Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Just saw this tantalizing link for what's billed as yet another browser coming for the Nokia N800:

http://www.intomobile.com/2007/08/03...okia-n800.html

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Woah, THREE browsers for the N800. I'm not complaining.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Heh, I know maybe 20 people that use Safari. The other couple thousand computers use some version of Firefox, or the old assed Exploder.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Well technically Safari is based on Webkit... this new OWB browser is not based on Safari at all, although it has some commonality with Safari due to also being based on Webkit.

And there is already a WebKit project underway for the N800, making OWB the second attempt at WebKit and the fourth browser on Maemo (excluding Lynx!) :)

Unfortunately it appears the guy(s) behind OWB forked from the main WebKit trunk several months ago and have no plans to merge back into the trunk any time soon, meaning they are pretty much on their own and no longer benefiting from any ongoing improvements to the main WebKit branch.

The approach taken by the OWB developer(s) seems somewhat ill advised to say the least. Maybe they'll eventually release something in the future, but I'm not sure anyone will be interested as we already have Opera, Mozilla and WebKit projects. This is a great shame as the energies of the OWB developers would be better spent on the existing WebKit for Maemo development rather than going their own way and not contributing back into WebKit.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Maybe this is a stupid question, but WHY would somebody want to have a Safari/Webkit browser if there is already Mozilla available?

BTW, this is no rant, this is a serious question. I love Safari. 5 times as fast as Mozilla on the Mac. But Mozilla is running fine (well, also slow, but good) on the N800, so why again another browser?

Ton.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Mozilla running fine?! Maybe you're in some closed beta testing group with some new and improved built. With all the 'internal errors' and bugs introduced in Opera (!) ocurring AND the slow feel, you can hardly call it 'good'. Enough reason to want something better, if not another browser.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

[QUOTE=Frankowitz;65700With all the 'internal errors' and bugs introduced in Opera (!) ocurring AND the slow feel, you can hardly call it 'good'.[/QUOTE]

Remember that the version you and i have are early betas? That's what you get when you install not-yet-ready products. If you have problems, file problem reports. That will make the product better. Waiting for another browser doesn't.
For me, personally, the Mozilla browser version that we have now works way better than Opera.

Ton.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Because KHTML is the most standards compliant renderer while also being very light... One reason I was highly annoyed that Maemo is Gtk based instead of QT/KDE.

Also remember that Nokia also has their own Webkit/KHTML browser being worked on.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

I know it's beta, but don't tell me I can't critisize because it's beta when you call it 'fine' and 'good' when it's beta! Remember, a coin always has two sides...
Reporting problems that are mainstream and allready in the bugtracker is useless.

For me, personally, it doesn't (yet).

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

I applaud the new browser initiatives, including MicroB -- but I still use Opera because to me it works better, except for some very specific incompatible sites where I'm forced to switch to MicroB. Still, it can only get better.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

I agree that this is very important. We all know the IE-only websites. I'm using Safari a lot, but sometimes i have to fall back on Firefox for the webs that don't show well in Safari. I know, i know, that's a problem of that particular website and that should be fixed, but if the maker of the website doesn't want to fix it because he doesn't care about Webkit-browser users, it's me that needs to solve the problem. And Mozilla works for me. Slow, but it works. So in reality i would prefer that they optimize the Mozilla code to be as fast and lightweight as Webkit is than to develop a third browser for the N800.
But that's just me.

Ton.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Did i criticize you? I just said it worked for me.

Ton.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

No you didn't. But also I didn't say you were. What I meant was:

'but don't tell me I can't critisize IT because it's beta'.

It wasn't directed at you personally.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Ton, send him some Midol. I'll even pitch in.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Is there info online on that other Webkit project for the N800 that you mention?

-- Denis

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

I've tried compiling this browser in scratchbox and it errors out during the ICU make in the X86 section.
Meh, I guess it's not even ready for alpha testing.
Not understanding why they're forking out of an existing webkit project though.
Where's the "official" webkit browser site?

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

There are a few links in the mailing list discussion I referenced in my previous post (#4) but other than that, information is light. Seemingly WebKit can be compiled for the N800 by pulling the code from the main WebKit svn. If you are interested in WebKit for Maemo, take a look at the official WebKit project http://webkit.org.

As far as this new "OWB" browser is concerned, I'm not really sure I understand why sand-labs.org have seen fit to fork WebKit in order to develop a Maemo build when one already exists. It all seems pretty foolish to me.

sand-labs.org seems to be an open source incubator owned/operated/supported by an outfit called Pleyo (PDF Press Release). I suppose sand-labs.org is similar to Maemo/Nokia in that respect, however I've never heard of Pleyo and I'm unsure of where they intend to take this browser, particularly as they don't seem interested in contributing to the main branch of WebKit along with everyone else.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Meh, I'll wait until someone releases a binary or package for it.
Not into running down compiling errors right now.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

This is probably the only WebKit port for maemo worth investing any time & effort in... the OWB fork doesn't make sense (to me, IMHO). :)

No binaries yet, keep an eye on the blog and garage...

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Could this be the third engine option (greyed out) available as a selection under Opera menu Tools/Advanced?

I installed MicroB thinking that would enable the browser engines of Opera or MicroB to be selectable on the fly but the drop down menu selections are totally different now and this option is lost.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Mmm, bringing a thread back from the dead. Nice.

I'm interested in a webkit browser for the n800 because of this:

http://colloquy.info/iphone/

It's exactly what I'm looking for with my n800 (I can't stand irssi+screen) and this plugin works suprisingly well. I've tried it remotely from my MacBook using Safari and it's great. Now I just need it on my n800.

Re: Safari-based browser for the N800 announced
 

Or http://iphone.facebook.com/ which works almost, but not quite entirely, unusefully on microb.