OmniWeb 5.0: The Powerful Web Browser

On 8/17/2004 14:15, "Adam Bell" <abellaccesswave.ca> wrote:

> [It works fine on my multiple monitors, zooming appropriately. One slightly
> odd thing is that it doesn't automatically save window position, though you
> can always choose Save Window Size from the Window menu when you have your
> basic window size and position set perfectly. And of course, a workspace
> remembers its window position and size. -Adam]

I wish all browsers did their default window sizing and positioning this
way. I get tired of forgetting that the last window I closed was not my
normal size, in other browsers.

Particularly during the siege of the popup windows (which fortunately are
blocked reasonably well now).

  --John

On 8/17/2004 14:15, "Adam Bell" <abellaccesswave.ca> wrote:

> For me, then, there are no costs to their approach. And more to the point, I
> never expect any Web browser to render every site site perfectly, because
> there's no telling how or how well that site was coded.

If there is even one HTML error on a site, there is no such thing as
rendering that site "perfectly" since there is no valid definition of
"perfect".

  --John

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 14:15:16 -0700, Adam <acetidbits.com> wrote:
> [gMail is doing a ton of things, and since it appeared in the middle of the OmniWeb beta cycle, I'm not too surprised. But gMail isn't even public yet, so I don't think it's fair to complain that OmniWeb doesn't support a beta Web site with a highly interactive interface. Personally, I had trouble with gMail in Safari too, so I use it in Camino, when I need to. -Adam]

I had problems with Safari initially, but since Google announced
Safari compatibility last month I've had no problems at all.

And it is so nice to have the Interactive spell check and emacs
key-bindings available in the edit window.

--
 ::::== <http://www.kreme.com> ==::::
 :: Don't get saucy with me, Bernaise ::

1. For openers, it has limited bookmark import capabilities. I never did figure out quite what it does with Safari bookmarks but it seems to import them in some special way.

2. OmniWeb 5 doesn't understand folder bookmarks and I use those extensively for forum and research site viewing.

Nowadays, when one often needs to switch browsers, using an independent url manager is really worth it. I use URL Manager Pro but there a few to choose from.

Robert

After all the enthusiastic discussion of OmniWeb, I'd like to try it.
But the Omnigroup server rejects (resets) all my attempts to connect,
regardless of URL--I can't even reach their home page. Going through
VersionTracker doesn't help. because it just redirects back to
Omnigroup. Does anyone know of an alternate source for the download?

[That sounds like some Internet routing problems. I don't know this alternate download URL will help or not, since it's in the same domain. -Adam]

<http://www.omnigroup.com/ftp1/pub/software/MacOSX/10.2/OmniWeb-5.0-English.dmg>

I tried Omniweb based on Adam's recommendation in TidBITS recently. Reviewed their website, read all the pertinent FAQ's, so I would have some idea what to expect. Downloaded, opened, installed. Big disappointment. No faster than Safari or Camino (my top 2 browsers), and what's up with bookmarks?? No way to put them into the menu? The sidebar idea is nice, but I'm living on a 12" iBook here, and can't spare the real estate for a permanent sidebar just for bookmarks.

[All the bookmarks in the Personal Bookmarks collection appear in the Bookmarks menu, and any folders you create show up as hierarchical menus in that folder. -Adam]

Maybe okay with a much larger screen, but for me, this was a dealbreaker all by itself, and a bad decision on Omni's part. They should have given the option of putting bookmarks in the sidebar or in the menu. Then, perhaps, its other features could come to the front, overcoming the basic annoyance of the sidebar/small screen issue.

[I'm not sure quite what you're referring to. OmniWeb's bookmarks can be displayed either in a separate window, or in a browser window like Safari. The thumbnail icons for tabs do appear in a drawer, but you can shrink the size of that drawer or even hide it completely, at which point you have to use the keyboard command to navigate through them. When the bookmarks are shown in a browser window, it acts like any other tab, so you can leave it open easily. -Adam]

At 08:48 -0700 8/24/04, DaveD wrote:

[dislike of OmniWeb's bookmark handling deleted]

I guess I'm NOT the only one who dislikes OmniWeb's bookmark
mechanism. I tried importing my Safari bookmarks, but couldn't find
them anywhere. I'm certainly not going to pay for a program that is
so obtuse on something as basic as bookmarks. I deleted it
immediately.

