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Messages - ayespy

1
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Tabs. As with Opera12, can I get them to the bottom?
Not a paid endorsement in any way shape or form, but I am testing the Vivaldi email client as we speak.  Turns out it was fully as complex a project as a browser, and so, while under development since prior to Vivaldi's initial release, it has taken a looooooong time to get ready for public release.  As it stands, the email client is fully serviceable, but not nearly what I'd like to see if I downloaded an email client for the first time.  So there 'ya have it.
3
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Beta 5 release (01-04-2015)
Visible progress is good.  Horizontal side tabs - good.

I wonder if there is any difference between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions on Windows.  I have the 64-bit installed, and it cannot remember favicons (they appear and disappear and appear again without much rhyme or reason) or bookmarks bar settings.  If you don't use text labels, the bar collapses to placeholder favicons for all items (and if you do use labels, it still does this with each use), and if you click on one for a folder, it wants to open all bookmarks in the folder.

Also, any attempt to access a site with Silverlight is a reliable hard crash. 

I wonder if these are known?

Still - visible progress.
4
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
Quote from: Frenzie on

I always thought disabling the tabbar and using the window panel was a lot more useful than the vertical tabbar. I think the thumbnails gave the vertical tabbar more right to exist, although I wouldn't ever use 'em.

I guess this would kind of make sense if you didn't want the mail panel open all the time, and access to your tabs and bookmarks at the same time.  With mail open, there is no visible window panel (a panel which I never used, BTW).  Community, thy name is diversity.
5
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
I recall all of this, of course, having used Opera from ver. 6 - but thumbnails were never mandatory.  Right up thru Opera 12 you can turn them off (right-click tabbar, customize, turn thumbnails off or on).

On Vivaldi with tabs on top or bottom you can still drag thumnails closed, but at sides they show by default (and then shrink as you add tabs past the vertical capacity of the UI) unless you pin the tab.  I expect the option to simply turn them off, to return globally.
6
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
OK - so I put tabs on the right.  They are oriented vertically so that one can't read the tab.  Is that right?  I prefer horizontal tabs, one on top of the other, at the right edge of the browser window.  Can Otter do this?

Yes, I found the slider.  It's faint on my screen, so I had missed it before.
7
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
Ah.  The handle-dragging thing is something none of my native Windows apps do, so I didn't know to look for it.  Good to know.

As to relocating toolbars in Vivaldi, it's done in Settings.  There are radio buttons to chose this or that location, or the location (as in old Opera) known as "off."

I agree multiprocess is a bug, not a feature, but the more that can written into the root application (which appears to be Vivaldi's aim), the fewer processes will be spawned by extensions, etc.  I can live with a process for every tab (I have plenty of memory and CPU bandwidth), so long as that resource impact is optimized, and there aren't a ton of extension processes (because all needed functions were built-in).

I personally will recommend whatever browser seems to me to be most useful.  I am not prejudiced against closed source, multi-process, non-native UI or any of that.  I am agnostic as to form, so long as I get function.  I suspect this is the attitude of a large portion of the browser market, even when a particular user wants a unique set of functions.
8
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
Quote from: ersi on

@ayespy

The positioning of toolbars that you are missing from Opera is missing both in Otter and Vivaldi. I have included the message about this in Otter issuetracker several times, but for now at least the tabbar can be positioned anywhere. In Vivaldi no toolbar can be positioned this way, at least I cannot find how to do it.

As far as I can see, Notes are pretty much the only feature that Vivaldi has and Otter doesn't, whereas you don't even use this, yet you somehow think Vivaldi is ahead.

Specifically what features are missing in Otter, compared to Vivaldi, that you would like to see us to catch up with? For example for me this is Notes, and some form of userCSS switcher similar to Opera as much as possible. Both are present in Vivaldi, and Otter would do well to catch up with these to ensure beyond dispute that it's ahead in development.

It's a good idea to have old Opera, Otter and Vivaldi side by side on the machine to be able to compare their features in specific detail.


Odd.  I have tabbar positioned on right in Vivaldi, with visual tabs, and cannot find how to reposition it in Otter.  In Vivaldi, address bar can be set top or bottom, and you can resize address field and search box. You can zoom with a slider.  Cannot find such settings in Otter.  Cannot find a bookmarks bar in Otter.  Vivaldi's bookmark bar can be set top or bottom, and can show labels only (no favicons) if you wish.  I expect side placement and favicons only, momentarily.  All toolbars and panels in Vivaldi offer multiple positions in Settings, clearly and unambiguously.

