Re: A change in direction for Epiphany?



> > just see the status quo of the embedded mozilla widget bugs (both
> > security and annoyance level) stagnating for another couple of years
> > because all of the gecko developers are concerned primarily with
> > Firefox.  Unless something changes to make this no longer the case
> > with the embedded gecko widget, I can't see a lot of future with
> > Epiphany.  Is this overly negative or just realistic?
> 
> It might be overly negative :). One of the biggest focus annoyances has
> semi-recently been worked around in Galeon (I don't know if the changes
> have been ported to Epiphany yet). And Christian's recent work on
> nsContentPolicy should let us enable the adblock extension soon (not a
> gtkmozembed problem, but still related to Epiphany/Mozilla interaction).
> 
> My take on it is that while there are indeed Mozilla bugs which get in
> Epiphany's way, they are steadily getting squashed.
> 
> I'm also under the impression that Firefox will get more and more
> bloated until it can't even pretend to be easy to use any more. When
> that happens, Epiphany will still be around.

As a mostly-firefox user, and sometimes epiphany user, let me throw my
$0.02 in here.

Firefox has a couple of advantages at the moment, the first (for me
anyway) is that it's cross platform, so that I can have the same setup
when I'm at work and at home, same plugins, same look and feel, same
shortcut keys and behaviour.  This isn't a big priority for epi or gnome
of course, but it is an advantage that firefox enjoys in my mind.

The second is the extensions.  I know that epi has it's own extensions, 
but comparing the firefox extension list to the epi one, the epi
extension seems to have more UI enhancements and fixes (tab stats, tab
moving, cert viewing, stylesheet selection) than "extras".  Hopefully
you understand what I'm saying here.  For example, plugins like weatherfox, 
the DOM browser and web developer tool bar, and the css editor go way
beyond what the browser normally does, while something like selection of
multiple stylesheets is already there.  I know that this is an extension
because of the minimulistic philosophy of epi, but for me as a user, I
prefer to have this functionality built in already, and having to
install it as an extension feels like a waste.

That and I don't believe that FF is getting or will get more and more
bloated.  Compared to the original mozilla suite (does anyone still use
that?) it's as lightweight as epi :)  I of course can't say what'll
happen in the future, but I think that the core FF browser will continue
to get faster and lighter, and that high end functionality and "extras"
will continue to be added through extensions, just like they are doing
for epi.

The last reason for not using epi is the simplest, the long standing url 
bar focus bug (that is a mozembed bug I know).  I want to hit ^tab and
type in the url, not ^tab, ^l, url.  Petty but true.  I do remember
something about galeon fixing this (someone mentioned it above?), it'd
be great to see that ported over.  Probably an ugly hack, but if it
works until the actual problem is fixed...

Hopefully the above comments about epi extensions won't be taken as
trolling of flaming, as that's definately not intended, just the reasons
why I'm using FF 99% of the time and Epi not as much.

What are the chances of supporting FF plugins in epi?  That would
suddenly open up a HUGE new world to epi, you get the best of gnome
integration, small and light, and not having to re-invent the wheel to
bring back people who like the FF extensions.  Snowball in hell, or
better?  Or maybe support just a few specific (most popular) extensions?

Anyway, my $0.02, keep up the great work guys, even through Epi isn't my
primary browser, I'm still using it and keeping an eye on how things are
going :)

Alan

-- 
Alan <alan ufies org> - http://arcterex.net
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"Backups are for people who don't pray."                 -- big Mike

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