Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
The Internet Businesses Apple

Chimera Developer Considers Dropping It 325

The Infamous Grimace writes "Chimera's developer is seriously considering dropping it, since 'Safari has already won.' This would be unfortunate, indeed. I still use Chimera at times, although it's true that Safari has become my browser of choice." I cannot use Safari regularly, it lacks too many features and has too many bugs. Of course, how long will this remain so? But even if Safari adds tabs and fixes bugs, will they add all the features I need from Chimera/Mozilla, like remembering form passwords, site navigation bar, more fine control of security and privacy? I guess there is always Mozilla if Safari doesn't fit the bill ... but Chimera is so much faster and Mac-like. Update: 01/22 19:54 GMT by P : The web site has been updated: "Chimera's not going [away], regardless of whatever I post on this blog."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Chimera Developer Considers Dropping It

Comments Filter:
  • unlikely demise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ubiquitin ( 28396 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:46AM (#5118682) Homepage Journal
    Dave Hyatt's weblog, the Confessions of a Mozillian [blogspot.com], indicates that there is a sizeable team working on Chimera, so I wouldn't expect everyone to just walk out the door all at once. Sure, development on it may become less of a priority, but that doesn't mean the fat lady has sung. Also, the overwhelming response to the safari announcement was for tabbed browsing. It is quite possible that Apple simply won't cave in to the demand for tabbed browsing in which case you can have my chimera when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
  • Safari musing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Matthias Wiesmann ( 221411 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:56AM (#5118739) Homepage Journal
    As for work on Chimera, I understand the feeling of the Chimera team. I agree that Safari is missing many features, it is overall more finished that Chimera. For instance Chimera does not support services well and on my machine it tended to crash a lot.

    While some feature will certainly make it to Safari, others will not. It would be nice if Apple would open-source the whole Safari, but I doubt this. Instead, what would be smart from Apple would be to have the browser support plugins, not only for displaying content, but also for controling network operations and maybe some aspect of the GUI. This way people could customise Safari.

    As for tabs (the topic of probably 95% of the posts on this post), I don't think is such a good solution. While they are usefull, I feel they are not complete, mostly because the relationship between tabs is unclear: are they at the same level? On the same site?

    Most of the time I used tabs, it was to explore some hierarchy and load in parallel multiple branches (say multiple links). What I really would like is something that displays this tree structure, with some options like "pre-load branch" and "attach link as branch". This structure could also use the relationships defined by the link tags. In fact this thing would simply expand the notion of hierarchical history (and in fact include future links). If done well, Safari could use the same panel interface for the hierachy as mail.

    • Re:Safari musing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by octover ( 22078 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:17AM (#5118880) Homepage
      I admit that I am not your average 'web surfer', I'm a web developer. I love tabs. Why? Because at any given moment I have three to four different pages loaded. Tabs make it very easy for me to switch back and forth without have to go up to a menu to see what is even open. It keeps my screen cleaner which is nice. The other great thing about tabs is that my mom can use Mozilla and never even see them. What is it with the whole tabs are too complex crap? Tabs aren't a default thing on any browser I've come across.


      Oh and the relationship between tabs is that they are both 'documents' the browser has/is rendering. That is it. There is no other relationship than that, and I hope that no one gets it in their head to make it more than that (I'm thinking JavaScript and dom stuff).

      • Re:Safari musing (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:25PM (#5119419)
        My opinion on tabs is well known. I'm not picking a fight here; just offering a counterpoint. I'm well aware that lots of people disagree with me, so don't bother posting just to say that you're one of 'em. Constructive criticism, on the other hand, is welcome.

        Because at any given moment I have three to four different pages loaded.

        You accidentally point out the biggest flaw of tabs here: they're self-limiting. Depending on window size, you can only fit between four and eight tabs across the window before they have to be truncated. If you can't read the titles, the advantage of tabs evaporates.

        With multiple windows, on the other hand, you can have as many pages loaded at once as you want. Multiple windows are not self-limiting.

        Tabs make it very easy for me to switch back and forth without have to go up to a menu to see what is even open.

        While the usability advantages of a menu over a row of tabs have been discussed thoroughly, it's hard to beat the ease of use of command-` for cycling through an application's open windows. Tabs are useful for up to 4-8 open pages; they are not useful for more than that. Similarly, command-` is useful for about the same number of open windows.

        It keeps my screen cleaner which is nice.

        On the other hand, it prevents you from looking at two pages side-by-side without jumping through hoops. (Choose the tab, control-click, choose "open page in new window.) Multiple windows can be used in a clean-desktop way (command-M for minimize), but let you arrange your pages however you want.

        Oh and the relationship between tabs is that they are both 'documents' the browser has/is rendering. That is it.

        That's not really good enough, in my opinion. For example, if tabs were implemented in some way that dealt with #1 problem (truncation), you really ought to be able to drag a tab from one window to another. That's a complicated thing; you have to implement your NSView subclasses as application instances instead of directly associating each NSView subclass with an NSWindow subclass. The current implementation, in which a tab is tied not to an NSView but to an NSWindow forever, kinda sucks. It would make more sense on a large scale for "tabs" (that name is becoming less and less appropriate) to be global network session objects, and for any window to be able to display the output from any "tab." But that poses huge usability problems; how does one instantiate a new "tab?" Should the application manage it for you, creating an autorelease pool of tabs automatically every time you open a new site (by clicking a bookmark or typing a URL or clicking a link that takes you to a new site)? Trying to implement "tabs" right opens more questions than it closes.

        But basically my opinion can be summed up in what I've been saying all along: "tabs are a bad solution to a problem that we don't have."
        • Well, then have a a couple windows with multiple tabs each. Never did see why people around here see it as a one or the other thing.
          • Well, then have a a couple windows with multiple tabs each. Never did see why people around here see it as a one or the other thing.

            I have two open windows. I want one of the windows to be a "tab" contained inside another window. How do I get it there?

            (Select URL, copy, New Tab, click address box, paste, enter.)

            I have one open window with two "tabs," and I want to see them side-by-side. How do I do that?

            (Click other tab, control-click, "Move tab to new window")

            These operations are not intuitive, and they're not convenient. People see a tabbed interface as being one way or another-- either all "tabs" or all windows-- is because moving back and forth is such a royal pain in the ass. Could we make it easier? Sure. But to do so would require rethinking the whole architecture of the browser, and-- here's the important part-- we don't need to do that.

            Tabs are a bad solution to a problem that we don't have.
            • by Anonymous Coward
              Tabs organize 5-7 windows very well with minimal mouse movement and single-clicking.

              Maybe you like to browse the web 1 page at a time, but when I'm searching for something in a site it'll take me 5 times longer without tabs. It'll take 2-3 clicks or a click&drag (worse) to switch windows and then switch back, leaving a total of 6 clicks or 2 click&drags (probably would take me 5 seconds I guess.. find the menu, click, find the window title, click... repeat). With tabs, I see the title and click once and I'm there. My mouse is normally at the top of the page since most links are around there and that's where I tend to read. No moving my mouse to the absolute top or absolute bottom.

              Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they're not good. I've never met someone who doesn't like tabs and most of the people I show this to are computer proficient but no where near the /. crowd.

              Moving back and forth between two tabbed windows is just as easy as moving between two windows, so I don't see how you're possibly complaining about that.
              • It'll take 2-3 clicks or a click&drag (worse) to switch windows and then switch back

                Wrong. Command-`. If you have 4-5 windows open, you can rotate through all of them in about one second.

                Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they're not good.

                I never said that. I said, and continue to say, that what makes tabs no good is the fact that they're no good. It's not really an opinion thing; it's pretty objective. Of course, different people interpret and weigh the facts in different ways.

                The bottom line is this: when viewed in terms of the big picture, tabs create more problems than they solve.
        • by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @02:40PM (#5120323)
          Twirlip. My man.

          Here, I thought I was all alone on the tabs thing. I was going to keep my big mouth shut (er, fingers tied?) about it but you've graciously stuck your neck out - on Slashdot no less.

          The problem with Tabs, is as you said, there's not really a problem to begin with. Browser window-switching accomplishes the same thing, with unlimited constraints, and equal-or-less number of keystrokes/mouseclicks. So why do people live and die by tabs?

          I think it comes down to a few weird little reasons... like, you can see how many tabs you have open at a glance. That's sorta nice. The instant-load thing, that's nice. But you know what it mostly is? (imho?)

          You don't have to re-size or move your new window.

          Seriously. Most browsers just don't know how to open a new window, because you can't tell it. Even clever browsers like OmniWeb that allow you to 'save' a window position are still going to cascade the windows, down-and-right, so you can grab the last toolbar. Then you have overlap after 5-6 windows and things get buried (the limit on tabs too).

          Really, it comes down to people not wanting to Mess With Their Windows. I'm happy messing with my windows. It would be interesting to know the ratio of tab-browsing freaks to those who run the browser full-screen, no?

          • It would be interesting to know the ratio of tab-browsing freaks to those who run the browser full-screen, no?

            Now that is an interesting thought. I can honestly say that I have never opened a browser window full-screen. My screen is way too big and the wrong aspect ratio for a single browser window. It fits three or four abreast very nicely, though. So for me, tabs are a terrible idea. For somebody who runs his browser window at full-screen, on a 768x1024 screen or something, they might make more sense. Maybe.

            I think we're starting to talk about this in terms of the window manager rather than the application, and I think that's good. It would really piss me off if Apple decided to implement functionality that belongs in the window manager in the application. That's just not the Mac way, you know?
          • by SoupIsGoodFood_42 ( 521389 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @04:12PM (#5121081)
            I think it comes down to a few weird little reasons... like, you can see how many tabs you have open at a glance. That's sorta nice. The instant-load thing, that's nice. But you know what it mostly is? (imho?)...