You don't have speed dial yet (not a deal-breaker for me, but in Vivaldi any folder and multiple folders, with hierarchical folders, can be set as speed dial).  You don't have notes yet.  I barely use them but Vivaldi has them.  Can you save to PDF yet?  Can't find it.

Does Otter have a mail developer yet?  I noticed you were advertising for one.  Vivaldi's mail client is nearing completion.  A working version was accidentally released temporarily two weeks ago.

Native or non-native UI means little to me, so long as I can find and use things. 

Do you have tab stacking yet?  I don't use it much, but I have it.

I notice Otter has private mode (window or tab) - don't need it yet in Vivaldi, but expect it - and session management, which I don't use.

I notice a page I have to use every day works in every browser but Vivaldi and Otter.  It crashes Vivaldi and does nothing in Otter.  Hah.

Otter does not have copy-without-formatting, and I have installed that extension in Vivaldi.  Otter does not have extensions. 

Otter does not have address field completion.  It's not well-implemented in Vivaldi yet, but it is there.

So these are some of the things I notice.  Again, not to get in to a pissing contest, I am not against Otter.  Keep at it.  Win me over.  It's not impossible.
9
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
Quote from: Emdek on

@ayespy, which features are you missing the most?

Good of you to ask.  What I need for my daily workflow are side tabs, bookmarks bar I can place vertically on the right (preferably arrangeable any way I like, including bookmarks interspersed with hierarchical folders), the ability to organize bookmarks alphabetically with a click rather than dragging and, last but not least, a stout and capable email program that I can have open in a panel on the left.  This enables me to work left-to-right and back again, getting an assignment by email, clicking on the first tab necessary to begin work on it and referring back to the email as necessary while working, and, when done, sending my results back to the requester by email - and at no time during the entire process do I have to change from one program to another, or lose sight of any of the elements of the process.

In order to sort of fake this workflow in neuOpera, I had to install a shitty extension that enabled half-baked side tabs, and keep Opera+extension open in 3/4 of the window with mail accounts and list open in 1/4 of the window, overlapping, so I could switch back and forth, one to the other.

So those are the elements I miss most.  I don't use gestures, spatial navigation, hotkeys, chat, P2P or RSS client, don't download masses of anything, don't convert currency, don't listen to music or watch videos to speak of, don't do development or design, rarely save notes, don't upload files, don't game at all (at ALL), don't have a YouTube account, tweet, use any social media to speak of (outside of checking in with our grown kids far away on facebook occasionally) or do any of the other obscure and technical things classic Opera was so good for.  I just do the above.  In order to do it, I ran classic Opera with zero extensions or widgets.
10
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
@Al-Khwarizmi:

I appreciate your civility.  Exley's attitude is certainly not unique here, though possibly in the minority.

For me, personally, I can't use Otter yet.  I've tried.  It simply doesn't contain any of the features I need daily.  When the project was first launched, I was cautiously optimistic it would render a viable result in some sort of reasonable time frame.  I'm already in my 60's, after all :) .  I've found its progress, as to items that make me able to adopt a browser, frustratingly slow - even slower than Chropera, which is also too slow.

Vivaldi was a breath of fresh air in that respect.  It had more of the features I truly use, at the jump, than Otter or Chropera.  I understand the loyalty of Otter's users to the project.  I had sort of hoped Emdek might lend his considerable talents to an effort in which I already saw more promise, because many hands make light work. I get why he declined.  But when I saw people here going out of their way to diss Vivaldi and pump up the glory of Otter, I grew a little concerned ("whistling past the graveyard" to boost one's confidence, you know?) that false confidence might hinder Otter's progress and rob us of a SECOND shot at an heir to Opera 12.  Still, I continued to watch silently, even though I had already uninstalled Otter from my box - along with Pale Moon and a couple of others.  Hope dies last, right?

When I was being actively ridiculed here for expressing the idea that either Otter or Vivaldi coming into its own would eclipse the other (it would in my book) I could not remain silent - not because I was being called stupid but because the FACT that users will neglect an unfinished project if a mature one meets their demands, was being called a stupid idea.  Emdek was right to say more visible features need to come to Otter.  That concern deserves more attention - not less.  So I spoke up.

I only replied here again because to fail to respond to your civil post seemed impolite.  I'm not trying to argue for a particular position.  In all sincerity, good luck to you, and to Otter.
11
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
I'll just make a last reply here, and then leave you folks to your tea and biscuits.  It's pretty clear a significant share of commenters are living in a sort of alternate reality, receiving positive reinforcement from each other, and contemptuous of the outside world.  I fear I could not make myself at home, nor be accepted ultimately, any more than a mainstream pediatrician at an anti-vaxxer rally.

