks]I'd like to start a thread for people to throw in their feature or UI requests for future Omniweb releases. I'll kick off:

Features

- Find as you type. I use it all the time in Camino (including in source view). Firefox has a great UI for this.
[/quote]

We already have this, at least in 5.1. I assume (and depend!!!!!) on it still being there in 5.5.

Forrest 2006-04-22 08:28 AM

[QUOTE=Nutrimentia]We already have this, at least in 5.1. I assume (and depend!!!!!) on it still being there in 5.5.[/QUOTE]

It's not in 5.1 or 5.5 (yet)

[QUOTE=Ken Case]The advantage of Find As You Type (also known as Incremental Search to those of us who've used it in emacs for 20 years) is [...] that you don't have to type the full search string if you find what you're looking for after typing just a few of the letters of the search.[/QUOTE]

troyb 2006-04-22 11:36 AM

[QUOTE=Forrest]It's not in 5.1 or 5.5 (yet)[/QUOTE]

He might be referring to the defaults write TextFindAsYouType. When you turn this on if you first type a / you can do a full text search of the page. It's not complete and lacking useful functionality such as find next though. (This doesn't appear to be working at all in 5.5 right now).

Forrest 2006-04-22 12:19 PM

[QUOTE=troyb]He might be referring to the defaults write TextFindAsYouType. When you turn this on if you first type a / you can do a full text search of the page. It's not complete and lacking useful functionality such as find next though. (This doesn't appear to be working at all in 5.5 right now).[/QUOTE]

doh! I thought that feature existed but couldn't find it.

Anyway, in the SP board Jon spelled out what he was asking for and Ken responded with an understanding of the specific request. It is still different than what Nutrimentia mentioned.

Nutrimentia 2006-04-23 05:13 PM

My bad for misunderstanding.

In 5.1, I don't have to type a / to initiate find as you type. I just start typing and it jumps to the link that begins with the text I type. If it is on a link and I type the same text, it jumps to the next link. Veeeeery nice. :)

Forrest 2006-04-23 07:34 PM

Ahhh, yes. That's for links. What the original poster was referring to was a text find, for any text.

Ryan 2006-04-24 02:55 AM

Just to clarify what Troy was saying:

To enable a partial implementation of what you're asking for, type the following into the Terminal:

[QUOTE]defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5 TextFindAsYouType -bool true[/QUOTE]


There are some other "hidden" features described over at the OmniWeb wiki ([URL="http://omniweb.erlang.no/doku.php?id=tips_and_tricks"]http://omniweb.erlang.no/doku.php?id=tips_and_tricks[/URL])

warp 2006-04-27 12:16 AM

Did not manage yet to download the Sneaky Peek, as the server is responding very slow :-(

Anyway, apart from the speed and compatibility issue, which is now probably fixed by the latest WebKit, following are further reasons I stopped using OmniWeb and I'd love to see this changed to properly integrate OmniWeb into my workflow:

- Ability to send RSS feed urls (not only feed:// but also auto-detected feed urls) to different program
- More compatible AppleScript dictionary. Safari has "source" (the HTML code) and "url" attributes on "document". It would be nice if those could be added to OmniWeb as it makes it easier to convert AppleScripts.

Also, I'm glad to hear that the Text Zoom feature is intended to return in 5.5.

I would love to be able to use OmniWeb again! (used it since OS X 10.0 Public Beta and only recently switched to Safari)

debuskjt 2006-04-27 05:33 PM

Feature Request
 
Is there a reason OmniWeb won't allow the user the option of clearing downloads from the Downloads window immediately after they're finished?

Having to wait a day is really annoying, and it's an option every other browser out there has implemented. Consider OmniWeb is one of the more feature rich browsers out there, I can't figure out why Omni hasn't already done this.

Len Case 2006-04-27 07:36 PM

I don't know of any official reason--probably we just didn't think of it.

You can always hit the "Clear All" toolbar button as it only clears the completed items, not in progress ones.

Flounder 2006-04-28 05:00 AM

With my increasing use of workspaces I'm starting to think a system wide hot key to call up specific workspaces would be a good idea. I know OW defaults the hotkeys to the function keys but for us laptop owners that's not such a good idea because most people I know use the function keys for volume and brightness. In addition say you have a workspace that starts with B and then create a new one that starts with A then you have to remind yourself that the new workspace pushed the old one down a notch and instead of f1 opening the workspace, f2 now does.

