OmniWeb 5.5 status update

[Ken Case]

Hi all,

I just wanted to give you all a status update on OmniWeb 5.5.

First, some background:  starting with OmniWeb 4.5, we've been using  
Apple's open source WebCore framework (based on khtml) as our  
rendering engine.  Unfortunately (as you've all seen), WebCore  
doesn't have a stable API which means that (depending on how much has  
changed in WebCore) it can take quite a while to integrate new  
versions of WebCore when they're released.

Fortunately for us the picture changed in a big way last year at  
WWDC, when Apple opened up the rest of their WebKit source code:   
WebKit does have stable API, so applications built on top of it can  
upgrade to newer versions of WebKit without having to rewrite their  
code with each release.  OmniWeb 5.5 will be the first version of  
OmniWeb to be based on WebKit rather than WebCore, taking advantage  
of all of the latest performance enhancements in Safari 2 as well as  
making it easier to stay on top of those changes in the future.

So, where are we now?

At this point, we have OmniWeb 5.5 running on top of a slightly  
customized WebKit, with our thumbnail tabs (except for a bug with  
loading frame sets in background tabs), workspaces, bookmarks, custom  
cookie handling, ad blocking (by ad size, third party sites, or  
regular expression), some of our site preferences (font style, inline  
images, JavaScript and Java and cookie controls, and the browser  
identification/masquerade setting), our source code editor,  
downloads, and our context menus.

We're still missing some of our mouse and keyboard interactions (you  
can't option-drag a link to drag out a window, click-hold a link to  
get a context menu, or click on a blocked ad to load it), zoomed  
editing, some site preferences (including animation controls), page  
info, activity monitor, authentication in the source view, password  
autofill, autocomplete, the ability to show HTTP requests, save as  
(single page) PDF, and probably some other things I'm forgetting.

In other words, we've made quite a bit of progress on quite a few of  
the major features of OmniWeb, but there's still a lot of work to do  
before 5.5 really feels like an upgrade to 5.1.  (I've been trying to  
use 5.5 as my primary browser lately, but whenever I move from basic  
browsing to doing any sort of web work I end up switching back to  
5.1.  Fortunately, with persistent workspaces already implemented I'm  
able to switch back and forth without losing all my context.)

It's a bit early to say exactly when OmniWeb 5.5 will enter public  
beta, but we'll try to provide more frequent status updates as we get  
closer.  Stay tuned!

				Cheers,
				Ken