I installed K-Meleon 1.6 a couple of weeks ago and on the whole I'm quite satisfied with its performance. It's gotten to where my other two browsers have slowed to a crawl and some sites won't load at all. So K-Meleon is making my surfing life bearable again.

The extensions are still quirky. The MHT service works not at all (Error messages I get: "Error: The requested action with this object has failed." or "Run-time error '-2147418113 (8000ffff)': Catastrophic failure." And the KMA archiving service works about 40% of the time. I'm hoping it's still a work in progress, as its compression ratio is really impressive as compared to that of the mht extension. AutoClipCopy announces that it needs to close half-way through nearly every session but I ain't complaining. And AdBlock Plus and the CookieCuller do their job as advertised.

There is one thing that is driving me absolutely batty however. Since I'm forever switching between browsers I'm constantly copying URLs that I know will open better in K-Meleon into notepad for later use. When I found it impossible to paste these URLs into the address bar -- every attempt to do so results in me seeing "about:blank" appear instead -- I discovered the URL box menu extension. But it doesn't work all of the time. Just as frustrating is the fact that I very often cannot paste something copied from a web page into the Google search bar. At this point I've grown thoroughly weary of seeing "about:blank" every time I try to paste something into the Open URL box or Google's search bar. My frustration would be mitigated somewhat if someone would explain to me why it's so difficult to paste anything into these locations. I'm assuming there must be some logical reason for this as I have no trouble pasting stuff into the other browsers' address and search bars?

I sincerely hope that K-Meleon gets the developmental support it needs moving forward. It's a sweet little thing that pleases aesthetically and gets the job done in a fraction of the time it takes the big shot browsers to load.

But that "about:blank" thing, as I say, is driving me crazy. Explanations, anyone?

Larkspur

@ Larkspur

I am using KM 1.6 beta 2.6 version and I seem to be able to paste a URL into the URL bar and get it to work. Let me ask this question just so I understand what you are trying to do. Are you copying the URL for a web page in another browser to Notepad or are you copying a link to web page from that browser?

I tried by copying the URL from your post and pasting it into Notepad. Then I did another copy of some text to change the clipboard. I then closed KM and restarted KM. I selected and copied the URL from Notepad and pasted that into the URL bar. Upon pressing Enter I came back to your post.

If you would like my version, beta 2.6, of KM 1.6 you can get it here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1522294/K-Meleon1.6.0_Beta2dot6_en-US.7z

If you have more questions, just ask. Someone will try to help.

Hanlon’s razor is an eponymous adage named after Robert J. Hanlon that states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

JamesD

Larkspur,

have you MS Visual C++ 2005 installed? If not - install this!

Hi JamesD and Rodocop,

I'm not sure whether "installing" JamesD's version of K-Meleon did the trick or if it was something I did. I was painstakingly going through the Preferences list to make sure both versions (1.6.0 Beta 2 and 1.6.0 Beta 2.6) were configured the same. In the process I changed something in the "Finding Websites" URL bar tab: I took the checkmark out of the "Find fitting pages in global history as you type" box (since I never type if I can help it!). Which also grayed-out the option, "Autocomplete as you type." I suspect that the autocompletion function may have been what was blocking me from pasting the URL's as I wished to. At any rate, I can now paste to my heart's content and am no longer seeing that blasted "about:blank" each time I do so.

However I'm glad I posted because it introduced me to some enhancements that I definitely believe will come in handy. So thank you James, I think I'll make your version of K-Meleon the one I'm going to stick with.

Rodocop, I will keep your "Twin" version as well, but I have some learning to do before I can make good use of bookmarklets and the many, many tools you have added.

Thanks so much to you both for you quick replies!

Larkspur

@ Larkspur

I am glad that you have solved your problem.

Hanlon’s razor is an eponymous adage named after Robert J. Hanlon that states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

JamesD

Speaking of about:blank, it would be nice if someone could make an extension that keeps them from popping up when downloading a file.

Hm, never noticed. For downloading am used to Link-Save-As. Or if left-clicking on a file link? No, just tested again, no blank page. When does it happen?

And slightly belated, but can't resist:

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Larkspur
I was painstakingly going through the Preferences list to make sure both versions (1.6.0 Beta 2 and 1.6.0 Beta 2.6) were configured the same.

The pref list is in the profile folder, called "prefs.js". Copying that file over from old profile to new profile folder can save some work
The other stuff in the profiles folder can be copied too as long as the KM versions are not too far apart. 1.5/1.6 are very similar profilewise, but guess newer ones are too different (1.7, 1.8, 74...)

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Larkspur
In the process I changed something in the "Finding Websites" URL bar tab: I took the checkmark out of the "Find fitting pages in global history as you type" box (since I never type if I can help it!). Which also grayed-out the option, "Autocomplete as you type." I suspect that the autocompletion function may have been what was blocking me from pasting the URL's as I wished to. At any rate, I can now paste to my heart's content and am no longer seeing that blasted "about:blank" each time I do so.

Would prefer to keep those handy options enabled. Not quite sure, and history plugin does tend to have bugs in beta versions, but I don't think that was the culprit. Rather what rodocop suggested, either some vcredist prob, or perhaps a bug with the older gecko engine in 1.6beta2. James version has a newer engine and therefore quite some bugs less. Guess it's the closest to the official KM versions, other user versions are rather forks with additional gimmicks, which of course can be very useful too.
With older beta versions (or was it 1.7alpha?) I had that pasting bug too, and worked around it by saving text to a txt-file, then opening that file with the browser. Highlighting an adress and hitting the go-button, or highlighting some text and hitting search button. But guess that bug is fixed now.

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Larkspur
...every time I try to paste something into the Open URL box or Google's search bar.

Did you know, the search bar is rather unnecessary, as is the open-url-box. It's mostly there for people who are unfamiliar with KM yet. In KM you can highlight some text on a page that you want to google for and search for it by simply clicking the search button Or you can type into the URL bar using it simultaneously as search bar. If the pref "keyword autosearch" is checked in F2>FindingWebsites>URLBar (at the bottom) it works this way: if the typed text in the URL bar contains a blank, e.g. because someone is searching for several words, KM will automatically send it to the preferred search engine, also if a single word is set between " ". Otherwise it's considered a website URL.

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siria
Hm, never noticed. For downloading am used to Link-Save-As. Or if left-clicking on a file link? No, just tested again, no blank page. When does it happen?

A site that it happens on is http://www.streamtransport.com/ (click the Download button).

Nope, tried it, no blank page here. Clicking on the exe link opens the download dialogue, nothing else.
Could it possibly be some setting? Perhaps in the pref part for "file handling"? When a "download completes" I've both checkmarked, but guess that's only for that litte popup message.
That said, a blank page after downloads does happen to me on *IE* on the job computer, but haven't paid much attention. Perhaps it only happens when clicking links in an email? Not sure, but anyway, not in my current KMeleon on your example page.
Hm, or it may depend on the version? (Am still on 1.6beta2.5)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2014 09:00AM by siria.

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siria
Nope, tried it, no blank page here. Clicking on the exe link opens the download dialogue, nothing else.
Could it possibly be some setting? Perhaps in the pref part for "file handling"? When a "download completes" I've both checkmarked, but guess that's only for that litte popup message.
That said, a blank page after downloads does happen to me on *IE* on the job computer, but haven't paid much attention. Perhaps it only happens when clicking links in an email? Not sure, but anyway, not in my current KMeleon on your example page.
Hm, or it may depend on the version? (Am still on 1.6beta2.5)

I think its because I'm using Internet Download Manager to intercept files I download via K-Meleon.