Long term future of Camino?

Talk about the native Mac OS X browser.

Moderator: Camino Developers

Post Reply
David Munch
Posts: 327
Joined: December 17th, 2004, 11:16 am
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Long term future of Camino?

Post by David Munch »

Having read the latest blog entry, I was wondering what this holds for Camino. As I read it, if no one outside of the project steps up to A. Implement WebKit in Camino, or B. Maintain a separate branch of Gecko embedding, then Camino is dead in half a years time? :-k

Also, I guess it would make for a good discussion. :)
Tael_
Posts: 52
Joined: November 2nd, 2007, 5:08 pm

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by Tael_ »

I can't imagine surfing without Camino. I really wish I had time to get better at ObjC and help the project. :(
I will have more free time this summer so maybe I can help on little things.
User avatar
Uncle Asad
Camino Developer
Posts: 3957
Joined: July 24th, 2004, 1:38 pm
Location: بين العالمين
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by Uncle Asad »

David Munch wrote:B. Maintain a separate branch of Gecko embedding

This is not possible, at all, in any way. (We already maintain the majority of embedding for Cocoa inside of Camino anyway [CHBrowserView]; it's the parts of embedding that are outside of Camino and of our control that have been the problems in the past, and which will be the problems in the future.)

To do what you think you're envisioning in fact means maintaining a permanent fork of all of Gecko, continually applying every patch from upstream and undoing/redoing changes that break embedding, and fixing the unexpected fallout from your own changes, which will get worse over time, etc., ad nauseam. Maybe a dozen full-time developers devoted to just that part (not to Camino itself) could perhaps make it possible, but that's not fun work.

Tael_ wrote:I can't imagine surfing without Camino.

Me either :-( I hope that we can generate enough new developer interest to make a WebKit-based future possible.
Mac OS X 10.3.9 • PowerBook G4 17" 1.33 GHz | Mac OS X 10.5.x • MacBook Pro 15" 2.2 GHz
Snow7's Camino Forum FAQSearch the Forum  Camino. HelpTroubleshoot Camino
phiw13
Posts: 2777
Joined: November 7th, 2002, 1:00 am
Location: Japan
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by phiw13 »

Uncle Asad wrote:
Tael_ wrote:I can't imagine surfing without Camino.

Me either :-( I hope that we can generate enough new developer interest to make a WebKit-based future possible.

Ditto… Although I now have Safari, with the help of a couple of extensions, more or less configured to match Camino – it is the little things that do it. That, and the community.
(and I'm now trying to set up Google Chrome to match - there are UI things in that browser that plain annoy me)
atomicules
Posts: 39
Joined: January 28th, 2008, 11:55 pm
Location: Way Up North, Scotland

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by atomicules »

:cry:
David Munch
Posts: 327
Joined: December 17th, 2004, 11:16 am
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by David Munch »

Is WebKit more or less the only option?

(Which we already have of course!)
User avatar
cflawson
Posts: 4721
Joined: December 26th, 2004, 2:54 pm
Location: Flying over your house in a red, white, and blue jet
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by cflawson »

David Munch wrote:Is WebKit more or less the only option?


I'm fairly certain Opera's engine isn't publicly available for embedding, and even if it were, I'm not sure there's really any demand for such a thing.

IE's engine (Trident?) isn't available on the Mac.

iCab no longer has its own RE; Alexander switched to WebKit a little while back.

That pretty much leaves Gecko and WebKit, and Gecko just got crossed off the list. So yeah, it looks like WebKit would be the only option.

cl
User avatar
cflawson
Posts: 4721
Joined: December 26th, 2004, 2:54 pm
Location: Flying over your house in a red, white, and blue jet
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by cflawson »

phiw13 wrote:I now have Safari, with the help of a couple of extensions, more or less configured to match Camino – it is the little things that do it. That, and the community.
(and I'm now trying to set up Google Chrome to match - there are UI things in that browser that plain annoy me)


Would you mind putting together a how-to guide for this? It'd be really useful, if for no other reason than to have some sort of centralized resource.

cl
User avatar
krmathis
Posts: 4699
Joined: May 24th, 2004, 9:40 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by krmathis »

A rather sad moment!
But not all that shocking, knowing how Mozilla have made major changes to Gecko 1.9.3 / 2.0 the last year(ish).