            Those "little" reasons are are major reasons, they're basic GUI issues. Tabs are better than windows because all the tabs can be seen at once, and the user can see exactly what they want, and reach for it with a single click.
            Cycling through each window, to see if it's the right one is a pain. If you fuck-up, you have to go though the entire cycle again! You cold always take it slowly, but that's even more of a pain.

            ...You don't have to re-size or move your new window

            Yes, the user should not have to mess about with windows all the time, they should be using the app. When you find you self messing around with windows all the time, there is somethign wrong with the GUI. This is one of thing that I prefer on Win than Mac. All my apps open maximised, I never have to muck about with them untill I need to to some out of the ordinary.

            ...tab-browsing freaks to those who run the browser full-screen

            What's so freaking about wanting to use all of you're screen space? Unless yoy need to view 2 windows at once, why waste space. What's freaking is people who have a 1600x1200 screen and have their windows so small that they have to scroll all the time.
            Of course, if you mean full-screen as in the feature found on a few Win browsers which hides most of the GUI, then that is a bit freaky.

            • Tabs are better than windows because all the tabs can be seen at once, and the user can see exactly what they want, and reach for it with a single click.

              Wrong. If you have more than a few tabs open, their names are truncated to the point where you cannot tell which is which. And unlike with windows, there is no "tab" menu to allow you to see all the names in full.

              Also, usability studies have time and again demonstrated that it's easier to hit a systemwide menu bar item than an in-window item. People think that just because in-window items are closer to the point of focus that they're easier to use; this is not true. Systemwide menu bar items do not move; you don't have to "aim" to hit them. Not to mention the fact that the systemwide menu bar already has a usability infrastructure built up around it to allow things like full keyboard navigation for the disabled and such. No tab interface has that.

              Cycling through each window, to see if it's the right one is a pain. If you fuck-up, you have to go though the entire cycle again!

              Wrong. Command-` cycles one way through the list; command-shift-` cycles the other way.

              This is one of thing that I prefer on Win than Mac. All my apps open maximised

              Horrible. I don't know what kind of work you do, but when I use my computer I almost always have two or more windows arranged for use at once. For example, when I'm not goofing off as I am as I write this, I'm working on a programming project. I have my project window open over here, and my interface window open there, and two browser windows with documentation in them over here and here. I want to see all of these at once. Zooming any of them up to fill the screen would, at best, be a huge waste of screen real-estate.
          • I think the reason I prefer tabbed browsers is that it gives me more choice. There are a lot of pages that just don't deserve their own window frame -- I mean, most of the pages I review in a typical day persist for a few minutes before being recycled. I tend to run a single browser window with 4-5 tabbed frames. If I need to do a side-by-side compare of content, I spawn a new window, and start building tabs on that one as well.

            So I may end up with groups of related pages, using browser windows to sort pages (usually one miscellaneous group, and one development group).

            Basically, having tabs available gives me more options. I already have the option of another browser window. Tabs give me the ability to manipulate content for pages that don't need a whole window to themselves.

            For 90% of my browsing, I don't need to see more than one page at a time. For those times I do need to see multiple pages, I can still do so through the magic of "Open in a new Window".

            For example, while browsing this thread, I ran across the link to Hyatt's weblog. Because I just want to see if it's been updated, I can cntrl-click (I'm on Windows right now) and it will load in a tab, in the background. The ~20 characters I can see of the title is good enough for me to tell what that tab is (I'm running with 6 tabs right now) and anyway, I'm just going to glance at it and then either kill the tab or reuse it for a google search or something. It's just become a natural thing for me to do now.

            Meanwhile, I've got a bunch of Solaris development pages, man pages and internal bug postings open in another browser Window. Because it's lunch time, that window is minimized to the Taskbar.

            I think the main issue for me is that switching tabs is no different than switching windows. It's just that, for most pages, I don't need another browser with the full complement of controls. I just need to see the content. Most content is just too short-lived to justify spawing a new window. The usual Copy-Switch-Paste activities are no easier with either scenario.

            Sorry, I can't do without tabs anymore; they've become a standard way I work. As someone pointed out in this thread, you don't have to use them, but they are there if you do want them. I will not use Safari because of this. *shrug* Even if Chimera never makes it past release 0.6, that release is good enough for the majority of my work, including my usual corporate webmail and bank accounts.

        • "If you can't read the titles, the advantage of tabs evaporates."
          There are, in fact, some instances where the titles of tabs don't even have to be present in order for the tabs to function correctly. The most common instance of this type of situation would be looking at a series of images, where one opens a series of tabs, each containing one picture. The series of images can then be looked at sequentially, and when you're done, you're back at your starting location.
          "it's hard to beat the ease of use of command-` for cycling through an application's open windows."
          I'll tell you a secret: Goldilocks
          hates command-`; it's either too fast or too slow. If the Command key and the ` key are both held down together, then the windows cycle too fast for the eye to be able to discern what the content of each window is before the next one flashes in front of it. If the Command key is held down and the ` is tapped, however, it will take about a second per page to register the contents of each page. Tabs are random access; windows are serial access.
          "tabs are a bad solution to a problem that we don't have."
          Tabs are not a perfect solution, I'll agree. However, saying they're a solution to a problem that
          we don't have is rather... unthoughtful of you. Just because YOU don't have a certain problem doesn't mean others do not.

          I suspect that the main problem tabs were developed against was that in most browsers, if you opened a link in a new window, the new window eclipsed the old one, forcing you to either abandon your old perusal, or fight the UI to get the right window back to the front. Now, yes, OmniWeb (and Safari) allow you to open new windows in the background, but there are still a few disadvantages to tabs here: even in Safari, opening a new window is slower and more resource intensive, as well as more distracting, than opening a new tab.

          Re: Juxtaposition of windows
          The central issue with this is screen space; most people are, I would think, browsing the web at a resolution very close to 1024 x 768 on a monitor that is maybe 17 or 19 inches. At these screen sizes, there really just isn't enough room to look at two web pages side by side, unless you make the browser windows unbearably small.

          Screen space also crops up with multiple staggered browser windows, although since the multi-windows thing is really more personal taste than anything else, I'll not bother making any sort of argument about it.


          You talk about "all tabs or all windows;" well, fine, it's all within the same browser. If you don't want to use tabs, you don't have to, but please, whatever other arguments you may make about the abstract shortcomings of tabbed browsing, please try to remember that millions of people find them a useful method of organizing their webpages.

          • by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @03:52PM (#5120923)
            The series of images can then be looked at sequentially, and when you're done, you're back at your starting location.

            Just like windows, huh? Or like using the SnapBack feature, for that matter.

            Tabs are random access; windows are serial access.

            Cycling through windows is not the only way of dealing with them. There's also the window menu-- all the advantages of labeled tabs without the truncation problem-- and the dock menu. You can also minimize windows to the dock directly and manage them that way. I would like to see a "minimize others" feature added to Application Kit, similar to the "hide others" feature.

            Just because YOU don't have a certain problem doesn't mean others do not.

            Sure, Windows has a huge window management problem: the task bar. XP improved the situation quite a bit, but it's still not perfect. And because most of your UI's for UNIX include a task bar, they share Windows's problems. But the Mac simply does not have the window management problems that tabbed browsing was implemented to solve.

            even in Safari, opening a new window is slower and more resource intensive, as well as more distracting, than opening a new tab.

            That's not really true at all. Opening a new window in Safari requires just barely more allocation than opening a new tab or tab-like structure would. You have to allocate and initialize the view and then render the contents in either case; opening a new window merely requires a some drawing to the screen, which on all modern Macs is offloaded entirely to the graphics hardware. So the trade-off of speed for functionality is just not necessary. We're back to that "a problem we don't have" thing again.

            but please, whatever other arguments you may make about the abstract shortcomings of tabbed browsing, please try to remember that millions of people find them a useful method of organizing their webpages.

            I absolutely do not believe you. I think if you took everybody who has ever even heard of tabbed browsing and put them in the Rose Bowl, you'd have room left over for a medium-sized football game. You've got to remember that there are 5 million OS X users today, and that the number is increasing very quickly. So the fraction of OS X users who would benefit from Chimera-style tabs is tiny.

            Apple has the choice of not implementing MDI in Safari at all; implementing it badly, a la Mozilla; or implementing it well. Given that a bad implementation would be worse than none at all, and that a good implementation would require a great deal of effort for miniscule gains, the only reasonable course of action is to avoid implementing MDI in Safari at all. The time and effort to do so would be better spent on other things.

            Those who absolutely must have MDI in their browsers are free to use Chimera, or to use WebKit (when released) to roll their own WebCore-based one.
        • Re:Safari musing (Score:2, Interesting)

          Wow, I couldn't disagree with you more, my friend.

          Depending on window size, you can only fit between four and eight tabs across the window before they have to be truncated. If you can't read the titles, the advantage of tabs evaporates.

          If I understand correctly, you assume that people have absolutely no short-term memory to figure out what pages they've visited. If they understand the tab concept and they're using it, they're also well aware of which pages they've visited, and in roughly what order they opened new tabs. You're telling me this tab I'm reading Slashdot in loses all benefit because the title of the tab only reads "Chimera Developer Consid..." instead of "Chimera Developer Considers Dropping It"?? That's ludicrous.

          On the other hand, it prevents you from looking at two pages side-by-side without jumping through hoops.

          What hoops? I open another window without opening a new tab, and put them next to each other. Am I missing something?