[From the Bookmarks menu, choose Import Bookmarks. Then in the Bookmarks window, notice that there's a Safari Bookmarks collection, containing all the imported bookmarks, which you can drag, en masse if you like, into another collection like Personal Bookmarks (if you want them to appear in the menu, My Shared Bookmarks (if you want to share them with other OmniWeb users on the network, Favorites (if you want them to appear on the Favorites bar). -Adam]

--
Roger
Lovettsville, VA

Adam's clarifying comments throughout this thread (and others in a recent email exchange with John Gruber) make it clear that the major problem with OmniWeb (aside from their use of yesterday's rendering engine) is a lack of clear documentation of the features. By "clear documentation", I don't mean that the features are explained somewhere, but rather that the features which give OW it's pizzazz should be emphasized up front so that folks with habits formed on the competition will know how to make the changes without research. Very few are willing to work to use software for which there are many alternatives. It's got to be obvious.

[I agree that it's an uphill battle as soon as you do anything different, and I would also note that the Omni folks are extremely interested in feedback from users about how discoverable or usable their features are, so I encourage people to use the Send Feedback command in OmniWeb's Help menu if you're having trouble. -Adam]

I agree with Adam re: bookmarks. First, importing my huge list of
bookmarks and folders from Safari worked flawlessly. Second, while it take
me awhile to figure out how to get my folders to show up in the "Add to
Bookmarks" window, once I made some adjustments in how my overall bookmarks
list is organized, it works fine. In fact, I really like having instant
access to my entire list of bookmarks.

My concerns so far are:

1. Speed -- I'm not sure that OM5 is any faster than Safari at rendering
pages.

[It's unlikely ever to be faster than Safari, since it's using the same rendering engine (though an older version at this point - to be current in 5.1). -Adam]

2. I can't figure out how to use the Workspace. I can see how it works, but
just haven't seen a need for it yet.

[I had this problem initially too. The trick is to think about sites that you access at the same time, Web applications that might be better with different window settings, and so on. My Web Crossing example is simple, but apt. When I'm moderating TidBITS Talk, I want the window as wide as possible, since there are times that a preview of a post (mostly a press release) can be much wider than my normal window, forcing me to scroll right and left. And although it's easy enough to open the moderation page, and if I need it, open the TidBITS home page to snag URLs from, it's nice to work in a clean window that doesn't have any other tabs open. It just feels like I'm doing something different, and I should have a slightly different interface for that task. -Adam]

3. Lack of automatic sorting for bookmarks. You have to manually sort each
and every folder. OM5 needs a utility like "SafariSorter" (I did contact
them to suggest doing it for OM5).

-- Mac

This is slightly in response to Adam's ExtraBITS comments on OmniWeb,
which I'd hesitated to comment on since, well, his review pretty well
covered it.

OmniWeb is an excellent browser however it's no longer quite as much of
a quantum leap ahead of other browsers as it used to be. Its shortcuts,
once a staple feature for me, were replaced by Launchbar (or
Quicksilver, or Butler) which offer the same ease of use from any
application. Pop up and ad blocking is available in Safari (with Pith
Helmet) and in Mozilla/Firefox. Its bookmarks, while excellent, lack
the not-in-any-menu collections of Safari, nor can it import those
collections from Safari.

All this aside, OmniWeb has a variety of small touches which endear it
to me like no other browser. These are almost imperceptible interface
improvements that I hope other browsers steal to make the world a
generally happier place. (And yes, they're enough for me to pay $30 for
them.)

* Paste URL to go: Adam covered this, and it's awesome.
* Type in the NAME of a bookmark and have it auto-fill the rest. Very,
very handy for keyboard-only navigation
* Rearrange tabs: 'nuff said
* Workspaces: These are hard to get the hang of, but if you have some
morning news sites you like to read, or perhaps web interfaces to
monitor systems, a workspace can group and open all these windows
simultaneously. Far, far, superior to just creating a folder in your
bookmarks bar and opening it all at once.
* Zoom text editor: Great for message forums. I just wish it cached the
text with the workspace in case I crashed while typing.

[And Nik failed to interCap OmniWeb properly in his original, but a simple Find/Replace in the zoomable text editor fixed it. After doing some HTML editing in Safari in eSellerate's cart customization tool recently without even a Find, this was extremely welcome. -Adam]

* Site preferences are the best thing ever. Now The Register isn't in
huge fonts, Salon.com is readable, and my bank thinks that I'm using
Internet Explorer, thus letting me in.
* Its cookie management and pop up management gives 100% control to
the user without bogging me down with constant alerts to new cookies.

