Actually by lots of menus/features I meant that there is stuff there that i DONT need.

I dont hate phoenix, just like kmel better. I'm sure there are ppl who prefer phoenix because of its wicked bookmarking system, cross platform UI, well implemented tabbing system to name a few good features.

The question raised in the thread was 'why phoenix when we have kmeleon', and the question has been answered considerably well, because there's a large user base for it, it has its own set of advantages.. and APPARENTLY a lot of ppl do prefer kmel over other mozilla based browsers.

> Agreed. Every chance Stefan gets (like in this thread), he uses it to promote Phoenix over K-Meleon, in fact I haven't really read anything from him promoting K-Meleon in such a way, apart from the fact that he seems to agree that K-Meleon is good on older machines.

Well, I guess you only read what you like to see then
I've made plenty of remarks about good points in K-Mel and virtually NO remarks about it beeing worse then Phoenix.

Starting in this very thread:

1. "The other 3 points you mention however is right on the money."

(refering to speed, memoryusage and Opera bookmark integration. The first two is also what makes it a much better browser on slow systems, but that it's a secondary effect depending ON those 2 advantages and in no way impiles that K-Mel is only good on slow comps.)

2. "Both browsers have strenghts in customatization in different areas.
Which one you like the most is of cource a matter of personal preference
One thing is for sure though, either if you choose K-Mel or Pnx you can't go wrong, as both are greate browsers."

3. "one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet that is a clear advantage for K-Mel currently, is that K-Mel is quite mature while Phoenix is in very early stages morfing quite much even from day to day.

This means that eg an easy way to moving over your Pnx profile from 1 milestone to the next (perhaps a month later) is currently not guarranteed and even adviced against.

I'm pretty confident that K-Mel won't have such issues when it goes from 0.7 to 0.8 in 6-12 months(?)."

(I would say that is a pretty big + in favour of K-Mel, that I btw havn't seen anyone else mention on these forums... )

4. " And as far as conversion goes, I have certainly suggested for more people on the Pnx forums to try K-Mel then the opposite on this forum.
In fact my standard reply to a windowsuser posts like "I love Phoenix, but it's a bit slow on my old comp" is a link to this website."

(Do you want links to such threads, or will you take my word for it?)

5. "K-Mel and Pnx are not in competition against each other. They are two greate standards compliant browsers compeating together against the vast mayority of crappy non standardscompliant browsers out there.
For every user swithing from eg IE to either of the two, everybody wins (from webdesigner to normal users to disabled persons)."

6. "My whish would be for K-Mel to have 100x more users next week."

7. " As a last note. K-Mel has lots of real advanatges over eg Phoenix, so there is absolutely no reason to make up stuff just to badmouth eg Pnx. K-Mel is strong enough to stand on it's own merits and doesn't need to use mudslinging to "defend" itself."

Well, that is 7 good remarks about K-Mel in this thread alone. There are plenty more in other threads at both this forum and over at the "Phoenix forum" (both the old and the new one).

The only reason I can think of to make you not have seen these remarks is that you imediately get angry & protective when I point at unfair and or incorrect comparrisons between K-Mel and (lately) Phoenix.
Calm down, drink a glass of water or something and read my entire posts without imediately trying to figure out a quick comback, and you might be able to see whole picture

I'm not pushing phoenix down people throats here, but urging people to show up the REAL advanatges of K-Mel (of which there are plenty).

>> That however is still not a valid reason to make up things that are not true.

>Come on, now. I don't think anyone deliberatley 'made up' anything. Maybe they worded something wrong or made statements based on old info that is now void, but looking through this thread I see no one attempting to out and out lie to anyone.

I never said people deliberately lied. But if you eg start making a list to compair 2 things and STATE something, it's customary to actually check up on the facts first or at least hint at that you might not have a current or accurate picture. Otherwise you will quite often end up spreading misinformation.
This is in fact my main point sofar in this thread, discuss FACTS, not fiction.

-----

>Let's examine for a moment what Andrew said with a bit more of an open mind:

>"* You can fully customize the K-Meleon interface adding and removing any menu or menu items that you like. You can't do that with Phoenix. That's important to those of us who need to support a browser in a public setting."

>This is actually true. I fully understand that if one unpacks some jar files and digs deep into whatever, that one can add/remove menu items and such in Phoenix or Mozilla.


Many customatizations in K-Mel requires editing files. Changing the XUL also requires nothing more then a texteditor (the language is W3C standard JavaScript/CSS/XML which is litterally a normal webpage).

