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[News] IBrowse FAQ now onlineANN.lu
Posted on 13-Sep-2002 10:52 GMT by Peter Gordon30 comments
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A FAQ has appeared on the IBrowse website. Main points:

* No CSS support, or PPC version until IBrowse 3.0.
* No Java or Flash in 2.3 (no target version given for either)
* The version shipped with OS4 is not a full version.
* IBrowse 2.3 will be free for 2.2 users
* Much improved Javascript

Still no full featurelist, but it looks like its coming out soon!
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 1 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 13-Sep-2002 08:52 GMT
I for one can't wait! Although it lacks some major features (CSS being the only one I really miss), I love the browsing environment offered by IBrowse, and its great to see it still in development!
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 2 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by AmiTroll on 13-Sep-2002 10:18 GMT
Oh god i'm sick of this.
Ok, i don't mean to put down all the hard work done on Ibrowse,
or Aweb or Voyager for that matter, but i'm so sick of seeing
half done browsers that don't work with zillions of sites out
there. First is the java support and everyone is waiting for
them to bring the DE to the OS. Not even a whisper about the
project and i'm guessing its going to be a very long time
before it's done. But the rest of the features have no excuses.
I respect the work done so far if anyone does. At least this is
an update and i'm happy to see it, but i'm tired of waiting on
promised features and paying $100 or more on a html reader. So,
here's the bottom line, give me an up to date, full featured
browser or i don't want the thing! Any of the Amiga browsers
out there now would simply kick ass if they met up with modern
requirements. XML, flash, etc.. Unfortunatly, they dont and it
looks like its going to be some time before they do. :/
Sorry, bit of a rant i know but it had to come out. If 3.0 can
bring the remaining features to the Amiga Browser front then
i'll buy it. Untill then i guess i'm stuck with what i have now.
I'm not dumping more money on browsers untill they make the
grade.
GRUNT
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 3 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Christian Kemp on 13-Sep-2002 10:44 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (AmiTroll):
This is one of the major reasons why I switched to Windows 2000: the lack of Amiga browsers supporting recent standards. I'm not even talking about plug-ins or script support, but HTML 4 and CSS2 are *vital*. There are so many things that can be done with Cascading Style Sheets that it's really a shame that no Amiga browser supports it.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 4 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Ralph on 13-Sep-2002 10:54 GMT
@AmiTroll:
It is free for registered 2.2 users. And those are IMHO the main target audience!
Selling IBrowse will probably mainly focus on v3.0.
I for example would like to have a more stable version with (much) improved Javascript. Sites that demand Java are not interesting to me anyway (when browsing with Mozilla i have Java turned off and most of the time Javascript too). Flash is not interesting either. It does not contain any information (normally) and is just a nice-to-look-at. That is, if you have the bandwith! Being stuck with ISDN i do neither need nor miss Flash at all. Even when i had 1.6MBps downstream, i always skipped Flash intros (most of the time a waste of exactly this: time!).
And you know what: IBrowse is still superior to mainstream PeeCee browsers today in some aspects like e.g. its great site-based preferences. If that will work reliably in 2.3, i will be such a happy guy!
I am looking forward to set up a machine with Berniethlon (hope it will come out way before christmas) and then IBrowse together with MiamiDx, YAM and NewsRog will make it a great internet machine. The Cube will probably be "degraded" to Video editing and music then and my A3k will share the fate of the A1k: Sit there in the nostalgia corner, look nice and ... collect dust!
Hey Stefan: Great thing you will continue IBrowse development. If it will display "normal" sites okay, i do not need too much bells and whistles (like mouse gestures and all that stuff). Just make it fast, stable and bring in new ideas (i still believe that Mozilla stole the idea of tabbed browsing from IBrowse ;-)
Best regards
Ralph
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 5 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by stevieu on 13-Sep-2002 10:58 GMT
I totally agree with that point Christian. CSS are more of a necessity these days more than it is an 'added extra'. It has been a case of swapping between browsers (i.e V, IBrowse) on the Amiga, to find I can't view particular sites I want to view.
I used to despise flash, but when using a browser that supports the latest version and when using broadband, it really doesn't seem as bad. (when used effectively)
I mainly use Windows and IE for browsing now (it does the job). Shame about those damn bl**dy popups and adverts though, and the fact it's a monster. ;)
Oh well, still nice to see IBrowse is in development, at least.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 6 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 11:27 GMT
>* No CSS support, or PPC version until IBrowse 3.0.
Sigh...
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 7 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 13-Sep-2002 11:33 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (stevieu):
The really good feature for me is the promised improvement in printing
to Postscript. That was rather poor in 2.2. If it works well in 2.3,
that wil give IBrowse a big advantage over the other Amiga browswers.
