Filed under: Software, Universal Binary
Camino 1.1 Alpha 1
Camino has long been my browser of choice, and it is just getting better and better. Camino 1.1 Alpha 1 gives us a taste of Camino's future today. Before I go on, I would like to point out that this isn't even a Beta yet, it is an Alpha. There are bound to be lots of bugs, so if the thought of a buggy browser makes you think twice then I wouldn't go downloading it just yet (but Camino 1.03 is a darned fine browser too).Here are some highlights of what is new:
- Spell checking
- Feed hand off
- Camino can force windows that want to open in a new window into a tab instead
- Resizable search field
After the jump I have some pics of Camino 1.1. Alpha 1 in action.
Here is Feed handling in action. You just click on the universal Feed icon and your RSS reader of choice should launch and subscribe to the feed in question (though I am sure you already subscribe to TUAW!).
A big improvement is inline spell checking (seen to the left). I know that I miss it every time I compose a blog post in Camino, and now I will never misspell again!
The Download Manager now has an optional button that lets you move downloads into the Trash. Pretty nice, and it saves me some clicking and dragging.Finally, this is a small thing but a nice touch. They have spiffied up the graphic you get when you got to a non-existent URL:
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
narco said 6:26PM on 10-19-2006
Spell check in Camino? There is a God and he does answer prayers.
Fishes,
narco.
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Macintologist said 6:38PM on 10-19-2006
Camino IS quite nice being a Mozilla-powered browser with the benefits of full Cocoa support, something Firefox doesn't offer since it uses its own GUI elements for some strange reason.
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Rob Roark said 6:41PM on 10-19-2006
Is it OS X's spell checker, or is it a custom-built one like in Firefox 2?
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Vinay Venkatesh said 7:05PM on 10-19-2006
Dear Number 2 (clearly an unintended austin powers reference), Firefox's Ui is written using XUL (i think that was it), and that's what allows many of the extensions to work cross platform. If you notice that even though the rendering engine is the same, the extensions do not work in Camino. With Firefox Cocoa, they are attempting to integreate XUL and Cocoa, further so that Firefox looks like and acts like a real cocoa app, but without too much cocoa in there (unlike Camino, which is a cocoa app, using cocoa, and interface builder, and all the os x goodness under the hood).
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Adam Szedlak said 7:11PM on 10-19-2006
It's using the OS X's native spellchecker, so you can use all the additional languages and tools - like cocoAspell or Myspell variants - in Camino textboxes. Gotta love this.
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Query said 8:16PM on 10-19-2006
Looking nice!
And speaking of web browsers, this is completely unrelated to Camino, but I just noticed that Safari in Tiger has the "View in Dashboard" button in its resources folder, at least in version 2.0.4 (419.3). Though I know no one cares..
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David said 8:34PM on 10-19-2006
glad to see that Camino has RSS support finally. that is one thing I hated when I tried it. extensions would also be great, but I can see why they don;t have them
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enano275 said 8:44PM on 10-19-2006
Those are several simple features that will probably make me switch. I always hated how Camino didn't have single-window support, and spell checking is a must for me.
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ScottBruin said 9:10PM on 10-19-2006
Thanks for this post, Scott. I enjoyed it a lot. The pics were a nice touch as I already read about this earlier but hadn't seen it in action!
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Nathan Sweeney said 9:27PM on 10-19-2006
Inline spell check has been in the nightly builds for some time now, I remember seeing it for at least a month now.
The spiffed up address not found page and the resizable search field have been there for a little while too.
I am running the 2006101801 nightly which actually does say 1.1a1 in it, and I have noticed some issues in the last few days with Camino, now I know why. The version I got must be right before the Alpha was released because I don't have the trash button in the downloads window.
I was having some problems where if I took an already open tab and tried to go to a different site by typing it in the location bar or clicked on a link in the bookmarks bar, it would appear to load in the status bar but the currently displayed site would not change. I guess its time to get the newer version and see if its gone yet.
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Trevis said 9:51PM on 10-19-2006
What is the advantage to using camino over firefox... I'm all for having another secure browser but it just seems that camino doesn't do anything that another would. I don't know that much about it so please inform me.
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joe in oklahoma said 10:09PM on 10-19-2006
hey enano
switch from what?
safari? FF?
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niclet said 10:08PM on 10-19-2006
I use Camino since it was called "Chimera" (v. 1 to 4 beta I think) and it's always been one of my preferred browser. Although it was the fastest of all, it became increasingly slow from a version to another, at the point to catch up with the others brands. Now, I can't see anymore a speed difference compare to Safari but I still think it's one of the best.
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shaninho said 10:52PM on 10-19-2006
I've been using Camino for several years now, and it is such a stable, great product for Mac. Does anyone know why Firefox, Mozilla (Internet all-in one suite now?), and Camino all coexist? I only wonder because I am sometimes afraid that Camino will somehow disappear one day. I really think it's the best browser on any platform, ever. Reminds me of Galeon.
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Bill said 10:48PM on 10-19-2006
I have a G4 mini and I find Camino much faster than Firefox. Also some of my colleagues have web pages with wonky css and Camino seems to render them pretty well. Lastly, sometimes Firefox doesn't quit gracefully, Camino has never had that problem. (Possibly this last issue might be specific to G4 minis).
And it's so COOL!
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Thomas said 10:49PM on 10-19-2006
I hope that they are still working on spell check as I have to hold the control key down to get spelling suggestions. Great steps in the right direction though!
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enano275 said 11:11PM on 10-19-2006
"hey enano
switch from what?
safari? FF?"
Firefox. But I will wait for a stable release, 1.1 is too buggy for me (it's alpha after all).
Besides, after I posted that comment I started having mixed thoughts. On one side Camino is just beautiful, it now supports the Tiger's built-in dictionary feature and the GUI is so appealing. On the other side, the GUI does have some annoyances. For example, unless you click on a tab, you can't see if it's loading. Both Safari and Firefox sport a loading animation in the tabs.
Firefox is just so intuitive. Beginning with 2.0, when you have too much tabs and you open a new tab, a blue glow appears at the end of the tab toolbar, letting you know that a new tab has been opened.
As someone said above, Camino is pretty cool, but it doesn't offer more that any other browser, it's just a Cocoa version of Firefox with a bit less features and less audience. If the project grew faster it could become something amazing, but its features are always added after all the other browsers.
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Travis Bell said 11:17PM on 10-19-2006
One small feature would make me switch to Camino. Saved form data. Not just address book like what it has now, but like Safari. The ability to have it save an entry I ever type in a text box. Soooooo much of a time saver when you do regular searches. The second that gets added I'm in.
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Mike said 4:49AM on 10-20-2006
When I press the green/maximise button on Camino it fills my whole screen, even when the web page is not very wide. How do I make it work like Safari and every other OSX window?
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Martin Lee said 5:55AM on 10-20-2006
I thought Alpha releases were after Beta? Shows how much I know.
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