And unpacking .jar ... please it's just a .zip with a different extension. Anyone capable of adding a Macro to K-Mel should be able to unpack a zipfile, don't you think?
Besides there is a debate in Bugzilla about if the jarfiles should be zipped at all or not (it involves unpacking speed vs loadtimes or compressed/uncompressed files from HD to memory and also download size) so we might end up with totally uncompressed jars.

> How many people can get a Mozilla build and add a button to their toolbar that will launch their favorite mail app? Not many, that is for sure.

Well, Mozilla is a bit tricky, since it has it's own built in Mailclient.
But in Phoenix you can visit a webpage like this http://texturizer.net/phoenix/extensions.html and automatically install an extension which might include optional buttons. And if there is a demand for a button to launch a mailapp then someone will make it as an extension (I however use the Quicklaucnhbar in Windows to launch my mailapp).

> I have used Mozilla on and off for years now. Never, I have rearranged the UI to my liking of my own accord. I have only used KMeleon for about 10 days now... after three days of use I had the entire default UI completely customized.

You are confusing Phoenix and Mozilla a bit.
Mozilla doesn't have any of the drag and drop custimatization of Phoenix. From the sounds of it I think you might not really know what it is.



>"* K-Meleon's interface is native to Windows which allows it to run more efficiently than Phoenix's cross-platform XUL interface."
>This is correct.
>"* Phoenix can be a memory-hog. K-Meleon consistently outperforms Phoenix, Mozilla and IE on older and slower PCs."
>This is correct.

Agreed, and I've even said so at my very first post in this thread.


>"* K-Meleon encourages user participation in the development of the browser. Phoenix does not."

>I think what Andrew meant here was getting involved with the source code. That may have changed now but I do know at one time that the development of Phoenix was restricted to Hyatt, Ross, etc... just a few people. I remember even reading it myself once.

>If they have indeed changed that policy (did they?) and Phoenix is now open for other folks to submit patches then that is just an honest and understandable mistake by Andrew.

Well, it was like that up to the first (0.1) milestone got released I think. Ever since then you could just report bugs in Bugzilla as you would have for Mozilla (or K-Mel for that matter, except K-Mel has it's own bugzilla).

I really don't see the problem with me pointing this out to clear up missconcepions.
If I wouldn't have pointed it out people reading it would still belive this was the case, or?


>"* K-Meleon supports Opera Hotlists. Phoenix does not."
>This is correct.

To which I also agreed to in my very first post.


> I certainly wouldn't define what Andrew said as "huge flaws in the arguments of benefits of K-Mel vs Pnx." like you did.

I DID NOT DO THAT! You really need to read my first post again too see what I wrote.
I was talking in general about people posting on the K-Mel forums, not Andrews post in particular. I'm sure Andrew realizes that too (it sure seemed like he was on top of things in his reply to me).


>Now lets look at Ammars statements:

>" - the phoenix interface is bulky.. especially if you're using tabs. big buttons big graphics and somehow the interface feels 'heavy'."

>He is correct. He didn't say that the 'big buttons' could be made smaller... was he supposed to? The main point was the UI is bulky and feels heavy.

YES, when he states he has tried both and compairs K-Mel to Pnx and he is able to add macros to K-Mel, he should DEFINITLY spend the time to at least open up the CUSTOMIZE funtionallity before cristizising the look of the UI. Otherwise he is not compairing appels to apples now is he?

It is the same thing as if I say that an old Volvo from 1975 by far outperforms the latest BMW, and someone points out that the BMW would prehaps preform better if I would actually put petrol in it.


>"- i can use kmeleon as my default browser, it loads up in 1/10th the time of phoenix"

>This is correct. I don't know the exact time but I do know that K-Meleon loads far faster than Phoenix on my system.

Yes, K-mel is both smaller and also has that nifty QuickLaunch (Phoenix actually got it too as a hidden feature, but the developers are planning to rip it out AFAIK).


> So Ammars big error here was: "lotsa menus lotsa features"

Plus not compairing appels to apples. That is also the 2 things I objected against in his post. Somehow you manage to interpret that as if I would object against everything he said. Sorry, but you really need to read what is really IN my posts.



>In summary:
>..somehow bring you to the conclusion that a Phoenix FUD campaign is taking place by people "making things up out of the blue"?

Again, the "FUD campaign" has mainy been in previous threads and not thisone. It should be quite obvious if you read what I say in my posts.


>If you want to find a place full of erroneous statements that are made on a near daily basis then visit the forums at Mozillazine. I would never waste my time trying to correct any of that, though, because I don't really give a rip.

