I'm not a developer nor am I qualified to pretend to be one. Thus, I am not part of the closed loop known as K-M developers. I'm merely an interested user. I see much potential with K-M, but the development pace is slow. I understand the need for additional developers, which is why I mentioned my own qualifications. I'd help if I could, but I am not a developer.
Many of the improvement requests and bug posts at this forum are related to K-M using layers rather than tabs. Seems to me that many usability issues would disappear if tabs were made a high priority. I much prefer K-M over Firefox, but K-M lacks at least a dozen features available in Firefox (with or without extensions). There does exist a tabbed version of K-M (CCF), but that version is supported only by one person and I have had only mixed success getting that version to function on my box. Seems that if the tab-related code from that version was migrated to the official K-M, the CCF developer then help could with the overall K-M development rather than waste time with a tangent version.
Layers was once upon a time a slick coding workaround to the old-style Netscape browser, but today, with tab-based browsing well established, is a novelty at best, and at times a frustrating novelty.
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There was other more immediate interest such as modular macros
Probably useful, but to the typical user, tabs are far more useful. This seems more true now that IE provides a tabbed environment.
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Better language support has also value/priority
Seems other browsers, such as Seamonkey and Firefox have already bridged that gap. Why not just migrate and tweak that code?
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What is essential to the browser users doing the work ( that is what a dev is here ) comes IMHO first.
I understand and accept that motive, but if that is the case then K-M ought to be advertised as such and not be allowed to lead potential users into believing that K-M is a community driven project like Firefox or Seamonkey.
Perhaps the time has arrived for the K-M developers and users to decide whether K-M is going to be community driven or developer driven. I'd like to see a sticky poll where users can list their wishes and then over time allow all users to vote on those desired features.
Please understand that I like K-M and want to see K-M improved. K-M certainly performs as advertised, is far more responsive than the sluggish XUL-based browsers, but is lacking many features that many browser users today expect to be standard. I'm not trying to stir up any hornet's nest, just trying to encourage some meaningful discussion.