          I'm not saying they're perfect (I don't like Chimera's use of History as a tab-based object, it seems to work better in Mozilla) but they do add tons more options for the power-user without getting in the way of lesser users.
          • If they understand the tab concept and they're using it, they're also well aware of which pages they've visited, and in roughly what order they opened new tabs.

            Then what's the point of representing different views as tabs? The point of tabs is to show you all the window titles at once. If you don't need to see the titles, then you're better off using windows.

            As an experiment, I have opened a Chimera window to my normal browsing width, and created one tab for each window that I current have open. (I'm working on a project, so I've got some documentation windows open, and some random web sites that I've been reading when I take breaks.)

            My tabs look like this:

            App...
            NST...
            NST...
            NST...
            NSP...
            NSS...
            NSS...
            App...
            Slas...
            Goo...
            Surf...

            Quick! Which one of those tabs refers to the NSTextField documentation page, which one refers to the NSTableView page, and which one refers to NSToolbarItem?

            This is not a contrived example. This is fairly typical for me. Tabs, in a word, suck.

            What hoops? I open another window without opening a new tab, and put them next to each other. Am I missing something?

            Yes. You're missing the whole point of this discussion. You're arguing that you can do things with tabs. That's fine and good, but it's not the point. The point is that Safari is everyman's browser. If you want to use Obscure Browser #77, which lets you sort all the links on a page in descending order of number of syllables or what-the-hell-ever, you're free to do that. Safari should not include those sorts of features, however. Tabs bring nothing to the party, and require lots of compromises. They should, therefore, not be included in Safari.

            Are we on the same page now?
            • Re:Safari musing (Score:5, Insightful)

              by SoupIsGoodFood_42 ( 521389 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @07:45PM (#5122897)
              If they understand the tab concept and they're using it, they're also well aware of which pages they've visited, and in roughly what order they opened new tabs. Then what's the point of representing different views as tabs? The point of tabs is to show you all the window titles at once. If you don't need to see the titles, then you're better off using windows

              The point in tabs is not to show you all the titles at once, it to show you all the sites you have open at once. Titles are not always nessesary, Infact, I don't even read the most of the time. I go by were they are.

              App...
              NST...
              NST...
              NST...
              NSP...
              NSS...
              NSS...
              App...
              Slas...
              Goo...
              Surf..

              Quick! Which one of those tabs refers to the NSTextField documentation page, which one refers to the NSTableView page, and which one refers to NSToolbarItem?

              My bet is on the 2nd to 4th ones. Of course. I would have a more accurate guess if I had knowen when that window was opened. In other words, you example doesn't work because we didn't know what you did. We don't have you short-term memory to examine.

              This is not a contrived example. This is fairly typical for me. Tabs, in a word, suck.

              Ah, yet another shining example of your ignorance. Maybe tabs suck for YOU, but they obviously don't suck for everyone. So just give it a rest ay?

        • Re:Safari musing (Score:2, Interesting)

          by drsmithy ( 35869 )
          If you can't read the titles, the advantage of tabs evaporates.

          No it doesn't, because of things like locality and muscle memory. I *know* that in my monitoring window, the 5th tab from the left is alway the Big Brother firewalls page. The third tab is always the fileservers page. The 7th tab is always WebDNS. Etc.
          The primary functional advantages of tabs are a) speed of access, b) organisation and c) a reduction in window clutter. And, as I've stated before, since OS X's task-switching paradigms still all suck, (c) is in IMHO one of the most important. Tabs facilitate these advantages by being always accessible, fixed in position and contained within a single window.

          Multiple windows are not self-limiting.

          Yes they are, because they fill the screen with wasted space and are difficult to navigate between in large numbers. On my 1600x1200 screen - already an above average resolution - any more than about 5 - 6 active windows becomes difficult to manage simply due to being obscured (and having no quick & easy way to switch between individual windows). 5 or 6 open windows is _nothing_ for a power user.
          Discrete windows also lose out because they cannot be collected together into organisational groups under OS X. A bunch of browser windows are always in a simple stack and cannot be ordered or collected together _at all_ (and remain useful), even by kludgish methods like opening them in a specific order (like you can in Windows). Unless you have truly massive amounts of screen real estate (multiple monitors at 1920x1280+ resolution).
          Even when I had a Powerbook and ran a spanned desktop at 1152x768 (or whatever it was the PB ran at) + 1600x1200, I still didn't have anywhere near enough desktop real estate to keep just my active terminal windows all accessible, let alone those plus all the other junk that's running.

          Tabs are "self-limiting" in that the titles printed in them can become obscured - however, that is only self-limiting if you always need to read the title of a window/tab before you switch to it - something that is not always necessary with a tab because its location is fixed.
          Multiple windows are "self-limiting" because after a certain number they become time-consuming and frustrating to task switch between.

          [...] it's hard to beat the ease of use of command-` for cycling through an application's open windows.

          No, it isn't (at least for browsers), and tabs do so easily. The problem with your solution is the "cycling" part - to get to a specific browser window I have to step through all the others that come before it in the stack. With any more than about a half-dozen pages constantly being referred to, this becomes unworkable and frustrating.

          Tabs are useful for up to 4-8 open pages; they are not useful for more than that. Similarly, command-` is useful for about the same number of open windows.

          You seem to be stuck in the mindset of a single window full of tabs vs lots of windows. This is a waste of an excellent resource. Think in terms of multiple windows full of tabs, with each window carrying a certain type of page. Suddenly you have 3 or 4 windows x a half dozen tabs each. With tabs you can often skip directly to the window you want. Windows' taskbar has the same advantage. (Its keyboard controls for task-switching are also much more usable. IMHO - most "window-oriented" and less "application-oriented").

          On the other hand, it prevents you from looking at two pages side-by-side without jumping through hoops.

          Which for some people (like me) is an operation performed so rarely as to make the "hoops" not even an annoyance, let alone a frustration.

          But basically my opinion can be summed up in what I've been saying all along: "tabs are a bad solution to a problem that we don't have."

          Tabs are a good work-in-progress solution to the problem of managing and efficiently accessing a large number of active web pages. In all honesty, if you truly find multiple discrete browser windows not only more usable, but workable at all under OS X, then I can only assume you rarely have a significant number of active windows open at any time.
          There some features it would be nice to see in tabbed browsers - the ability to drag & drop tabs between windows and within the same window (to reorder them), for example. But, on the whole, they are a good solution to a problem faced by many users. This may not be the problem faced by *you*, but I would suggest you are in the minority in that. Thus far, the only real criticisms I can see you have made of tabs is that:
          1. they make comparing two already-open webpages side-by-side a somewhat fiddly affair - not a scenario I would call common and one that could be easily addressed simply by allowing an easy way to migrate tabs between windows.
          2. they are limited to about 4 - 6 at once due to the size of the window. Yet you also say your preferred method is similarly limited.

          Managing large numbers of windows is one of only a few glaring faults that exist in the OS X UI, IMHO (the others being file management and keyboard accessibility). It is something Windows handles *much* better, I think. I've been using OS X since the public beta, and it's always appeared to me to be a UI only really meant to handle a small number of concurrent applications and windows.

          • The primary functional advantages of tabs are a) speed of access, b) organisation and c) a reduction in window clutter. And, as I've stated before, since OS X's task-switching paradigms still all suck, (c) is in IMHO one of the most important.[windows] fill the screen with wasted space

            I do not know what the hell you are talking about here. How do you waste screen space with multiple windows? If you want to use all of your screen for a single window, go for it. Windows are resizeable. If, on the other hand, you only need to see something small, make the window small and put it in the corner or something where you can see it behind your main window. Wasted space? What?

            [windows are] difficult to navigate between in large numbers

            First, the OS provides you with no fewer than four different ways of dealing with windows. One, the Window menu. (Menus have been proven time and again in useability studies to be easier to use than in-window widgets, both for the disabled and for mundanes.) Two, the dock menu. Works the same as the window menu, but it's accessed by control-clicking the application icon in the dock. Three, minimizing windows to the dock. This also addresses the oft-cited clutter issue. Four, the command-` and command-shift-` shortcuts for cycling and toggling. Very handy, those.

            And finally, as demonstrated elsewhere tabs are completely unacceptable in large numbers. Depending on window size, the tab labels start to get truncated at four to six open tabs, and by the time you get to 10 or 12, chances are fair that they're completely obscured. And because applications like Mozilla have no tab-based equivalent of the Window menu or the dock menu, you're stuck clicking to find or cycling through tabs. Terrible.

            Discrete windows also lose out because they cannot be collected together into organisational groups under OS X.

            You can stack your windows however you like. Here's a quick taste test. Open a Chimera window with four tabs. Now move two of the tabs to another window. We're trying to stay organized, right? So put two of the tabs in one window and two in the other. Oops. Can't do it without opening a new window with two tabs and cutting-and-pasting some URL's. With windows, on the other hand, I can make a pile in a corner of my screen or whatever, stacking and restacking to suit my purposes.

            I still didn't have anywhere near enough desktop real estate to keep just my active terminal windows all accessible

            I don't know what to say except, "maybe you were doing something wrong."

            Multiple windows are "self-limiting" because after a certain number they become time-consuming and frustrating to task switch between.

            That's simply bogus. Sorry, but it's true. As I said, the OS gives you no fewer than four ways of getting from one window to another, and that doesn't count the simple expedient of point-and-click. All of these methods scale to a practically unlimited number of windows; the Window menu and dock menu, for example, can show you any number of window titles without truncating their names. (Well, you have to truncate past about 80-100 characters, but that's only because screens are only so wide.) I don't know why you have a problem dealing with open windows, but it's not the fault of the OS or the application.

