General :
K-Meleon Web Browser Forum
To clarify, XULrunner is Mozilla's cross platform application framework. It is more or less the engine that runs firefox and its interface. In other words, it runs XUL applications without having FF open. Examples of XUL applications are firefox user interface and extensions. Kmeleon has limited ability to run these XUL applications, presumably by mapping XUL functions ( like buttons and toolbars) to similar native Windows functions.
Conkeror is an example of a web browser someone wrote in XUL, but it's not FF. This gave Fred the idea that we could rewrite KMeleon in XUL. Starting over. XULrunner updates with FF ( at least for now) and has all the latest Gecko code, so there will be no more problems with keeping up with Mozilla ( well, not really, but a big improvement). Can XULrunner support a graphical web browser? Yeah, there's one called Firefox you might have heard of. It's interface is written in XUL.
So moving to XUL is using FF's engine for everything but putting a different look and function on it. different look, maybe some different capabilities. It's a complete rewrite of Kmeleon and removes the advantages of the Windows based interface that KMeleon always has used, called MFC. It will be bigger and probably slightly slower than FF. Even if we retain KMM macro language, we probably can't reuse any of the code from the old KMeleon.
That's why it would be good to think about if this is really desirable. I DO think it is desirable to bring KMeleon up to FF3.6 level, and maybe not too much work, before even contemplate XULrunner.
snuz2,
Like your approach... baby steps first, if I may presume. FF 3.6 (Gecko 1.9.2) gives you at least until April (we'll know more from the Feb Mozilla meeting) before EOL.
Down the road? I'm not a coder. All I know is what I've heard here: the choices seem to be trying to redo with latest Gecko engine (traditiional KM), use XulRunner (and going to XUL, but with KKO's macro language and losing windows APIs) and the last, keeping KKO's scripting language but changing the underlying engine to non-Mozilla WebKit.
N
Yes, I've just installed and am very impressed. I have been disappointed with IE9 (on Win7) in that cookie control is not as selective as it could be. In-private browsing is very good at preventing cacheing along with limiting cookies. But you cannot control by profile only by internet, intranet. I will be reviewing the profiling since it seems particularly suited for development work offline/intranet. Especially useful for when you are building your own websites.
ebay in particular lets you opt out of their cookies but they do not all obey and then you need to block them. I've also felt it necessary to review an additional software firewall but have accepted the fact that it would be easier to customise the local version with security policies and rules.
Bookmarks are inherently insecure within browsers (not sure yet about K-Meleon) in that sites track when you visited last along with numerous other statistics and frequently forward the data onward google let's you opt out by adjusting your profile (ha) - I have seperately been investigating a standalone bookmark which you launch outwith the browser (early days). I really like the standard default interface its clean and does appear to load faster in Kmeleon.
So yes Privacy, cookie control are I believe a hot topic as well as it seems search engines now seem to require more boolean intervention so that you can find sites that are useful for information and not bogus in some manner other.
The new privacy policy by country is especially interesting....so each country websites should be updating these...
http://export.gov/safeharbor/eu/eg_main_018365.asp
oops went on a bit there....
Maybe we could make use of Firefox Extended Support Release in order to keep K-Meleon alive? According to the 42-week plan roposal" rel="nofollow" >https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport
roposal, the next ESR release should be due with the release of Firefox 17 in November.
ESR user release will not be until April and will coincide with 3.6 going EOL and the release of Firefox 12.
http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2012/01/10/delivering-a-mozilla-firefox-extended-support-release/
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/10.0esr-candidates/
If you like standalone bookmarks, there are two versions of GUL, one original which you have to manually configure (after importing say all your bookmakrs from a Mozilla browser* or Disrupted's interactive GUL which handles real time bookmarks.
I use the original as a backup for all my KM bookmarks and some of my FF and SM ones too and for other more permanent URLs that I don't want in my everyday bookmark tree, but do want around. There are ways to put it on a hotkey if you like that method.
* you have to make FF and SM backup your bookmarks to HTML to import.
N
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2012 02:46PM by ndebord.
Please, I PRAY to avoid convert K-meleon in a "xuled" browser, if so, even with macros, it will lose 90% of its essence. Also the lightweight will be lost.
If that happens, except macros, nothing stops me to switching to other browsers.
1.6 is already quite "xuled" and I think is one of the worst things.
But, as I said in my previous post, the main problem now are more the bugs over rendering. Except very rare pages (even the most popular), renders quite good. Something must be ok if acid3 gives 98/100, isn't it?
The main problem remains the lack of coders.
But KM can really go on: in the parallel thread there are very useful link where we can find things that reassure:
This shows that it is real to separate rendering engine from GUI and freely combine them on demand. This gives KM good chance not only for survival as Windows native Gecko tool but for expansion to the other platforms, including Linux, Mac and even mobile devices...
So, we just need a team of few competent coders - and there are no overwhelming restrictions they can be faced to...
The main question is - WHERE to find this team and HOW to interest these coders in working on KM development.
Now I'm trying to provide conditions for this team appearance. It's not easy and there are no guarantee this project would be successful, but it worth try to...
I live in Saint-Petersburg, one of the world leading places in software programming (you could know SPb Mobile Shell for WinMobile by SPb Software House, for example, and this is very little bit of SPb coding community).
So I hope to find like-minded persons here to give K-Meleon a chance...
But all worldwide volunteers are highly welcome!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2012 06:10AM by rodocop.
rodocop,
After reading the ESR plans, it seems to me that after Gecko 1.9.2 (K-Meleon 1.7), whatever Gecko is being used in 10.0 ESR would be the initial goal. IF not that version, then whatever the next ESR version will be. In this fashion, K-Meleon would only have to keep up-t0-date with the ESR releases which come out much less frequently than the standard releases which, any day now, will be up to version no. 999. <g> All this assumes, the K-Meleon sticks with Gecko and doesn't move to either XULrunner or WebKit.
N
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2012 04:48AM by ndebord.