Camino have been my one and only browser since 2005 (on the Mac that is), and although I have tried most if not all other browser out there none have come quite close to it. That is considering the browser functions only, while the community make the gap even larger.
Whatever comes out of this I am forever grateful to all those who have contributed to make Camino what it is today. Thanks! :D

My wish is that enough developers show their interest to make it WebKit based in the future. Guess we will have to wait and see.

Take care!
Tael_
Posts: 52
Joined: November 2nd, 2007, 5:08 pm

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by Tael_ »

David Munch wrote:Is WebKit more or less the only option?

I vote for Tasman :D
cleanhead
Posts: 149
Joined: August 3rd, 2003, 10:34 am

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by cleanhead »

krmathis wrote:Camino have been my one and only browser since 2005 (on the Mac that is), and although I have tried most if not all other browser out there none have come quite close to it. That is considering the browser functions only, while the community make the gap even larger. Whatever comes out of this I am forever grateful to all those who have contributed to make Camino what it is today.

My sentiments exactly.
MacPB
Posts: 14
Joined: December 10th, 2010, 5:17 am

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by MacPB »

Very sad news. Camino has the potential to be GREAT. It's still a good browser and I use it frequently. In fact, on the Mac, I believe it is one of the top two browsers available. It's very competitive with Safari and has the most Mac-like feel of any browser besides Safari, IMO.

The fact that Camino hasn't been able to garner a healthy group of developers is sad. What I have seen done with Postbox, a mail app based on the Thunderbird code, is wonderful and a shining example of what I would like to see happen with Camino--take the Gecko engine and make a product that fits in very well on the Mac and that incorporates features not included in the Apple-provided apps.

While I love Camino, in fact it is currently my default browser, it has been falling behind. Other browsers are making leaps and Camino is inching along. It's just the nature of the beast; you can't get there without a larger team of dedicated developers. Camino developers have done an amazing job. The browser we have speaks to that. As I have commented before, I wish Camino had the developer support that Flock or Postbox gets. I'd hate to see the browser die off with the end of support for that last Gecko branch in Camino. Moving to Webkit could be a bold and positive step. I would be interested to see where it goes. But I'm wondering if Camino can even make it then without more support. More browser competition is good, but with other Webkit browser packed with features: Safari, Chrome, Flock, etc. Camino would have to differentiate itself somehow but still pack in the power features users expect in their web browser. Not saying it can't be done, but I'm wondering why developers wouldn't just work on Webkit or one of the other projects? I'll be watching for further updates.
phiw13
Posts: 2777
Joined: November 7th, 2002, 1:00 am
Location: Japan
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by phiw13 »

cflawson wrote:Would you mind putting together a how-to guide for this? It'd be really useful, if for no other reason than to have some sort of centralized resource.

very short (webkit/safari)
A couple of extensions:
clicktoplugin: http://hoyois.github.com/safariextensio ... ktoplugin/
user css (site specific): http://code.grid.in.th/
better source: http://www.awarepixel.com/safari/bettersource/
autocomplete off: http://lapcatsoftware.com/blog/2010/06/ ... ocomplete/
and for most adblocking:
glimmerblocker: http://glimmerblocker.org/
and /etc/hosts

Still looking for a solution for cookie handling (making them session only, permanently blocking some). There is an input manager somewhere that does the job, but is is an input manager…

I'll pen a longer write-up once I've some longer block of time.
David Munch
Posts: 327
Joined: December 17th, 2004, 11:16 am
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by David Munch »

Would a Webkit-Camino require less maintenance, compared to Gecko-Camino, which would then lead to more time for creating features?
phiw13
Posts: 2777
Joined: November 7th, 2002, 1:00 am
Location: Japan
Contact:

Re: Long term future of Camino?

Post by phiw13 »

David Munch wrote:Would a Webkit-Camino require less maintenance, compared to Gecko-Camino, which would then lead to more time for creating features?

I suspect that WebKit might be less prone to breaking things for embeders. Gecko people seem particularly good at that, requiring Camino dev time to fix things again and again.
Post Reply