            The problem with your solution is the "cycling" part

            If you don't want to use the shortcuts, then done. As I said, the OS provides you with no fewer than four separate ways to get from one window to another, not counting pointing-and-clicking.

            Think in terms of multiple windows full of tabs, with each window carrying a certain type of page.

            Doesn't work that way. Pages are opened by clicking links. When you click a link with Mozilla, your only choices are to open it in the current window, replacing the page you're currently looking at; to open it in another window; or to open it in another tab in the current window. You can't open a link in another tab in another window. So what you call a powerful organizational feature is really nothing more than the illusion thereof.

            Tabs are a good work-in-progress solution to the problem of managing and efficiently accessing a large number of active web pages.

            Exactly. Like I said, tabs are a bad solution-- "work-in-progress" doesn't begin to cover the ramifications of a UI design that hasn't even been throught out yet, much less implemented completely-- to a problem that we don't even have.

            In all honesty, if you truly find multiple discrete browser windows not only more usable, but workable at all under OS X, then I can only assume you rarely have a significant number of active windows open at any time.

            Ah, I see. "Your opinion differs from mine, so you must not be as sophisticated as I am." Very mature.

            But, on the whole, they are a good solution to a problem faced by many users.

            From my experience, which is not complete by any means but I think does provide some representative samples-- people who find tabs to be an enabling solution are handicapped by the fact that they don't know how to use the features that the OS already provides.

            Thus far, the only real criticisms I can see you have made of tabs is that...

            Your assessment of my criticisms is, unfortunately, not accurate. If you'd like to know what I'm saying about tabs, please go back and read my posts again.

            Managing large numbers of windows is one of only a few glaring faults that exist in the OS X UI.... It is something Windows handles *much* better, I think.

            How? How does Windows handle it much better? Because I'm fairly confident that you're going to say, "Windows lets you do X," and I'm going to say, "You can do the same thing, or something completely equivalent, under OS X by doing thus-and-so." Let's see if I'm right.
            • Re:Safari musing (Score:4, Insightful)

              by drsmithy ( 35869 ) <drsmithyNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @08:14PM (#5123117)
              How do you waste screen space with multiple windows?

              By having a toolbar, address bar, window widgets, status bar, plus maybe more in every window and by requiring all those windows to be suitable stacked for quick access if needed (the latter is more of a clutter issue than space, but IMHO the two go hand in hand).

              If you want to use all of your screen for a single window, go for it.

              Actually that touches on another one of my gripes with OS X - there's no quick & each way to make a window take up the entire screen.

              First, the OS provides you with no fewer than four different ways of dealing with windows.

              That doesn't mean any of them are _good_.

              One, the Window menu.

              So I have to move the mouse from where it is to the top of the screen, navigate to the Window menu, then read each entry and select the right one ? Sorry, too slow.

              Two, the dock menu. Works the same as the window menu, but it's accessed by control-clicking the application icon in the dock.

              Not to mention requiring another larger mouse displacement to get to and (this is the killer) having a built-in delay before displaying the menu. Sorry, too slow.

              Three, minimizing windows to the dock.

              Sorry, minimized windows in the Dock move around, thus meaning I have to actually look for any window before restoring it to make it useful. This requires mousing over each window to get a title, which is too slow (not to mention annoying). This is before we even get to the screen real estate problem with having a dozen minimised browser windows, along with probably two dozen _other_ windows from other apps.

              Four, the command-` and command-shift-` shortcuts for cycling and toggling. Very handy, those.

              Which require stepping through every window in the stack to get to the one you want, not to mention requiring ahving to examien each window to make sure you get the right one (since the order does not remain consistent). Stepping through a dozen browser windows every time I want to look at a different web page ? You have to be kidding.
              The keyboard shortcuts aren't too bad, but break horribly when you want to move between applications, because cmd+tabbing to another applicationg brings *all* of that applications windows to the front, obscuring everything else. Very annoying, that (but in line with OS X's interface paradigms).

              And finally, as demonstrated elsewhere tabs are completely unacceptable in large numbers. [...]

              Maybe for the way *you* use them, but not when you've got a dozen monitoring web pages sitting in tabs that remain in a fixed order. I don't *need* to read the title of the page, because its function is associated with its location (you know, the same principle Apple espouses with its single standardised menu bar). To say tabs as demonstrated elsewhere tabs are completely unacceptable" is patently false when I, and others, use them in such a way every hour of every day.

              And because applications like Mozilla have no tab-based equivalent of the Window menu [...]

              Nor do you need it, if you keep your tabs organised by window as I do.

              Here's a quick taste test. [...]

              I stay organised by having one window for each type of browsing I do. Thus, tabs only get opened in the window they need to and don't need to be moved between windows. For my usage patterns your "test" is completely unrealistic and pointless - it's not something I do (or want to) rarely, let alone often.

              With windows, on the other hand, I can make a pile in a corner of my screen or whatever, stacking and restacking to suit my purposes.

              But you can't move between them quickly & easily if you have other browser windows open and as soon as you do their fixed order is lost. This is even assuming the screen real estate can be wasted (which it can't in the case of our monitoring pages that need a large chunk of a 1600x1200 screen to be useful).

              I don't know what to say except, "maybe you were doing something wrong."

              You mean, like trying to do my job ? I have around a dozen terminal windows at a _minimum_ open at any given time. They all need to be fairly quickly and easily accessible and, ideally, partly visible at all times.

              That's simply bogus. Sorry, but it's true. As I said, the OS gives you no fewer than four ways of getting from one window to another, and that doesn't count the simple expedient of point-and-click.

              If you can keep ~40 (at current count) windows visible, hence "clickable" and usable on the screen at once, I salute you. And, as mentioned, just because the OS gives me several different methods doesn't mean any of them are any good for what I want to do.

              All of these methods scale to a practically unlimited number of windows [...]

              What definition of "scale" are you using here ? The already slow methods of the Window menu and Dock menu remain slow. Minimising much more than about 20 windows to the Dock is unworkable and the keyboard shortcuts are simply broken if you want to move to a specific window of a specific app in a single operation.

              Just because something is *possible* doesn't mean it is *optimal*. It's *possible* to have a large number of apps and windows open on OS X, but it is difficult and frustrating to manage them all.

              I don't know why you have a problem dealing with open windows, but it's not the fault of the OS or the application.

              I'm having a problem because the tools in the GUI to do this are inadequate. And it is a problem of the GUI, because I don't have the same problem in the Windows and KDE GUIs.

              If you don't want to use the shortcuts, then done.

              I do, it's just that they are poorly implemented.

              So what you call a powerful organizational feature is really nothing more than the illusion thereof.

              It's all in how you use it. I've explain how I use windows and tabs within to organise my browser windows in a hierachical fashion. I'm sorry if you don't understand, but trying to claim a flat, unordered and dynamic collection of windows is is any way *more* organised is just plain wrong.

              [...] to a problem that we don't even have.

              To a problem you don't have. I do, and tabs are, thus far, the best available solution on my preferred platform.

              Ah, I see. "Your opinion differs from mine, so you must not be as sophisticated as I am." Very mature.

              I fail to see how the "your opinion is different to mine, so you're wrong" attitude you have is any different. Not to mention your "I don't understand what you are doing, how or why, so you're wrong" attitude.
              As I said, in complete honesty, the only conclusion I can draw from your comments is that you aren't dealing with large numbers of open windows simultaneously, because I simply cannot understand how you could be doing so and _not_ find the current methods limiting and frustrating.

              [...] people who find tabs to be an enabling solution are handicapped by the fact that they don't know how to use the features that the OS already provides.

              You've yet to inform me of any features in OS X I don't know about, haven't known of for some time and have already tried.

              Your assessment of my criticisms is, unfortunately, not accurate. If you'd like to know what I'm saying about tabs, please go back and read my posts again.

              Well, thus far I've read what boils down to "there is no problem", "it's a bad idea", "it's fiddly to view two web pages in tabs side by side". To which I answer "there is a problem", "there is no better idea yet" and "so what".

              You seem fixated on not being able to read the title of a page and being able to manipulate multiple open pages so that they can be viewed simultaneously. I can understand why this would be useful and when, but I cannot understand your attitude that it is necessary _alL_ the time and that anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

              How does Windows handle it much better?

              Several ways:
              It's faster.
              It groups similar windows.
              It allows me to move quickly to *any* window by either mouse or keyboard.
              It allows me to order the tabs in the taskbar (only kludgily, but that's better than not at all)
              The placement of things in the taskbar is almost completely static (resizing it can subtly change the position of tabs, but it's far from the wholesale it-could-be-anywhere of minimised stuff in the Dock).
              It allows me to completely maximise windows.

              The only method that even comes close is an Application's Dock menu, but that suffers from being annoyingly slow, even more so on slow machines and having to read the verious items on the menu to choose the one that's wanted.

              • Re:Safari musing (Score:3, Insightful)

                Maybe for the way *you* use them, but not when you've got a dozen monitoring web pages sitting in tabs that remain in a fixed order. I don't *need* to read the title of the page, because its function is associated with its location (you know, the same principle Apple espouses with its single standardised menu bar). To say tabs as demonstrated elsewhere tabs are completely unacceptable" is patently false when I, and others, use them in such a way every hour of every day.

                Obviously for you, tabs are essential. The main question is really: are you a normal user of tabs? That is, do people generally open a fixed set/fixed order of tabs most of the time or do they have open a random set of tabs (say, using the tabs to load stuff in the background while they continue to read their current page)?

                My thought is that it is the latter, not the former, but I could be wrong. I'd be interested to see what other people say about their usage.