All this aside, some of the new features in OmniWeb seem sort of half
baked. The regex ad blocking doesn't seem to work right for me (it
blocks many ads, but fails to block some which definitely meet the
expression I set up!); the RSS reader is clumsy and lacks even a hint
of the control of NetNewsWire or Shrook, let alone other menu-based
systems like MacReporter; and the page "tabs" drawer, while visually
stunning, isn't entirely useful -- I'm still not sure if I prefer it or
tabs.

Still, I paid my modest $10 upgrade fee for this version, and I'm using
it exclusively.

As Adam pointed out in his ExtraBITS column, check it out and really
USE it for 30 days. You might really like it, or at least have a great
idea of how much better other browsers could be.

I am in day 7 of the trial period of OmniWeb v5 and I'm impressed. I have noticed that other folks posting to your review comments have had problems with Bookmark management. I did too at first, but once I cleared my head of preconceived notions of how things should work, I got them to work. But I get ahead of my experience.

Prior to trying OmniWeb, I was switching between the latest versions of Firefox, Camino and Safari. After playing with OmniWeb for about an hour, I had amassed what I thought were 5 critical Bookmark Management problems. So, I sent a comment to the OmniWeb support team telling them I was a "tire kicker" and was having problems with Bookmarks - listing my 5 issues. Within minutes, I got an automated response thanking me for the e-mail, but saying gently that they had a huge volume of e-mail and needed to support registered users first. Fair enough, that said I didn't expect to hear from them again. But what to my surprise, the next day one of their support team did write to me with detailed explanations and some questions and thus stated a dialogue of several e-mails. That whole exchange was a totally unexpected pleasure.

In the meantime, I had kept beating on OmniWeb and finally figured out what I was doing wrong and had solved most of my problems - but it took several hours of trying different things for that to happen. Bottom line, I expect to register my copy of OmniWeb if for no other reason than I believe they deserve the support and encouragement, ignoring for the moment that their browser is a pretty darn good piece of work.

To solve my Bookmark management problems, I read and reread the online Help file and the download pdf manual. OmniWeb has introduced some different UI arrangements which a new user needs to get familiar with before deciding what works or doesn't work for them. One is the "Collections Shelf" and its components like Personal Bookmarks, Favorites, Imported Bookmarks, etc. The key for me was recognizing that Personal Bookmarks was the place to put the bookmarks you wanted to manage. Move them to that Collection from Imported Bookmarks or where ever and then rearrange them to your heart's content - adding folders and other visual helpers. BTW, I had no problem importing any of my bookmarks.html files. Please note however, I am not an OmniWeb expert - I just managed to get Bookmarks working for me; all other user's mileage may vary. Also, I don't want to set unrealistic expectations for other non-registered users getting the same level of support I did and have them be disappointed in the company. Maybe I was just lucky and hit Omni at a slow moment on their Help Desk.

I really don't understand why it is that so many people are having
trouble understanding and using Omniweb. I'm doing the 30 day trial now
and I'm taking the time to really try to put it through its paces. If I
try something, I take the time to see what it does and understand it. I
know that with any new program there may be shifts in how things work
or difference from the "usual way things are done" and that I need to
be careful to understand them so I do not misjudge through ignorance.

That said, if a program is designed well, it shouldn't take time to
achieve that understanding and I have found that with Omniweb, that
understanding usually comes quickly. There are a few things that still
have me a bit confused but I'm going to work though the confusion and
then see if that confusion was caused by poor design or through a
pretty radical change in the underlying paradigm which required some
getting used to.

One good example of this is the workspaces. I have a default one which
is set to autosave so that if I crash or quit, I still have the sites
later on. At one point I loaded a bunch of sites into tabs and took a
snapshot just to be sure I wouldn't lose them. Later, I reloaded the
snapshot, read the pages in question and then closed all of the tabs.

When I next launched Omniweb, they were all back again even though I
had the save as you browse turned on. I didn't realize that snapshots
trumped the save-as-you-go (or maybe it's a combo of what you had open
when you quit AND the snapshot sites, I haven't figured it out yet).
So, then I went looking for a way to say "I no longer need this
snapshot, please get rid of it" which took me some time (and I don't
remember what it was right now).

And I think that that is a legitimate design flaw because I was
confused by the feature and did not know how to reset that workspace to
get rid of the snapshot.

But I took the time to work through it and feel like I understand it
enough to have the quibble.

That quibble aside, I am finding it to be an incredible web browser. I
have already created a number of workspaces for various projects at
work so I have rapid access to all sites I need (one tab for our bug
tracking system, one tab for the staging server, one tab for the cvs
repository, one tab for a CSS reference I'm leaning on heavily right
now for something I'm trying to implement, etc...) all at once and when
I need it.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that it's easy to run a program
and look at it for 30 minutes or so and instantly hate it for how it
differs from your favorite web browser. It takes more time to try to
understand *why* it differs and how those differences actually work to
improve things. Sometimes it takes a pretty big shift in thinking (try
migrating between InDesign and Quark) but sometimes it's worth it.