@JohnHell
I don't think Kmeleon's XUL and Firefox XUL are the same things, maybe someone who knows for sure can clarify. I think Kmeleon maps XUL calls (to say draw a button or dialog) to MFC calls, in other words it understands the basics of XUL language but does something entirely different with it. FF essentially draws them by Gecko itself,all the buttons and everything else you see in FF that is not in the web page itself ( mozilla calls this the "chrome") is just another web page created by XUL, the actual page you view is an "iframe" residing inside the XUL created borders. These two ways of rendering the XUL have nothing in common but the XUL language itself.
The original complaints against XUL are that it uses the (then very slow) gecko rendering engine to draw elements that Windows already knows how to draw quickly. this criticism is not very applicable anymore because gecko is much faster these days, and so is rendering in general. I doubt there is a significant difference anymore.
But it is a valid question, what's left of Kmeleon if it just FF with a different UI? I think, as do you, not much.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2012 09:20AM by snuz2.
Just FYI, the complaints against slow Firefox XUL are still valid now. Even with the current faster Gecko, Mozilla themselves still recognize that the FF XUL interface is not fast nor responsive enough and still needs much improvement. That's what the currently in progress Mozilla Snappy project is all about:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Snappy
I vote to keep developing K-Meleon. It's similar to FF, yes, but FF is built on XUL and is slow and clunky. K-Meleon is built on Windows API's and Gecko, so it's fast. I like that. It's also lightweight and flexible. It's my favorite browser!
I do not think we can vote much about anything. Let me explain. The current lag in development is because the devs have skills, PC and tools but no time.
snuz2 wrote that he runs Win98, the needed c++ / JavaScript skills, has no job and has therefore time.
I thought he had a good & secure job. So I was sorry/unhappy to hear this tiding.
The rest of the original post that started this thread is not good news either.
To me it boils down to: snuz2 has skills and time but no toolz.
The free HTML rendering engine that run on Windows especially Mozilla's Gecko and Google's Webkit project have a minimum compiler requirement namely VC8 aka Microsoft Visual C 2005. K-Meleon has an additional handicap. Its exe is an MFC application and the libs that are needed to build it come only with the commercial version of that compiler while the free VC8 Express is sufficient to build the Gecko engine.
Now the minimum install requirement for VC8 is Win2000 or higher. While I could give him my VC8 or send him the lib folders - he could not install it. Which IMHO rules out that snuz2 can do anything to keep K-Meleon.exe alive with its current code base. The only thing he could try is adapt the plugins code (which is not MFC) to work with Firefox.exe.
Another possibility without VC8. Replacing K-Meleon native kmm based menus with Conkeror style JavaScript menus to use more Xulrunner componets might be possible. The savings in Firefox style Chrome Xul are probably in proportion with the CPU cycles and memory usage of using the JS of the new menus. So I see K-Meleon at no disadvantage against other Xul using browsers from such a change. But that is an extensive change taking years.
You are right about the rest. K-Meleon can be build lighter so it is still fast on old machines and by design even on the newest machines a few % faster than Firefox. This always amounts to more surfing experience - even on brand new machines where You do not notice the speed advantage of a few %.
I have new machines. I already tried browsers with newer HTML/JS engines but kept K-Meleon.
For me K-Meleon's easy configuration is the main strong point. I can set K-Meleon to open any window or tab the way I need it for my best surfing experience. I can set the search engines & the mouse the way I want.
I can add new engines or menus items easily.
At the touch of a button I can toggle JavaScript & Popups.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2012 12:03AM by guenter.
@Guenter
Yes, if you can't get it to build ... I'm not confident that I can either! But I do have an old XP laptop that I hate, or can buy a newer computer, for me I just hope when it's built, it will still run well under W98. Still, I am willing to bet that just getting it to compile on any system will be a significant pain. Could you please PM me or email me? My contact info is still the same.
Thanks,
snuz2
snuz2,
You may hate that old XP computer, but if you can put XP PRO SP3 on it, then you have the building blocks that you will need for this job. Lots of tools that the developers and others have that will run on that platform. (And you can always dual boot your computer with W98se and XP -- I did it on an older computer some time ago now.)
N
Maybe You can even install on Win98 with kernel Ex. Maybe try with VC8 Express.
Sub prime XP legacy hardware is a proctalgia (pain in the a...). You can use nlite to lower hardware requirements and improve the performance for the hardware for installing on XP. Some custom default jobs XP installs - are just not needed.
If You have a XP License. Nlite software via http://www.google.de/search?num=100&q=nlite
Naturally,
I also used Win98/ME for the faster booting time in normal use - while I had my Pentium III 500 under dual boot for XP and ME... .
That ME/98 is better for normal use but not for installing building tools and complying for Microsoft's installing requirements is well known to me.
If You have XP and just prefer Win98 a problem/handicap is solved. No need to buy a new PC, all content is loading with say Pentium 500. & about 192 MB RAM (which I have on my favorite mail only PC) is enough for all new Flash content...
Plus development... go to sleep and it is compiling ok until You wake up.
You have my contact info - it is still the same.
Alternatively every
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/profile.php?1,5 User Profile : guenter
should offer You my mail address.
I have written the how 2 I mentioned in the link on my previous post & build K-Meleon.exe with the help of deadlock. There is a problem - it is not stable.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2012 11:50AM by guenter.
I did some testing and I'm pretty sure I was wrong about Kmeleon XUL, it actually is the same as FF XUL. The only difference is that FF uses the XUL to display everything such as browser toolbars, menus, etc while Kmeleon maps these parts of the user interface to Windows MFC calls. If you write a xUL extension, it's user interface calls are handled by XUL rather than MFC even in KMeleon.
Yes we need to keep K-Meleon and we have it's new face right here:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/299256/20120215/world-s-tiniest-chameleon-small-animals-creatures.htm
Light weight and all charm!
So? Whould you think, if develop, still going to Xulrunner (or whatever) or keep MFC ?
@ snuz2, wasn't that clear all together?
BTW. Part of that connection that run the XUL "extensions" called Console2 and about:config is still broken in K-Meleon 1.7.
There is nothing that can be done about it, even if someone knew C++, had spare time, an adequate system (PC and OS) and the MSVC compilers.
Because the code in the CVS does not compile a stable K-Meleon.exe for a reason unknown to me.
