Lunascape site is working.

I have uploaded Lunascape for you.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W1NFFK2V



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2008 08:29PM by panzer.

third generation web is the debatable web 3.0, otherwise known as cloud computing a.k.a housewives computing.. other words, you do all your word processing, stylesheeting, image editing online with web applications via your web browser.

browser claiming its the only third generation one is pretty vague.. especially that we're in the very early stages of cloud computing.. and a shell browser will not be able to do anything that the original ie can't, not to mention that that version can only be ie 5.0.. which is not even capable of supporting web 2.0.

more about cloud computing there: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0689.html

lunascape.tv is still down here.. no idea why but i researched the program and found its original japanese site, where i found an alpha version that looked very promising: http://www.lunascape.jp/lunascape5alpha/
at a first glance; it sounds pretty similar to sleipnir .. an ie shell with limited support for gecko, but that alpha was much more than that.

sleipnir supported gecko was the rather old 1.7, lunascape supports 1.9 with that tracemonkey js engine.. but wait, there's more.. it also supports the webkit engine.. now that's impressive. unfortunately the 5.0 alpha is a japanese-only program and there was no mention on the site of a forthcoming english version, but i guess once it makes it out of the beta stage; more languages will be supported.

if you do the extraction routine instead of the normal setup.. the program will give you all sorts of problems..it doesn't write anything substantial to the registry but its numerous folders structure is messy and you'll have a hard time setting the folders right so an install will save you time and sanity.

the download only comes with the main program..without the gecko or webkit engines, select custom install...and you have the option to install either the gecko or webkit or both and a blogger toolbar which i didn't bother with..and a so called 'speedlaunch' which i assumed to be something like k-meleon's loader that preloads some libraries but that wasn't the case since nothing was set to run in startup.. i later tried disabling that speedlaunch in options to check for any differences but i couldn't find it.
there's also a bundle of an office application which you have the option to download seperately.

after that, it proceeds installing/extracting the files and when its done..it starts downloading the gecko and webkit engines respectively.

when you fire it for the first time.. it gives you the regular make me default prompt, asks you where to save your profile data with 3 options: application data, the browser's root or a custom folder..then attempts to import your bookmarks/favourites and finally asks you what engine you want to be default. all those options can be later set in preferences.

the startup from cold is quite acceptable with whatever engine you choose to be default it's more or less the same(less than 3 seconds).. with the trident engine a couple of nanoseconds faster. warm startup is almost instant.

page load in the trident engine is naturally identical to ie.. the gecko is quite fast and when you choose webkit, the pages blur on the most hefty pages.. it saw most of the essential plugins.. some from the registry, others from firefox it seems.

when you type in the addressbar for the first time, it prompts you to open in a new tab or in the same page..

unlike sleipnir, the gecko engine seems fully supported without any limitations and so was webkit..that was pretty impressive. it didn't remember which engine was used with what site which is a nifty feature in sleipnir. lunascape will just use the default engine everytime it starts but just like sleipnir, this can be changed easily by clicking on the engine's icon in the status bar.. but instead of switching the engines right away it will pop a menu with the engines.

their's an abundance of options without an overkill, you can even select to make it default handler for some protocols and file types while leaving the others untouched and the user-agent drop menu has almost every known browser/os/mobilephone under the sun.
some of its configurations can also be modified with a text editor.

the browser is way ahead of sleipnir when it comes to stability and responsivness.. and for an alpha, this is an excellent browser.

among the list of features is a built-in rss feedreader and a download manager which i wasn't able to execute/trigger.. perhaps because its still alpha.

when uninstalling it, it gives you the option to remove the profile folder or leave it.. even an option to make internet explorer the default browser when another browser is default.

so where's the catch? the interface is rubbish.. it's an api-overriding skin so there's no 'no-skin' option which is a complete let-down.

for testers and web designers.. this browser is a G-d send, you can test every page side-by-side with 3 engines simultaneously.

conclusion: an impressive browser completely fucked-up by its own interface.

snapshots:

Matt the browser expert, now this is a very good review.