Well, you might want to check out the K-Mel subsection at least. Currently I'm pretty lonely answering K-Mel quiestion there.
That board is seeing an awful lot of traffic, and K-Mel people showing their face in at least the K-Mel section would surely create more new K-Mel users

After reading this thread, I think I'll drop by alt.os.linux.mandrake and ask "Why use Linux when we have Windoze?" It seems to make just as much sense as the original (flamebait) question.

Max, it should rather be: "Why use Mandrake when we have Redhat?"

Max, it should rather be: "Why use Mandrake when we have Redhat?"


You're absolutely right. That thought occurred to me too late, as all my best ideas have a nasty habit of doing. 8^)

Hi Stefan,

First off, this will be the last bit of attention you will be getting from me. I think you've made it pretty clear to most people here that you are operating on a different agenda.... aka, a troll as far as I am concerned. I am, however, going to clarify some of your bullsh*t as a matter of public record and, I suppose, a mild form of entertainment.


You state: "I never said people deliberately lied."

That's right. You didn't explicitly say that.

You said: "That however is still not a valid reason to make up things that are not true."

Of which, I replied: "I don't think anyone deliberatley 'made up' anything."

This is a good example of a trolling technique you use when you have been called on your bull to the point of being completely depleted of anything worthwhile to say.


Troll Technique #1: Someone quotes you. Then you respond to an exxagerated version of that quote denying that you ever said it to begin with.


Here's another example of different technique that you use. I state:

"I fully understand that if one unpacks some jar files and digs deep into whatever, that one can add/remove menu items and such in Phoenix or Mozilla. "

of which you later reply:

"And unpacking .jar ... please it's just a .zip with a different extension. Anyone capable of adding a Macro to K-Mel should be able to unpack a zipfile, don't you think?".... followed with even more off topic diatrabe regarding the future of jar files.

I am perfectly aware of what a .jar file is. Did I somehow imply that unpacking a jar file is a difficult procedure? That was a rhetorical question. I made no such implication nor did I even hint at such.


Troll Technique #2: Make grossly speculative and erroneous inferences from a simple statement, then counter the erroneous inference with a factual statement.


Ok, on to other things:

I stated:

"I have used Mozilla on and off for years now. Never, I have rearranged the UI to my liking of my own accord. I have only used KMeleon for about 10 days now... after three days of use I had the entire default UI completely customized."

and you respond:

"You are confusing Phoenix and Mozilla a bit.
Mozilla doesn't have any of the drag and drop custimatization of Phoenix."

No, I'm not confusing Mozilla and Phoenix at all. If you weren't a troll then I would say you are misunderstanding what is meant by the ease of UI customization in K-meleon.... adding *new* buttons, main menu items, context menu items, etc... with our *own* custom functionality.


See Troll Technique #2


You also added: "From the sounds of it I think you might not really know what it is."

From the sound of it you have no clue as to what you are talking about. I first started experimenting with Mozilla since the M5 days, and since around .80 or so, I've always had it installed on my machine. Currently, I have a nightly of Mozilla from last week installed. I read the news at Mozillazine.org, MozillaNews.org, and Mozilla.org routinely as well as the forums at Mozillazine and MozillaNews. Every week or so I carouse the newsgroups such as netscape.public.mozilla.general, netscape.public.mozilla.embedding, netscape.public.mozilla.ui, netscape.mozilla.user.general, and netscape.mozilla.user.win32.

As far as Phoenix goes, I have had it installed on my system since 0.1 with the current version being a nightly build from 11/8. I am perfectly aware of what Phoenix is, what it can or cannot do, etc..., etc...

I'm fully aware of the many extensions for either Phoenix and/or Mozilla, whether it be GoogleBar, UABar, Pref Toolbar, OptiMoz, Multizilla, Tabbed Browser Extensions, Context Menu Extenstions, etc..., etc..., etc...

I also have several other browsers installed, too, such as Opera 6.05, NS4, MyIE2, and (of course) IE6. In Linux I have Galeon, Konqueror, etc...


Troll Technique #3: Patronize


I said: "I certainly wouldn't define what Andrew said as "huge flaws in the arguments of benefits of K-Mel vs Pnx." like you did"

You reply: "I DID NOT DO THAT! You really need to read my first post again too see what I wrote."

Well, I did just that. I read your post on that again.

Here's a rehash:

Al states: "> You've gotta admire these Phoenix advocates, they still keep trying to convert people."

You reply: "Are you really this clueless about what is happening in this thread?
There is a difference between trying to "convert people" and pointing out huge flaws in the arguments of benefits of K-Mel vs Pnx."