Toodles

Flounder 2006-04-28 06:14 AM

A second request for hot-key change

I was thinking that a change of hot-keys in the new OW version should be in effect. The current hot key command shit cmd + (left arrow) conflicts with the system command to highlight the entire sentence line should one choose to do so and for me it gets annoying when I am typing something in the forums and want to delete the entire line or edit it somehow and I hit that combination and it takes me to the home page instead of doing what is natural for OS X to do. Thanks

Niconono 2006-04-28 08:03 AM

I've got a simple request:

Similar to Safari, when you click on a link and there's no network, you get a button to open the "Network Diagnostic" application.
Very convenient for me to get back the airport network :)

Nicolas.

Forrest 2006-04-28 08:33 AM

[QUOTE=Flounder]I know OW defaults the hotkeys to the function keys but for us laptop owners that's not such a good idea because most people I know use the function keys for volume and brightness.[/quote]

That's what the function (fn) key is for. Hold it down to use the F keys as usual.

[quote]In addition say you have a workspace that starts with B and then create a new one that starts with A then you have to remind yourself that the new workspace pushed the old one down a notch and instead of f1 opening the workspace, f2 now does.[/QUOTE]

I've found that irritating as well. What I've done is simply numbered each one in the name, so they always stay in order.

troyb 2006-04-28 10:14 AM

[QUOTE=debuskjt]Is there a reason OmniWeb won't allow the user the option of clearing downloads from the Downloads window immediately after they're finished?

Having to wait a day is really annoying, and it's an option every other browser out there has implemented. Consider OmniWeb is one of the more feature rich browsers out there, I can't figure out why Omni hasn't already done this.[/QUOTE]

If you want you can actually do this now by doing a defaults write in the terminal.

Open a terminal window and at the prompt enter:

defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5 OWPersistentDownloadsTimeout -int 1

The number at the end is in seconds so the above will clear your download window out after one second.

Forrest 2006-04-28 11:17 AM

[QUOTE=troyb]If you want you can actually do this now by doing a defaults write in the terminal.

Open a terminal window and at the prompt enter:

defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5 OWPersistentDownloadsTimeout -int 1

The number at the end is in seconds so the above will clear your download window out after one second.[/QUOTE]

Is there something similar to this for having bookmarks check more frequently than every hour?

troyb 2006-04-28 07:26 PM

[QUOTE=Forrest]Is there something similar to this for having bookmarks check more frequently than every hour?[/QUOTE]
I haven't played with this much so I don't know how well it will work but I think you can do something like:

defaults write com.omnigroup.OmniWeb5 BookmarksDefaultCheckFrequency -string X

Where X is a number in minutes.

jfly123 2006-04-29 11:03 AM

Good thread. I think the favorites bar totally needs work, looks very dated now. Also, it would be nice if the tabs drawer was somehow reworked. So many apps started using that drawer thingy a couple years ago and I think everyone is kind of sick it by now (or maybe I'm alone in that thinking). The unified toolbar looks fab. The back/forward/reload/stop icons are top-notch and I would be happy if they were left alone or only slightly modified.

-Joe

Flounder 2006-04-29 11:17 AM

[QUOTE=jfly123]Good thread. I think the favorites bar totally needs work, looks very dated now. Also, it would be nice if the tabs drawer was somehow reworked. So many apps started using that drawer thingy a couple years ago and I think everyone is kind of sick it by now (or maybe I'm alone in that thinking). The unified toolbar looks fab. The back/forward/reload/stop icons are top-notch and I would be happy if they were left alone or only slightly modified.

-Joe[/QUOTE]
I don't know... I still like the drawer idea esp since no other browser has that.

Now about the bookmarks bar... I'd prefer it if it blended into the address bar. I think that would look awesome

Ryan 2006-05-02 03:52 AM

[QUOTE=jfly123]Also, it would be nice if the tabs drawer was somehow reworked. So many apps started using that drawer thingy a couple years ago and I think everyone is kind of sick it by now (or maybe I'm alone in that thinking).[/QUOTE]

Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Slow down, there, pahdna! Not everyone is sick of drawers. In fact, I LOVE drawers! I wish I could marry them!

Here's a post about drawers in OmniOutliner: [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=839&postcount=6"]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=839&postcount=6[/URL].

In that thread, people are discussing the pros and cons of drawers. Um, really, there are very few legitimate cons.

Drawers rock!

(also check out [URL="http://www.nisus.com"]Nisus Writer Express[/URL] for some sweet use of drawers)

Jon Hicks 2006-05-02 04:08 AM

I'm not a fan of drawers myself - not for contexts like Omniwebs tab drawer anyway. Drawers have always represented temporary stuff to me - you change something in it and then hide it again. For Tabs I would prefer a split view, as I have them open all the time and dislike the odd ungainly outline that a window and drawer makes.