Disrupted, I found some more browsers :

Hydra Browser http://www.hydrabrowser.com/
PhaseOut http://www.phaseout.net/
Crazy Browser http://www.crazybrowser.com
ShenzBrowser http://www.browsersite.com/B2.htm
Grail http://grail.sourceforge.net/
Happy Browser (evaluation period only) http://www.igoodsoft.com/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2008 06:53PM by panzer.

i know about hydra and crazy, i can only judge by their snapshots, they are not ones i'd want to try out.. they are just ie shells, nothing interesting there.

i'll check the others but i can't try happy because i don't install evaluation programs.. some of them mess up the registry just to prevent usage after trial period or times.

Ok.

MultiWeb (intended for the visually handicapped) http://www.deakin.edu.au/buslaw/infosys/multiweb/download32.htm

grail is a no no.. it's written with python. i have python runtimes, and i have inkscape.. python is not that bad but for a browser..something that requires constant interaction and connecting.. python is not a good idea.

phaseout is ie shell with terrible api skin.. not trying that one

shenz looks weird.. but they have own engine, so will try that, also "Requires Windows2000 or WindowsXP. It is a browser with its own engine and can run without Internet Explorer or other browsers on the system. However, this is NOT designed to replace your other Internet Browsers."

i respect people who are honest like that.. it's probably simple html 2.0 like offby1.. but don't understand xp and 2k limitation, hopefully it's .net 2.0, will have to try.

will try multiweb, it's a 'speaking' browser..so will be fun

EDIT: shenz are big fat liars.. it doesn't have own engine, it cannot run without ie, it's another shell and not even a good one.. adds nothing new and the interface is fugly

see the ie context menu



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2008 11:21PM by disrupted.

Disrupted, just look at this (the last old version at the bottom of the page since after version 1.37.826 Bsplayer became AdWare). I am asking you because the authors are from my country.

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=bsplayer

i'dn't know.. i had a very bad experience with bsplayer many years ago when it was still unknown.. i downloaded one of their very early versions.. it wsn't a beta though and the thing kept stealing extension associations.. there was no option for liberating the extensions and every time it was opened it would associate itself and it was painful because it wasn't like a couple of extensions.. they were like 15 types it insisted on becoming their default player.. which was a shame because i thought it wasn't half-bad..but then again, not worth the trouble of hexing out the crap.. anyway i deleted the thing and emailed them and later i was informed that that problem was fixed in another release but i never tried it since and don't really want to.. i know the problem was fixed a long time ago but it's a psychological thing now, i just can't stand bsplayer.

multiweb review:
the installer is a 16bit.. so no chance of installing that program on 64bit oses, however the program itself and all its libraries are true 32bit.

the program is a little buggy with some quirks aswell.

initially the render engine appeared to be based on ncsa 3.0 or such.. suggested by lack of support for javascript, stylesheets, plugins or anything new since internet explorer 3.0. more or less it's seemed like text-based browser with ability to display jpeg images. but that was the first mistaken impression.

the interface is quite clean and layout ergonomic putting in mind it's targting the vision-impaired. the buttons will need some getting to. the go button wouldn't open up a urlbar as expected but instead will take you to the homepage set at the university of whatsit in australia. which right-away tells you that the browser is no longer supported. to go to a site you have to click on the 'site' button. the help button (which you will almost definitely use) takes you to a sort of a tutorial page online, which was helpful and only a couple of pages weren't there(404). the help did talk about some features that seem very nifty.. like touch screen support and speech recognition.. the only thing is the 'speech' button was always disabled and i don't know if the touch screen thing would actually work if available.

typing in a search box or buffer was very painful, because after typing a character; the browser would loose focus and you have to click on it again to type another letter so typing text will require a skill of using your keyboard and mouse simultaneously ..i don't know if that could be related to the touchscreen 'feature'. although multiweb is for people with vision problems, it certainly isn't for people with arthritis or raynaud's disease.

the setup button supplied a zoom button that exploded the page instantly and that was about the only thing that would actually help the vision-impaired.

the browser would always open in fullscreen(makes sense) but if you dared restored it, it will shrink to a very small window and there was noway to maximise or resize it and the only thing you can do was to close it and open it again.