My rig is nothing like a gaming rig.  Any gamer worth his salt would laugh me out of town if I were to claim it was.  Still, it runs all browsers, sometimes several at a time, without running into hardware problems.  I did not claim or imply one should not care what his happening to his  machine.  I  merely made the point that, on the whole, users care about USE, rather than technical niceties.  The stated aim of both Otter and Vivaldi has been to restore the user experience classic Opera aficionados lost when Presto was abandoned.  I applaud that aim, because I think it's both valid and valuable.  Clearly, what PARTS of that user experience mattered to a person was a unique mix of traits for each user.  The fact that classic Opera was able to satisfy so many unique (and in some cases non-overlapping) needs made it the fifth-most-popular (in a market of dozens) browser in the world.

The thrust of my comment, as has been acknowledged in the past by Emdek, was that VISIBLE features matter.  Users care first about what they can see and touch in the experience, and second about matters like resource footprint and security.  Emdek has shown a reluctance to reveal any feature before it is "fully ready," and I think this reluctance, plus a shortage of available developer-hours has led to a project which, to a bystander, looks frustratingly slow in progress toward its stated goal.

Vivaldi, by contrast, has both more guys, and a different emphasis.  It's trying to show as much as it can, as fast as it can, without actually blowing up anyone's machine, and in less than a week attracted half a million users, and is likely pushing a million now.  Its forums and blogs are a hotbed of activity, with hundreds of new comments every day.  What does this demonstrate?  That users care about USE.  It does not prove that one browser is good and the other bad, that one is superior to the other, or that one project is more noble than the other.  It demonstrates that users care about USE.

One can endlessly debate the ethics and virtues of open source versus closed, crass commercialism vs technical finesse, and I have no position in these debates.  Literally, none.

But I will point out that there is no topic at the Vivaldi forums called "Vivaldi advantages over Otter," and nothing but admiration on that site for the aims and the efforts of the Otter project.  It would seem no one over there feels the need to convince themselves that their interest in the project they are flocking to needs to be defended.

To the degree one engages in an effort here to validate this project as BETTER than another, and seeks reinforcing feedback from other members within an undeniably small club, one will only succeed in adding blinders to one's blinders, and missing chances to attract a big enough user base to preserve project momentum toward ultimate success.  My advice was not to get too damn busy patting yourselves on the back.  Yes, you need to believe in what you are doing, in order to continue doing it.  No, defects in what someone more successful is doing, is not proof of your own virtue.  What will prove the virtue of the project will be its ultimate success.  The universe has signposts pointing toward success, if you will heed them.

I've preached long enough.  I'm out.  Just do me a favor and don't quote me out of context any more, as "proof" of how stupid users are, and to justify why you are too good for the crass and ignorant internet.
12
Otter Browser Forum / Re: Otter advantages over Vivaldi
Quote from: exley on

Fifth = failure, only Linux supported
Vivaldi = failure, chromium browser

I can't even believe someone on Vivaldi forum topic above wrote
Quote
If Vivaldi matures, we don't need Otter

hello ? - any - ANY chromium based browser is resource hog !
they use plugins, and every plugin acts as new Browser Process that eats
equal amount of Memory

what kind of idiot found to compare that shit with Otter which is extra lightweight

somehow people (read kids) don't even know what Browser is and what backend Engine is
its all same to them
well shit lets all buy 16 gigs of RAM and 16 core CPU and be happy .... pfff


I am the one who wrote that.  I'm 61 and a somewhat technically advanced user.  Opera was my default browser beginning with ver. 6, when we were paying for the license.

The rest of that quote was, "If Otter matures, we don't need Vivaldi."

From strictly a user standpoint, what is important to me is function.  If the browser does the things I want and can be conformed to my work flow, I essentially DON'T CARE what's going on under the hood.  If I have my integrated email client included in a panel in the interface, my bookmarks bar that I can arrange vertically on the right, my vertical tabs, also on the right, and if I can switch quickly and smoothly from one element to the next, it concerns me not, whether it's consuming half a gig of RAM, or four gigs.  It's working.  If it has a feather-light footprint and does NONE of the above things, that's utterly irrelevant, because it does not serve my needs.

BOTH browsers aim to replace Opera 12.  I'm happy to see either one do it.  Whichever one does it, renders the other supernumerary as to my user needs.

I would caution against getting too partisan, too insular, too snobbish about browser inner workings, and remember that most people who are pissed about the loss of old Opera were mad because they lost that interface - not because they lost the inner workings.