Hi there Folks,

I hope the developers will also read this as it's good news though will give my own humble advise for a better K-Meleon experience.

I recently concluded an assessment to investigate the overall quality from a variety of browsers (40 in all) with a low tech, low specs computer. From the beautiful to the ugly, fastest to slowest, memory friendly to heavy hoggers, most popular to the alien kind plus the facility to render most pages correctly. The purpose of using a low tech computer was to indicate how well implemented a browser was developed to cope with either low or high tech hardware. To cut a long story short there were four browsers that came on top, amongst the losers were the 'big 4': Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. For the purpose of this test I used Windows XP SP2 and a Compaq Armada E500, Pentium III/700GHz with 256 MB memory and a 30GB with a speed of 4000 rpm.

The winner (of modern, still in development browsers) with the combination of speed, fairly good customization options, page rendering (though not perfect) and very little memory issues was K-meleon 1.6.0, although the un-official K-MeleonCCFME0.096.4 was a little bit faster. With K-Meleon you somehow felt that things were going to happen fairly quikly and with little lag so that was a joy to behold. As far as visual skin appeal K-meleon was well behind compared to others like Orca, Lunascape (also the only browser with triple engine rendering options which is a great and unique idea) and I guess the 'big 4', as I call them, also had some great looking skins.

So to my taste I have kept K-Meleon, Orca and Lunascape for different reasons but K-Meleon is the one I have in mind first when browsing the web. It's one if not the best browser at using little memory, 70k max mostly!. Of course it all depends on what you're using but that is my experience. This all means K-Meleon is happy to play ball with a low tech computer so I imagine it will have the speed of light with an up to date modern computer. Overall it is my winner so well done K-Meleon developers.

I am sure the developers may have tricks up their sleeve in forthcoming versions of K-Meleon, never the less here is my own advise for some options to enhance a user's browsing experience. Am guessing some of my thoughts may already have been covered elsewhere on the forum/s but here it goes anyway:

1 - When copying an address or a series of words on the URL or second address bar, make the option to 'paste and go' without making a further click, just like in Opera.

2 - Some or most browsers offer the option to remember and paste the user's name and or password on a personal email provider's box, as an example, so less work to do.

3 - Have triple rendering engines perhaps? It would cover all bases for now.

4 - Better skins/themes development for a more pleasant visual experience.

5 - Make one dedicated page to download full implemented extentions, plugins, skin themes, dictionaries etc (just like in Firefox) without having to look at different places. Also make the browser re-start automatically (if need be) after a file installation although it's still tedious to have to re-start everytime an extention/plugin/theme is installed.

6 - Talking about dictionaries, would be great to have as many language options as Firefox offers.


Am sure there few other good things that can be implemented so all the best for K-Meleon!


xectis

http://kmext.sourceforge.net/extensions/autofillforms.7z

N

...

1 - When copying an address or a series of words on the URL or second address bar, make the option to 'paste and go' without making a further click, just like in Opera.

Right-Click the Go Button instead of the URL Bar.

2 - Some or most browsers offer the option to remember and paste the user's name and or password on a personal email provider's box, as an example, so less work to do.

K-Meleon's password manager does what you describe. Not sure if you mean something else. You might need to use the Enfore Password extension on some sites.

...

5 - Make one dedicated page to download full implemented extentions, plugins ...

K-Meleon Extensions Central

Also make the browser re-start automatically (if need be) after a file installation although it's still tedious to have to re-start everytime an extention/plugin/theme is installed.

K-Meleon Extensions Manager
...

Thanks for the up. Am not fully familiar with what's available and what K-meleon is capable of yet. I guess for the extensions etc I wrongly assumed I could install from within the browser itself, just like Firefox which is exemplary, instead of adding files manually which is a very tedious process. Positively though the variety of extensions on offer is formidable.

