On Aug 25, 2004, at 4:00 AM, Andrew Tween wrote:

> Hi,
> Replacing the default Browser with OmniBrowser *might* make things 
> easier.
> However; the default browser would still need to be available, and if 
> it is
> available then Shout should still work with it.
> So, whether the default browser remains part of the image, or is split 
> out
> into a package, the problem of integrating with it remains the same.
> Then there is mvc - I don't know if OmniBrowser works under mvc (or 
> could be
> made to work)??

OmniBrowser doesn't work in MVC right now. The reasons for that are 
practical rather than technical, though - not many people use MVC, and 
those that do are often in low-resource situations. So I think making 
OB work under MVC is feasible if it seems like it would be worth the 
effort.

Stéphane Ducasse wrote:

> One possibility would also be to throw away the default browser and
> replace it by omnibrowser. If it is ready for that. Colin what do you
> think?

Although I'd like to see this happen eventually, I don't think 
OmniBrowser is ready.

This is partly because I've been focussed on some fairly ambitious, 
long-term goals. This means things like proper handing of packages, 
producing a clean implementation of the RB, integrating nicely with the 
ClosureCompiler etc.

Now, if I were to post-pone those features, and focus on a clean and 
simple reimplementation of the default browser, I think that could be 
done fairly quickly. But note that this would be a very bare-bones 
implementation, with even fewer features than the default browser. I 
don't have any plans to implement the groovy experiments that were done 
by SqueakCentral - things like tile view, alternate syntax etc.

I'd like to know what the community thinks about this. Is the default 
browser painful enough that we should replace it ASAP, even if that 
means delaying new features? Or is the default browser good enough that 
we should keep using it until OmniBrowser represents a substantial 
improvement?

Colin