Now you say: "I was talking in general about people posting on the K-Mel forums"


Troll Technique #4: Denial


In reponse to my statement regarding KMeleon loading speed, you
reply: "Yes, K-mel is both smaller and also has that nifty QuickLaunch"

Very clever. Agreement with a subtle implication that it is because of KMeleons optional preloader. I have news for you, I don't use the K-Meleon pre-loader. Never have, never will.


Troll Technique #5: Agreement... with a subtle clause.



Finally, amidst all of your other useless banter, you repeatedly say things similar to this: "It should be quite obvious if you read what I say in my posts. "


Troll Technique #6: Repetitive Deflection


I have read your posts, Stefan. In this thread and others. Several times, in fact. The only thing that is clearly obvious to me, beyond any and all reason of a doubt, is that you are a troll. A very crafty and subtle troll, but a troll nonetheless.

If you think that referring Phoenix users in the Mozillazine forums, who complain that Phoenix is too slow, over here to the K-Meleon web site somehow absolves you from troll status then you had better guess again on that.


-Alan
kmeleon32@yahoo.com

> Max, it should rather be: "Why use Mandrake when we have Redhat?"

Actually, why use either when there is Gentoo

However I do agree that the ofiginal post is somewhat of a flamebait.
But you don't have to take the bait and noone actually did, but instead made sensible replies. But SOME (definitly not all) of the reason that where given in the listing of pros and cons where not correct.

That I pointed those out for some reason is too much for some people to handle.

"I have read your posts, Stefan. In this thread and others. Several times, in fact. The only thing that is clearly obvious to me, beyond any and all reason of a doubt, is that you are a troll. A very crafty and subtle troll, but a troll nonetheless."

You hit the nail right on the head. After reading through this utterly long thread, I came to the exact same conclusion myself.

Looks to me like someone is hanging out in the wrong forum.

> a troll as far as I am concerned.

It's unfortunate that you cannot see the difference between someone trolling and someone clearing up misconcetions and inaccuracies to get a discussion based on facts.
1 is bad and 1 is good for getting a meaningfull discussion on a forum like this.
I will assume that most people here are capable of seeing the difference though.




> Troll Technique #1: Someone quotes you. Then you respond to an exxagerated version of that quote denying that you ever said it to begin with.

A quote is a word for word rewrite of something someone else wrote.
If you write something with your OWN words then you are NOT quoting, period. Trying to pass it off as a quote is placing words in someone elses mouth.
And _that_ is Troll Technique #1...




Ok, on to other things:

>I stated:
>"I have used Mozilla on and off for years now. Never, I have rearranged the UI to my liking of my own accord. I have only used KMeleon for about 10 days now... after three days of use I had the entire default UI completely customized."

>and you respond:
>"You are confusing Phoenix and Mozilla a bit.
>Mozilla doesn't have any of the drag and drop custimatization of Phoenix."

>No, I'm not confusing Mozilla and Phoenix at all.


Yes you are. You are bringing in Mozilla (with almost no built in customatization available) when where where discussing K-Mel vs Pnx. It's pretty obvious that a comparison of customability K-Mel vs Mozilla is an outright win for K-Meleon, becuse the ONLY way to do it in Mozilla is manually editing the XUL.
As far as K-Mel vs Pnx I've alread made a long post of about that. Scroll up, it's among one of the early posts that you probably never read.

> adding *new* buttons, main menu items, context menu items, etc... with our *own* custom functionality.

Adding & configuring menu items directly in the UI is one of K-Mels advantages yes.
Adding buttons and custom functionality is not.


> I am perfectly aware of what Phoenix is, what it can or cannot do, etc..., etc...

Yet you just said you cannot add custom functionality nor buttons to Phoenix (in the UI). Obviously I would say you are not aware of what Phoenix can or can't do.



>I said: "I certainly wouldn't define what Andrew said as "huge flaws in the arguments of benefits of K-Mel vs Pnx." like you did"
>You reply: "I DID NOT DO THAT! You really need to read my first post again too see what I wrote."
>Well, I did just that. I read your post on that again.

>Here's a rehash:
>Al states: "> You've gotta admire these Phoenix advocates, they still keep trying to convert people."

>You reply: "Are you really this clueless about what is happening in this thread?
>There is a difference between trying to "convert people" and pointing out huge flaws in the arguments of benefits of K-Mel vs Pnx."
>Now you say: "I was talking in general about people posting on the K-Mel forums"

#1 Alans remark definitly is targeted at "history outside of this thread". My reply was in the same context.
#2 There had been other nonfactual nonsence posted about Phoenix also in this very thread, before that reply of mine.