                Personally, I'm glad to see both browsers. I want choices and having Safari and Chimera gives me the best of both worlds. That's cool. :)

  • by Visigothe ( 3176 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:57AM (#5118757) Homepage
    While Safari is a very good start [it's still in Beta], I think the point is missed. We need *more* standards-complient browsers, not fewer. The more browsers that are used that are standards complient, the better the overall web-experience will be.

    Did Omni Group stop developing Omniweb because Microsoft made their IE browser OS X native [read as "runs in OS X"]? Did the iCab folks bail? Did Opera pack it in? Of course the answer is no. Having choice is always a good thing.

    Keep the faith.

    • I hate replying to my own post, but I wanted to post a clarification. when I stated that "the point is missed" I was referring to the point of bagging Chimera, not that Safari was missing the point of a browser.

      This is what happens when I don't have my tea in the morning
    • It's fine to say "we should have more standards compliants browsers", but are you going to go spend your life writing one?

      I don't know what were the original motivations behind Chimera but consider reasons why people might work on an open source project:
      * scratch an itch
      * reputation
      * polital motivations

      The first is undermined by Safari because now there is another browser for OS X that doesn't suck and isn't going away.

      The second is undermined for the reasons stated in the blog.

      The last may still be around, and certainly that seems to be your point, but that doesn't motivate people the same way the first two do.

    • by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:29PM (#5119467)
      Saying that we need more standards-compliant browsers is like saying that we need more window managers for UNIX. Having n different programs to do the same thing, for some large value of n, is not inherently virtuous. We need to have enough that everybody can find one they're happy with, but more for the sake of more is the wrong approach.

      The beautiful thing is that Apple is going to be releasing the WebKit SDK later this year, which will allow any Cocoa programmer to embed HTML rendering or full-on web browsing functionality in his program. So if you want a browser that plays "Happy Birthday.mp3" every time you launch it, just pull out Interface Builder and wire up a few components, and you'll be done.
      • by GlassHeart ( 579618 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @06:24PM (#5122126) Journal
        Saying that we need more standards-compliant browsers is like saying that we need more window managers for UNIX.

        A better analogy would be compilers. It's better to have several compilers, because although they all supposedly implement the same language, they can and do differ in subtle cases, which allows the programmer to fix them. For example, the line "x = a[i++] + b[i++];" is undefined in C, and different C compilers can give different results. This is a bug that using multiple compilers can point out.

        Coming back to window managers, assume for a second that there was an international standard on window preferences, desktop icons, "right-click" menus, and other common desktop metaphors. Assume further that all window managers (at least try to) conform to this standard. Why would having multiple window managers then be a problem?

        Diversity is, in fact, beneficial if interoperability can be achieved. For browsers, this means a common set of "visited pages", bookmarks, and such. Apple is obviously planning to release a competent entry-level browser, so Chimera can look to other niches if it doesn't want to compete in the same space.

        Put another way, what would you do if you really needed to see a site, and the only browser you have crashes when loading that site?


    • Did we give up when the Germans bombed Perl harbour? NO!

      Couldn't resist. ;)
    • It sure looks like they packed it in, those browsers suck!
  • by blazerw11 ( 68928 ) <blazerw AT bigfoot DOT com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:58AM (#5118761) Homepage
    Don't give up if you enjoy coding the thing. It's about having fun, not market share. I cannot talk about the features of Safari vs. Chimera, but I choose Moz over Konq, because I like the features of Moz and I don't run KDE, so Moz starts much faster. (If I did run KDE, Konq would, no doubt, start faster.)

    Plus, from what I've seen [mozdev.org] (or here [mac.com]), Chimera is real purdy.

  • Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkDust ( 239124 ) <marc@darkdust.net> on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:59AM (#5118778) Homepage

    I don't understand this... why do the Mozilla people make such a big deal about Apple releasing Safari (and with a KHTML core instead of a Gecko core) ?

    I normally code in my free time because of fun, and if a decent program is the result, the better. Just giving up a browser-port because another competitor showed up is a non-option in my mind, especially in this case: Mozilla and its' derivates have features that others don't have, and if that remains the case there is a justification for not letting Chimera die.

    I really think the Mozilla folks should take a deep breath, look at what good pieces of code they've written, how many users they've reached, and stop comparing themselves to others... Mozilla and its' derivates have come long way and are high quality browsers, but without an big company and OS of their own they won't reach the audience MS and Apple reach ;-) But I think that doesn't matter as there are still lots of people who are thankful to have Mozilla or in that case, Chimera.

    • Re:Uhm... (Score:3, Interesting)

      I don't understand this... why do the Mozilla people make such a big deal about Apple releasing Safari (and with a KHTML core instead of a Gecko core) ?

      Because it's not just released, it's bundled.

      I expect the Chimera developers had visions of them becoming the defacto browser on MacOS, and everybody using their product. Fame! Glory! They were so close.

      But let's face it, Chimera could be light years ahead of Safari (and from what i've read in terms of features, standards compliance and rendering success it is) and still it'd be marginal. Not only is Safari bundled with OS X (and we all know what bundling does to competing products), it's made by Apple meaning that in the eyes of most Mac users it must be perfect and can do no wrong.

      See the post by Twirlip of the Mists above, justifying not having tabs? Interesting viewpoint, but clearly many people love them regardless of how "usable" it is or isn't. Adding them doesn't change the default browser for those who don't want them, so where are they? Maybe they'll add them, maybe they won't. Nonetheless, I expect the majority of normal users will continue with Safari because it's what is there, and only the few that are plugged into the Mac news networks will even know about it.

      It's got to be depressing when you've worked so hard on a product, it could be argued succesfully your product is the best, then Apple release one and all at once all your users go gooey over the competition for apparently no better reason than because it's Apple. I expect it's more to do with the attitude of Chimeras users than anything else. No matter how great Chimera is, it can't fight the "Apple can do no wrong" mentality.

  • by Whatsthiswhatsthis ( 466781 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @10:59AM (#5118781)
    The positive thing about this is that Chimera is already good. Every other browser that wants market share will have to "beat" Chimera. And as far as I'm concerned, the current incarnation will always be good enough for me.

    I think we can count on Apple to build Safari to "beat" Chimera, and I am happier for it. Our loyalty should be to the best product, whether it is Chimera or Safari.
    • While 'tis true that I have made Safari my #1 browser, it is also true that I develop my web stuff with Chimera. Tabbed browsing is very valuable if I want to have one pane looking at the resulting page, one pane looking at the database and another viewing the page source. If I want to check that the code I have written will look right in the majority of browsers, I run it through Safari (KHTML), Chimera (Moz), IE for Mac and IE 6 for Windows. Once that is done, I rest more easily.

      Plus, I have found that Safari doesn't handle "localhost" very reliably. Not that that will be a long-term issue. These short-term bugs are just that: short term, will be fixed. The same can be said for Chimera, it will just take longer because there isn't a project timetable, budget and Steve Jobs breathing down the developers' necks.

  • The beauty of open source development is that the people who currently depend on chimera for mission-critical applications will be able to continue improving it and fixing bugs on their own.

    I fully expect that companies with multi-million dollar investments in their chimera infrastructure will be willing to pay real money to competent developers to keep this project alive.
    • The beauty of open source development is that the people who currently depend on Chimera for mission-critical applications will be able to continue improving it and fixing bugs on their own.

      The curse of open source development is that the people who currently depend on Chimera for mission-critical applications will have to continue improviding it and fixing bugs on their own.

      It's a double-edged sword, friend.
  • Nooooooo! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MacAndrew ( 463832 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:25AM (#5118930) Homepage
    Of course, I find something I love and *Apple* of all companies threatens to kill it, indirectly.

    I've been using Chimera Navigator for months, forgetting altogether IE (the real villain IMHO). I suppose the sole question for the Chimera team on whether to continue is whether *their* shadowy objectives are being met. The results in the time frame of the effort so far has been impressive -- no, stunning -- much more than a build-a-brower this weekend kind of thing. It really is Mac software.

    The single best thing I can say about Chimera -- and there are many nice things, more so now that I've gotten around to poking around with 3rd party mods like SpeedChimera and "PDF Plugin" -- is that I've mostly forgotten about it. That is, it works like the Finder or some other utility that you take for granted and don't give much thought. That's what I've wanted, not the fickle and feature-encrusted IE, just something simple and clean and fast. Safari will learn (has learned?) a few things from Chimera, which tells you something about the latter's value and why it would be a shame to lose the lead-by-example prominence of Chimera.
    • Re:Nooooooo! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by usr122122121 ( 563560 ) <usr122122121NO@SPAMbraxtech.com> on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:50AM (#5119101) Homepage
      Of course, I find something I love and *Apple* of all companies threatens to kill it, indirectly.
      Plain and simple: Apple does not have the power to kill off the Chimera project. Apple can create another similar product, but it is up to the end user to decide.

      Plus, I think everyone is missing the mark a bit: both browsers are free. These organizations/companies aren't going to be shut-out financially... they weren't getting the users' money for these browsers in the first place!

      If the developers choose to shut down the Chimera project, it would be a shame, but it would be their decision. To blame that decision on Apple is ridiculous.

      • Indeed, it is not Apple's fault if Chimera loses developers. Chimera isa great browser, I use both it and Safari, and while i keep IE around to check the HTML I write, I haven't used it for over a month now.

        Chimera was my only browser until Safari came out. And while I now primarily use Safari, Chimera is still in my Dock, right next to Safari. Several pages I visit do not load properly (or at all) in Safari, and I have sent bug reports in. Chimera continues to run reliably and without fail for me.

