Human Readable - K-Meleon the Browser


	Human Readable

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	K-Meleon the Browser © Copyright Darrell Anderson. (Winter 2005–2006) The K-Meleon browser has been around a long time and was one of the first project forks from the original Netscape code release. The original developers of the K-Meleon browser opted for an Internet Explorer (IE) look-and-feel. The toolbars resembled IE and the browser did not use a Multiple Document Interface (MDI) like Opera or a tabbed interface as is now popular among most browsers. Today much of that has changed, but to many people, little is known about this quiet Windows-only project. The K-Meleon browser does not provide a true MDI or tabbed environment. Instead the developers have opted for what they call Layers. The concept of Layers is more of an optical illusion that anything but nonetheless is functional. The Layers concept means the browser actually opens multiple windows rather than using tabs or an MDI, but through some clever programming, can be configured to show only one window along with a toolbar simulating the tabbed or MDI environment. Some people might not like this interface and some current developers are working on a true tabbed interface model. Still, to many dedicated users, the Layers model is as effective as a tabbed or MDI model. Those people deciding to spend a few hours exploring K-Meleon will find several features unavailable to Firefox without extensions. Finding a handful of those features is not always straightforward, but learning the K-Meleon design is hardly difficult. Just different. Consider some of the options available in K-Meleon not available in Firefox without extensions: Complete single session browsing—no additional browser windows or instances unless specifically requested by the user. (This does not always work in Firefox.) A link context menu that allows a user to either open a link in a background tab or an active foreground tab, without using the keyboard or middle button. The ability to define the tab focus when opening a tab. The ability to define the tab focus when closing a tab. The ability to define as the default action that all links entered from the location bar, history, and bookmarks open in a new tab. The ability to reopen the last closed tab. A page context menu item to view the source code in the text editor of choice. A tool to toggle the minimum font size. A plugin toolbar to quickly toggle various privacy preferences, such as cookies, images, JavaScript, Java, GIF animations, and HTTP referrer headers. A plugin that supports IE, Netscape and Opera bookmarks. An intelligent ad blocker. A session saver. A user agent switcher. A toolbar editor. A menu editor. Runs entirely with the native operating system libraries and widgets instead of the painfully slow XUL. Of course, K-Meleon is hardly perfect. Consider several options that are not available: The ability to use the existing blank tab when that tab is the only tab open. Drag-and-drop reordering of tabs. The ability to reopen multiple closed tabs from a list. A page context menu item to close the current tab. White lists for (1) forms, (2) JavaScript, (3) Java, (4) HTTP Referrers. A toolbar button to toggle a web site’s style sheets. An option to enable certain event sounds, such as (1) page begins to load, (2) page finishes loading, (3) file downloading finishes. A toolbar button to enable images on the current page without enabling images on all other open pages and without needing to refresh the page. I realize that the K-Meleon developers and long-time users probably accept the layers concept without additional thought. From my experience as a technical writer for many years, however, I think this term will only confuse many new users, especially non computer-savvy users. Standard industry terminology is tabs and pages. Although the word layers might be technically correct from a source code perspective, I do not see typical users understanding or embracing the word. A better approach is to use the term Pages. That word does not confuse users, is correct from the user’s perspective, and does not contradict the underlying source code development. This is a usability issue and that is all. Additionally, the layers model can, at times, be confusing. For example, suppose two or more layers are open. In one layer toggle off one of the toolbars, say the privacy toolbar. Then close that layer. The user is instantly confronted with the privacy toolbar reappearing. This puzzled me for several long seconds until I realized that K-M does not use tabs or MDI but layers and actually is hiding the fact that multiple windows are opened. (Note: this seems fixed in version 1.02) Another momentarily confusing episode was when I tested session restoration. I opened a dozen pages and then closed K-Meleon. When I opened the browser and restored