clicking on the close button can somtimes require time to execute and i really mean time..like 7-8 seconds sometimes till it actually closes but on most occasions it does close instantly as it should. the slow responsiveness was also apparent when clicking on a link or entering a website.. it would stall a bit before finally connecting but once it does that.. the pages loaded quickly but it appeared that this browser tried to read the page first.. strips out unnecessary code before displaying it.. which does make sense, if you're vision-impaired..you dont really need any text restricting stylesheets but a more pure and basic text format. on really modern pages, text displayed correctly without mixing up code with text and no page made it crash..which is when i realised that this browser has nothing to do with ncsa, try that with ie 3.0 or mosaic and you're in for a hell of a ride. similar pages in mosaic will definitely make it crash or atleast mix up the code with the actual text. so i went to their documentation page to find out about their engine because obviously it wasn't based on ie's trident. nothing was useful there so went to several user-agent sites..all said: mozilla 3.0(compatible), now that's not very helpful.. i guess its engine will remain a mystery .. though i'm pretty certain it's not an ie shell.. the way most pages are displayed reminds you of early geckos(km 0.8 and firebird/phoenix come to mind) or ie 4.0-5.0

it's a weird browser.. for vision-impaired it doesn't offer anything major, unless the speech button can work on other systems.

more and probably better disability browsers are there:
http://www.w3.org/WAI/References/Browsing





EDIT: indy library enigma simply means multiweb was compiled with borland's delphi
http://www.wellho.net/archives/2008/09/libwwwperl_and_1.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2008 01:10PM by disrupted.

multiweb update:

i was able to activate speech in windows 98 through its useropt.exe, something i havent been able to do in xp even though i changed its' compatability to windows 98. once i enabled speech in 98.. it wrote to its ini file.. which made speech also available in xp.

the browser doesn't rely on neither sapi 4 or 5, it has its own built-in speech synthesis and once activated it reads out everything laid out on the page..it readsout your button clicks/selections and even the statusbar text.. keep you informed with whatever is happening on its screen.

tit uses a male voice which is not crystal and quite 'computerised' ut it is a smart engine especially when it comes to reading digits and distinguishing between dates and numbers.

the program feels much more at home on 98 than xp.. all the small quirkinesses were gone.. close button worked fine and it was more responsive overall.

this is actually a very good browser with its own built in synthesis engine.. so you don't need to install sapis on 9x for it to work(unlike most speaking browsers).. its own render engine though outdated is quick and very stable.

it that browser was maintained and updated.. it'd have probably been one of the best accessibilty featured browsers plus its clean-cut interface.. it's so sad the project died.

if you have vision problems and especially if you're a 9x user, this is quite a nice browser.. you should give it a try.

multiweb on 98:

Bagel & Midget: Gecko based unmaintained test browsers - links from Hatena

Bagel has an interesting partly editable interface, is in Deplhi but is not maintained.

Cave for both - they install files that are hard to remove from European systems. Use e.g. unlocker to remove any files with Japanese titles.

Maxthon have stolen problems.
xAurora

K-Meleon in Spanish

Sameera de Alwis sounds like a very close friend of mike hardy's

crap.. i couldn't run bagel..gives me a runtimer. shame! i really like delphi programs

although its' name is very politically incorrect.. this midget is a cute little thiingy. it's a keeper.. even thinking of linking to it with a macro.
absolutely adore the idea of substituting the statusbar with the titlebar.. that's a fresh idea.

Quote
disrupted
i couldn't run bagel..gives me a runtimer. shame! i really like delphi programs

Start up fast like K-Meleon.:drool:

Did You remember to put bagel.exe etc. into the folder of a Seamonkey GRE 1.8.x e.g. the midget's.
This Bagel's download tells me - a Gecko shell without GRE

Both GRE can be AFAIK updated with K-Meleon or SeaMonkey files and if You get chrome errors - use a K-Meleon chrome :cool: along with its chrome.dll and xpt in components. Details handled like a manual chrome & GRE update.


Midget incorrect? : It was sure a nice car.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2008 12:14AM by guenter.