A while ago I did a mockup of how I'd personally like the tabs to be:

[url]http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/images/omniweb/mockup.png[/url]

marc 2006-05-02 04:31 AM

[QUOTE=Niconono]Similar to Safari, when you click on a link and there's no network, you get a button to open the "Network Diagnostic" application.[/QUOTE]
Nicolas, I second that one! Definitely better than the current [B]Cannot Load Address[/B] error page! : )

Perhaps I'm optimistic tho, I expect that's already planned.

Paranoid Randroid 2006-05-02 07:05 AM

Soo ... I guess I'm the only one who wishes that the "tabs" could be split off into an entire separate window, like the bookmarks bar?

You could move it out of the way more easily.

It could be made quite large without making OmniWeb just [i]huge[/i].

Drawers slow down stuff like window resizing, which is annoying.

It would allow other ways of viewing the tabs, like a horizontal view which would let people have screenshot-less tabs without wasting a whole bunch of vertical room.

It could be resized without resizing OmniWeb, giving more vertical room for those who use screenshot tabs but usually only have a few open at a time (like me).

Jon Hicks 2006-05-02 07:22 AM

Personally, I wouldn't like the interface to be disconnected like that. You would also have to find a way of making the tabs window active all the times, or else you would you have click on it to make it active and then click a tab etc.

Paranoid Randroid 2006-05-02 07:56 AM

[QUOTE=Jon Hicks]Personally, I wouldn't like the interface to be disconnected like that.[/QUOTE]

Well, it takes all kinds, of course; I think that the separate window should be an option, just like it is for bookmarks. (And I think it has [i]less[/i] chance of being adopted than the option for the standard tab bar, so I don't suppose there's any reason to worry anyway.)

[QUOTE]You would also have to find a way of making the tabs window active all the times, or else you would you have click on it to make it active and then click a tab etc.[/QUOTE]

Not necessarily - you could support click-through behavior, so that you could click on a tab without giving that window focus. (The "zoomed" iTunes does this - you can play, pause, switch tracks, et cetera without giving that window focus.)

Forrest 2006-05-02 10:44 AM

[QUOTE=Jon Hicks]
[url]http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/images/omniweb/mockup.png[/url][/QUOTE]

403

As far as having the drawer be detached, I still don't understand how this would work. Let's say I have 20 windows open, and each one has 40 tabs, how do I tell which floating tab pallet is connected to which window? Or is the suggestion to have all the tabs be in one window? In which case, how would they be organized so that I know which tabs belong to which windows?

Paranoid Randroid 2006-05-02 11:14 AM

[QUOTE=Forrest]Let's say I have 20 windows open, and each one has 40 tabs, how do I tell which floating tab pallet is connected to which window?[/quote]

That's a good question: I'll admit that it hadn't occurred to me. But couldn't something be done like in the formatting options in OmniOutliner, where any browser window's corresponding tab window would be visible only when its browser window has focus?

[QUOTE]Or is the suggestion to have all the tabs be in one window? In which case, how would they be organized so that I know which tabs belong to which windows?[/QUOTE]

You could have each browser window's tabs in a labelled column or row, but I don't think it would work very well; it would quickly become difficult to browse.

JKT 2006-05-02 11:46 AM

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what advantage a split pane view would have over a drawer in the OmniOutliner thread. There still hasn't been a single answer that tells me why, other than to essentially say "everything else uses them." There are just too many functional benefits to a drawer over split pane view for them to be dropped on the basis of it either a) looking better (subjective opinion anyway) and b) because everything else has them. For a working example of why a split pane just doesn't work any better than a drawer for tabs in a browser, try SafariStand and Safari.

A separated tab palette, while on the face of it, a nice idea [i]if[/i] you only use one window at a time becomes really ugly, very fast when you have two or more windows. In theory, you could have the tab palette show you the tabs in context for each specific window as you gave them focus, but does the palette resize if e.g. you only have one tab in that window versus forty in the other, or does it leave the acres of blank space that would occur when you switched? If it resizes, where does it leave the fixed point for the window - a fixed point in the top left corner or top right? If it's the top left, it wouldn't work very well if you had your palette on the right of the main window(s) and if it was top right, vice versa for palette on the left. Also, how would you share tabs between windows if you wanted to?

Paranoid Randroid 2006-05-02 12:11 PM

[QUOTE=JKT]I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what advantage a split pane view would have over a drawer in the OmniOutliner thread.[/QUOTE]

The only advantage that [i]I[/I] can think of is that the Cocoa drawer slows down window resizing pretty severely. This isn't so bad in OmniWeb, though. (For [i]really[/i] bad, I point you to iCal.)