the last session a dozen windows appeared in the Windows task bar and then disappeared. I understood what happened, but this is nonetheless eyebrow raising and likely to startle many first-time users. There are additional nits about the browser although not seriously impeding basic functionality. For example, I installed K-Meleon (0.9.12) and that version is preconfigured to use Java. Interesting because I do not have Java installed anywhere on my Windows box. I think some intelligence should be added to the installation script in this respect. The option to enable Java should be ghosted if Java is not available. Additionally, in my opinion Java is a potential security risk and I believe the default should be off. Another nit is that although many people today are on broadband, the majority of web surfers remain on dialup. The idea of a home page is therefore frustrating and often meaningless. As a dialup user I often read HTML pages while offline. Broadband users have long forgotten this is how the web once worked for everybody. In that vein, when I open K-Meleon I want to see an empty browser and no text in the URL Bar. Seeing the text about:blank seems amateurish to me. I have configured Opera and Firefox to open empty and nothing appears in the URL bar (although Opera inserts some uneditable background text to “enter web address here”). This is merely an aesthetic request/option that adds a degree of professionalism to the product. Another nit is when opening a new page, and the sole existing layer is empty, K-Meleon is not designed to use that empty page. Instead a new page is opened and the original empty page is unused. For me this is frustrating and distracting because I have had Firefox configured this way for a long time. Opera also does not suffer from this distracting malady. (Note: this seems partially fixed in version 1.02) Still, the K-Meleon browser provides much potential and promise. The browser is more configurable off the shelf than is Firefox and is more capable off the shelf without adding the overhead of a single extension. Although comparatively equal in page rendering speed, the K-Meleon interface seems faster than Opera 8.50. (Note: and Opera 9.01) Noteworthy, however, is the K-Meleon interface is much more responsive than the awful XUL interface of Firefox 1.07 (Note: and Firefox 1.5.0.7). Of course, this is due in large part to using the native Windows software libraries and widgets. Page rendering speed is difficult for me to gauge because of my dialup connection (everything is slow), but I will offer no rebuttals that K-Meleon seems faster than Firefox in page rendering too. K-Meleon will remain on my Windows box as an alternate browser. K-Meleon does not yet satisfy my definition of what I need in a browser, but Opera, Firefox, and Konqueror (in GNU/Linux) also fail to satisfy my requirements. Thus, I will continue using all three browsers in Windows. Yet, unlike the political egoism of the Firefox developers, I find the attitude of the K-Meleon developers refreshing and I am hopeful that in near-future releases many of my concerns and nits will disappear. I do not share that optimism about the Firefox developers who seem to treat Firefox more as a political wedge than an end-user’s tool. Curious people will find that the K-Meleon community is quiet, small, and tight-knit. They are not interested in any browser wars, but only in developing a browser that satisfies their needs. I like that. I don’t trust the psychology behind most mass movements. Update No. 1 (November 2006) The previous K-Meleon version that I had tested was 0.9.12. Recently I tried installing K-Meleon 1.02. After installing the program I noticed the menu bar displayed as squares, which usually indicates a font problem. Worse, I barely had to breath and K-Meleon crashed on me. I knew from past experience that K-Meleon uses some kind of bitmap plug-in to display the program menu bar. I hunted for that option and in prefs.js and added the following: user_pref("kmeleon.plugins.rebarmenu.load", false) That modification solved the problem of seeing the menu, but had no effect on crashing. K-Meleon crashed hard with just about anything I tried to do. I visited the K-Meleon web site and browsed the forum and FAQs. Possibly I did not have the latest and greatest of all the DLLs. I doubted this, having had updated all of these DLLs several years ago. Nonetheless, I visited the Microsoft web site and downloaded the updater package. As I expected, none of the files updated because I already had the latest installed. Just to be sure I did miss one of the files being updated, I again tried K-Meleon but the program again crashed. On a whim, I noticed one of the forked K-Meleon projects required two additional DLLs. I downloaded and installed the files. This time K-Meleon loaded, but upon trying to use the menu bar K-Meleon immediately crashed. I