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xectis
Thanks for the up. Am not fully familiar with what's available and what K-meleon is capable of yet. I guess for the extensions etc I wrongly assumed I could install from within the browser itself, just like Firefox which is exemplary, instead of adding files manually which is a very tedious process. Positively though the variety of extensions on offer is formidable.

Check my second link. That enables auto "online" installation by right-clicking the link and selecting KM Install.

WHOA, what a work - Comparing **40** browsers! :O
And delighted of course that KM is your favorite (on old machines that is)

Yes, it certainly is true that not all capabilities of KM are evident at first look, and some not at the second or third either. Some things are unfortunately not as intuitive as in some other browsers, but on the other hand stuff like e.g. customizing the skin and buttons by editing a text file, (at first look a bit scaring) cfg-file, allows so much freedom for customization.

Best example, while the background image behind the toolbar buttons can even be switched on by simply putting a checkmark in the preferences sheets, the default image is (in my girls eyes :cool just awful, sorry, and lots of new users even overlook that checkbox in their hurry and blindly assume they could only have a dull plain skin background. While in reality they could use every back image they like, if they just simply save it named as "back.bmp" into their current skin folder. Be it a personal photo or some graphic. And this I discovered many years ago just by taking a curious look inside the skin folder! Then again, the back image in KM will only show in the top toolbars, there's no way to skin the scrollbars at the sides too or the statusbar at the bottom. Light and shadow... And the background is not switched on by default, since there was some bug on certain machines once. Pity. Never on mine though

Also, by editing a cfg-file, that allows to customize all button commands, the command on left-click as well as an optional menu on right-click, its tooltip text, and each individual icon can be changed by playing a bit with MS paint or using a complete new bmp-image. And all other menus can be freely changed as well. Personally I like that freedom very much, and don't mind spending a bit time on understanding the (rather easy) cfg-file. The hardest part is to find the lists of usable commands, menus, shortcuts etc. ;-)
But of course that's very much a matter of different tastes. A computer phobic will probably never get happy with KM if he wants to customize it

Just for example, that's the look of my personal skin now. A modified version of skin 'classiria', incl. some additional macro buttons, and the photo I've been using for years and still never tired of it:
http://two.xthost.info/siria/km/km_skins/skin-siria-private-2.png

Once I thought I want to customize the background image in *Firefox*. Tons of ready made pretty skins out there, cool. Am envious. So I got me a skin with a photo background and tried to exchange the pic with my own. Can't be so hard, is it?? Oh man, what a desaster. The FF skin folders were extremely complicated with TONS of files and subfolders (IIRC), and there was not 1 complete background photo in it, but several pieces of it. While experimenting to get my photo in there somehow, all I managed was to mess my FF profile completely, in the end nothing worked anymore! Grrr... In FF you seem to need a programmer just to modify a skin a bit, couldn't believe it.

But back to your list. What's left... Ah yeah:

4) Skins again
Well yes, the choice could be a bit bigger, or rather, easier to find :-/
But am glad that the new KM1.6 default skin is gotten real nice now (except background again, sorry, just IMHO)
Have been wishing for years there would be a direct link to "skins" and to "extensions" in the side panel here, but that would probably be too easy to find, must not be So let me list here the main places for skins to download:
* wiki, KM1.5+1.6 skins: http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/wiki/K-MeleonThemes15
* wiki, KM1.1 mixed with 1.5/1.6: http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/wiki/KMeleonThemesWiki
* skin forum: http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/list.php?10
* Oops, almost forgot: check guenters link below! (alas no screenshots)
INSTALLATION:
KM skins simply consist of an own folder, which must be placed inside K-Meleon/skins/folder (kinda hard huh ;-)
Then one can choose the new skin in Edit>Preferences>GUI
ATTENTION: The "toolbars.cfg" inside those skin folders also defines which buttons are visible and which commands they execute! So don't wonder if in many skins you can't find all buttons you want. Especially in ancient skins, even if updated. Then again, once you've understood that cfg-file a bit, it's rather easy to copy missing buttons and commands over from another skin yourself, just the copied icon may not match the 'look' of the target skin.

