Re: Galeon 1.2.5 to 1.3.19 conveersion a couple of questions

on Sat, Feb 05, 2005 at 07:27:28PM -0500, stan ([email protected]) wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 06, 2005 at 01:02:00AM +0100, [email protected] wrote:

> Care to identify any reasons to stay with a diffeernt (broken IMHO) version
> of Galeon, rather than just use Firefox, if I have to relearn how to do
> things, and lose useful functions?

I'll try to answer a few benefits.  I'm also a big fan of 1.2.x, and
have ranted about some of the brokenness in 1.3.x.  It *is* getting
markedly better, though it's been a long and painful trip.  I also
object to the GNOME-centricness of Galeon.

That said, some general notes on benefits of Galeon 1.3.x over 1.2:

  - Sub-pixel rendering.  If fonts matter, display on 1.3.x is nicer
    than 1.2.x.  IMO not compelling of itself, but nice.

  - Better memory performance.  1.2.x seemed to leak faster than 1.3,
    though 1.3.x is still leaking, and pretty badly at 1.3.19-1.

  - Faster performance.  Try running 1.2.x over a remote X session at
    some point, with multiple windows & tabs open.  Tab-management
    actions (open/close/move) take ages, up to several minutes in
    worst-case situations.  1.3.x is orders of magnitude faster.

  - Stylesheet chooser.  Slightly better performance/functionality in
    1.3.x, maybe.  Though I'm a bit vague on this.

  - File -> Properties.  More data than 1.2.x.

  - Save As.  Includes ability to save with content (e.g.:  associated
    images).

  - Search-in-page.  Or whatever it's called.  "/<search term>" does
    type-ahead search.



1.2 wins over 1.3 with:

  - Portal.  In 1.2, it was possible to open up subsections of the
    portal page.  I have enough bookmarks (1400+ at last check, several
    recovered sessions) that this is really useful.  Better would be a
    freestanding bookmark management tool interfaced through the
    browser, but stored independently and accessible cross-browser.

  - "Settings" menu.  Makes more sense, IMO, than "Edit->Preferences".
    "Web" appears to be the new settings, though IMO it's a terminology
    loss.  This situation is improving (I just noticed Java/Javascript
    toggle on the 'Web' menu).

  - Tab navigation.  1.2 allowed scrolling the tablist without changing
    the focused tab.  That was a win.  Is this on 1.3's ToDo?

  - Open With.  Browser associations were managed within the browser in
    1.2, it's done within GNOME in 1.3.  Worse, the system's fallen
    apart in the past few months for Debian users where few if any
    associations work, and many handlers aren't available.  1.2 allowed
    specifying "always ask/never ask" and "always use/never use", 1.3
    doesn't.  My current workaround is to grab the URL, open a terminal,
    wget the file, and launch the handler *I* fucking want, myself.
    Believe it or not, this is easier than fucking with Galeon/GNOME's
    current level of brain death.  Major problem is sites which don't
    provide direct links to d/l content -- scripted sites with some CGI
    URL resolving to the target URL.  The 1.3 "Open With" dialog doesn't
    provide a single copyable URL but splits the file and its container
    host/path as two strings.


Most of the other really big features have been filled in.


Comparing Galeon with Firefox, I have:

  - Galeon has better overall usability design.  While Firefox has
    extensions which extend features well, there are some features
    (tabbed browsing, bookmarks) which really *should* be part of the
    basic UI.  It's too hard getting this right as an extension.  Most
    of the other extensions, however, work fine.  Adding the ability to
    extend Galeon would be nice.

    I had an extended discussion with J C Lawrence a week or so back on
    the SVLUG list about FFX tabs, in which he seemed to indicate most
    of the functionality I sought _was_ available.  Turns out there are
    *THREE* tab browsing extensions:  Tabbrowser Preferences, Tabbrowser
    Extensions, and Tab Mix.  Tabbrowser Extentions (TBE) is the most
    featureful, but is in its _author's_ estimation, unmaintainable
    spaghetti code, with severe quality issues.

  - FFX has slower UI.  Both Firefox and Mozilla are markedly slower in
    basic screenpainting than Galeon.  I think this is mostly a factor
    with the GNU/Linux client, as legacy MS Windows performance seemed
    to be pretty good.

  - FFX Better cookie handling.  Being able to specify session-only
    cookies is a major win.

  - FFX is desktop agnostic.  No GNOME deps.  No KDE deps.  No GNUstep
    deps.  No Evolution deps.  No Motif deps.  Sweet.  There's a lesson
    here, people.

  - Galeon has better tab management and behavior.  Tab width is more
    usable.  Tabs are movable/detachable.  Tabs can be scrolled.

In balance, Galeon wins for me, and goes where I want to go.  That said,
I've got both Galeon and FFX installed, and at present open (I'm using
FFX to see what pages look like w/o my userContent.css applied).

Mozilla is largely similar to Firefox but:

  - It's slower.

  - It's got more crud in it.  I prefer "just a browser" to "integrated
    Web appliance".

  - It's not as extensible (no extensions).

 
> >    I'm still confused, what the difference is? Besides that interface is
> > now consistent and does not impose new unneeded terminology.
> 
> Sessions are _NOT_ bookmarks, OK they are at best a superset of bookmarks.
> I've played with this a bit today, and I might be able to get some of
> the functionality back using this, but.
> 
> I have sessions for various browsers (home work etc), an the browsers
> start up and auto open all the appropriate pages I'll be refering to
> on a regular bassis from there. Can I even acomplish this, mutch less
> conveintently switch between these "sessions" with the new way of
> doing this?

I think you've got a fair gripe here.  If you could spell out session
management features you'd like to see, we might see them back.


My read on G1.3 in general:

  - The feature stripping was a gross mistake.  I'm praying Epiphany
    dies in imfamy.

  - The failure to provide a working, maintained version of Galeon while
    working out the issues with 1.3 was a big hit on the project's
    userbase.

  - The situation _is_ getting better.  In the past six months I've seen
    several key 1.2 features turn up in 1.3, and I'm sure a few that
    were never in 1.2, though memory fails at identifying these ATM.

  - The developer's attitude toward users who've liked, used, and
    boosted the project strongly over the years has been disappointing.
    And yes, it's frustrating maintaining software for ungrateful pricks
    suck as myself.  But some really unfortunate GNOME vs. user
    antagonisms have shown here.


I've been casting about strongly for alternatives to Galeon since
summer.  Even bruised, G1.3 beats the alternates.  And it's been
improving.


Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <[email protected]>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
  I turned down an opportunity to develop forecasting software for the Chicago
  Board of Trade cattle futures market.  Its name was too predictable.
  (Note: *nobody* gets this one.  Hint:  bear?)

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