then tried another forked K-Meleon project, one in which true tabbed browsing is supported rather than the illusion of layers. That version did not crash, but the menu bar was again unreadable. I sighed. K-Meleon loads almost immediately, even faster than Opera and a lifetime faster than the forever-sluggish XUL-based Firefox. Being written with native widgets and libraries created a fast program. I had hopes that I might be able to stop using Firefox and begin using K-Meleon. But with these crashes I no longer had the energy to investigate further. I have no idea why the K-Meleon developers think users have to install all of these extra DLLs—Opera runs just fine without all of this overhead. Or why the developers use a bit-mapped menu bar. Sadly, I deleted K-Meleon from my hard drive. I was stuck with the sluggish XUL-based Firefox. With each Firefox version I have grown more hostile toward the product. Page rendering is and always has been fast, but the XUL interface grows detestably slower with each release. I could use the responsive Opera, but the lack of a configuration option for setting the tab focus when closing tabs drives me batty. Firefox 2.0 is now available and I might try that option in about a month or so when the various extensions are probably updated. I wonder if one day I’ll ever find a web browser that I enjoy using. Update No.2 (November 2006) A week elapsed and I decided I no longer could tolerate the sluggish XUL-based Firefox. Every program on my Windows NT4 box runs fast and swift—except Firefox. Enough was enough. I decided to once again try my hand with K-Meleon. After all, I once had version 0.9.12 running, so I must have missed something in my last effort. I repeated the same rebar configuration. That helped with getting the menu to display properly. Then from backups I grabbed a copy of my previous K-Meleon 0.9.12 profile. Slowly I browsed the prefs.js for a clue. Suddenly I found the option I needed. I added the following to the version 1.02 prefs.js: user_pref("kmeleon.plugins.bmpmenu.load", false) Voila! No more crashes. I again express bewilderment about why the K-Meleon developers use bitmapped menus, or more, why this is the default. I think this has something to do with themes and skins. Yet how many other potential users have been turned way because they too could not get K-Meleon to run after installing? I made the same changes to the CCF fork version I had installed. Both versions then were rock solid and I began investigating the programs. K-Meleon is similar to Firefox, but sufficiently different such that migrating all Firefox preferences and configuration files does not work. I tried—and K-Meleon balked. I had to migrate settings and configurations slowly, almost one item at a time. I’m using NT4 Workstation (SP6a). Don’t laugh—my system is rock solid and has been for years. Very fast too, despite using what is today considered “obsolete” hardware. I’m using a Socket-7 motherboard with a 400 MHz K6-III+ CPU, 256 MB RAM, an early generation 3D video accelerator card with a whopping 4MB of RAM, and a 40 GB Seagate hard drive. This box has been humming happily and speedily for 9 years. I’m quite content with this system except for my web browser. I have been using Firefox and occasionally Opera. I’m using “old” hardware and although my NT4 OS is fast, I have been suffering for a long time trying to find a decent browser. I miss the old days when I ran Netscape 4.07. That browser was fast. Opera is fast, but suffers from a usability defect that annoys me terribly. There is no ability to configure the tab focus when closing a tab—and the default is to revert to the first page in the tab bar. The Opera developers repeatedly refuse to add any such feature with each release. K-Meleon adequately covers this usability area. With the little I have played with K-Meleon 1.02 and K-M CCF 0.5.65, by using the native widgets and libraries I see that the program is much faster than the sluggish XUL-based Firefox. I’m a long-time Firefox user, going back to the days of Phoenix 0.4. I used Netscape 3 and 4 before that. (I stripped IE from my box many years ago.) Yet, with each release Firefox grows more sluggish (I have not yet tried version 2.0). Somewhere around version 0.8 I noticed the beginnings of a slower interface. Not with page rendering—Firefox always has been snappy in that area, but the awful XUL interface. Simply right-clicking to pop up the link context menu often takes a very long one or two seconds. Yet, everything else on my box is fast. Frustrating. I use GNU/Linux too, and I don’t even want to get started on how awful Firefox-GTK is on my hardware. The simple fact that the menus in K-Meleon all respond when I click my mouse buttons is a breath of fresh air. I have been learning how to edit the K-Meleon configuration files to customize the toolbars and menus to my liking. There