>In reponse to my statement regarding KMeleon loading speed, you
>reply: "Yes, K-mel is both smaller and also has that nifty QuickLaunch"

>Very clever. Agreement with a subtle implication that it is because of KMeleons optional preloader. I have news for you, I don't use the K-Meleon pre-loader. Never have, never will.

Um, I can't be held responsible for what you decide to read into my posts that is not there. I can only stand for what it actually sais. And to me it's pretty clear that I state that it is both smaller and have a good preloader.
And FWIW I've stated many times in the discussions over at the Phoenix forums that the developers should keep the preloader in Phoenix becuses it a usefull feature for some people. 1 of my main arguments for that is "K-Mel loads faster without preloader then Pnx and it STILL has an optional preloader to make it appear instantly".


> If you think that referring Phoenix users in the Mozillazine forums, who complain that Phoenix is too slow, over here to the K-Meleon web site somehow absolves you from troll status then you had better guess again on that.

Well, if you consider contesting inaccurate, infactuall & unfair statements by others beeing trolling, then indeed I'm a troll and even proud of it.
By most people definition however a Troll is someone that USES inaccurate, infactuall & unfair statements...
Of cource you are alowed to have your own definition if you like.

As for mentioning that I'm showing people how to even FIND K-Meleon, that is in reply to silly posts stating I'm trying to push Phoenix on people.

BTW, a further comment on what I'm pushing and not.
On the university I'm at currently the only browser installed on the several hundred mashines is IE.

The alternative browser I'm trying to convince the people in charge to also install is K-Meleon.

Why?
Becuse it has many definit benefits over other Geckobased browsers on the Win platform. And no, the school doesn't have old crappy PC's. They are all around 1GHz+ with plenty of memory.

I'd like to add something myself about these three things you just said.

"You are bringing in Mozilla (with almost no built in customatization available) when where where discussing K-Mel vs Pnx. It's pretty obvious that a comparison of customability K-Mel vs Mozilla is an outright win for K-Meleon, becuse the ONLY way to do it in Mozilla is manually editing the XUL."

"Adding & configuring menu items directly in the UI is one of K-Mels advantages yes. Adding buttons and custom functionality is not."

"Yet you just said you cannot add custom functionality nor buttons to Phoenix (in the UI). Obviously I would say you are not aware of what Phoenix can or can't do."

I think you are missing the boat entirely (or intentionally) on what people are talking about when they speak of kmels ui customizability.

In my kmel I have a new main menu called 'Communications' that have menu items for opening up my mail program, creating a new mail composition window, launching MSN messenger, and for opening my newsreader.

In addition, I have a couple of new toolbars that I made that house buttons for launching certain other apps I use alot and for other things using some macro magic.

The same applies to the different types of context menus. I have added my own menu items with my own commands to just about about every type of context menu except the image one, I think. Most of the new commands menu commands do some form of processing on text or links that I select in a web page.

The point is that the above cannot be done in either Phoenix or Mozilla without diving into the xul files that are packaged in the chrome directory. Phoenix and Mozilla can be used interchangably because there is little or no difference in what I would need to do, in either Phoenix or Mozilla, to achieve the same level of customizability as I can in kmel. I've tried doing this with xul before but I find it very difficult and have been unable to do so (Maybe XUL Planet will put up a better tutorial some day). I'm sure this will be the case with most users too. In kmel it is very easy to do.

While Phoenix is clearly more customizable than Mozilla, I am still limited to simply re-arranging/adding/subtracting existing pre-defined buttons like Home, History, New Tab, Downloads, etc. I can add toolbars in Phoenix but I am still limited to the same predefined buttons and, obviously, bookmarks.

Speaking of toolbars, in kmel I can move them around and organize them. For example, I have my main menu and two custom toolbars on the same line thereby maximizing my screen real estate. No can do in Phoenix.

Next time, when someone boasts of kmel UI customizability vs. phoenix, you better think twice before you open your mouth in response.

> I think you are missing the boat entirely (or intentionally) on what people are talking about when they speak of kmels ui customizability.

No, im not missing things. The problem is that people don't belive me when I point out that some of the things mentioned are also available in other gecko-browsers.
And instead of checking for them selfs, they just call me a troll. Highly unproductive

> The point is that the above cannot be done in either Phoenix or Mozilla without diving into the xul files that are packaged in the chrome directory.

That is correct for some of the things you mention, but not all.