What I really don't understand is why people seem to be so angry about
the program. I thought we liked innovation?

Thanks Adam for taking the time to write up such a comprehensive review
(it came out just as I was getting my feet wet with it) and for taking
the time to correct the misconceptions about the application that are
being posted.

(I am not affiliated with OmniGroup so I am not a shill for them. I am
also not affiliated with the BITSgang and am not a shill for them
either. In fact, Adam once called me a sucker in early versions of his
Internet book. :)

[But I still like you, Andy! :-) -Adam]

--
Andy J. W. Affleck
listaccountraggedcastle.com
http://www.raggedcastle.com/webcrumbs/
iChatAV/AIM: andyjw23

On 8/17/04 4:15 PM, "Adam Bell" <abellaccesswave.ca> wrote:

> I used OmniWeb 5 for about a week and at the end of that time decided
> that the Omni Group had a long uphill battle to convince me that its
> features were a $40 Cdn improvement over Safari, Camino or Firefox.

My issue with OmniWeb is the same one with switching from any software
package I use as much as a browser. It comes down to two reasons:

1) the package I'm using has to be unusable, or close to it

OR

2) The new kid on the block has to be a huge improvement.

I used IE until the announcement that it wasn't going to be supported
anymore. It then fell to either Mozilla, or Safari. OmniWeb pre-5 was never
going to be an option. It annoyed me in a hundred different ways, rather
like being nibbled to death by baby ducks.

Once Safari got tabs, it became my main browser, and I only use Mozilla as a
backup. (Safari's NTLM handling just sucks.) So for me, the question is,
does Safari not do the job enough to make me want to switch? No. It's an
excellent browser, and I really only miss two features of IE, one of which
OW has, namely better bookmark autocomplete.

Is OmniWeb that much better to switch anyway? No. Not for my needs at least.
I still find the UI far too busy for a browser. I despise the sliding trays
that Cocoa apps use without regard for need, and OW loves that damned tray.
I have yet to find the occasional resizing of a window to be annoying enough
to care about workspaces. Their take on tabs, while fascinating, isn't
something I want to use. The fact that they're based on a very old (in
internet years) rendering engine is a major strike against them as well.

Finally, is anything in OW worth me paying for? Not even close.

I'm glad they're doing good work, but they don't have anything that's
critical enough for me to pay for.

john

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

After reading the TidBITS review and the comments here, I checked out
OmniWeb and bought a license. I agree that there is a bit of a
learning curve, though not a steep one, and the documentation could
certainly be better. They could do a short piece comparing how OW
works with how Safari (and other major browsers, I suppose) works as
well. That would have been useful in trying to figure out the
bookmarks, which were the biggest hurdle for me.

I had some initial problems - OW would not retain the window size
across launches despite using "Save Window Size, for example. I
wrote to OW about it and received a responsive and helpful answer in
less than 12 hours. This was a pleasant surprise as I have become
cynically accustomed to email tech support that starts with an
automatic "we received your email and when get back to you some time
before the end of time" message, followed by an unhelpful response 2
weeks later telling me to run Disk First Aid and reset the pram.

I have had some problem with OW properly doing forms that use
javascript. For example one my credit card sites that allows on-line
payment doesn't work in OW. But for that matter, it doesn't work in
Safari either - I have to use IE. But as Adam commented a while back
in this thread, no browser does everything perfectly.

Brady Johnson

Adam I saw your comments on ExtraBITS about the poor Omniweb feedback. I'd like to offer my 2cents:

<http://emperor.tidbits.com/.3c50ea46>

1. I tried the demo version based on your review. I think a lot of the features are very nice indeed, and well worth the money. after all, this is the app most of us would use more than any other app. I particularly like its tabbed pages features, and specifically its selective site preferences allowing me to turn on/off pop-up blocking by site. I also like the search window flexibility - direct IMDB searches for instance. I have used this to set GoogleUK which cannot be done with Safari (though I have yet to figure how to force the search to only search the UK first).

2. Omni are a great company for support. I have sent them one bug report (I found it very slow with a RealPlayer video stream). I received a very prompt detailed response asking for more information (a sample file) which I have sent. That's pretty good for an unlicensed user! (I am also a user of OmniGraffle Pro, where I have seen the same high level of attentiveness and willingness to consider bug reports AND feature requests). There are few companies around these days that give this level of customer support for products which cost far more money.