are no easy drag-and-drop solutions, but then, Firefox and Opera must be configured a lot by hand too. However, I now have the basic look-and-feel I want. I think K-Meleon has a future on my computer desktop. I have been using the browser the past two days while not using Firefox at all except to compare configuration settings. K-Meleon is not Opera or Firefox and there are some bugs I have discovered and configuration quirks, but for basic surfing I am reasonably content. I understand a version 1.1 is around the corner and I’ll be watching. K-Meleon is fast—very fast. I am tickled that all menus, especially the link context menu, respond quickly when I use them, unlike the sluggish XUL-based Firefox. Page scrolling does not stall while loading pages in the background. I can select a previously loaded tab while other pages are loading and K-Meleon responds immediately to display the page. The Back button is almost instantaneous—something Firefox has never done well and is faster than Opera. Loading previously cached pages is lightning fast—again something that never worked well in Firefox and is faster than Opera. Loading a closed session of a dozen pages also is impressively fast—another weakness of Firefox. Closing tabs in K-Meleon is noticeably faster than in Firefox. Firefox had such great potential back in the pre 1.0 days, but something happened on the way to fanboy popularity. I hope, I truly hope, that I can continue to configure K-Meleon much the same way I had Firefox configured. Firefox provides what I need in a web browser and generally is quite configurable, but is frustrating to use because of XUL. I have seen enough to hope to one day migrate permanently to K-Meleon. Update No. 3 (December 2006) I have been using K-Meleon as my primary browser for several weeks. I am comfortable with the browser and know my way around the basics. K-Meleon is a fine browser, but comes with its own shortcomings and quirks. I am providing a list of things K-Meleon doesn’t provide or is difficult to provide without extensive programming knowledge. Possibly frustrating for some users, and occasionally frustrating for me is the layers concept. K-Meleon does not use true tabs or a true Multiple Document Interface (MDI). K-Meleon uses layers, which is a slick programming trick whereby the program actually is opening multiple instances of itself, much like the old Internet Explorer, but displays only the active layer. Most of the time this layering is transparent but not always. One example I found frustrating is how the layering approach will shift or move K-Meleon to different locations on the task bar because as each layer is opened, the previous layer is closed and to the task bar this is viewed as unique programs running. Related to this layers approach, I have noticed that sometimes K-Meleon forgets the page history and the Back button then is broken. I have not tried to duplicate this problem with repeatability, but I have seen the Back button break often enough to frustrate me. K-Meleon lacks any ability to colorize or support rich text with the tab text for a) page loading, 2) page color, 3) page unread, etc. Similarly, K-Meleon lacks support to colorize the status bar text. K-Meleon uses separate Reload and Stop buttons. In Firefox, with some text in userChrome.css, users can combine the two buttons into one. In all the years of using web browsers I never have understood the need for separate buttons, which wastes precious toolbar space. K-Meleon does not support drag-and-drop reordering of tabs. There are times when I find this quite frustrating. Much like Konqueror, K-Meleon does not remember the page search criteria when moving from one layer/tab to another. End-users should be able to simply press the F3 button and repeat the search but they cannot. This is frustrating for me when I open multiple pages from one source page for the purpose of searching those pages with the same search criteria. K-Meleon supports reopening a recently closed tab but provides no support for restoring multiple pages with a drop-down list. Users can use the History list to retrieve previously closed pages, but a pick list is much nicer and faster. I think this could be done easiest by displaying the last several pages in the View/History menu. A really nice option would be to add a toolbar drop-down list button to the Window/Layers toolbar. However, end-users will need a Preferences option to configure the number of URLs to remember. K-Meleon displays an amateurish about:blank in the URL bar and tab label when displaying a blank tab/layer. For blank pages there should be nothing in the URL bar and the tab should display something more human readable such as “Blank.” K-Meleon supports configuring where to open new layers when performing certain functions but does not allow users to configure the Home button to open in a new layer/tab. When using