@ JohnHell I am currently aware of no developers willing to develop into either direction. So the question and the possible answer only raises vain hopes.
Use 1.6 and 1.7 alphas and beta while You can. K-Meleon has been the most capable Gecko shell.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 10:07PM by guenter.
Almost a tear through my cheek.
Guenter,
How much is missing from Fred's hybrid? I mean I use this combo of 1.7 executable and 1.5.4 and 1.6.0b2 and it works fairly well for me.
<g>
N
How should I know - You are using it.
I assume - it is the same as with the betas - except that it has a working history.dll and thus working type ahead in URL bar.
Missing: No passwords, some chrome bugs...
p.s. What I wrote means that even if You could fix things in the k-meleon.exe
- it would not get You any further because You can not compile a stable exe.
Some years ago Al and some others did draw code from the CVS and compiled a stable K-Meleon.exe. This cannot be done any more.
Guenter,
So, try it out and let me know how it goes for you! <VBG>
Passwords work, they just don't show up in a popup. Would be interested in what the chrome bugs are. I know about the CVS code work and am unhappy that that process is no longer possible.
I see that Mozilla is going to move to newer tools:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end_of_firefox_win2k.html
... Firefox 12 moves to Aurora, the Mozilla Release Engineering team will begin upgrading our Windows build systems to Visual Studio 2010. With VS2010, we will no longer be able to build a Firefox that runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP RTM, and Windows Service Pack 1.
P.S. I keep many versions of KM around. My everyday is KM 1.6b2, but I try others quite a lot to see what works and what doesn't.
N
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2012 05:25PM by ndebord.
I do not think that it auto fills for me. Which version do You mean exactly?
They are talking about that for longer.
And they talk about Windows Service Pack 1 for XP.
That means that the second most common OS with currently 31% is not supported when it comes out of the box after a new install.
Interesting link Your http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end_of_firefox_win2k.html
Less than half % of hundreds of million users is a lot of people by my old fashioned calculation.
Guenter,
Even if it were this:
500,000,000
.001 ×
--------------------------
500,000
then there are still a lot of people using Windows 2000, which I found to be an excellent OS.
I use Fred's latest right now. Works for me. What I did per Fred and others is to copy and paste my password file into a new one. For example, here I did not have the K-Meleon user id and password in the S file. So I copied it over, exited the browser, went back to K-Meleon Forum and it logged me in, no problems, but minus the popup visuals which are not there, but most importantly, the password insertion works.
P.S.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.27) Gecko K-Meleon/1.7
N
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2012 02:36PM by ndebord.
1.) When You extend the decline curve of Win2000 into the present it should be in the range of 0.1 or a little lower now. That is a far bigger number and IMHO Asa does not see the subsequent problem. The guys going to another shop like Opera will not likely come back to his product after they buy new hardware and OS.
The big asset of Firefox has been extensions which suffer from the rapid current turnover and the other browsers are catching up.
2.) Then hopefully it is only another chrome glitch. I do not know how to fix.
But that sounds easier.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2012 10:20PM by guenter.
The answer to the above question is YES! I can't think of any reason not to keep such an easy-to-use fast browser. It is the browser I have returned to after all others. If I find that a website I'm dealing with doesn't accept KM and it's important for me to deal with that website, I will use FF.
I just can't say enough about KM and how I just love using it.
The development of this browser is of utmost importance. I have no plans of not using this browser and I hope nobody gives us any reason that we won't be able to use such a great piece of technology.
Thanks to all for your hard work in the development of KM and I hope the development will continue.
KM Is Unique & Totally Awesome!
Well, gals, here I am broken hearted
I guess I became complacent, last time I checked here was a couple years back. It doesn't seem so but So the evidence tells me.
Downloading new versions became mildly hazardous, lose bookmarks etc, besides win 98 support was becoming close to being set aside.
I came here now to find out if a [tree-style tab] function had become available in K-Meleon.
I'm bummed that maybe it is all over. Sure firefox does it all. Ya right, at what cost though?
It is odd, I have 3 machines running win 98, or mint, and 2 that run XP or Ubuntu. Which ones do I run by preference?
What is my browser of preference?
You guess.
Addendum:
Re: Anti-spam software on this server has detected that your message might be spam. Therefore, your message has been blocked. If your message was not a spam message, then we apologize for the inconvenience that blocking it might have caused. If you keep having problems with your messages being blocked, please contact the site administrator for help.
Note: If you have disabled JavaScript within your browser or if your browser does not support JavaScript at all, then this might be the reason why your message was blocked. Some of the anti-spam measures are dependent on JavaScript.
FYI, this is odious, perhaps execrable.
yours
douglas
douglas sherriffm
Not over quite yet, but without a C++ developer, it surely will be. Unless you're running W98se, Fred's hybrid is using the same Gecko engine as Firefox Legacy <g> and it works (mainly).
N
Perhaps some disgruntled Windows 2000 coders will join the K-Meleon project.
I use Windows 98 without tricks like KernelEx so I'm stuck with KM 1.5.x and the last gecko compiled for it. Many webpages are breaking due to CSS layout problems as a result, with elements overlapping or hiding other elements. As a solution I've created a toolbar button to temporarily remove CSS on demand, using the "remove styles" code from the Styles macro collection. It's very helpful and increasingly necessary to view page content, converting pages into a plain text/basic html style.
To do it yourself add this to the position of your choice on toolbars.cfg,
changing the .bmp or .bmp index position to the icon of your choice:
ZapStyles{
macros(Zap_styles)
Remove Stlyes
toolhot.bmp[12]
toolcold.bmp[12]
}
Add this to a .kmm macro:
Zap_styles{
macroinfo="Disable StyleSheets";
$JS_doit = "(function(){var i,x;for(i=0;x=document.styleSheets[i];++i)x.disabled=true;})();";
&JS_hndlDoc;
}
Further reading
Toolbar, menu and macro editing
Windows 95/98/98SE/ME talk
p.s. tech note: Wow, it took at least a half an hour to figure out a hack to display the square bracketed "i" in the macro code so the forum didn't convert it into a call for italics. The code tag did nothing, the trick was to embed a tag within the 'presumed' tag, and then use extra tags elsewhere to straighten out the rest of the posting.