        Twirlip of the Mists makes good points about how tabs, while convenient, are also making a mess of the function of the browser. I love Tabs, I swear by them when I'm in Chimera, but Twirlip's points about making tabs draggable are a consideration. I tend to keep a two windows with 2-5 tabs up when using Chimera, and the last thing I want is Excel-style contextual-menus for working with tabs.

        I hope Chimera does stick around, and that someday Safari will have tabs. But Apple is the champion of Drag-n-Drop, having brought it to us in System 7 Pro (some programs installed it in System 7.1, though) and faithfully carried it with them. Tabs, as they are today, have their static place in preferences and programs, but such dynamic tabs may be hard for Apple to stomach.
      • You misunderstand -- Apple could "kill" Chimera by giving the latter's developers the impression that there's no need to contune because their browser is not different enough or that the remaining market share is too slight. There are other forms of competition than profit. Internet Explorer is free -- you don't think Microsoft intends to use it as a tool to dominate the market?

        If the developers choose to shut down the Chimera project, it would be a shame, but it would be their decision. To blame that decision on Apple is ridiculous.

        If the developers decide to shut down Chimera because of the Safari release, where the the hell would you assign the "blame" but Apple? It's not much of a blame -- the product is replaced and users come out in roughly the same place -- but you still see it would be a "shame." Apple is increasingly absorbing the types of applications with wide enough audiences to attract good developers, and here would be undermining an open source developer to boot. I don't think an all-Apple software world is a good thing. Although I think Apple is doing a great job, and I am benefitting from their products, it would be very foolish not to consider the impact of their expansion on the development community as a whole, which for the Mac is small to begin with.
  • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:27AM (#5118947) Homepage Journal
    It's obvious it will only ever be a marginal product on a even more marginal platform.

    So, not only does Chimera suck, Mac OS X sucks harder. Am I translating that right?

    I was very excited at first by Chimera, but by 0.3 I'd uninstalled it and stopped participating in the mailing lists. I thought Chimera was going to be the OS-X native (look & feel, native text widgets, services, full-on ATSUI, etc.) version of Mozilla, but instead it became the dumbed-down version of Mozilla with a nice OS X GUI but drastically reduced functionality (at last glance there was still no button to close a tab).

    Now it seems this direction was chosen in order to lure Apple to use it as the default browser on OS X. Since they decided not to, what purpose does Chimera serve? For a dumb browser, we have Safari.

    If I may suggest, there is a market for a non-dumb browser on OS X. OmniWeb still has a decent following but it can't compete with Mozilla for standards. Re-tasking Chimera to be the OS X -native version of Mozilla might be a good direction for the project - quite a bit of the hard work has been done already.
    • Good to see you spent so much time experimenting with Chimera. You seem to know it inside and out.

      By the way, you can close a tab by pressing Apple+W (like you would normally close a window). Genius.

      Justin Dubs
    • "It's obvious it will only ever be a marginal product on a even more marginal platform."
      So, not only does Chimera suck, Mac OS X sucks harder. Am I translating that right?
      I think what he meant by the word "
      marginal" was that Mac OS X has, at best, maybe 6% of the computer market. Of that six percent, probably less than 20% use Chimera as their default browser. That is to say, marginal relating to size, not quality.
      (at last glance there was still no button to close a tab).
      That's because there doesn't need to be. Instead, Command-W has been overloaded to close the currently open tab, and if there are no tabs open, then to close the window. Or, you could add such a button to Chimera's toolbar. Or, if you've downloaded CocoaGestures, you can use mouse gesutures to close tabs (and windows), and to cycle through tabs.
    • One person's featureful browser is another's bloatware. Note how often people bitch about Mozilla as 'bloated.' Software design is all about tradeoffs, no feature is completely free, and Chimera has the best set of tradeoffs for me (except for putting the bookmarks in a sidebar - I hate that). You might not see some features you want and call Chimera 'dumb,' but there is a fair chance that the gains of adding the feature vs. the bloat added by it were weighed. Also Chimera has a lot of features with no UI in prefs.js.

      It is funny that the example you chose (the close button) is one of the reasons I like Chimera over Moz. The space where tabs go is already space limited and I was really annoyed when the close button showed up in Mozilla. When a lot of tabs are open that limited space is precious - adding a UI widget for an action where you already could either hit Cmd-W, or use a contextual menu did not seem like a good trade to me, and I am happy to see Chimera agrees more with my sensibilities. And it is clear that there are still a lot of feature yet to be implemented in Chimera, and features to implement, since it is only a .6 release.

      Finally it is really funny to see someone call a browser 'dumb' when that person cast their opinions in concrete at version number .3.
  • by ahknight ( 128958 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:29AM (#5118967)
    Please, please don't take my Chimera! Here's why:

    Mozilla is bloated. It's slower than Chimera and includes a whole lot of things that are just not needed in a web browser.

    Safari can't render well. For the time being, it's not a good solution for people who need standards-compliance or good CSS support. Chimera is.

    Tabs, and Aqua-ness aside, it's really the best solution. Even after Safari came out I'm still clinging [codepoetry.net] to Chimera. It still has it's uses and is still the best solution for the Mac right now. It's WAY too early to claim obsolescence.
  • I'm still finding chimera useful. Safari isn't going to get tabs or bugs flattened soon enough for chimera to just disappear. Phoenix is out there too, less recognised, but I don't see them dropping a port either.

    Really if anything is going to happen chimera should turn into a plug in pack to the standard mozilla distro for osx.

  • by cryptochrome ( 303529 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:33AM (#5118994) Journal
    I don't think Safari should be the Chimera developers main concern as competition. What they should be worrying about is what's IN Safari - specifically, webcore. Because it's going to make it MUCH easier for people to create browsers with novel interface features for the mac. Including tabbed browsing, even if safari itself doesn't.

    My advice to the chimera developers - either focus on bringing the unique features of the mozilla platform like XUL apps that are not so easily replicated, or quit and spend your time someplace else.

    (And IMHO, the value of tabbed browsing is not so much organizing pages but preventing clutter. The main problem with the desktop metaphor is it doesn't take many open windows before it's practically unusable.)
  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, 2003 @11:39AM (#5119037)
    What kind of an argument is *that*? I mean, so far Mac OS came bundled with the 90%+ browser from Microsoft. How was that easier to beat than a (relative) newcomer browser?

    Of course, if one actually reads the article ...

    "I'm torn about what to do with Chimera. It's obvious it will only ever be a marginal product on a even more marginal platform. AOL and Netscape have no interest in supporting it. Who aspires to be number two in an already over-commoditized space? Working my ass off for 3% just isn't any fun any more. Safari has already won, the rest is just to see by how much."

    This is not about evil Apple killing off independent developers, but about someone who just lost interest in his pet project, IMO ...

    "Perhaps what is more disappointing is that my fifteen minutes of fame are just about up and I've really got nothing to show for it."

    I know exactly how you feel *sigh*

    b.

  • I tried Safari. The speed that everyone talks about wasn't even close to Chimera. What's that about? (I figured the cache made a difference, but after surfing on and off with it for a day or two, Chimera was still FAR faster. YMMV) And where are the tabs? Bleh. It might eventually find a space on my mac's HD, but Chimera wins in my book hands down.

    Another nice thing about Chimera...It functions very similarly to Phoenix on my PC at home. No feature rot.

    I'll stay with Chimera, thanks.

    • What build of Chimera are you using? From my experience, the "released" build of Chimera is slightly slower than Safari, but any monthly from the last few months is considerably faster than Safari. There's no doubt that the latest nightly build of Chimera is far superior to Safari in every way. I really hope the developers don't drop is, as Chimera is on a roll!

      - j
  • Wait a second (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ethank ( 443757 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:40PM (#5119548) Homepage
    People are saying "don't take Chimera!" because Safari doesn't render well and lacks tabs....

    OK.

    Safari is in beta release 1. Chimera in the .6 release (post). By the time Chimera is indeed "dropped" Safari should be upwards of beta 3 or 2 or possibly even release. The developers of Safari maintain their own weblog (http://www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/hyatt/) and from what you read there, its indicative that CSS compliance is of the highest priority.

    I'll go with the best browser that provides the best user-experience. For me, I use Safari right now because its bookmark management rocks, its history view rocks and its fast as hell. I used Chimera from the time I bought my Mac (September) to when Safari was released. Sure, Safari has some CSS problems, and Chimera is still always running for that very reason, but it boils down to the typical mac idiom: what lets me do my work faster.

    Ethan
  • Yeah - Chimera wins.... but only for the moment - Safari is almost there and it is a beta release. The biggy is obviously.... duh.... tabs - especially for slashdot, google news and new scientist..... but also the rendering.... if the next releases don't measure up then Chimera wins for sure - the speed is fine, the rendering fine and the tabs.... did I meantion the tabs..... how could anyone desing a modern browser without them ..... come on.... why spawn a window for every page.... duh

    Rock on and hany out at Puy de Dome you might see a UFO or something....

    But it might be the beer....
  • GNUstep? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dimwit ( 36756 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:40PM (#5119553)
    You know, the GNUstep Project [gnustep.org] would love to have Chimera working on their platform.

    (For those who don't know: GNUstep is a free implementation of the OpenStep specification, of which MacOS X is a direct descendant. There's a very high level of source code-level compatibility between the two platforms.)

    Is there any reason why Chimera could not be ported to GNUstep?
    • Is there any reason why Chimera could not be ported to GNUstep?

      Sorry to give the obvious answer, but it depends on whether Chimera has any Carbon code in it. If Chimera is entirely Cocoa-fied, then a port should be pretty easy, modulo some AppKit features like the toolbar that I don't believe have counterparts in GNUstep.
  • Funny... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cinematique ( 167333 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:42PM (#5119567)
    Chimera looks more Apple-like than Safari! WTF? Am I the only one who thinks Safari is great, but looks like a puddle of puke?

