Ideas for Konqueror?

[Michael S. Mikowski]

On Saturday 26 July 2003 07:23, Hasso Tepper wrote:
> http://www.irider.com/demo/index.htm

A review of iRider from the perspecitive of a Konqueror 3.1 User

INTRODUCTION
iRider appears to be a 3rd party browser that uses IE components, and is
available for Windows platforms only.  It claims to have siginificant 
advantages over "standard" IE, especially when loading, viewing, bookmarking, 
visualizing multiple pages.

The demo ( at http://www.irider.com/demo/index.htm ) is interesting but quite 
long.  This is a summary of the demonstration, and a comparison with the 
features of Konqueror 3.1 [Konq] and Mozilla 1.4 [Moz].

FEATURES
iRider provides tab functions as available on many advanced browsers
today, including Konq and Moz.  It perhaps fills a niche for tabbed-
starved IE users.  I refer to the handles for activating downloaded pages as a 
"tabs," although iRider never refers to them as such.

iRider's "tabs" are located on the LH side of the page instead of at the top 
like Konq, Moz, and ( IIRC ) Opera.  There are several advantages to this 
layout:

  A1. Many more tabs can be visible at once
  A2. A (resizeable) thumbnail of the page can be shown with the page name
    This is nice for shopping links.
  A3. Parent-child relationships can be illustrated through order and
    indentation (e.g. a child page is indented below a parent)
  A4. There's room for an [x] button used to close the desired tab

Clicking on these tabs works pretty much like other browsers.
Some features worth discussing:

   A5. iRider has a feature they call "Surf Ahead."  This is pretty much the
     same as "Open in Background Tab" currently in Konq.  One difference
     is a "short" click of the RMB works in iRider; Konq requires
     a RMB - Select action to do the same.

  A6. Clicking a link already open in a different tab returns you to that tab 
     instead of changing the page in your current tab.

  A7. A progress bar shows how far along a tab is in loading.
    Once the load is finished, the bar is highlighted.  Once the
    tab has been accessed, the bar is muted.

  A8. You can open multiple tabs by selecting multiple links from the web
    page and then RMB

  A9. You can "Add to Favorites" all the open tabs through RMB
    [ Moz 1.4 also has a similar features in "Bookmark this group of tabs" ]

  A10. You can open multiple of tabs at once from your bookmarks
    [ Moz 1.4 allows you to open a group of tabs as well ]

  A11. A custom search page submits requests to multiple search engines and
      then opens multiple tabs with the results.  [ I think would be better if
      you could create your own custom pages that worked like this -- ed. ]

  A12, Pop-up windows are shown in a separate tab.
    [ Honestly, I don't see the value in this ]

  A13. iRider claims a fast implementation, with "advanced memory management"
    which uses "available memory to speed access to pages, but automatically
    releases memory when other programs need it."

  A14. iRider claims that one can open "dozens or even hundreds" of "tabs"
    at once.

  A15. You can "pin" open tabs, so that may close all open tabs except
    those which are marked.  This is similar to "Close Tab" and "Close all
    other Tabs," in Konq 3.1, (and similar in Moz 1.4) but more
    sophisticated.

    [ Mozilla 1.4 also has a "Reload all Tabs" option, which seems handy
      for monitoring all sorts of things, like auctions or video feeds ]

  A16. "Pinned" pages are remembered between sessions.

  A17. Includes enhanced bookmark management

  A18. You have the ability to email a "group" of tabs at once
    (e.g. provides a list of links to your email app)

  A19. You can open a list of links in multiple tabs, e.g. if you were
    receive a list like:
===
Hi Bob:

Here are the sites:

http://site1.com
http://site2.com
http://site3.com
===

   you could copy the presented links and then open them from your clipboard
   into multiple tabs.

FINDINGS
I consider the following feature sets are worth investigating:

  1 Tab Presentation and Management: A1 - A4, A15
  2 Progress Bar: A7
  3 Multiple link parsing: A8, A18, A19
  4 Book Marks: A9, A10

Other features may be of more definite value to others, such as the ability to 
remember marked pages between sessions.

CONCLUSIONS
Much of what iRider has done is provide features of Konq / Moz / Opera to the 
Windows user.  For example, some of iRider's bookmark features look very 
similary to those existing in Moz / Konq / Opera.  These "prior art" features 
could be implemented in Konq directly.  I feel that feature sets 3 and 4 
(above) probably fall into this category.

One would wish to be more cautious with other features and ensure they do not 
threaten any IP property iRider may possess.  I feel that feature sets 1 and 
2 may fall into this category.

Reporting,

Mike