Is it just me, or is K-Meleon starting to look more and more like Netscape? One on the main reasons I liked it was because it mimics the IE GUI, as it says it is supposed to. However, it is turning away from the IE look and towards the Netscape look. What's the deal?

The tool bars seem to be undergoing a change, but how do you figure it looks like Netscape? Explain please.

First off, when I say 'like Netscape,' I mean version 4, not 6 or the default Mozilla look. Here are things that are looking more like Netscape (several changes since the update from version .21):
1. File / View / Edit / Go / Favorites / Help menus are not in a 'coolbar' like they used to be
2. The animation when there is action (the pipe) is now in the first coolbar level instead of the very top level where File... would be.
3. The right click menu's wording is more similiar to Netscape's than IE's.
4. Shortcut to reload is Ctrl+R as it is in Netscape instead of F5 in IE
5. The addition of profiles as Netscape has.
6. 'New Window' option
7. No more menu arrow on 'Back' and 'Forward' buttons.
8. View > Source opens in new window owned by K-Meleon instead of in Notepad.
9. The general layout of Preferences dialog (Treeview on left, options on right)
10. 'Edit > Preferences' instead of 'Tools > Internet Options'
11. Address bar has URL aligned to left with no icon for the page (I know this might just not be added in yet)
12. Alternating gray pixels over unavailable toolbar icons instead of the entire image being gray as it is in IE.
13. The fact that there is a 'Go' menu.

That may have something to do with the fact that I hate the IE gui?

I'm not saying that that is the wrong thing to do, but on the front page it says "K-Meleon interface tries to mimic the IE MFC interface as much as possible." If you are actually not going to do that, you need to update the main page and let people know that you've strayed from what you originally said you were doing. The way things are headed, I don't see how there will be much difference from Mozilla itself.

Ok, I understand your first comment, but "I don't see how there will be much difference from Mozilla itself." doesn't make much sense imho. Even when you apply the classic theme, there are major differences, such as:
K-Meleon doesn't take a millenium to load
You can customize the menus without fucking with xml
Plugins
Coolbars
About 7 MB less stuff

We're taking the best things from both browsers. If IE does something stupid, we shouldn't do it the same way just for the hell of it. A good example is the "go" button you mentioned. In IE, back and forward and the history is hidden under View->Go To. Those commands are accessed a lot (at least by me), so putting them in that menu would be stupid. While I'm addressing specific issues, I might as well address them all...
1: Menu-in-a-coolbar is broken since we got rid of BCG. If someone wants to write an alternative, we'll use it.
2: See number 1
3: IE's right-click menu is dumb. Putting Refresh (reload) way at the bottom makes no sense, neither does not having a "stop" option. As for "Reload" rather than "Refresh" I really don't think that's a big deal, and in future versions you'll be able to change it by editing menus.cfg
4: Ctrl+R just plain makes sense. It's more in line with the rest of the accelerator keys. IE has F5 because that's what refresh is in windows explorer and microsoft is trying to convince people they are the same program (hint, they aren't). Of course this won't really matter in future versions because we'll let your redefine your accelerators.
5: The profiles are built in to mozilla (whether you want them or not). We only added like 25 lines of code to use them. There's no reason not to have profiles. Just as an asside, IE has profiles also, the settings change depending on who's logged in.
6: erm, I can open new windows in IE too...
7: see number 1
8: We just haven't gotten around to hooking view-source up to a text editor yet.
9: Tabs are dumb, they are clumsy to work with and completely non-scalable.
10: When I think, "I want to edit my preferences" I think to look in "edit->Preferences." Tools is supposed to invoke external programs (and in IE, the perference editor really is an external program). This too can be changed in menus.cfg if you want to though.
11: Correct, we haven't gotten to that yet
12: I'm not an artist, I just opened up psp and trew together something that looked greyed out. If you want to submit a better disabled toolbar, I'll check it into the tree. (I didn't even notice Netscape did it this way, I did it that way because that's what VC++ and PSP does)
13: I addressed this earlier.

Fair enough. But...

4: Ctrl+R ---> Yes, granted; but IIRC, both Moz and IE let you use either. For one, F5 is handier when you can't or don't want to hold a button down and tap another - like when browsing and eating, or testing code.

5: There's no reason not to have profiles. ---> 'Tis not my project, but I think that's debatable.

10: When I think, "I want to edit my preferences" ---> Oh, just put it in both places and make EVERYONE shut up. ;-) Why, however, is Edit out of its traditional seat of power near File?

"both moz and IE let you use either."
we do too now!
I added accel.cfg that lets you assign the accelerators however you want, so you can make F1 reload if you really feel like it.

"Why, however, is edit out of its traditional seat of power near file?"
because I'm a retard...

Who cares, this thing is going to rock when its complete, no matter what it looks like.
Put simply, when this thing hits 1.0 I don't see any reason why people will use anything else.
First decent program i have downloaded in years

Keep the good work up.

The 4.7 interface for netscape is perfect for browsing.

IEs interface is dull and lacks color.
IEs interface has a stop button right next to reload, wheres the logic in this, stop should be on the other side after the location, because its to STOP the address in the location from loading not cancel out a reload.



The classic interface in mozilla is even messed up, its got a search button where the stop button shouild be and has print in the far right corner.

The toolbars on netscape while most people dont find them useful, i do, the pages such as news sites which i visit throughout the day i want to have it a click away, 99 percent of my websurfing is done through the toolbar and i rarely have to open my bookmarks, in IE i always have to search through hundreds or thousands of bookmarks to find the site i want to go to, or i have to type it in, there is no one click solution for IE.

One click solution = easy, more than one click = hard.

People want easy not hard, so everything should be done in as few clicks as possible

Netscape figured this out, thats why they have icons for email, icons for everything, however IE, you have no icons, its a silly trick.

The reason IE loads fast is because theres nothing to load, a black and white menu system takes alot less ram than a color one, and IE has no color in its menus, IE is loaded when your machine boots up so you dont know how long IE takes to load, netscape could load up this way too but then peopl[e would complain about their machine which usually is windows taking too long to boot, this would work fine with linux though.

Overall the newest mozilla build kicks the $@#$ out of IE in everyway, its bug free almost, the only thing they have to focus on is resource management, they are doing just fine, by 0.9 the netscape 6.1 release, it should take no more than a few seconds to load.

0.8.1 takes 6-10 seconds to load on my comp, k-meleon should end up being as fast as opera, tell me who would use IE when they have something fast like opera which supports standards?

That is all i really have to say.

To people who complain about the interface, make your own, to people who complain about mozilla, enhance it, its open source so you have no excuse.