Quote
guenter
Midget incorrect? : It was sure a nice car.

yeah that was a pretty nice car.. too bad the british motor industry technically does not exist anymore.. (unless you count the few posh makers owned and MADE by german companies and left in britain out of pity)

anyway.. yeah i did put bagel in kmeleon folder..that was pretty stupid eh?, i'll try placing it with midget and see how that goes

edit: when i placed it in modget's folder, it gave e a message i can understand, i downloaded mscvr80.dll but then again it gave the same errors when it was with kmeleon.. however this time it launched a blank interface that didn't do nothing.

is it me or is this cuba gooding junior spinning a disk at the top of that page:
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?msvcr80

and speaking of cars, yesterday i almost bought this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Cordia it was a complete lemon, the engine was almost busted and the steering gearbox basically wasn't doing anything but it was dirt cheap.. technically i was like getting it for free.. the only thing good about it was the interior which was mint then i changed my mind because i thought i didn't have the time or effort to restore it and finding OEM parts for it will be nothing short of a nightmare not to mention a money drain.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2008 08:29AM by disrupted.

One more you maybe did not heard about: Swift browser (based around the WebKit rendering engine - but is not supported anymore so I can't find a download ):

http://www.astahost.com/swift-browser-t15106.html

Disrupted, since you are expert on video and audio alike, what would you prefer (quality of a sound etc.):

AIMP2
Spider Player
Xion
VUPlayer
1by1

i tried swift when it was active and i kept up-to-date with its updates.. it was always alpha, good effort but never fulfilled and ironically the last release, i believe was 0.7; was much worse than the previous versions. until very recently the files were still hosted on the abandoned site but now i can't find them.

you can try version 0.2 here:
http://download.chip.eu/en/download_getfile_en_2023498.html?s=http://dl05.chip.eu&f=/15445/swift02.msi&t=492a754d&sign=41dd7c65d7efbcc26fcb461864babd23&dl_type=dl_hs
it's not worth it unless you're really really curious, arora is way better.


-xion hands-down

i'm not an expert, maybe i know a few things about audio formats but video isn't really my interest as long as they're playing fine without problems i don't bother with it.

1by1 can be useful for browsing through folders and not wanting to create a playlist.. but when it comes to sound quality which is no.1 concern when it comes to an audio player.. xion is a winner and it supports multiple formats which isn't necessarily a good thing sometimes.. but in xion it's not a bloat.. just to support the more common formats. i still use an ancient program called nad, which is quite raw and a true mp3 player to the core.. the quality is outstanding but this is a very picky player, no VBR and no dirty mp3s files will play... although its decoding engine produces superior quality it is very very intolerant .. so your mp3 files must be perfect before thinking of playing them with nad.

the player never seemed to make it out of the beta stage(similar to google products) and then the author tony million went to work for sonique before lycos killed the project due to a source code leak.. then he worked for a while on an sf project called tuniac.. not long after he left programming altogether and decided to become a photographer and a backpacker.

more on nad:
http://www.glop.org/nad/
http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/nad.html

if you want to try it out, try version 0.91 which is the most stable.
the last version which ironically was the only non-beta is 1.0 was released for 4 days on nad's site before million left for sonique and the file was removed and it was never submitted to software sites and hence it does not exist on the internet and even million himself lost it along with the code when he fried his hd before moving to california.

except for a very very few lucky users(me) who downloaded 1.0, it's almost impossible to find this version.. well not anymore :
klicken sie hier bitte

I'm use 1by1. Also 1by1 can player playlist files.

K-Meleon in Spanish

yes ofcourse but i meant if you want to quickly browse through files and play them without creating playlist, 1by1 is a good choice.. that's its strongest point

@ disrupted,
sorry, I have produced two errors in my posts about Bagel - it is still maintained

The version with the bug is recent and for Xulrunner1.9

It works on my machine - I can surf. But with all Xulrunner, Firefox3 and SeaMonkey2 GRE I tried, it crashed, or made start error, or complained and in each case I had to kill it in the end. I even tried with the GRE of the new Songbird 1 RC of 22.11.2008. That made sure that Xulrunner registered properly. Most seems faults in Bagel - since I cross tested the GREs K-Meleon 1.6 prototypes. But it can be also that I need to read more of the Japanese docu (which I cannot).