To change menus you do need to go into XUL. And that is indeed a big + for K-Mel vs other Gecko browser on Win (and I've already said so in this thread).

> opening up my mail program, creating a new mail composition window, launching MSN messenger, and for opening my newsreader.

Yes, that would also require XUL modification (but as I've said, if people want this feature eg open a mailapp someone will make it in to an extension with buttons included. Most people would use the built in OS feature called the QuickLaunch bar for that anyway. The main benefit of that is of cource that it's available also when the browser is not running...)

> and for other things using some macro magic

But almost everything you can do with K-Meleons Macros you can do in Phoenix & Moz (and even IE for that matter) with Bookmarklets. And in Phoenix you can place these bokkmarklets anywhere on you toolbars...
So where is the ADVANTAGE of Macros?

It's greate that K-Mel have macros, but I don't see why it's any better then how Phoenix, Mozilla or even IE does it. To me it's just add the same functionality using another method.

It's the same as with eg K-Mel Layers vs Tabs. They might not be implemented the exat same way in the browsers, but they provide the same functionallity and that is the important part isn't it?

> I am still limited to ... ...existing pre-defined buttons

No, with extensions you can get more buttons for various features.
And I assume most people doesn't write their own macros but download ones that others have made that they think are usable for them.

> Speaking of toolbars, in kmel I can move them around and organize them. For example, I have my main menu and two custom toolbars on the same line thereby maximizing my screen real estate. No can do in Phoenix.

No, but you can move the items FROM your toolbars ONTO your Menu-bar, which in effect is the same thing, isn't it?

> Next time, when someone boasts of kmel UI customizability vs. phoenix, you better think twice before you open your mouth in response.

Well, I really don't have to think twice when people keep posting things that are advantages for K-Mel when much of it is also avalable in eg Phoenix (and in this case some of the things you mention is even available in IE...)

Stefan,

While this technically may be true:

"Many customatizations in K-Mel requires editing files. Changing the XUL also requires nothing more then a texteditor (the language is W3C standard JavaScript/CSS/XML which is litterally a normal webpage)."

There's no comparison between the two processes. In K-Meleon, you can edit the code right from the K-Meleon interface. The menus themselves are fairly well-defined and easily accessible. The same is not the case with XUL. Interpreting what line of code in XUL does what and displays what is nothing like doing the same in K-Meleon.

In response to Asa's comments:

"You misspoke, right? You were kidding? You weren't?

Phoenix makes builds for windows and linux publically available to any users/testers every single day (does kmeleon?) and has had over one hundred thousand downloads in the last four or five weeks. There have been over ten thousand posts to the mozillaZine Phoenix forums, nearly 1000 bug reports in bugzilla, patches contributed by non-core contributors, not to mention more than a dozen themes and a handful of extensions all contributed in the last five or six weeks.

Phoenix doesn't "encourages user participation"? Were you confusing Phoenix (mozilla.org's browser project) with the computer motherboard maker or something?

--Asa"

Asa's right. That was a bad choice of words on my part. When Phoenix was intially released to the world, involvement in coding and deciding on the direction of the browser was discouraged. I've heard that is no longer the case as far as contributing code. I'm not sure if the development process has been opened up or not. I can say that we've never discouraged people from participating and contributing to K-Meleon. In fact, it was the users who came up with the Layers (Tabs) functionality when the developers indicated that it would have to come from outside the project to be included.

I also think it is important to point out the differences between the support that K-Meleon and Phoenix get in the development process. We don't have the full force and support of the Mozilla project behind us. Phoenix, on the other hand, is an official Mozilla project with everything that goes with that. Blake stated that no one gets paid to work on Phoenix. But the people who are working on Phoenix, to a large degree, are software developers by trade. There are people working on K-Meleon who have that background too. But many of the people doing work of one form or another are not coders and don't spend their days working for Netscape/AOL. I'm not complaining about the situation. I think we've done a great job with the resources that we have. But to compare the output from the K-Meleon team to what the Phoenix team generates is a bit unfair.

> In K-Meleon, you can edit the code right from the K-Meleon interface. The menus themselves are fairly well-defined and easily accessible.

Yes, I've also said now 2-3 time that the menu customatization IS a definite advantage in K-Mel. I never did dispute that in any way or form

Wow, all this arguing is insane. At least waste your time arguing with people who don't use Gecko-based browsers, and maybe you'll win a convert or two.