[QUOTE]In theory, you could have the tab palette show you the tabs in context for each specific window as you gave them focus [...][/QUOTE]

There would be problems in this approach, I agree. But many of them would be resolved immediately by giving each browser window its own tab window, which disappears when the browser window loses focus. This has its own problems, I guess, namely:

[QUOTE] Also, how would you share tabs between windows if you wanted to?[/QUOTE]

I believe you have defeated me. The only way around this, s'far as I can think, would be to allow tabs from one window to be dragged into another browser window itself.

Forrest 2006-05-02 12:13 PM

I can think of one way this might be useful, for people with multiple monitors. They could put a window that has all their tabs (in columns, and organized to display which window they're from) on one screen, and then their actual browser windows on the other display. Then my tabs would always be visible.

daiyi666@yahoo.com 2006-05-03 11:26 AM

[QUOTE=warp]

Also, I'm glad to hear that the Text Zoom feature is intended to return in 5.5.

I would love to be able to use OmniWeb again! (used it since OS X 10.0 Public Beta and only recently switched to Safari)[/QUOTE]

Text Zoom: That's just the news I was looking for now. Not yet implemented in the SP versions, right?

I, too, am glad to be using OW again.

TommyW 2006-05-03 01:45 PM

I'd be curious about having my Favorites bar be a vertical list at the top of the Tabs drawer. It could be in a pane in the drawer the way Styles are in OOP. I can see clicking and holding on a name to reveal a list of tabs within folders.

Sorry I'm obviously suffering from Path Finder-itis.

jfly123 2006-05-04 03:28 PM

I like the look of the tabs that Jon Hicks did, maybe the Omniweb guys could do something similar to that. It gives the interface such a cleaner, streamlined look. Apple's designers came to the same conclusion when they ditched the drawer for the mail app and conceived the way sleeker looking mail w/ the sidebar (in Tiger).

-joe f

Flounder 2006-05-04 03:57 PM

[QUOTE=jfly123]I like the look of the tabs that Jon Hicks did, maybe the Omniweb guys could do something similar to that. It gives the interface such a cleaner, streamlined look. Apple's designers came to the same conclusion when they ditched the drawer for the mail app and conceived the way sleeker looking mail w/ the sidebar (in Tiger).

-joe f[/QUOTE]
I personally still like the tabbed drawer. Esp when I want the window full screen that way if I need to see the tabs I just pull out the tab drawer and hide it when necessary. The window will change size to accommodate accordingly.

marc 2006-05-05 07:56 AM

[QUOTE=Flounder]I personally still like the tabbed drawer. Esp when I want the window full screen that way if I need to see the tabs I just pull out the tab drawer and hide it when necessary. The window will change size to accommodate accordingly.[/QUOTE]
Have to agree with you there, and the fact that you can [B][U]choose[/U][/B] which side you want the tabs to appear on... I like a little choice. :)

I guess you could try to compromise for everyone and offer docking of the drawer as a sidebar (iCal's palette can attach as a drawer, which is how I use it.)

It's a bit of a tightrope avoiding 'featuritis', IMHO the drawer is the best available solution, but it depends how strongly people feel. ;)

Jon Hicks 2006-05-05 08:05 AM

Actually, being able to choose a side is a big plus for a drawer I agree. Its not something I feel very strongly about, and the drawer works great, its just an overall look thing. On my lists of wants, find as you type and improving the downloads window and favourites bar are much higher up! ;o)

TommyW 2006-05-05 11:01 AM

I love the tabbed drawer.

Find as you type, certainly.

The favourites bar needs a visual overhaul... Must be some way to integrate in the unified toolbar and i don't know if the folder icon is the best.

peterhi 2006-06-15 04:28 AM

Feature suggestion: scrolling tab drawer
 
In OW 5.5, when there are more tabs open that can fit in the tab drawer, a scroll bar appears next to the drawer, and allows the user to scroll through all open tabs. Furthermore, if the user wants to relocate a tab to a different location within the tab drawer, so that the tab is next to one or more related tabs, the user simply drags and drops the tab to be relocated; however, the drag and drop limits the user to re-positioning the tab within only the displayed portion of the tab drawer. OW should automatically detect if I'm dragging a tab above the top of the tab drawer, or below the bottom of the tab drawer, and then, if there are more tabs in the direction in which I am dragging, OW should scroll up or down to reveal those tabs as I continue to drag, so that I can drop the tab into the new location.