I realise not everyone has a Postscript printer (they cost more to buy
than inkjets, but they are cheaper to run), but for those of us who
do, this is important. You could probably use it with Ghostscript to
go out to a non-PS printer.
It will be seen at its best when CSS is implemented, I think.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 8 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 13:13 GMT
So when is the 3.0 version coming dammit?
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 9 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 13-Sep-2002 13:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Anonymous):
At a wild guess i'd say... sometime after 2.3.
Most probably "When its done".
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 10 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by koan on 13-Sep-2002 13:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Anonymous):
Some time well after they've finished writing 2.3.
ie. not soon.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 11 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 13:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Christian Kemp):
CSS is presentation layer only, you can still read and understand a good HTML4 site without CSS. Sure, you miss out on nicer layout and better printed versions and other niceties but the pages are still usable.
The trouble comes as people progress from HTML 4.0 to XHTML to XML, until eventually a typical web document contains things like:
<blog date="20020913">I am finally learning X3D. Look:
<x3d xmlns="blah-blah-x3d"><cube size="big" x="1.0" y="1.0" z="1.0"></x3d>
So that's <dude xlink:type="simple"
xlink:href="http://www.caoine.org/">Emma</dude> sorted.
</blog>
What's IBrowse going to do with that? It doesn't have a hope in hell.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 12 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 13-Sep-2002 13:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Anonymous):
You know what, when typical web documents look like that, we should all stop using the web! :)
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 13 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 13-Sep-2002 16:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Anonymous):
"CSS is presentation layer only, you can still read and understand a good HTML4 site without CSS. Sure,
you miss out on nicer layout and better printed versions and other
niceties but the pages are still usable. "
Unfortunately CSS pages are generally _not_ readable without it. You
get white text on a white background, or black on a dark grey
background.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 14 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 16:11 GMT
Speaking of browsers...Does anybody know Vapor's plans. Is there going to be OS4 version of Voyager?
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 15 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 17:01 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Don Cox):
There are some misguided people who try to use a mix of traditional HTML 3.2 style presentational HTML and CSS, but there's not much hope for them. It might make sense in this context - since none of the Amiga browsers have much hope of implementing even CSS1 correctly - to ignore all presentational hints.
Choose a nice Amiga color scheme (not black, red and white) and use the semantic element structure to lay the page out neatly without luminous pink gyrating backgrounds...
Hmm, I guess the heavy abuse of HTML tables and complete disregard for standards would make a pure semantic browser less than ideal on "the web as she is spoken" but at least you'd be able to read it, even if still made no sense :)
Mostly the problem with the web is that content creators are careless and/or insufficiently educated, which some would argue is the inevitable consequence of democratisation. If you make the Internet as accessible as the walls of a public bathroom then you should expect to read a lot of incoherent nonsense.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 16 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 17:27 GMT
This question has been asked many times, but has anyone ever given a serious look at porting Mozilla or the Mozilla rendering engine? There are open source NT and Linux derivatives. No doubt a fairly big job, but in the long run you avoid reinventing the wheel.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 17 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Rik Sweeney on 13-Sep-2002 17:58 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (Anonymous):
<LIES>
Yes.
</LIES>
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 18 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 18:32 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (anonymous):
How about Kmeleon? We just need the browser not all the stuff the Netscape or Mozilla have with it. just a nice simple implimentation of Gecko...
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 19 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Mike on 13-Sep-2002 19:20 GMT
"IBrowse 2.3 will be free for 2.2 users"
Free? Didn't we already PAY for it SEVERAL years ago?
To little, to late, My Amiga 4000 is "retired".
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 20 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by volmer on 13-Sep-2002 20:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Anonymous):
It is a real shame that he left out the CSS-support again. CSS are necessary more or less if you want to build complex sites without spending hours dealing with layout on top of structure -- because CSS just works, and that's the whole deal. :-)
> The trouble comes as people progress from HTML 4.0 to XHTML to XML, until
> eventually a typical web document contains things like:
[snip]
A web page based on an XML structure will never look like that. XML is not intended as yet another clobbered up way of describing things, but as an elegant and versatile way of structuring your data _before_ it is parsed into something that in turn can be parsed for your viewing pleasure. :-)
Let's just have faith that M$ sits on their bum (read: that they shut up and accept) next time feature sets of future HTML-alike languages are decided, frozen and implemented for the general public.
- volm
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 21 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by pVC on 13-Sep-2002 21:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Don Cox):
"Unfortunately CSS pages are generally _not_ readable without it. You
get white text on a white background, or black on a dark grey
background."