K-meleon obviously has more built-in customizability. Phoenix will never have this, not because it's difficult to implement (e.g. we actually had an implementation plan for customizable keybindings), but because the entire purpose of Phoenix is to cater to the "average user." I maintain that Phoenix's toolbar customizability is as advanced as you can get and still be easy to use for the advanced user. K-meleon's customizability, while thorough, is not something my dad (a person knowledgeable about computers) is ever going to figure out. To that end, having toyed with K-meleon's configurability and being intimately familiar with XUL, I assert that anyone who can configure K-meleon could easily and quickly figure out the basics of XUL. If you're even talking in this forum, you're probably advanced enough to think K-meleon's customization options are easy, so please do go ahead and use it...but for Phoenix, we are aggressively targetting end-users and advanced end-users, so such features will probably never make it in.

To respond to a couple inaccurate points made here:

> Phoenix, on the other hand, is an official Mozilla project with everything that goes
> with that.

In all seriousness, almost nothing "goes with" this. We get a product in Bugzilla (big deal) and announcements on mozilla.org. None of these contribute to Phoenix's development.

> But the people who are working on Phoenix, to a large degree, are software
> developers by trade.

I'm not a software developer by trade, I'm a high school senior. Pierre Chanial isn't a software developer either, he's a grad student working on a Phd in Astrophysics. Dave Hyatt is, so that's 1/3rd of the core team...

> But to compare the output from the K-Meleon team to what the Phoenix team
> generates is a bit unfair.

I don't want to fuel a competition between Phoenix and K-meleon; that's just utterly pointless. But I do feel compelled to dispute this. Phoenix is the result almost entirely of (a) a full-time Apple employee who works on Phoenix only at night; (b) a high school senior; and (c) a graduate student. We're all working on this on the side, and given that Phoenix only came out at the end of September (K-meleon has been out for at least a year as I understand it), I think we're doing a damn good job.

Blake,

Actually, what is hilarious is developers from both projects commenting on each other message boards. Who would know that we all have so much free time??


From my perspective, there is no competition between Phoenix and K-Meleon. Sure, there's crossover in some areas but both browsers have strengths that might lend themselves to one set of users or another. Remember, MS has something like 95% of the market these days. There's a lot of room for both to grow and thrive. I and many others here use and test Phoenix regularly. None of my comments are intended to harsh on Phoenix. There's thing I wish it would be which it never will. I can probably say the same about K-Meleon. I'm never going to get everything I want.

I'm not going to get into an argument over who's done what. I would just point out that being a Mozilla project gives you all a huge amount of visibility. That translates into users, testing, volunteers, etc. But we're not into a competition with Phoenix and I too have been impressed with what all you have done in the short amount of time. Frankly, your boat is probably no different from our boat in that a small amount of people are doing a ton of work for a lot of people who don't realize everything that goes into it. I'll leave it at that. I don't want to get flamed on Blake's blog.

Hey...I posted earlier today under Phoenix and Mozilla...and my (rather trollish) posts don't appear to be here. Well... here I go.

Phoenix seems really slow to me. It took several minutes to load, and even with only a couple tabs open, was unbearably slow(ie. scrolling, changing tabs, etc...). The really odd thing is that Mozilla on the same machine loaded in seconds, and was bearable.

SJ Zero
I'm sure the Phoenix developers would LOVE to hear your input and systemspecs to try and fix that bug... but posting it over at the phoenix forums might be a better idea

Is slowness a bug? I thought it was a feature.

For now I'm going to look around for a minimal web browser for linux instead of waiting for Phoenix to get up to speed. Most of the sites I visit are html, so finding a program which will render those should be a piece of cake.

"But I do feel compelled to dispute this. Phoenix is the result almost entirely of (a) a full-time Apple employee who works on Phoenix only at night; (b) a high school senior; and (c) a graduate student. We're all working on this on the side, and given that Phoenix only came out at the end of September (K-meleon has been out for at least a year as I understand it), I think we're doing a damn good job."

I feel compelled to dispute this, too. Allow me to shine a bit more light on some statements that may be taken at face value by the uninformed.

(a) The full-time Apple employee - who also happens to be a former Netscape employee and chief creator of XUL.

(b) A high school senior - who also works at Netscape and works on Mozilla. That would be you, Blake.

(c) A graduate student - who also has been involved with Mozilla development for the past 2 1/2 years at least.

Now we certainly wouldn't want to give the uninformed the impression that the 'core team' of Phoenix developers were composed of just any ol' Apple employee, high school senior, and physics student now would we?

As far as comparing development of K-Meleon to that of Phoenix. Who do you think you are kidding with that line of rational?

K-Meleon started back in (at least) the M17 days and has had to contend with an ever changing and buggy set of API's and codebase, even to the point of being broken.