Nice side effect: K-Meleon found Songbird's new VideoLAN Multimedia plugin for future use :drool:

p.s. The older Bagel for 1.8 GRE is better for seeing what it is like.
I uploaded to Rapidshare:

bagel_0.4.1_g1801

Hope all works. Test for viruses if You download, as always in these ill times:mad:.

& cave it also makes Japanese files that are hard to remove.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2008 03:37PM by guenter.

IMHO, Hydrogenaudio.org is one of the best sources for everything audio, and they support foobar2000 (which they also host) as the best audiophile player. �_�

You might disagree with them, but I never saw a bad review of foobar2000 -- altough, personally, I use 1by1 and Soprano 'cause they're both lightweight and easily portable... :cool:

thank you so much gunter for your effort.. it's working like a charm now, i like that delphi bagel.. it's quite stable and responsive


foobarly.. i actually do like foobar but panzer did not put it in the list

i remember panzer once said it was getting crowded in the gecko stable.. while browsing with bagel.. i found 2 other geckos, one called janus and the other sylera.
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/dl/win95/net/se321980.html
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/winnt/net/se232535.html

sylera is a gecko only browser, janus seems to run on 2 engines, gecko and ie but with gecko as main. i tested neither because i got tired.

it seems more and more gecko browsers are rolling out.. it's probably due to the security advantage.. even ie shell developers like maxthon are working on gecko now like orca.

at this pace, it seems that one day we will see as many gecko browsers as ie shells; if not more.

this is bad news for both microsoft and firefox.. for microsoft, it's obvious; as more people walk away from ie shells,they will no longer need to update their internet explorer version.

for the people at firefox.. well, all those new gecko browsers have dumped xul.. building strictly for windows and using better languages for windows machine.. delphi or c++. they run much faster than firefox, far more responsive and require less memory.. as this trend grows, people will realise the fact that firefox is not the lord of geckos.. even with its endless extensions. could firefox one day be left with nothing but its blind followers?

Foobar - I did not list it because most people that tried this software loved it or hated it(maybe because interface is ugly?).There is just no between.

Xion you say? I am using AIMP.

Disrupted, you remembered correctly that I once mentioned gecko stable is getting crowded.

Luckily for FF, Safari for Windows flloped or so I see when I take a look at Freeware files at it's rating and Opera share is getting nowhere (1% off all users on windows use Opera).

And thank you for thorough review as always.

I am scanning the web in search of great freeware software ( I have only 2 pirat programms on my comp: Total commnder - although I use Q-dir and burning programm called Ones. Sometimes I find something even Gizmo have found yet so I need somebody to review it for me.

If you are an expert in some other field (search programms,burners, etc), let me know.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2008 10:37AM by panzer.

i use these:
http://www.cdburnerxp.se/downloads/releases/3.0.x/ (freeware-avoid latest version 4.xx)
http://infrarecorder.org/ (open source)

"Dékibulle"

Open source (double license GNU-LGPL / CeCILL-C)
Free
very best player.

http://dekibulle.free.fr/index.php?lang=en&u=presentation

@disrupted
Lunascape 5 has a new alpha3 in english: http://www.lunascape.tv/download/

You may want to give it a whirl. It seems very fast (and stable).
Note: Profiles are stored in the documents and settings/application data folder
It won't let me move the profile location (or I don't know how).

soccerfan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2008 08:12PM by soccerfan.

Quote
disrupted
sylera is a gecko only browser, janus seems to run on 2 engines, gecko and ie but with gecko as main.

Sylera project had an English version during K-Meleon 0.9 times. I have installed
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041220 Sylera/1.2.11 I admired that it was able to find and use Mozilla 1.7. GREs, but project is older. Thx for locating the new Japanese version (Sylera had changed home page).

Did not know of Janus but has files from 2002.
It would not work with modern GREs - so it is IE only now

Nico, thanx for Dekibulle. I will try that.

Disrupted, I tried nad. One of the versions play mp3 just fine. What is bugging me when I use USB stick at the same time nad is playing, it stopped.

Nowadays, audio players play uninterrupted even if you use some other programm or USB at the same time ...

As for Infrarecorder: I used to use that but once me and my friend tried to make a overburned DVD. It burned it in a minute. I shouldn't say it was corrupted, should I?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2008 02:49PM by panzer.