General discussion about K-Meleon
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
snuz2
Date: January 31, 2012 08:51AM
To clarify, XULrunner is Mozilla's cross platform application framework. It is more or less the engine that runs firefox and its interface. In other words, it runs XUL applications without having FF open. Examples of XUL applications are firefox user interface and extensions. Kmeleon has limited ability to run these XUL applications, presumably by mapping XUL functions ( like buttons and toolbars) to similar native Windows functions.
Conkeror is an example of a web browser someone wrote in XUL, but it's not FF. This gave Fred the idea that we could rewrite KMeleon in XUL. Starting over. XULrunner updates with FF ( at least for now) and has all the latest Gecko code, so there will be no more problems with keeping up with Mozilla ( well, not really, but a big improvement). Can XULrunner support a graphical web browser? Yeah, there's one called Firefox you might have heard of. It's interface is written in XUL.
So moving to XUL is using FF's engine for everything but putting a different look and function on it. different look, maybe some different capabilities. It's a complete rewrite of Kmeleon and removes the advantages of the Windows based interface that KMeleon always has used, called MFC. It will be bigger and probably slightly slower than FF. Even if we retain KMM macro language, we probably can't reuse any of the code from the old KMeleon.
That's why it would be good to think about if this is really desirable. I DO think it is desirable to bring KMeleon up to FF3.6 level, and maybe not too much work, before even contemplate XULrunner.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: January 31, 2012 04:07PM
Quote
snuz2
To clarify, XULrunner is Mozilla's cross platform application framework. It is more or less the engine that runs firefox and its interface. In other words, it runs XUL applications without having FF open. Examples of XUL applications are firefox user interface and extensions. Kmeleon has limited ability to run these XUL applications, presumably by mapping XUL functions ( like buttons and toolbars) to similar native Windows functions.
Conkeror is an example of a web browser someone wrote in XUL, but it's not FF. This gave Fred the idea that we could rewrite KMeleon in XUL. Starting over. XULrunner updates with FF ( at least for now) and has all the latest Gecko code, so there will be no more problems with keeping up with Mozilla ( well, not really, but a big improvement). Can XULrunner support a graphical web browser? Yeah, there's one called Firefox you might have heard of. It's interface is written in XUL.
So moving to XUL is using FF's engine for everything but putting a different look and function on it. different look, maybe some different capabilities. It's a complete rewrite of Kmeleon and removes the advantages of the Windows based interface that KMeleon always has used, called MFC. It will be bigger and probably slightly slower than FF. Even if we retain KMM macro language, we probably can't reuse any of the code from the old KMeleon.
That's why it would be good to think about if this is really desirable. I DO think it is desirable to bring KMeleon up to FF3.6 level, and maybe not too much work, before even contemplate XULrunner.
snuz2,
Like your approach... baby steps first, if I may presume. FF 3.6 (Gecko 1.9.2) gives you at least until April (we'll know more from the Feb Mozilla meeting) before EOL.
Down the road? I'm not a coder. All I know is what I've heard here: the choices seem to be trying to redo with latest Gecko engine (traditiional KM), use XulRunner (and going to XUL, but with KKO's macro language and losing windows APIs) and the last, keeping KKO's scripting language but changing the underlying engine to non-Mozilla WebKit.
N
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
Merino
Date: February 01, 2012 08:52AM
Yes, I've just installed and am very impressed. I have been disappointed with IE9 (on Win7) in that cookie control is not as selective as it could be. In-private browsing is very good at preventing cacheing along with limiting cookies. But you cannot control by profile only by internet, intranet. I will be reviewing the profiling since it seems particularly suited for development work offline/intranet. Especially useful for when you are building your own websites.
ebay in particular lets you opt out of their cookies but they do not all obey and then you need to block them. I've also felt it necessary to review an additional software firewall but have accepted the fact that it would be easier to customise the local version with security policies and rules.
Bookmarks are inherently insecure within browsers (not sure yet about K-Meleon) in that sites track when you visited last along with numerous other statistics and frequently forward the data onward google let's you opt out by adjusting your profile (ha) - I have seperately been investigating a standalone bookmark which you launch outwith the browser (early days). I really like the standard default interface its clean and does appear to load faster in Kmeleon.
So yes Privacy, cookie control are I believe a hot topic as well as it seems search engines now seem to require more boolean intervention so that you can find sites that are useful for information and not bogus in some manner other.
The new privacy policy by country is especially interesting....so each country websites should be updating these...
http://export.gov/safeharbor/eu/eg_main_018365.asp
oops went on a bit there....
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
some1
Date: February 01, 2012 01:21PM
Maybe we could make use of Firefox Extended Support Release in order to keep K-Meleon alive? According to the 42-week plan roposal" rel="nofollow" >https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport
roposal, the next ESR release should be due with the release of Firefox 17 in November.
ESR user release will not be until April and will coincide with 3.6 going EOL and the release of Firefox 12.
http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2012/01/10/delivering-a-mozilla-firefox-extended-support-release/
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/10.0esr-candidates/
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: February 01, 2012 02:44PM
If you like standalone bookmarks, there are two versions of GUL, one original which you have to manually configure (after importing say all your bookmakrs from a Mozilla browser* or Disrupted's interactive GUL which handles real time bookmarks.
I use the original as a backup for all my KM bookmarks and some of my FF and SM ones too and for other more permanent URLs that I don't want in my everyday bookmark tree, but do want around. There are ways to put it on a hotkey if you like that method.
* you have to make FF and SM backup your bookmarks to HTML to import.
N
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2012 02:46PM by ndebord.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: February 01, 2012 11:09PM
Quote
snuz2
That's why it would be good to think about if this is really desirable. I DO think it is desirable to bring KMeleon up to FF3.6 level, and maybe not too much work, before even contemplate XULrunner.
Please, I PRAY to avoid convert K-meleon in a "xuled" browser, if so, even with macros, it will lose 90% of its essence. Also the lightweight will be lost.
If that happens, except macros, nothing stops me to switching to other browsers.
1.6 is already quite "xuled" and I think is one of the worst things.