3. While not especially fast, I have not had serious speed problems, and I believe it handles memory better than Safari. One reason for trying Omniweb, is that my PowerBook has to be rebooted more frequently because I seem to start VM swapping more and more with Safari. Quitting Safari does not help much. OmniWeb does not seem to cause this problem. I have tried the various suggestions for speeding up Safari (icons, autofill off, empty cache etc) with limited success.

So, I wholeheartedly agree with your position. This is a no-lose offer for anyone - try it (and I mean TRY it) and if you don't like it you lose nothing except your time. It may not be for everyone, and there are still a few rough edges, but at least these guys listen, and there's a good chance that the next release will either fix your problem or include your request if it makes sense! In the meantime if you're a heavy surfer, the extra features are a real boon.

Keep up the good work Ian

For me (a UK user) OmniWeb has one very special and unique feature that no other Mac Web Browser has been able to do – it allows me to log into my Nat West Bank account – something that Safari and Camino have not been able to do.

IE is the officially supported browser, but I have had so many failed attempts using IE, that I started to use the phone service that Nat West runs and had started to think I needed to change banks. I had even resorted to using IE in Windows XP via Virtual PC (yes – THAT DESPERATE).

On the general browsing features, I still prefer Safari, and I have found some annoyances in OmniWeb when certain Java Applets want to run – it seems that OmniWeb doesn’t always refresh or similar.

I must admit that I tend to use Safari as my main browser, and use omniweb for any banking sites or sites where they prefer the browser to announce itself as IE for Windows.

I have installed Safari Enhancer and told it to force Safari to announce itself as IE for Windows, but even this will not fool the Nat West bank website – which, by the way is one of the crappiest banking website implementations I have used. Yep, I know – why not just leave Nat West? Well, I’ve been with them for 20 years, and they have never made a mistake on my account – so I feel kind of loyal to them – even though I shout at them for their crap website!

Gareth

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Andy J. W. Affleck wrote:
>At one point I loaded a bunch of sites into tabs and took a snapshot
>just to be sure I wouldn't lose them. Later, I reloaded the snapshot,
>read the pages in question and then closed all of the tabs.
>When I next launched Omniweb, they were all back again even though I
>had the save as you browse turned on.

That is intentional: If you close all windows in a given workspace,
OmniWeb will go back to the last snapshot the next time you open that
workspace. Most of the time, it helps. Say, you're reading a bunch of
online comics in a workspace. You open all the comics you want to read
and save a snapshot. When you want to read the comics, you open the
workspace and close each comic as you've read it. The next time you want
to read your comics, you just have to open the workspace and they'll all
be back.

lucas

- --
"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart"
  -- Anne Frank

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Workspaces are a highly valuable feature. They're also a new idea, so it takes some time to learn how to make them useful. A shortcut is to download workspaces that other people have created. Useful ones can be edited to make them useful for you; less useful ones can be studied and discarded. Two sources of workspaces (including Mac sites, search sites, and Second Language Acquisition journal sites) are: http://homepage.mac.com/jtyzack/PublicFS/FileSharing44.html http://homepage.mac.com/ricklavin2001/FileSharing6.html

Double-clicking on a downloaded workspace launches OW and loads the workspace.

Rick

I enjoy very much using OmniWeb 5, but there is no way i can get it to
import my Safari (or for that sake IE) bookmarks. I've tried at least
10 times, and absolutely nothing happens, that is, the browser changes
to bookmark view, and that's all. Not knowing if it would do any good I
did a pepair of permissions using Disk Utility, but of course it didn't
help.
When I press the "Import" button, all it does is turn from blue to
white. Next time I hit "Return" instead of clicking. Nothing. Then
"Enter". Still nothing.
Anybody have a clue?

[Do you have a "Safari Bookmarks" collection in the left hand pane? That's where imported bookmarks go. -Adam]

Regards,
Peer Bentzen

I emailed Omni for help with importing bookmarks, and got this advice:

"We sometimes have problems with our groups.plist file that can cause
weird behavior like this.
...
Can you try this,

1.) Quit OmniWeb
2.) In finder browse to: ~/Library/Application Support/OmniWeb 5/
3.) In this folder there should be a "groups.plist" file pull it out of
the folder and put it on your desktop (or somewhere safe).
4.) Restart OmniWeb and go into the bookmarks page. can you import
correctly now?

Let me know if this helps at all!"

All problems solved!

Regards,
Peer Bentzen