Yes they are ;) Just select "Ignore custom colors and backgrounds" in preferences menu in IB and you can read them :) I'm still using IB1.22 and I'll get 99% of everything done with it. The pages may not look what they've designed, but you'll get the information you'll need. And without those flipping popup adds and other crap. At least on sites where I visit.. which meand almost anything but pc-games sites, which are the most bloats usually.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 22 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 13-Sep-2002 21:10 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (Mike):
Perfect for Amithlon now! :-)
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 23 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Frank on 13-Sep-2002 21:49 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (Mike):
>"IBrowse 2.3 will be free for 2.2 users"
>Free? Didn't we already PAY for it SEVERAL years ago?
>To little, to late, My Amiga 4000 is "retired".
No. You did not pay for IB2.3 several years ago. You got 2.1, and then got a FREE upgrade to 2.2. Now you get a FREE upgrade to 2.3. How lucky are you? With barely ANYONE developing for THE platform of OUR choice now, don't you feel privilged that Stefan and his brother are still here? Oliver is still here. Dave is still here. WTF!?! Not only that, WE are still here. Get a f***ing grip and realize that we are very luckey that these brilliant coders are still with us and have not diverted to more profitable platforms. Stefan, Oliver, et al, if you read this, thank your for staying with us, and don't let the complainers deter you from the path.
Oh, and by the way, my A500, two 1Ks, two A3Ks, and A4K are still working very well, and as long as none of the chips blow up, they will continue. Your retired A4K is in that position by your own DESIRE.
Frank B.
Amiga owner since '85. Saw it at CES in '84. Knew Jay Miner (GRHS), Dale Luck, etc...
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 24 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Chain|Q on 14-Sep-2002 01:15 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (Mike):
Can you please send the "retired" one to me for a few bucks then? I still can use such "obsolete junk" very well.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 25 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Chain|Q on 14-Sep-2002 01:45 GMT
Anyway, the IBrowse 2.3 looks promising IMO. The only feature i really miss is CSS, i'm highly satisfied with the rest already, not counting the bugs in 2.2, but hopefully most of them got fixed. Since stability is the most important word when we talking about Amiga software...
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 26 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 14-Sep-2002 08:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (Chain|Q):
I'm sure the IBrowse team know CSS is needed. There are only so many
hours in the day.
Writing a JS-compatible browser that is also stable is not easy.
If sales of 2.3 are good, that will motivate them to work hard on CSS
and Flash. If it sells 10 or 12 copies, they may lose motivation.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 27 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 14-Sep-2002 10:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 20 (volmer):
"A web page based on an XML structure will never look like that."
Bzzt. I'm sorry, it looks like you won't be going home with a prize today. With the exception of the slightly tongue-in-cheek use of pseudo-X3D, that fragment works fine in today's XML+CSS compliant web browsers. I've just tested it (with an appropriate preamble and CSS stylesheet) in Mozilla and Opera.
[Yes, that means I know about the missing character in the original fragment]
It seems as though you're expecting XML to remain solely on the server, pushed through an XSLT engine to produce HTML 3.2 or whatever sticky substance is consumed by Amiga web browsers.
Unfortunately even if that was a good idea (it usually isn't) it won't work. MathML and SVG are just the first of many XML applications that cannot usefully be processed into HTML. Using XML in this way is easier for humans AND preserves a lot of the semantic content that was lost in traditional "web design".
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 28 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Donovan Reeve on 14-Sep-2002 10:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Ralph):
Hi Ralph,
I agree with everything you said. Most Java stuff is just band-width-wasting
trash, and who wants to wait for all that trash to load. I mostly surf with
the graphics loading even turned off, even when I have a fast connection.
One thing I HATE about using Internet Explorer on windoz is that you CAN'T
have things the way you want them but are forced to wait for all kinds of
crap you don't want and don't care about. I really hope that IBrowse is
kept fully user friendly and configurable. I still use IBrowse 2.1 on my
Amiga to browse with much of the time even though I have Explorer with windoz
XP-pro and NetScape with Linux on seperate and very fast machines. That is
because I find it much more enjoyable to be able to surf quickly with all
the junk turned off and only load what I am interested in, and be able to zip
around in my history list so easily and freely. NetScape isn't to bad
(being more like IBrowse) but even the latest Explorer is A PAIN IN THE ASS
because it forces you to accept everything microsofts way instead of your
own way. I HATE IT!!! (Although I think the little puppy is cute... that's
the only good thing about explorer).
cacha later,
Donovan Reeve (bubby@inebraska.com)
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 29 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 14-Sep-2002 10:44 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Donovan Reeve):
"(Although I think the little puppy is cute... that's
the only good thing about explorer). "
Little puppy????
No puppies in my copy of IE.
IBrowse FAQ now online : Comment 30 of 30ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 14-Sep-2002 15:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (Anonymous):
> Speaking of browsers...Does anybody know Vapor's plans. Is there going to be
> OS4 version of Voyager?
Who knows? Vapor seems to support new operating systems. There are MorphOS PPC versions out right now, so I guess that OS4 also will be supported, when (and if) it's released sometime in the future ...
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