But, as I said in my previous post, the main problem now are more the bugs over rendering. Except very rare pages (even the most popular), renders quite good. Something must be ok if acid3 gives 98/100, isn't it?
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
rodocop
Date: February 02, 2012 05:49AM
The main problem remains the lack of coders.
But KM can really go on: in the parallel thread there are very useful link where we can find things that reassure:
Quote
butlerm
If you read the original post, what is really being killed isn't embedding support per se, but rather in process embedding support. Out of process embedding support may be added in the future. That seems like the right way to do it to me.
So presumably all of these alternative browsers could, in the future, host a Gecko process that actually does html rendering and javascript execution, without adopting the user interface aspects of Firefox at all.
Quote
kripkenstein
I'm a developer at Mozilla. It looks like there is some confusion about this announcement.
1. Most importantly, *it is still possible to create applications that use Gecko*. Even without the Gecko embedding APIs, you can write such apps. For example, there are two separate Mozilla-supported apps that use Gecko: Firefox and Fennec (mobile Firefox). There is also Songbird, which is written in a similar way (the article mistakenly implies Songbird will be negatively affected by this announcement, which is not true - the situation for them is very different than for Camino, for example).
In other words, you *can* still write Gecko apps, but you must integrate tightly with Gecko. This is sort of like the Linux kernel not committing to a stable API, things change as needed (people sometimes complain about that, but overall it lets the kernel move forward faster). Similarly, for Mozilla moving forward is much easier without committing to stable APIs for embedding. But again, you can still write apps that use Gecko without such APIs, just like you can write code for Linux.
2. Second, to clarify the term 'killed' that the article used: If someone steps up to maintain the embedding APIs, they can continue. So in that sense nothing is 'killed'. It is just that Mozilla itself, however, isn't focusing on them, for the reasons I mentioned before.
So, where does this leave things? If you want to write an app that embeds an HTML engine, you can still choose Gecko or WebKit. WebKit is easier to embed, but that has a price. As an example, look how quickly Google added cross-process support to Chrome, without any stable API promises and without anything but Chrome benefiting; Apple is adding cross-process support to WebKit itself, with a stable API, but it is still not complete as the process takes much longer.
I would argue, however, and this is totally my personal opinion - not Mozilla's - that all of this *doesn't really matter*. The places that need to embed a web browser are decreasing, not increasing, because things are moving *into* web browsers, not vice versa. What I am trying to say, is that these days people fire up their web browser and do everything from read news to check email to play games. They don't have separate apps for each that embed a web browser, they have a single web browser for all their activities.
Current applications that embed web browsers, like say Songbird, could today be websites or browser plugins, as browser capabilities have improved so much recently. For that matter, alternative browsers like Flock and RockMelt could be browser plugins.
That leaves projects like Camino and Epiphany that provide much better OS integration than cross-platform browsers like Firefox or Chrome. There is a place for such OS integration. Some of it can be achieved with browser plugins, but I concede that it might be necessary in some cases to do more. I think that such work code be done with the upstream projects, though, to get the best results, as opposed to separate projects that just embed rendering engines. For example, Firefox can render using Qt on Linux, but it needs more love - would be great to see more Qt hackers contribute upstream on that, and to get Firefox/Qt stable.
This shows that it is real to separate rendering engine from GUI and freely combine them on demand. This gives KM good chance not only for survival as Windows native Gecko tool but for expansion to the other platforms, including Linux, Mac and even mobile devices...
So, we just need a team of few competent coders - and there are no overwhelming restrictions they can be faced to...
The main question is - WHERE to find this team and HOW to interest these coders in working on KM development.
Now I'm trying to provide conditions for this team appearance. It's not easy and there are no guarantee this project would be successful, but it worth try to...
I live in Saint-Petersburg, one of the world leading places in software programming (you could know SPb Mobile Shell for WinMobile by SPb Software House, for example, and this is very little bit of SPb coding community).
So I hope to find like-minded persons here to give K-Meleon a chance...
But all worldwide volunteers are highly welcome!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2012 06:10AM by rodocop.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: February 03, 2012 04:46AM
rodocop,
After reading the ESR plans, it seems to me that after Gecko 1.9.2 (K-Meleon 1.7), whatever Gecko is being used in 10.0 ESR would be the initial goal. IF not that version, then whatever the next ESR version will be. In this fashion, K-Meleon would only have to keep up-t0-date with the ESR releases which come out much less frequently than the standard releases which, any day now, will be up to version no. 999. <g> All this assumes, the K-Meleon sticks with Gecko and doesn't move to either XULrunner or WebKit.
N
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2012 04:48AM by ndebord.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
snuz2
Date: February 06, 2012 09:16AM
@JohnHell
I don't think Kmeleon's XUL and Firefox XUL are the same things, maybe someone who knows for sure can clarify. I think Kmeleon maps XUL calls (to say draw a button or dialog) to MFC calls, in other words it understands the basics of XUL language but does something entirely different with it. FF essentially draws them by Gecko itself,all the buttons and everything else you see in FF that is not in the web page itself ( mozilla calls this the "chrome") is just another web page created by XUL, the actual page you view is an "iframe" residing inside the XUL created borders. These two ways of rendering the XUL have nothing in common but the XUL language itself.
The original complaints against XUL are that it uses the (then very slow) gecko rendering engine to draw elements that Windows already knows how to draw quickly. this criticism is not very applicable anymore because gecko is much faster these days, and so is rendering in general. I doubt there is a significant difference anymore.
But it is a valid question, what's left of Kmeleon if it just FF with a different UI? I think, as do you, not much.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2012 09:20AM by snuz2.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
bksening
Date: February 07, 2012 03:18AM
Just FYI, the complaints against slow Firefox XUL are still valid now. Even with the current faster Gecko, Mozilla themselves still recognize that the FF XUL interface is not fast nor responsive enough and still needs much improvement. That's what the currently in progress Mozilla Snappy project is all about:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Snappy
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
Mr. Cooper (not logged in)
Date: February 07, 2012 08:03PM
I vote to keep developing K-Meleon. It's similar to FF, yes, but FF is built on XUL and is slow and clunky. K-Meleon is built on Windows API's and Gecko, so it's fast. I like that. It's also lightweight and flexible. It's my favorite browser!
