[Brad]

It's been posted!

Camino Roadmap (The Road Ahead)

Some things like the new tabs have already trickled into the nightly builds. Frankly, I haven't said this for a very long time, but I'm about to switch to using Camino (nightly builds) as my default browser. The tabs are nice like Safari's and it's relatively fast and bug-free.

Though, I'll be sticking with Safari when surfing forums like AppleNova. The form widgets are still wonky as hell in Camino, but the rest of the app is well polished.

Something I'm excited about for 0.9:

Implement spell checking in forms

OMG *explodes* !!1!11 I only hope that this means a wholesale switch out of the Gecko textarea widget into a standard Cocoa widget. There are SO many problems with the Gecko version that, even with working spell-checking, I'd still won't use it for forums with lots of typing. It's like Gecko is reinventing the wheel, leaving out most of the spokes and slapping on a few sharp corners. Ugh.

The future of Camino is looking bright even if it may be many months before 0.9's release.

[Moogs]

I think Camino is dying a slow death. Many months till .9?? By the time it reaches it's first stable 1.0 build (a year from now?), the competition will have moved far ahead. Camino had real promise but sadly it's progressing MUCH too slowly to get any real adoption from the Mac community.

The team developing Camino needs to subscribe to the "80% plan today is better than 100% plan next week" theory.

[Brad]

I don't think Camino is dying, but I do think it is facing some very unique challenges and benefits.

Camino is the only browser currently being developed for Mac OS X for free by volunteers. Firefox, Safari, and OmniWeb developers? They all get paid for their time. That naturally means a slower release schedule than the Big Boys.

Also, keep in mind that Camino will continue to inherit major Gecko updates through the Mozilla trunk. So, the engine isn't likely to die of bitrot. The only thing the Camino devs really have to work with is the UI. Camino devs also don't have to work with as much kludge as the Firefox folks. They don't have to deal with that horrid XUL system and they don't have to make sure everything plays nice cross-platform.

I don't think the competition has moved that far ahead at all.

Safari? The only advantage it has is the native form widgets. Camino has equivalent tabs (nightlies), a better Google search field (more search options), better pop-up blocking (with a whitelist!), better security certificate support (I can no longer use Safari with parts of my school), better favicon support (not cached for infinite time and ignored), a better download manager, a truly customizable toolbar, and it's often faster and more responsive to boot!

Firefox? Yes, it has extensions and they're very nice. But what other advantages does it offer? A bloated, custom, nonstandard UI with really bad behaviors? Firefox really isn't that great of a technical feat anyway, IMO. It's just the whole browser chunk of the Mozilla code flopped into an executable with an updated theme and the new extension system. I suppose there's the RSS and Atom support too, but I never use them.

Omniweb? It's in a whole separate league since you have to buy it.

Camino is going to have a following despite its minimalism just like Omniweb has a following despite its relatively outrageous price. I am a testament to that. I used to loath Camino because it was so slow, buggy and downright ugly. A lot of that has changed. If the Camino devs can convince me to change, I'm sure they'll have success with a good part of the Mac market.

I understand that some people still aren't going to like Camino. That's fine. I don't like Firefox on Mac OS X. Some people think they need an extension to tack on every imaginable feature in the world whereas I think I need a UI that is reliable and consistently usable. I think Firefox on MaC OS X is an abomination, but I understand that it, like Camino, is a work in progress and will take a while to be perfected.

(Also, I *do* like Firefox on Windows, but we aren't talking about that, are we? )

In fact, as far as Mac OS X friendliness goes, the future is much brighter for Camino because so much of its code is already in native Cocoa. Firefox, on the other hand, is going to have to throw in patches after patches to get their "reinvention of the UI wheel" to ever get up to par.

[Luca]

The only thing I'd argue is incorrect about your post, Brad, is that you say the developers at Apple, who are getting paid for their time, will have a faster release schedule. That's pretty far from the truth. Maybe it's the case for Firefox, which seems to be developing fast, but Safari is REALLY stagnating. There are a lot of residual bugs that haven't been fixed in months. Apple's about as slow as it gets sometimes for software updates. Maybe only slightly faster than the Camino team. OmniWeb isn't very fast either, but better than Safari and Camino.

