Filed under: Software, Freeware, Internet Tools, Open Source, Developer
SunriseBrowser for web designers
The SunriseBroswer is neat little WebKit based "open-source browser for web developer[s]." Since it's based on WebKit it will render pages more or less as Safari does, but it has some features targeted at web designers. For instance, the window can be automatically resized to 640 x 480 (pictured above), 800 x 600, or 1024 x 768 with one button click (clicking through the options, you can see TUAW was clearly designed to be viewed in a window 1024 pixels wide). It also allows very easy access to the underlying HTML and CSS files, as well as a nice implementation of the download window which includes the URL (allowing easy downloading of a page element such as an embedded video). There are many other convenient and useful features like zoom levels, PDF export of the entire web page, etc. It even has one nice feature I'd like to see come to Safari: the combination of the address field and search field. If you type a URL in the field it goes to the referent, but if you type anything else it's sent to Google as a search.
SunriseBrowser is not, nor is it meant to be, a replacement general use web browser, but it has some neat specialized features and could be very useful for someone developing and testing a website. It is open source and a free download.
[Via MacMerc]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Matt said 9:13AM on 3-24-2007
i recommend the Web Developer Extension for Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/
and the Firebug:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1843/
Much more functions and it uses Gecko render Engine - which is used by much more Users...
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bfad said 9:13AM on 3-24-2007
Personally, I hate the combination of address and search fields. Who wants to have to type "http://" for every address? Command-L gets you to the address field, and a simplet Tab gets you to the search field, so it's not like it's hard to choose which one you want.
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Dan said 9:33AM on 3-24-2007
Looks pretty slick, but as a designer it only has about a tenth of the functionality that I depend on every day with two free extenshions for Firefox:
FireBug http://www.getfirebug.com/ and Web Developer https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60/
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Dan said 9:34AM on 3-24-2007
Oops, looks like Matt and I are on the same page.
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pixelslut said 10:27AM on 3-24-2007
YEah im with you guys on Firefox. The only thing that sounds really useful is the pdf of the entire page. But honestly i dont need that so much although itd be nice to have. Not to mention it uses webkit. Thats almost an inconsequential share of the market... and if it doesnt render EXACTLY like safari then its completely irrelevant. The only benefit to this is the ohter features described which all come for firefox via add-ons.
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Andrew Burke said 10:46AM on 3-24-2007
Sogudi (http://www.andrewburke.orcon.net.nz/mac/sogudi.htm) is a great freeware addon to enhance the Safari address bar. You can set it up so that simply entering a space and then a word or phrase, will cause a Google look up of that word or phrase.
Keywords followed by phrases will bring up everything from movie reviews to currency conversion.
This sounds like an ad, but it's not -- I'm just a happy user!
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TidalSoup said 11:55AM on 3-24-2007
Leopard will not be supporting Safari plug-ins.
http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/an-end-to-browser-pimping
It's time for designers to officially ditch Safari in favor of the ugly yet functional beast that is Firefox.
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mark said 1:00PM on 3-24-2007
bfad (#2), who needs Command-L + Tab? Option-Command-F gets you directly to the Google search bar.
Article author, combo address/search field is a bad idea: Does a TUAW contributor actually still type full URLs? :-) Are you not aware that many/most URLs don't require full typing? Try entering simply "target," "apple," or "tuaw" (in the address bar).... If the fields were combined, how would the browser know that you *don't* want a Google search in these cases?
#7, I agree. But although I love Firefox's features, I can't use it; can't get past the "ugly."
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Adam said 1:55PM on 3-24-2007
Firefox is ugly? Are you guys serious? I mean, hey, you hate the default theme. Fine, it certainly wasn't designed with a Mac in mind. Hook up a new theme, guys. GrApple (http://www.takebacktheweb.org/) basically makes it Apple friendly and you can get drop-in widget kit replacements like Firefoxy (http://www.amake.us/software/firefoxy/) which will give you Philippe Wittenberg's awesome widget kit, or you can grab a community optimized build of Firefox with a standard Aqua widget kit from Neil (http://www.beatnikpad.com/archives/2007/02/24/firefox-2002). My own community builds use Philippe's kit, cause I like it better, Neil builds a version for each.
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Mat Lu said 2:11PM on 3-24-2007
@8: of course I'm aware of that. However, this could be down very slickly as follows: have it do a keyword search if you hit RETURN and have it do a Google (etc.) search if you hit, e.g., OPT + RETURN
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Occh said 2:36PM on 3-24-2007
Firefox is dog-slow and doesn't use Mac-standard keyboard shortcuts.
It's not an option.
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tidalSoup said 3:02PM on 3-24-2007
@ 8
I use the exact theme you reference, Adam. While the theme is a definite improvement over the default- the underlying 'ugly' is as you realize....Firefox is not native to our machine.
( The optimized version has been a crash prone headache for me in the past, but I'll give it another shot.)
With this relevation regarding Leopard, and until Camino has the webdev and firebug plug-ins, nothing will come close to Firefox; the alternatives (ie the browser in this article) seem to muddy the water. I'm sure I'll get used to the beast but I'm not happy about it.
And thanks for the links, I appreciate it.
^ powerbookG4 1.25gb 1.5ghz
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Toby said 7:06PM on 3-24-2007
I use the firefox webdev kit too but honestly, something about sunrise makes it nicer when you're checking your site and such.
Runs a little faster in my opinion and is very minimal on pixel real estate.
Not a must have but definitely worth a try.
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tidalSoup said 12:31PM on 3-25-2007
Whoops... should read @9 ^
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