5) extensions
As already mentioned, there's an extension manager on kmext.sf.net which makes installation more automatic. Am really very happy that such a thing exists now! But personally again, and am certainly in a tiny minority there, still prefer to do it manually. Being slightly paranoid with setups, would like to first check which files are contained in an extension and in which folders they go, and can take a peek inside the macro code too. Actually most macros (wild guess 90%?) need nothing but one single file, the kmm-file, which is openly readable text and goes into the 'macros' folder. And 'uninstalling' simply means removing that file again from the macros folder. I like that.
If one feels experimental, they can even customize little bits in that code, just by comparing and using logical thinking. I mean easy stuff like modifying hard-coded paths or variables, or changing the menu text a bit, or hide a menu line or move it into another menu if desired. If one wants to go yet further, they could start learning the parts of the macrolanguage they need, but of course that requires some real learning ;-)

The main extension archives are:
** forum, with descriptions and screenhots, and you can discuss there:
http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?9
** http://kmext.sf.net (already mentioned, by far the biggest)
** geckozone, GREAT descriptions and images, but need its own installer tool:
english: http://extensions.geckozone.org/K-MeleonEn
francais: http://extensions.geckozone.org/K-Meleon
** wiki: http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/wiki/MacroLibrary (mixed stuff, young and old, some with own page for description, others with a link to description in this forum. Just be careful not to install long since outdated stuff like layer macros, some give bugs in modern KM versions, and not all are recognizable as dinosaurs!

6) Dictionaries
Am not sure what you mean exactly? Spellchecker? -> You can install any dictionary you like.
Or translated menus? Okay, those languages are rather restricted
Or translating websites? Switch the translator link from default babelfish to googletranslate, they have much more languages.

PS:
Lots of useful tips can be found in "Help > FAQ".
Also some interesting stuff here :cool: http://kmeleonbrowser.org/forum/read.php?1,97481
Aktuelle Anleitung und Tips in deutsch: http://www.mstipps.de/programme/k-meleon.php
PS2: Large parts of the wiki etc. are unfortunately badly outdated, and not marked as such. Especially the manual is dating from KM0.7 or 0.9, many years ago, and many things are different today and especially easier.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2011 05:59AM by siria.

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siria
4) Skins again grinning smiley
Well yes, the choice could be a bit bigger :-/

:mad:

Almost 150.

Updated to 3 K-Meleon versions. Thx to the creators.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2011 11:43PM by guenter.

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guenter

Quote
siria
4) Skins again grinning smiley
Well yes, the choice could be a bit bigger :-/

:mad:

Almost 150.

Updated to 3 K-Meleon versions. Thx to the creators.

Guenter,

Bah Humbug... there are only three skins worth considering: Klassic, Phoenity and, of course, Early Blue! <g,d&r>

N

Quote
xectis
I recently concluded an assessment to investigate the overall quality from a variety of browsers (40 in all) with a low tech, low specs computer.

Can you give any info on your assessment?

Quote
xectis
I have kept K-Meleon, Orca and Lunascape for different reasons
xectis

Why did you choose these three?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 08:39PM by AdvicePro.

as I can guess

• K-Meleon - for lightness
• Orca - as handy and easy Gecko one
• Lunascape - as three-engine one

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2011 05:36PM by rodocop.

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rodocop
as I can guess

• K-Meleon - for lightness
• Orca - as handy and easy Gecko one
• Lunascape - as three-engine one

rodocop,

Orca is 2009 vintage deadware; Firefox 3.0 era Gecko 1.9, the very first of that line of Geckos. Not the best of breed by any means. Avant browser is their designated successor.

http://www.avantbrowser.com/

N

I know. But I just guess about xectis's reasons :-)

_{I didn't like Orca ever but it had its own fans.
And I'm going to give a try to new Avant.}