[Jon Hicks]

A few years back, when OW 5 was in public beta, there was an official theme plugin developed, and Omnigroup were looking for entries for alternative themes.

The plugin worked really well, but then development stopped suddenly, and I never got an answer why. I think Omnigroup should present a solid default set, but resurrecting that plugin would be wonderful.

[theonehorst]

Theme Plugin would be indeed great.

[philonous]

Originally Posted by theonehorst

Theme Plugin would be indeed great.

I am somewhat happy not to have this feature in OW and Safari. Good looks and better features are good enough for me. Plus, NOT spending time looking for new things is a good thing, I have concluded.

:)

I am beginning to dig (and digg?) the evolving OW looks. The icons still feel a bit out of date, but nicer than before.

Unifying the bookmarks with the rest of the toolbar would still be very nice.

[Handycam]

I agree with philonius. Having a lot of "themes", most of which turn out to be hideous -- just look at the Firefox theme site -- dilutes the identity and quality of the product.

When you have a browser like OW, where its selling point is supposed to be its UI, I would rather have the people at Omni come up with a look and feel consistent with their image and their brand, across their product line. All their tools are worth buying mostly because using them is such a pleasure, both from functionality AND looks.

If I wanted to use a themeable browser, I could just use Firefox. I'd rather use an attractive one.

[Forrest]

FWIW, lately I've been thinking the OG has been listening to user feedback too much. Time is being spent on minor issues that many complain about while bigger ones that don't get talked about much go unfixed.

User feedback is good to an extent, but it must not be taken literally. If 500 people posted saying "make the icons big & red" and only 5 disagreed, the feedback should be ignored. The majority of users don't know what makes good design or what makes a UI work. They simply give ideas based on what they think looks good.

Additionally, the volume of feedback should be compared to the actual impact of the item. Just because a lot of people talk about the buttons, doesn't mean it's more important than another item. Everyone sees the buttons, one way or another. So naturally there will be more feedback on the buttons.

[andreas_g]

@ forrest:
i disagree! the look and feel of an application is very important. it's an important difference between OS X and Windows, which has still a very bad look and feel.

you don't have to be a designer to tell if icons are "good or bad".
"good design" means, that people like it (the look and the functionality). and of course this is always subjective and differs from one person to another.
when a lot of people tell, that they don't like the new icons, there must be something wrong with them.

[philonous]

Originally Posted by andreas_g

@ forrest:
i disagree! the look and feel of an application is very important. it's an important difference between OS X and Windows, which has still a very bad look and feel.

I disagree! :)

The OW GUI is not bad, per se, or ugly. It's just not as pleasing a GUI as we have come to expect from Omnigroup. Yes, we all want it to be prettier, but functionality is a larger issue. So, yes, I would vote for greater and better functionality over good looks, also.

But, Forrest neglects one key point from OG's point of view. Better looks is good marketing. So, spending time on the GUI is part and parcel of selling a "better product."

[Forrest]

Originally Posted by philonous

But, Forrest neglects one key point from OG's point of view. Better looks is good marketing. So, spending time on the GUI is part and parcel of selling a "better product."

That is how MS tries to sell software. They are pretty good at it too. And the OG already has my money and I'm sure it's too far along to ask for a refund. So the fact many of the features I paid for are broken, doesn't directly hurt their bottom line. That said, I hardly ever recommend OW anymore, and hardly ever defend it when it's attacked.

Bookmark checking still doesn't work, download folder location site pref is now broken, ad blocking is broken, the correct status bar icons don't always show (if the status bar doesn't randomly disappear), tabs are often blank until clicked on, cookies don't always get deleted, pages don't always load from the server even if you set them to... I would take any of those fixed over new icons any day.

[Ken Case]

Forrest, you may have already gone through all of this with in another thread or with our tech support ninjas (in which case I apologize for making you repeat yourself), but most of the problems you describe are news to me—and I don't seem to be able to reproduce most of them:

Originally Posted by Forrest

Bookmark checking still doesn't work

This is the first I'd heard about this—but you're right, I told OmniWeb to check a folder of bookmarks and none of the checking tasks got past the "Starting" state in Activity Monitor. We'll track this down.

download folder location site pref is now broken
ad blocking is broken
the correct status bar icons don't always show (if the status bar doesn't randomly disappear)
cookies don't always get deleted

I just tested and these all seem to be working fine for me.

tabs are often blank until clicked on

I haven't seen this. Just to make sure it wasn't because I'm always visiting the same web sites, I just went to macsurfer and Command-Clicked on the first ten article links; their thumbnails all loaded.

pages don't always load from the server even if you set them to...

I haven't seen anything like this, but I'm also not quite sure what you mean.

I would take any of those fixed over new icons any day.

Please bear in mind that the people writing code aren't drawing any new icons, so updating our icons doesn't really interfere with making progress on any of the issues you're concerned about.

[Forrest]

Hi Ken,

Originally Posted by Ken Case

This is the first I'd heard about this—but you're right, I told OmniWeb to check a folder of bookmarks and none of the checking tasks got past the "Starting" state in Activity Monitor. We'll track this down.

Thanks.

I just tested and these all seem to be working fine for me.

- Download site pref: David just asked me to check something and I tested the old way first. The issue seems to be resolved.
- Adblocking: I've been exchanging emails with Troy on this. It seems to be getting better, but I still run into issues. Next time I find one I can reproduce, I'll send it in
- Status bar icons: Has been brought up by others as well. Last time it worked properly was in 5.1. Next time I see it, I'll send in some screenshots. I wish I could come up with steps to reproduce, and others have not been able to either.
- Cookie deletion: I was working on a few sites when I ran into this issue. That's how I first discovered the cookies were being set properly for sure and OW was still acting as if a cookie I deleted was there. I've run into it on another site as well and posted about it here. When I find one that I can submit to you that doesn't require something like a car purchase for you to test, I'll send it in.

I haven't seen this. Just to make sure it wasn't because I'm always visiting the same web sites, I just went to macsurfer and Command-Clicked on the first ten article links; their thumbnails all loaded.

(Tabs not loading) It happens with sites that I visit often (eg, reloading a workspace.) Initially I was having some issues with the timeout (workspace taking too long to load so the pages fail to load.) I removed some pages so that wouldn't happen. Still, often when I reload a workspace the thumbnails are blank until I click on them. The page had fully loaded. (This is on a PPC 10.4.11 machine, FWIW.)

I haven't seen anything like this, but I'm also not quite sure what you mean.

(Pages not loading from the server.) Happens sometimes with cache set to 0 and when I reload a page. It happens in source view as well. David said this was a known issue (refetching within the source editor.)

Please bear in mind that the people writing code aren't drawing any new icons, so updating our icons doesn't really interfere with making progress on any of the issues you're concerned about.

That's good to know. Still, since some of these issues are rather long-standing, it's irritating to see resources allocated to one area (that, IMHO, is less important at the moment) when other areas are lacking. It's like having a dozen people at the counter taking orders, but only one barista. I also think results are what matter.

There are other issues as well. I've submitted some, others I haven't. Sometimes I get a reply like "[I'll] look out for any other users experiencing the same thing"... and know that basically that issue isn't going to get solved because very few people are going to find it, and even fewer people are going to try and recreate it and even fewer people are going to bother to take the time to tell you about it.