the Home button the page always opens in the current layer rather than a new layer. (Tentatively supported in version 1.1) K-Meleon provide no method to globally ignore the tool tip balloon text for toolbar buttons. The only available solution is to manually edit the toolbars.cfg file, which is not user-friendly for typical end-users. This solution is not user-friendly for experienced users either because of the manual labor involved. K-Meleon provides no prefs.js option to disable tool tip balloon texts derived from the inline title element. K-Meleon displays the URL information when hovering the mouse over a tab. This feature is handy for some users but disorienting and distracting for others. K-Meleon provides no way to disable these tool tip text balloons for tabs although being based upon the same Gecko engine as the Mozilla browsers, which does provide such a prefs.js option. K-Meleon incorrectly creates an empty Profiles\default directory in the program directory even when the user is using the AppData location to store the user profile. The Advanced Preferences tool incorrectly creates a xul.mfl file in the K-Meleon program directory. Frankly, because K-Meleon uses native Windows widgets and libraries, I find any usage of XUL despicable, but these file should be created in the user’s profile or in the K-Meleon cache directory. The session restore does not remember which layer had the focus when K-Meleon was closed. K-Meleon provides no JavaScript or Java white list feature. Users can use the dysfunctional policies feature supported in the Mozilla and Firefox prefs.js, but this is a poor solution for a straightforward white list. K-Meleon provides no white list to control HTTP Referrers. In Firefox I use an extension to configure a hotkey option to select the first text box in a form without needing JavaScript enabled. A helpful K-Meleon user provided some basic code snippets to perform this function, but this macro should be standard in the macros.cfg file. K-Meleon provides no support for individual close buttons on each tab. K-Meleon supports double-clicking on a tab to close, but that is not as efficient as one click. K-Meleon provides no right-click pop-up menus for bookmarks, such as a submenu option to Copy Link URL. There are times when I want to copy a bookmark URL into some text I am writing. K-Meleon does not support duplicating an open tab. Although there is an updated macro available to enable and disable web page style sheets, there is no toolbar button to act as a toggle to those macros. After using K-Meleon for several weeks, I now am returning to a mixed browsing environment of Firefox and K-Meleon. K-Meleon is refreshingly enjoyable with respect to the user interface speed, but the many quirks I described renders the program frustrating to use at times. If I limit my browsing session to simple “mom and pop” browsing then K-Meleon does what I need. But I perform a lot of research and that is when K-Meleon tends to become a distraction. I then have to use Firefox and endure the awful and slow XUL interface. Firefox 2.0 does seem snappier on my box than previous versions, but hardly as fast as K-Meleon. Yet Firefox does what I need when I am in research mode to use the web. I continue to search for an ideal browser. If only Firefox was written with native widgets and libraries. Or additional developers joined the K-Meleon team to rapidly improve the product. Update No. 3 (February 2006) Despite more than two months of steady us, recently I became frustrated with K-Meleon. I am realistic—I realize K-Meleon is the result of only a few developers and development is and will be slow. The user community is quite supportive and friendly, but the quirks mentioned previously simply gnawed at me. In an effort to find another browser I surprised myself in restoring some zip and confidence to Firefox. I posted a thorough review. Despite my recent tweaks with Firefox, the K-Meleon native Windows interface remains faster than the Firefox XUL interface. Firefox 2.0.0.2 is much faster on my box than previous versions of Firefox, but not the interface speed champ. Although I now use Firefox almost solely for browsing, I keep K-Meleon configured as my default browser simply because of the fast start-up time. Firefox remains a slow-starting program. When I want to view an HTML file on my hard drive or from an email link, I know that K-Meleon will start in a few seconds. Firefox 2 provides me all the tools and features I want, however, and I am using less than a dozen extensions. I will watch for K-Meleon updates, download, and test, but unless K-Meleon begins to incorporate some of the features I want, as listed previously, then K-Meleon will remain in its limited role on my box. I really want to see K-Meleon succeed, but I am a pragmatist too. Finis. Table of Contents


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