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Web Browsing—Day 37© Copyright Darrell Anderson. During my initial dial-up test, several aspects about browsing with Konqueror bothered me. There are no sounds for basic events. Long before I started using Firefox (Phoenix 0.5), I was using Opera, the original master of tabbed browsing. Several years ago Opera already supported basic sound events. I don’t like noise, but I enjoy non-intrusive audio feedback for (1) web page started, (2) web page loaded, and (3) download complete. I have used a sound extension for Phoenix-Firebird-Firefox from the moment I started using that browser, and I always have had sound for the first two events. I am still waiting for somebody to provide or modify an extension to enable a sound for finished downloads (hint). I’m on dial-up, remember? Nonetheless, KDE provides wonderful event sound support so I was surprised nothing exists to support sounds for the web browsing profile. Odd. I hope KDE developers read this journal and get the hint. By the way, make sure the sounds affect only the web profile, not the file manager profile too! So understand that after several years of browsing with basic sound events, silent browsing is strange and surreal. Uncomfortable. Another aspect of browsing with Konqueror is the same problem I always have had with Firefox. Years ago Opera was already providing users with the context menu choices of opening a hyperlink in (1) the same page, (2) a background page, or (3) an active foreground page. Both Firefox and Konqueror provide the option to open pages in the background or active foreground, but the choice is either-or. This is bad design and user-hostile. I haven’t used other browsers the past several years, but the Opera developers are the only ones who seem to understand this process. I obtain the same context menu effect in Firefox using an extension, but this configuration should be inherent in the design. Same with Konqueror. I’d like to see developers get the hint with this too. Like I did with Konqueror in the file manager profile, I will need to eliminate many toolbar buttons from Konqueror’s web browsing profile. Way too many buttons and too congested! I would like to experiment with Konqueror as my web browser, but because Konqueror does not support the context menu choice of opening pages both in the background or foreground, I will not us Konqueror as my web browser. I also have yet to discover how to configure Konqueror to open pages from the URL or search bars in new pages. Likewise for bookmarks. If I wanted every page to open in the same tab then I might as well use a browser that supports multiple windows and not tabs. However, I don’t want 25+ items in my task bar, which is a huge reason tabbed browsing originally attracted me. After several years of being accustomed to this way of surfing, I am not about to change. No, I am not a fan of middle-clicking, so don’t raise that argument. I like my basic two-button scroll wheel mouse, but find using the wheel as a button awkward and cumbersome. No, I don’t want to reach for the keyboard when I surf to press Ctrl or Alt while clicking a link. I want to configure these actions as my default actions. I hope the KDE team is reading this. I do not understand why the KDE and Firefox developers think that opening web pages in the background or foreground is limited to an either-or decision or to specific types of mice. Properly designed context menus end the entire discussion. A secondary issue I noticed immediately with Konqueror is how much I take for granted the Adblock extension. Konqueror provides no such tool as far as I know. I do use a huge and exhaustive hosts file and fortunately that stops many ads. However, the hosts file cannot stop on-site ads, which is where Adblock comes in. Of course, even if Konqueror finally provided the correct context menu options, I also would have to be able to configure Konqueror to replicate the way I surf in Firefox. Sounds like lots of work. I need more than two dozen extensions to configure Firefox the way I want. Is Konqueror that flexible? I don’t know. Familiarity tends to breed contempt and resitance to change even within the open source world—I prefer not to learn a new browser if I don’t have to! Thus, soon I will look into installing Firefox. I am no fan of the GTK look and feel, so I hope the KDE can help me tolerate Firefox in that manner. The KDE control center provides two ways to help GTK apps look more like KDE apps within the KDE environment. One method is already packaged: Control Center, Appearance and Themes, Color, Apply colors to non-KDE applications. The other method is a downloadable plug-in called GTK-QT Theme Manager. I installed that plug-in on both of my boxes. Strangely, on the test box, the GTK-QT tool appears in the Control Center only for root but none of my mortal user accounts. The tool works fine for my mortal account on my primary box. Odd. Thereafter I must decide next whether to learn WINE or investigate alternate email client. I don’t have the patience to migrate to a completely different mail client, but I do have a test box to experiment. I like the idea of using Eudora in WINE because then on my primary box I can boot into either environment to connect to the web. If I select an email client that is native solely to GNU/Linux, such as KMail, then I am stuck connecting to the web using only the one environment; but I am already doing that when I continue using Eudora in NT4! Yeah, I know, the zealots and enthusiasts would prefer I cut my ties, but my focus is to migrate methodically and purposely. Always remember that my migration is philosophical and not technological. That is, my NT4 system is stable, rock solid, and works exactly the way I want. The primary challenge for me is my deep-rooted connection to Word 97. That is, as long as I am tied to Word 97, which will be a long time yet, I need to either remain partially in NT4 or learn how to move Word to WINE. Thus, moving Eudora to WINE makes sense as a transitional move rather than migrating to a new email client. The only other email alternative that comes to mind is Thunderbird, which works in both Windows and GNU/Linux. Regardless of whether I run Eudora or Thunderbird from either environment, I will have to move my mail data files to a FAT32 partition. Likewise for Firefox files. Because the syntax for file paths between the two environements is different, maintaining separate Firefox profiles is the easy way to go. However, I can share several configuration files, such as userChrome.css, userContent.css, bookmarks, and my cache. Sharing other files, such as cookies and history, probably could be accomplished by starting Firefox in each environment using scripts and batch files. Down the road I’d like to learn how to install and configure a cache proxy to provide me a better caching environment for my dial-up. I think I would create an entire partition dedicated just for caching. I prefer not to run a separate box as a gateway so I hope I can install and run on a stand-alone box. I hope the overhead does not bog system performance. All of this is testable and doable. My test box contains a modem and with some spare phone cord I can daisy-chain my boxes for dial-up. Reminds me of how I had things configured back in 1997 when I migrated from Windows for Workgroups 3.11 to NT4. I had my old 486 box and then-new Pentium box daisy-chained in the same manner. Finis. |
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