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
guenter
Date: February 09, 2012 11:28PM
Quote
Mr. Cooper (not logged in)
I vote to keep developing K-Meleon. It's similar to FF, yes, but FF is built on XUL and is slow and clunky. K-Meleon is built on Windows API's and Gecko, so it's fast. I like that. It's also lightweight and flexible. It's my favorite browser!
I do not think we can vote much about anything. Let me explain. The current lag in development is because the devs have skills, PC and tools but no time.
snuz2 wrote that he runs Win98, the needed c++ / JavaScript skills, has no job and has therefore time.
I thought he had a good & secure job. So I was sorry/unhappy to hear this tiding.
The rest of the original post that started this thread is not good news either.
To me it boils down to: snuz2 has skills and time but no toolz.
The free HTML rendering engine that run on Windows especially Mozilla's Gecko and Google's Webkit project have a minimum compiler requirement namely VC8 aka Microsoft Visual C 2005. K-Meleon has an additional handicap. Its exe is an MFC application and the libs that are needed to build it come only with the commercial version of that compiler while the free VC8 Express is sufficient to build the Gecko engine.
Now the minimum install requirement for VC8 is Win2000 or higher. While I could give him my VC8 or send him the lib folders - he could not install it. Which IMHO rules out that snuz2 can do anything to keep K-Meleon.exe alive with its current code base. The only thing he could try is adapt the plugins code (which is not MFC) to work with Firefox.exe.
Another possibility without VC8. Replacing K-Meleon native kmm based menus with Conkeror style JavaScript menus to use more Xulrunner componets might be possible. The savings in Firefox style Chrome Xul are probably in proportion with the CPU cycles and memory usage of using the JS of the new menus. So I see K-Meleon at no disadvantage against other Xul using browsers from such a change. But that is an extensive change taking years.
You are right about the rest. K-Meleon can be build lighter so it is still fast on old machines and by design even on the newest machines a few % faster than Firefox. This always amounts to more surfing experience - even on brand new machines where You do not notice the speed advantage of a few %.
I have new machines. I already tried browsers with newer HTML/JS engines but kept K-Meleon.
For me K-Meleon's easy configuration is the main strong point. I can set K-Meleon to open any window or tab the way I need it for my best surfing experience. I can set the search engines & the mouse the way I want.
I can add new engines or menus items easily.
At the touch of a button I can toggle JavaScript & Popups.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2012 12:03AM by guenter.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
snuz2
Date: February 10, 2012 12:54AM
@Guenter
Yes, if you can't get it to build ... I'm not confident that I can either! But I do have an old XP laptop that I hate, or can buy a newer computer, for me I just hope when it's built, it will still run well under W98. Still, I am willing to bet that just getting it to compile on any system will be a significant pain. Could you please PM me or email me? My contact info is still the same.
Thanks,
snuz2
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: February 10, 2012 12:58AM
Quote
snuz2
@Guenter
Yes, if you can't get it to build ... I'm not confident that I can either! But I do have an old XP laptop that I hate, or can buy a newer computer, for me I just hope when it's built, it will still run well under W98. Still, I am willing to bet that just getting it to compile on any system will be a significant pain. Could you please PM me or email me? My contact info is still the same.
Thanks,
snuz2
snuz2,
You may hate that old XP computer, but if you can put XP PRO SP3 on it, then you have the building blocks that you will need for this job. Lots of tools that the developers and others have that will run on that platform. (And you can always dual boot your computer with W98se and XP -- I did it on an older computer some time ago now.)
N
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
guenter
Date: February 10, 2012 02:09AM
Quote
snuz2
Yes, if you can't get it to build ... I'm not confident that I can either! But I do have an old XP laptop that I hate, or can buy a newer computer, for me I just hope when it's built, it will still run well under W98. Still, I am willing to bet that just getting it to compile on any system will be a significant pain. Could you please PM me or email me? My contact info is still the same.
Thanks,
snuz2
Maybe You can even install on Win98 with kernel Ex. Maybe try with VC8 Express.
Sub prime XP legacy hardware is a proctalgia (pain in the a...). You can use nlite to lower hardware requirements and improve the performance for the hardware for installing on XP. Some custom default jobs XP installs - are just not needed
.
If You have a XP License. Nlite software via http://www.google.de/search?num=100&q=nlite
Naturally,
I also used Win98/ME for the faster booting time in normal use - while I had my Pentium III 500 under dual boot for XP and ME... .
That ME/98 is better for normal use but not for installing building tools and complying for Microsoft's installing requirements is well known to me.
If You have XP and just prefer Win98 a problem/handicap is solved. No need to buy a new PC, all content is loading with say Pentium 500. & about 192 MB RAM (which I have on my favorite mail only PC) is enough for all new Flash content...
Plus development... go to sleep and it is compiling ok until You wake up.
You have my contact info - it is still the same.
Alternatively every
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/profile.php?1,5 User Profile : guenter
should offer You my mail address.
I have written the how 2 I mentioned in the link on my previous post & build K-Meleon.exe with the help of deadlock. There is a problem - it is not stable.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2012 11:50AM by guenter.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
snuz2
Date: February 20, 2012 09:02AM
I did some testing and I'm pretty sure I was wrong about Kmeleon XUL, it actually is the same as FF XUL. The only difference is that FF uses the XUL to display everything such as browser toolbars, menus, etc while Kmeleon maps these parts of the user interface to Windows MFC calls. If you write a xUL extension, it's user interface calls are handled by XUL rather than MFC even in KMeleon.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
Micra
Date: February 20, 2012 11:45AM
Yes we need to keep K-Meleon and we have it's new face right here:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/299256/20120215/world-s-tiniest-chameleon-small-animals-creatures.htm
Light weight and all charm!
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: February 21, 2012 03:52PM
Quote
snuz2
I did some testing and I'm pretty sure I was wrong about Kmeleon XUL, it actually is the same as FF XUL. The only difference is that FF uses the XUL to display everything such as browser toolbars, menus, etc while Kmeleon maps these parts of the user interface to Windows MFC calls. If you write a xUL extension, it's user interface calls are handled by XUL rather than MFC even in KMeleon.