    Actually, Safari would be great if it looked like Chimera, but kept (and improved) its webcore stuff.

    At the end of the day however, the lack of tabs in Safari, plus the hideous UI, are what helps keep Chimera out of my trash can.
  • by Tor ( 2685 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:44PM (#5119579) Homepage
    Chimera is a Free(tm) browser, and so will not be subject to a vendor's (Apple's) agenda. In practice, this means that features like popup blocking, selective cookie acceptance/rejection won't go away (the way they have in IE) whenever the vendor no longer blesses such "anti-commercial" features. It also means better code scrutiny, and ultimately, better security.

    • Yup (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Big Sean O ( 317186 )
      If Safari's 1.0 release doesn't have better cookie management, a popup whitelist, and image blocker, then you will find some people going back to Chimera. I know I will.

      I have a comfort in using open-source software that isn't quite satisfied by 'free as in beer' apps. It comes down to "if I really wanted to, I could fix it" (or with my paltry code-fu, hire someone to fix it). Scratching that personal itch is the reason anybody changes from a default browser anyway. It's probably the reason why 'the rest of us' are on the Mac in the first place.

      Of course, once Apple releases a usable WebCore, I expect all sorts of browser projects to start. Hmm... Mozilla begat Phoenix and Chimera, Perhaps Safari will give birth to "Tarzan". Tarzan must be in the public domain, Disney made a movie about it...
      • Re:Yup (Score:3, Interesting)

        If Safari's 1.0 release doesn't have better cookie management, a popup whitelist, and image blocker, then you will find some people going back to Chimera. I know I will.

        Yes, of course, it makes much more sense to trade in a good browser (spell-checking in text fields alone is worth the price of admission) in for an also good but considerably less so browser based on features that really belong in the proxy anyway. Get thee over to the Privoxy home page and give it a download. Problems solved.

        One big-ass caveat, though. The build of Privoxy that is available on their web site includes some OS X features of questionable worth. The installation package, for example, does some things that it shouldn't do, and the start scripts aren't technically compatible with Jaguar's new SystemStarter. (They don't cause a problem, they're just not technically right.) I have fixed these problems in the copy I got from CVS, but I have yet to submit my changes back to the project. So buyer beware and all that.
  • Please don't stop! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:48PM (#5119605)
    I LOVE chimera. Tabs rock, it's fast, its stable.

    And I love the interface, it's clean and unbusy. Shortcuts are reasonable and I don't get "surprised" by behavior like i do with explorer or opera or even omniweb.

    The big reason to keep working on chimera though is that when chimera is in good enough shape it can be the basis for a wide variety of great open source projects and university research projects. With all the information available on the web a clean module for doing web browser functions will be invaluable to lots of people.

    Another good reason, is that mozilla is the "2nd standard" web browser. Usually web designers code to ie and then mozilla, how many are going to code to safari too? This is a big problem with opera and omniweb, sometimes they just don't work on site X. Chimera is much much better for not getting scrambled websites.

    And folks were questioning tabs. Hearesy!

    The big reason tabs rock? It gets rid of waiting for the network. You're reading along and then just command click on what you are interested in. You mess around on the page a little bit and then switch over. It turns a click-wait-read-click-wait-read experience into click-click-read-read.

    Another reason, they remind you of what you were interested in. So i can scan down slashdot and command click the 5 or so stories that interest me. Then I get to the bottom and i don't have can just look at each of the stories in turn instead of going back to the main page each time.

    By the way, on the "fifteen minutes of fame" business, don't worry about it. You've got street cred now, that's worth tons here in Silicon Valley. You can get a nice job as the resident guru at a startup or write books or do consulting. You're in geek heaven man, don't sweat it.

  • by agentkhaki ( 92172 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @12:56PM (#5119656) Homepage
    Recently, it came to my attention that MacAmp Lite X [macamplite.com] is no longer under developement either. Why?

    "iTunes just got to be far too big, far too free, and far too bundled with the OS"

    Granted, MacAmp Lite X wasn't freeware, like Chimera is, and it wasn't open source, like Chimera is, but it still begs the same question:

    As Apple moves from a company that was all about selling their own hardware and an OS to run on it, to a company that is all about moving into every aspect of our lives - giving us not only hardward and a (very healthy) OS to run on it, but also software to take care of most features required by an 'average' user, as well as digital lifestyle devices like the iPod (and rumored things like PDA's, video iPod's, etc.,) - are they becoming more like Microsoft? Are they discouraging the independant developer? Will they continue on this path to such an extent that those people who have begun to raise Apple's market share - and who have begun to actually pay attention to the operating system as something actually worth using - away?

    In short, will Apple invading all of the different types of software areas discourage developers to the point that it is no better than Microsoft, if only in terms of their attempted monopoly over all aspects of our computing experience?

    • by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @01:40PM (#5119918)
      You answered your own question. MacAmp Lite X's developers just gave up because they didn't think enough people were going to use it and buy it from them. That isn't Apple stifling innovation, it is a developer trying to sell a product in a competitive market and not having the wherewithal to keep up development in the face of real competition.

      Apparently in some cases like MacAmp Lite X, Apple producing a competitive product will discourage developers. Whether that is their intention or not isn't something anyone but Apple can really answer. In other cases Apple's competition has spurned companies to work even harder. Avid is a pretty good example of this, their DV Xpress package is a direct competitor to FCP. With FCP's meteoric rise to popularity and OSX being a capable OS they decided that they didn't want the Mac-only FCP dominating DV XPress' market. Thus they released DV Xpress 3.5 on both Windows XP and OSX. Now video editing on OSX is at a great point because you've got DV Xpress and FCP competing for the same userbase, it is in the best interest to both companies to produce the mostest badass versions of their software they can to increase sales.

      This point is what it comes down to, when you have competition you can either throw in the towel or try harder. Had MacAmp's developers made MacAmp Lite into a real powerhouse of a media player that picked up where iTunes failed they would have kept a decent sized user base. So to answer your question, no I don't think Apple is stifling innovation on anyone's part like Microsoft. It's up to people their programs compete with to make a better product. iTunes may be free but it isn't the end all be all of MP3 players. There's still room for an iTunes killer.
    • by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @03:06PM (#5120473)
      In short, will Apple invading all of the different types of software areas discourage developers to the point that it is no better than Microsoft, if only in terms of their attempted monopoly over all aspects of our computing experience?

      In short, no. I'll tell you why.

      There are three major differences between Apple's bundling of the iApps and Microsoft's value-add (uh, Plus?) software.

      1. Apple's apps don't suck. Flame if you will. iTunes in particular, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't think it's really the be-all of music interfaces. iCal has a huge following already, Mail kicks ass, iSync does what it says it does. iMovie practically kickstarted the real desktop moviemaking revolution, iDVD was an industry first. I have nasty things to say about iPhoto, but since the 2.0 rev is 4 days away I'll reserve judgement.

      2. Apple apps are uninstallable. This point is often lost on the Windows crowd. "Apple bundles a browser too! It's anticompetitive!" Microsoft tells you that IE is literally crazy-glued to their OS, as is WMP and others. Any Apple iApp is a single icon, that is tossable, without a fuss, without that wacky Install/Remove Programs nonsense.

      3. Apple only extends itself where it feels it is needed. I could probably take some crap over that statement, but it seems to be true. The browser situation was sucking until Chimera came along, and Apple hired that guy. The iApps serve as proof-of-concept OS X apps, as well as fulfilling the 'what software?' problem of a new OS. Also, Apple is happy to point users in the direction of more powerful, flexible, paid applications if asked (i.e. Audion).

      Besides, I think most people would agree that there are certain activities that a computer ought to do 'out of the box' that are more complex than users would have demanded in the past. CD burning, for example. Does including CD/DVD burning capabilities in iTunes and the Finder hurt Roxio's Toast? Probably not, Toast is more powerful.

    • Apple wants to have a usable computer out of the box, so long as everything is still trashable I do not have a problem with this.

      The instant they require registry hacks to disable "join .Mac!" every time you start the computer is where I draw the line (see .net).
  • by phpsocialclub ( 575460 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @01:50PM (#5120003) Homepage
    I do not see what the big deal is.
    It is unfortunate that the developers are feeling the pressure of apples new browser, but as long as the source code the Chimera remains available it can still be developed and improved.
    I use Chimera every day as my primary browser and download the daily builds every day.
    Safari is nice, but there is still a place for Chimera.
    New developers will step forward, I would if I had the time and/or skills, to keep this project moving forward.
    Projects change hands all of the time,

    Chimera will live on
  • I like Chimera (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Outland Traveller ( 12138 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @01:57PM (#5120058)
    I like Chimera a lot. It's near perfect for my usage, and I prefer it over Safari. My only suggustion is to add "close tab" buttons on each of the tabs, like galeon does under Linux. I miss these immensely for the easy, one-step ability to close tabs that *aren't* currently active.

    Thanks for the all the open source browser beasts :)
    -OT
  • by macmurph ( 622189 ) on Monday January 20, 2003 @02:08PM (#5120129)
    I originally posted the following comment in response to a linux journal article about Apple's Safari. I feel the comment also applies to this discussion:
    http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.p hp?sid=6565&m ode=thread&order=0&thold=0

    In summary, there are many good rendering engines but very few great user interfaces, and in the end, UI is the crucial differentiator b/w browsers.

    In response to the whole rendering engine discussion I see here... IMHO Rendering engine/render speed is not everything... Of course, IE for the Mac is dog slow (its carbon, not naitive cocoa code)...and Apple was *forced* to create an alternative or fall behind. The IE for the Mac team was disintegrated long ago to make Web TV, Ultimate TV (a cancelled MS project),etc.