[usurp]

i used to only use camino, but the damn thing kept on crashing on me every now and then, thats when i moved onto the heavier but more stable firefox. i am downloading the latest nightly build now hopefully its more stable then before.

[Paul]

hmm... just noticed this

Does Camino support FireFox? extensions? No. And it never will. FireFox? extensions rely on XUL to interact with the user, and draw their interface. Camino uses Cocoa and does not support XUL for UI. This means that none of the extension for firefox would be able to interact with the user.

bummer... but at least now I won't wait for it to "show up" before I seriously look into it and use the lack of extension support as an excuse not to try it.

If it can't be done, then so be it... I could just use FF for my extension needs... but it would have been really cool if it was possible to do...

so, what are the possibilities of xul support in cocoa? Seriously tho, the browser plugin format needs to be looked at and the Mozilla extension system (which needs a little cross-platform work/direction) seem to have a good bunch of people using them... Would this be at all possible (assuming it comes from the Mozilla team at some point in the future)? Or would it need a significant investment from other browsing engines (opera, khtml, IE, iCab, etc.) to get portability?

[Chinney]

In another thread I suggested that the AN people - those who are able and are so inclined - take on task of asssting Camino. No response.

Actually, I have now downloaded it myself - violating my usual no-beta rule (I don't consider myself enough of a computer expert to deal with beta). I plan to at least test out the occaisonal build and report bugs. I would really like to see the Camino project move.

It seems to work pretty well for me so far (lightning quick), with one big exception: AN displays in a really stinky way. I'll have to report that. Also does anyone know if there is a way to change the default text display size.

[MCQ]

Prferences --> Appearance --> Fonts.

Use the advanced button if you want something like a "minimum font size".

[Chinney]

Thanks, I had tried that, but I had not noticed the minimum font size button. Must be blind. Thanks again.

[Moogs]

Brad,

I understand there's no money flowing to the Camino folks, and they're to be commended for their efforts... but you can't really argue the speed to market thing IMO. AFAICT, they're averaging less than two .x milestones a year. That's not acceptable, assuming the goal is to get OS X users to adopt it in large numbers.

Even the Mozilla group (which is a lot of kludge to slog through as you noted) get three or four a year out the door on average, and they're slow in their own right.

Omniweb has been slow to this point but I think the move to ATSUI from their old framework was a big part of that, at least more recently. From here on out I wouldn't be surprised to see Omni release one major update every four or five months. Safari has been weak in terms of updates, especially considering the development power its got behind it. We should've had 2.0 months ago.

Anyway, I don't deny Camino has some unique benefits to OS X, but they've got to get on the ball with these releases. They go so long between them that a lot of people forget that it's out there. Out of sight, out of mind... just like any other product.

[Gavriel]

A feature that I miss, that was actually available in an earlier build was the click-and-hold-for-right-click-functionality. I screamed out loud when they removed that function and I have been periodically asking for it over at the Camino forums, without a single reply or even an explanation as to why it was removed.

EDIT: Changed 'double-click' to 'right-click' which is what I meant!

[Luca]

What? Click and hold in Mac OS X is almost always the equivalent to right clicking. It makes sense for those who have one button mice. I don't see why click and hold should serve as a double click, as it's inconsistent behavior. Not to mention that double clicking is almost completely useless in a web browser.

[Gavriel]

Doh! I meant right-click not double-click. My bad!

[Luca]

Oh, righto. Well in that case you have an excellent point. While I never use a one button mouse unless I have to, it would be good for Camino to be consistent with the rest of the OS and give you a contextual menu when you hold down the mouse button.

Maybe no one listened to you because you said double click instead of right click?

[Gavriel]

Originally Posted by Luca Oh, righto. Well in that case you have an excellent point. While I never use a one button mouse unless I have to, it would be good for Camino to be consistent with the rest of the OS and give you a contextual menu when you hold down the mouse button.

This functionality is *very* convenient when browsing on a laptop using only the touchpad.

Originally Posted by Luca Maybe no one listened to you because you said double click instead of right click?