So? Whould you think, if develop, still going to Xulrunner (or whatever) or keep MFC ?
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
guenter
Date: February 21, 2012 06:10PM
Quote
JohnHell
Quote
snuz2
I did some testing and I'm pretty sure I was wrong about Kmeleon XUL, it actually is the same as FF XUL. The only difference is that FF uses the XUL to display everything such as browser toolbars, menus, etc while Kmeleon maps these parts of the user interface to Windows MFC calls. If you write a xUL extension, it's user interface calls are handled by XUL rather than MFC even in KMeleon.
So? Whould you think, if develop, still going to Xulrunner (or whatever) or keep MFC ?
@ snuz2, wasn't that clear all together?
BTW. Part of that connection that run the XUL "extensions" called Console2 and about:config is still broken in K-Meleon 1.7.
There is nothing that can be done about it, even if someone knew C++, had spare time, an adequate system (PC and OS) and the MSVC compilers.
Because the code in the CVS does not compile a stable K-Meleon.exe for a reason unknown to me.
@ JohnHell I am currently aware of no developers willing to develop into either direction. So the question and the possible answer only raises vain hopes.
Use 1.6 and 1.7 alphas and beta while You can. K-Meleon has been the most capable Gecko shell.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 10:07PM by guenter.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
JohnHell
Date: February 21, 2012 10:03PM
Quote
guenter
Use 1.6 and 1.7 alphas and beta while You can. K-Meleon has been the most capable Gecko shell.
Almost a tear through my cheek.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: February 22, 2012 01:36AM
Quote
guenter
BTW. Part of that connection that run the XUL "extensions" called Console2 and about:config is still broken in K-Meleon 1.7.
There is nothing that can be done about it, even if someone knew C++, had spare time, an adequate system (PC and OS) and the MSVC compilers.
Because the code in the CVS does not compile a stable K-Meleon.exe for a reason unknown to me.
Guenter,
How much is missing from Fred's hybrid? I mean I use this combo of 1.7 executable and 1.5.4 and 1.6.0b2 and it works fairly well for me.
<g>
N
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
guenter
Date: February 22, 2012 07:00AM
Quote
ndebord
How much is missing from Fred's hybrid? I mean I use this combo of 1.7 executable and 1.5.4 and 1.6.0b2 and it works fairly well for me.
How should I know - You are using it.
I assume - it is the same as with the betas - except that it has a working history.dll and thus working type ahead in URL bar.
Missing: No passwords, some chrome bugs...
p.s. What I wrote means that even if You could fix things in the k-meleon.exe
- it would not get You any further because You can not compile a stable exe.
Some years ago Al and some others did draw code from the CVS and compiled a stable K-Meleon.exe. This cannot be done any more.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: February 22, 2012 05:23PM
Quote
guenter
Quote
ndebord
How much is missing from Fred's hybrid? I mean I use this combo of 1.7 executable and 1.5.4 and 1.6.0b2 and it works fairly well for me.
How should I know - You are using it.
I assume - it is the same as with the betas - except that it has a working history.dll and thus working type ahead in URL bar.
Missing: No passwords, some chrome bugs...
p.s. What I wrote means that even if You could fix things in the k-meleon.exe
- it would not get You any further because You can not compile a stable exe.
Some years ago Al and some others did draw code from the CVS and compiled a stable K-Meleon.exe. This cannot be done any more.
Guenter,
So, try it out and let me know how it goes for you! <VBG>
Passwords work, they just don't show up in a popup. Would be interested in what the chrome bugs are. I know about the CVS code work and am unhappy that that process is no longer possible.
I see that Mozilla is going to move to newer tools:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end_of_firefox_win2k.html
... Firefox 12 moves to Aurora, the Mozilla Release Engineering team will begin upgrading our Windows build systems to Visual Studio 2010. With VS2010, we will no longer be able to build a Firefox that runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP RTM, and Windows Service Pack 1.
P.S. I keep many versions of KM around. My everyday is KM 1.6b2, but I try others quite a lot to see what works and what doesn't.
N
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2012 05:25PM by ndebord.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
guenter
Date: February 22, 2012 06:17PM
Quote
ndebord
So, try it out and let me know how it goes for you! <VBG>
Passwords work, they just don't show up in a popup. Would be interested in what the chrome bugs are. I know about the CVS code work and am unhappy that that process is no longer possible.
I see that Mozilla is going to move to newer tools:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end_of_firefox_win2k.html
... Firefox 12 moves to Aurora, the Mozilla Release Engineering team will begin upgrading our Windows build systems to Visual Studio 2010. With VS2010, we will no longer be able to build a Firefox that runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP RTM, and Windows Service Pack 1.
P.S. I keep many versions of KM around. My everyday is KM 1.6b2, but I try others quite a lot to see what works and what doesn't.
I do not think that it auto fills for me. Which version do You mean exactly?
They are talking about that for longer.
And they talk about Windows Service Pack 1 for XP.
That means that the second most common OS with currently 31% is not supported when it comes out of the box after a new install.
Interesting link Your http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end_of_firefox_win2k.html
Quote
Asa
less than one half of one percent of our Windows Firefox users, and the benefits to our development process and the hundreds of millions of Firefox users
Less than half % of hundreds of million users is a lot of people by my old fashioned calculation.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: February 23, 2012 01:58PM
Quote
guenter
Quote
ndebord
So, try it out and let me know how it goes for you! <VBG>
Passwords work, they just don't show up in a popup. Would be interested in what the chrome bugs are. I know about the CVS code work and am unhappy that that process is no longer possible.
I see that Mozilla is going to move to newer tools:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end_of_firefox_win2k.html
... Firefox 12 moves to Aurora, the Mozilla Release Engineering team will begin upgrading our Windows build systems to Visual Studio 2010. With VS2010, we will no longer be able to build a Firefox that runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP RTM, and Windows Service Pack 1.
P.S. I keep many versions of KM around. My everyday is KM 1.6b2, but I try others quite a lot to see what works and what doesn't.
I do not think that it auto fills for me. Which version do You mean exactly?
They are talking about that for longer.
And they talk about Windows Service Pack 1 for XP.