Phoenix starts by taking a post-1.0 Mozilla (1.1?), chastizing it of mail/news/composer/etc..., rips the UI prefs down to next to nil, adds back some UI stuff, i.e., customizable toolbars, then changes the default theme and pawns it off as some sort of new product. Give me a break.

It's a new product, alright. I like to think of it as a Mozilla Slicer because that's exactly what it does.... slices into the Mozilla user base far more than anything else.

Who else could be impressed and excited about customizable toolbars? There is only one type of user that could possibly be impressed by that since customizable toolbars are prevelant in just about every other non-Moz/NS browser. That user is a Mozilla user.

Who else could be impressed about the speed of Phoenix? There is only one type of user that could possibly be impressed by that because compared to non-Mozilla browsers, the performance of Phoenix, outside of gecko itself, is far from impressive. That user is a Mozilla user.

All of this fan fare about the influx of activity in the Phoenix forums is nothing but hype. Pure bullsh*t. 95+% of those same 'Phoenix converts' were running around three months ago like chickens with their heads cut off ranting how great Mozilla is.

Phoenix is nothing but a Mozilla Slicer.


-Alan
kmeleon32@yahoo.com

> For now I'm going to look around for a minimal web browser for linux instead of waiting for Phoenix to get up to speed.

Lynx is probably installed by default on your Dist.

> Phoenix starts by taking a post-1.0 Mozilla (1.1?)

It's built on Mozilla Trunk (1.3a currently)

> slices into the Mozilla user base far more than anything else

The poll at Phoenix Help site show that about 1/3rd of the users are IE converts...

Damn, I almost forgot to mention this, too, and that is the hodge podge nonsense regarding the 'phenominal rate of milestone releases of Phoenix' and compare that with other projects.

What a complete load of backward assed bullsh*t!

It is sheer astonishment that there is anybody that completely void of intellect who would think those numbers mean diddly squat. Even more astonishing that someone would be brain dead enough to compare that with the release rates of other projects.

Save that pathetic 'Phoenix milestone release rate' rant for some nitwit who is gullible enough to buy into it.


-Alan
kmeleon32@yahoo.com

K-Meleon is a stripped down web browser(albiet a very good one). Lynx is a cruel joke from the early 90's.

Hell -- there are even better text-mode browsers(links)!

> Lynx is a cruel joke from the early 90's.

You specifically asked for "a minimal web browser for linux".
Lynx fits that description to 100%, it's for linux and it's definitly minimal.

BTW, I use Lynx quite often when I need to browse and download stuff to eg a Linux server. Definitly a usefull tool, that is still beeing developed and also present by default on most Dists (which is why I suggested it over another text-mode browser).


BTW I just noticed Alan managed to break the below record
> Obviously things are shaping up, becuse it's been a long time since there was such a long thread like this involving other browsers that didn't end up in a swearing contest.

Though it's pretty good that we could at least have 50 posts without namecalling and swearing.

Stefan, all I really have to say is, you are truly a trollmaster. This always-having-the-last-word-with-completely-mindless-arguments makes me sit in awe in front of the screen. If I ever want to be a troll - I wanna be just like you.

The bad news is that your trolling isnt working. I still like kmel and I still dislike mozilla and its bastard child, phoenix.

> you are truly a trollmaster.

Thanks, now please prove where I'm wrong about facts. Eg the things I in your post I said you where incorrect about, PROVE that you are right and I'm wrong.

When you do that you might realize I'm not a Troll about the same time that you have verified that what I say is also correct.

Alan, I feel very sorry for you. You're blatantly bitter about Phoenix's success :-(, but you're also, sadly, misinformed.

Yeah, we all work on Mozilla -- you figured out our "secret"! Uh, or something. I was responding to a point made that we're all programmers by trade, which, as you just confirmed, isn't true.

30,000 lines of code have already been changed or added in Phoenix. That's the delta from Mozilla. The sidebar and all its panels have been completely rewritten from scratch, global history and the download manager have been overhauled, customizable toolbars are brand new, web form autocomplete is brand new, tabgroups have been rewritten, bookmarks have been rewritten--honestly, must I go on? You're dead wrong.

People are not impressed at the speed at which we change our version number; they're impressed at the speed at which we work.

Oh, one more point you're dead wrong about: Phoenix is based off the daily trunk. Every release of Phoenix is the latest possible Mozilla code.

You know, the Phoenix team didn't set out to compete with K-meleon, even though all signs indicate that we're already defeating it. But if your intellect represents the intellect of the K-meleon community, maybe we should just make it official.