Currently, without that feature, I have to drag tabs to a temporary location closer to the intended destination, drop, scroll to reveal the next tab-drawer screenful closer to the destination, and then repeat, often five or ten times. That's trivial code to write, and would save a lot of time.

bethkatz17582 2006-06-15 05:30 AM

If I drag a new link to the tab drawer and move to the top or bottom, the drawer does scroll. It was a little picky about where I put the thing I was dragging, but I'm getting it to scroll. That also worked for rearranging the tabs. I'm using sp15.

Splutter 2006-06-20 01:10 AM

IMHO I think Shiira has at least got the tabs/drawer thing right. This has probably something to do with my screen (1024x768) and the inability to view many web sites full width when the drawer is open with tabs.:rolleyes:

Forrest 2006-06-20 08:04 AM

On my 12" PB, I can view most sites without side to side scrolling, with the tab drawer open and the dock positioned to the side.

peterhi 2006-06-23 05:54 PM

I'm not sure I explained the problem correctly. Do the following:

1. Create a new window
2. Open, say, twenty tabs (Command-T twenty times, e.g.)
3. Scroll to the top of tab drawer
4. Grab the top tab in the tab drawer, and try to drag it down so that it comes after the twentieth tab.

On my system, i can't do step (4) above, because OW doesn't scroll the tab drawer past the bottom _displayed_ tab. I can't scroll down to the region of the tab drawer below that bottom _displayed_ tab.

peterhi 2006-06-23 05:54 PM

Tab drawers, part 2
 
I'm not sure I explained the problem correctly. Do the following:

1. Create a new window
2. Open, say, twenty tabs (Command-T twenty times, e.g.)
3. Scroll to the top of tab drawer
4. Grab the top tab in the tab drawer, and try to drag it down so that it comes after the twentieth tab.

On my system, i can't do step (4) above, because OW doesn't scroll the tab drawer past the bottom _displayed_ tab. I can't scroll down to the region of the tab drawer below that bottom _displayed_ tab.

Forrest 2006-06-23 06:04 PM

I just followed your steps, and the tabs to scroll for me.

peterhi 2006-06-24 05:05 AM

Tab drawer scrolling, part 3
 
Thank you, Forrester. For reasons I don't understand, when I try the procedure using Sneaky Peek 16, the problem persists. Furthermore, when I drag the active tab's URL from the OW address bar, I can place it in the tab drawer only within the range of the displayed tabs. If I try to drag the link to the tab drawer above the highest displayed tab or below the lowest displayed tab, I fail. There is no automatic scrolling.

peterhi 2006-06-25 05:08 AM

Tab-drawer scrolling, part 4
 
Forrester, you were correct. I believe the problem was that on my system, which includes an Apple Cinema HD 30" super-high-res monitor, the hotspot for activating the scrolling has an exceedingly small area.

bethkatz17582 2006-06-27 04:27 AM

When you first asked, I tried it and found the dragging spot to be very small. But it's there. I agree that it should be bigger, but I'm not sure how much control the Omni folks have over that.

akatsuki 2006-07-13 02:23 PM

Why a split pane is better
 
[QUOTE=JKT]I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what advantage a split pane view would have over a drawer in the OmniOutliner thread. [/QUOTE]

Easy, open your browser to be near full-screen then open the drawer. It resizes your window which is annoying. A split pain does not. For those of us who want our window to remain the same size, a split pane is better

JKT 2006-07-13 05:38 PM

Conversely, open and close a pane (no matter where or what size your window is) and the window content resizes every single time which is far more annoying - this is no advantage to the split pane at all as it happens anywhere and everywhere, fullscreen window or not. With a drawer this only ever happens in the one extreme case that you describe (when your window is near full/full screen and it has to resize the window to fit the drawer).

mbklein 2006-07-15 07:07 AM

[QUOTE=Ken Case]* Inactive windows have stripes.[/QUOTE]

Hmm...I'm using SP17, and [i]all[/i] my windows (active and inactive) have stripes.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/mbklein/omni_windows_small.gif[/IMG]

Forrest 2006-07-17 08:59 AM

[QUOTE=mbklein]Hmm...I'm using SP17, and [i]all[/i] my windows (active and inactive) have stripes.[/QUOTE]

He's talking about the pinstripes that appear in inactive windows, not the construction stripes that are on by default with the sneaky peeks.

Guntis 2006-07-17 02:33 PM

Unified toolbar for OmniGraffle Pro
 
When can we expect to see Unified toolbar for OmniGraffle (Pro)? I think it's more than a year since OS X Tiger introduced it, and still OGP hasn't got one...

adinb 2007-03-15 02:08 PM

I'll +1 a combined stop/reload buton and the ability to customize the toolbar--change spacing between icons, etc.


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