That means that the second most common OS with currently 31% is not supported when it comes out of the box after a new install.
Interesting link Your http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2012/01/end_of_firefox_win2k.html
Quote
Asa
less than one half of one percent of our Windows Firefox users, and the benefits to our development process and the hundreds of millions of Firefox users
Less than half % of hundreds of million users is a lot of people by my old fashioned calculation.
Guenter,
Even if it were this:
500,000,000
.001 ×
--------------------------
500,000
then there are still a lot of people using Windows 2000, which I found to be an excellent OS.
I use Fred's latest right now. Works for me. What I did per Fred and others is to copy and paste my password file into a new one. For example, here I did not have the K-Meleon user id and password in the S file. So I copied it over, exited the browser, went back to K-Meleon Forum and it logged me in, no problems, but minus the popup visuals which are not there, but most importantly, the password insertion works.
P.S.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.27) Gecko K-Meleon/1.7
N
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2012 02:36PM by ndebord.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
guenter
Date: February 23, 2012 10:19PM
Quote
ndebord
Even if it were this:
500,000,000
.001 ×
--------------------------
500,000
then there are still a lot of people using Windows 2000, which I found to be an excellent OS.
I use Fred's latest right now. Works for me. What I did per Fred and others is to copy and paste my password file into a new one. For example, here I did not have the K-Meleon user id and password in the S file. So I copied it over, exited the browser, went back to K-Meleon Forum and it logged me in, no problems, but minus the popup visuals which are not there, but most importantly, the password insertion works.
1.) When You extend the decline curve of Win2000 into the present it should be in the range of 0.1 or a little lower now. That is a far bigger number and IMHO Asa does not see the subsequent problem. The guys going to another shop like Opera will not likely come back to his product after they buy new hardware and OS.
The big asset of Firefox has been extensions which suffer from the rapid current turnover and the other browsers are catching up.
2.) Then hopefully it is only another chrome glitch. I do not know how to fix.
But that sounds easier.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2012 10:20PM by guenter.
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
KM.LOVER
Date: February 25, 2012 08:52PM
The answer to the above question is YES! I can't think of any reason not to keep such an easy-to-use fast browser. It is the browser I have returned to after all others. If I find that a website I'm dealing with doesn't accept KM and it's important for me to deal with that website, I will use FF.
I just can't say enough about KM and how I just love using it.
The development of this browser is of utmost importance. I have no plans of not using this browser and I hope nobody gives us any reason that we won't be able to use such a great piece of technology.
Thanks to all for your hard work in the development of KM and I hope the development will continue.
KM Is Unique & Totally Awesome!
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
douglas sherriff
Date: February 26, 2012 02:14AM
Well, gals, here I am broken hearted
I guess I became complacent, last time I checked here was a couple years back. It doesn't seem so but So the evidence tells me.
Downloading new versions became mildly hazardous, lose bookmarks etc, besides win 98 support was becoming close to being set aside.
I came here now to find out if a [tree-style tab] function had become available in K-Meleon.
I'm bummed that maybe it is all over. Sure firefox does it all. Ya right, at what cost though?
It is odd, I have 3 machines running win 98, or mint, and 2 that run XP or Ubuntu. Which ones do I run by preference?
What is my browser of preference?
You guess.
Addendum:
Re: Anti-spam software on this server has detected that your message might be spam. Therefore, your message has been blocked. If your message was not a spam message, then we apologize for the inconvenience that blocking it might have caused. If you keep having problems with your messages being blocked, please contact the site administrator for help.
Note: If you have disabled JavaScript within your browser or if your browser does not support JavaScript at all, then this might be the reason why your message was blocked. Some of the anti-spam measures are dependent on JavaScript.
FYI, this is odious, perhaps execrable.
yours
douglas
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
ndebord
Date: February 26, 2012 05:20AM
Quote
douglas sherriff
Well, gals, here I am broken hearted
I guess I became complacent, last time I checked here was a couple years back. It doesn't seem so but So the evidence tells me.
Downloading new versions became mildly hazardous, lose bookmarks etc, besides win 98 support was becoming close to being set aside.
I came here now to find out if a [tree-style tab] function had become available in K-Meleon.
I'm bummed that maybe it is all over. Sure firefox does it all. Ya right, at what cost though?
It is odd, I have 3 machines running win 98, or mint, and 2 that run XP or Ubuntu. Which ones do I run by preference?
What is my browser of preference?
You guess.
douglas
douglas sherriffm
Not over quite yet, but without a C++ developer, it surely will be. Unless you're running W98se, Fred's hybrid is using the same Gecko engine as Firefox Legacy <g> and it works (mainly).
N
Re: Do we really need to keep Kmeleon?
Posted by:
PokePeek
Date: February 26, 2012 01:58PM
Perhaps some disgruntled Windows 2000 coders will join the K-Meleon project.
I use Windows 98 without tricks like KernelEx so I'm stuck with KM 1.5.x and the last gecko compiled for it. Many webpages are breaking due to CSS layout problems as a result, with elements overlapping or hiding other elements. As a solution I've created a toolbar button to temporarily remove CSS on demand, using the "remove styles" code from the Styles macro collection. It's very helpful and increasingly necessary to view page content, converting pages into a plain text/basic html style.
To do it yourself add this to the position of your choice on toolbars.cfg,
changing the .bmp or .bmp index position to the icon of your choice:
ZapStyles{
macros(Zap_styles)
Remove Stlyes
toolhot.bmp[12]
toolcold.bmp[12]
}
Add this to a .kmm macro:
Zap_styles{
macroinfo="Disable StyleSheets";
$JS_doit = "(function(){var i,x;for(i=0;x=document.styleSheets[i];++i)x.disabled=true;})();";
&JS_hndlDoc;
}
Further reading
Toolbar, menu and macro editing
Windows 95/98/98SE/ME talk
p.s. tech note: Wow, it took at least a half an hour to figure out a hack to display the square bracketed "i" in the macro code so the forum didn't convert it into a call for italics. The code tag did nothing, the trick was to embed a tag within the 'presumed' tag, and then use extra tags elsewhere to straighten out the rest of the posting.
English