Omnigroup has released a beta of their new Omniweb 5 browser. My initial impression is that it’s slick and the new features, especially workspaces, and their implementation of tabs are outstanding, but the browser is to buggy to seriously use right now.
h4. Tabs
Many people have complained that the tab drawer takes up too much room. I rather like it, as it can display far more tabs than a long bar like used in Safari is able to. In many ways, it seems to have many of the advantages of the old NeXT style menu palette, especially since it can accomodate dozens and dozens of tabs.
h4. Workspaces
The most usefule feature by far. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve wanted to save where I was and pick up and go. Opera has offered a save windows feature for a while, but Omni’s implementation seems better. The ease of keeping track of multiple sets is just plain easier.
h4. Site Preferences
Being able to set preferences for individual sites is wonderful. Now I can fix those always too big or too small sites – set it once and never worry again.
h4 Bookmarks
The new bookmarks are fantastic, especially the default categorizations like unreachable. I also like that the history is integrated into the view, making it easy to drag a history item into your bookmarks. That and the fact you can search for text inside history greatly helps when you can’t quite remember which page it was.
h4. Other Reviews
* “(extlink)Daring Fireball”:http://daringfireball.net/2004/02/omniweb_5_public_beta
* “(extlink)xlab”:http://www.xlab.co.uk/macosx/read/184
p(update). “(extlink)Arstechnica”:http://www.arstechnica.com has just added a thorough “(extlink)review of Omniweb 5”:http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1075945834.html , including a lot of comments on the user interface and comparisons to Safari.
Omniweb 5
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Omnigroup has released a beta of their new Omniweb 5 browser. My initial impression is that it’s slick and the new features, especially workspaces, and their implementation of tabs are outstanding, but the browser is to buggy to seriously use right now.
h4. Tabs
Many people have complained that the tab drawer takes up too much room. I rather like it, as it can display far more tabs than a long bar like used in Safari is able to. In many ways, it seems to have many of the advantages of the old NeXT style menu palette, especially since it can accomodate dozens and dozens of tabs.
h4. Workspaces
The most usefule feature by far. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve wanted to save where I was and pick up and go. Opera has offered a save windows feature for a while, but Omni’s implementation seems better. The ease of keeping track of multiple sets is just plain easier.
h4. Site Preferences
Being able to set preferences for individual sites is wonderful. Now I can fix those always too big or too small sites – set it once and never worry again.
h4 Bookmarks
The new bookmarks are fantastic, especially the default categorizations like unreachable. I also like that the history is integrated into the view, making it easy to drag a history item into your bookmarks. That and the fact you can search for text inside history greatly helps when you can’t quite remember which page it was.
h4. Other Reviews
* “(extlink)Daring Fireball”:http://daringfireball.net/2004/02/omniweb_5_public_beta
* “(extlink)xlab”:http://www.xlab.co.uk/macosx/read/184
p(update). “(extlink)Arstechnica”:http://www.arstechnica.com has just added a thorough “(extlink)review of Omniweb 5”:http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1075945834.html , including a lot of comments on the user interface and comparisons to Safari.