    But for most people, more important than rendering speed is an efficient, productive UI (because rendering speed problems have largely been solved in todays best browsers).

    Because the web has become so central to computing...UI is more important than ever in browsers. Safari beta (so far) offers a very nice bookmark manager but lacks tabbed browsing (or something like it).

    For now, I like Chimera for OS X because it has tabbed browsing and lightning fast rendering performance. On a dial up connection, a user can open pages in new tabs and queue the downloads. This is a very very efficient method of browsing that Safari so far, have chosen to ignore. Tabbed browsing in Chimera is faster and more efficient than IE 6 for Windows. I use a technique whereby each new chimera window contains catagorys of tabs... ebay auction tabs in one window, news tabs in another window, stock data tabs in a third window. By managing topics of tabs by window I never find myself hunting for the correct tab (In IE for windows, I would find myself hunting for the right tab along the Start bar. With too many windows open the start bar becomes cluttered and useless as an interface.)

    Chimera (Gecko based) is faster than Safari in my own independent testing...particularly at downloading and rendering JPEGs. When it comes to rendering raw HTML I can't tell the difference between Chimera and Safari but toss in a few jpegs and chimera wins. I imagine this is only noticeable on dial up connections.

    I expect Safari will surpass Chimera and therefore all other browsers in UI and performance at some point in the near future because apple is so damn good at what they do.

    PS. I should probably add that I think Chimera is the still the best browser and Apple's Safari is not yet very usable. I would hate to see the Chimera team give up so soon. I think Chimera has a lot to offer...especially because it uses a different rendering engine (great for checking standards compliance, etc). So keep up the good work Chimera! I want to see version .7 badly!
  • First development on Phoenix comes to halt
    http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5126 6&thre shold=-1&commentsort=3&tid=154&mode=thread&cid=511 5764
    , next Chimera Development may by stopping, and on top of this AOL has recently pulled devs off of Mozilla itself. WTF is going on? It look like Mozilla and its subprojects are slowly dying off. This is not good!
  • Well.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, 2003 @02:32PM (#5120257)
    I think what has killed Chimera as far as Pinkerton is concerned is that fact he had pretty much hit a brick wall development wise. The major issues people were complaining about were slow text box entry and the fact that font rendering was not 100% quartz native. Sadly fixing these problems would be far from trivial, and in the end I guess he devided it was not worth the effort.

    Because Safari uses KHTML and because of the OS X QT port, it has 100% native quartz rendering form the get go, and access to services and other goodies.

    Chimera, as the name suggests was never really anything more than a kludge, gecko would have to be substatially reworked to perform optimally on OS X, and with Safari taking all the attention, it would be a lot of work for little or no recognition.

    Chimera will slowly putrify, and before long will be totally forgotten. Very sad to see it happen, but the work needed was beyond the capability of the developers involved, that's not an insult, that's just gecko.
  • Bug- Show support (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, 2003 @02:39PM (#5120314)
    Plese use the bugzilla bug 189819 [mozilla.org] to show your support.
  • This is my dock.
    Safari, Chimera, Mozilla, IE, Opra. And right now both Safari and Chimera are open. I usually switch to Chimera when I need to do Tabbed browsing and I use Safari for the standard browsing. By keeping Chimera/Mozilla running and impoving it helps keep Apple and Microsoft on their toes. Chimera may have to change its focus a bit from being the standard web browser to the secondary browser. There is nothing wrong with being in second or third place. Healty competition is good for both sided, Safari has now placed Chimera with the challange to make it faster. So I would like Chimera to meet this challange and produce something better.
  • I surfed around on Safari yesterday. It looked promising and had some interesting features (the bookmark thing is pretty ingenious) but also lacked the mac look and feel. I didn't go many places and the thing choked on multiple sites.

    Safari has, by no means, already won. Chimera works perfectly for my every need. Safari couldn't do many basic things.

    Look and feel is also very important. Chimera feels like the browser made by the same company as the OS. Safari is the one that seems like it was ported.

    My only consolation is that at 0.6.0, Chimera seems finished. It might at well be called 6.0 for all I care. As long as someone is around to update the browser as html standards change, then Chimera will remain a very excellent browser.

    To the developer I say: Thanks for all your hard work and a great app. If you do leave the project please bless its continuation and don't think you did not accomplish something wonderful.

  • (Well maybe three words ;)

    Chimera just got Auto proxy configuration support so I can use it at work.... Trust me Apple will never release a browser that supports auto proxy configuration because it is not a standard its an MS implementation in the lack of a standard (I'm not knocking MS on this as big organisations needed auto proxy config)

    Chimera and Mozilla do support it.

    Enough said.

    Finally, I'm not even sure I really like the look of Safari as a full time browser. AND Apple don't care about the "technofiles" (ie US) they are mostly after the average joe... so I won't be surprised if Safari _NEVER_ gets tabs.

    Sorry guys. Even if Chimera doesn't get developed past today I'm probably going to be using it for quite some time to come. It works right now for everything I need.
  • When I look at Apple's benchmarks and listen to the words straight from Steve Jobs' mouth, it becomes pretty clear that the reason Safari isn't a piece of crap is because Chimera gave Apple something to shoot for. If Safari only had to compete with IE, Apple could have released something a while ago.

    I think Apple's new browser is great, but its not for me. I still use Chimera because its much more practical. There is a lot of room for improvement (build on the 1.2 branch!), and I don't think giving up is the answer. Chimera has pushed Safari to be what is is today, and now is not the time to stop upping the standards for available web browsers.

  • This could be a negative consequence of the MS monopoly. Developers now believe that the goal is 95% market penetration and anything less is failure. This of course is incorrect. We have a set of web standards, and what we need is a number of browsers targeting to various demographics. Even if we assume that IE and Safari will become the standards, that does not imply we need nothing else.

    OTOH, there are two important issues that may hold Safari back. First, there are many sites that need IE, so Apple can't piss MS off too much. That means that it is unlikely we will see Safari as the default for a couple years. Second, Safari is fast but it is a long way from being stable. Chimera should continue to be the more mature product. Chimera is great, and besides speed, I have been unimpressed with Safari.

    Safari at this point is more a marketing ploy than a product. It proves that the Mac is not the slowest browser platform on the planet. Chimera is a working product, Safari is a buggy concept package. Even if we stipulate that Safari will reach maturity, assuming massive market penetration is forgetting Cyberdog.

  • by Cerebus ( 10185 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @10:06AM (#5126836) Homepage
    ...isn't the browser, it's WebCore and JavaScriptCore. The browser is a convenient testbed for both cores that has the happy side-effect of producing a useful app (and thousands of eyes to point out parse and render defects).

    Personally, I think Apple as a corporation could care less whether Safari lives or dies. But either way, OS X gains WebCore and JavaScriptCore, which will prove to be indispensible frameworks in the future.
  • by lml ( 639341 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @12:04PM (#5127643)
    Quoting from Mike Pinkerton's weblog:

    "It's all about motivations. Why did we even start Chimera in the first place? Because we wanted to make something that sucked less. Safari aside, it stands on its own as a solid product with a good UI that is pretty damn bug-free for an 0.6 release. It's easy to get sidetracked on the "woe is me, we lost again" tangent (especially if you've been at Netscape for 5+ years), but it's time to get back to why we're doing this at all: because it's fun. It's fun making a product that more than seven people use. I wish that was 7 million, but I guess we have to set our expectations appropriately. Chimera's not going anywhere, regardless of whatever I post on this blog. Will this get picked up on MacSlash? Unlikely. I guess the damage has already been done.

    I'd like to correct many of the emails that commented that I was the only developer working on Chimera. I'm not by any stretch of the imagination. While our unofficial "team" is smaller than Safari's, we certainly have a lot of coverage from the open-source community."

    Check it at http://mozpink .blogspot.com/2003_01_01_mozpink_archive.html#8770 4137 [blogspot.com]

  • Not Dead (Score:5, Informative)

    by moof1138 ( 215921 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @02:29PM (#5128611)
    From: pinkerton@netscape.com (Mike Pinkerton)
    Date: Tue Jan 21, 2003 10:46:55 AM US/Central
    To: CHimera
    Subject: [Chimera] Sigh
    Reply-To: chimera@mozdev.org

    Let me put this to bed once and for all: I'm not stopping work on chimera.

    Yes, I'm frustrated and sick of being kicked around by apple. That's why I muttered that i was "torn". I never said I was stopping work or that chimera was dying. I can't speak for Simon or bryner or any of the other members of the team, but they're not stopping either.

    I appreciate the support and all the emails. We're making a damn good product here, and we're doing it because we want to, win, lose, or draw.

    --
    Mike Pinkerton
    Mac Browser Weenie
    pinkerton@netscape.com http://people.netscape.com/pinkerton

    _______________________________________________
    Chimera mailing list
    Chimera@mozdev.org
    http://www.mozdev.org/ma ilman/listinfo/chimera

  • by Aram Fingal ( 576822 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2003 @04:48PM (#5129824)
    If I understand the situation correctly, Chimera is a port of Mozilla from UNIX code base with a GUI written in Cocoa while the Mozilla that is called "Mozilla" on OS X is a Carbon port of the legacy Mac OS code for Mozilla. A Carbon Mozilla makes sense if you need to support both classic Mac OS and Mac OS X with uniform behavior as the priority.

    Eventually, however, won't it be more important to use technologies like the UNIX base and Cocoa which make better use of OS X's abilities than Carbon does? Chimera may be marginal now but it's the method that makes more sense for the future.

1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2.

Working...