Syllable 0.6.4 has been released. "Syllable 0.6.4 contains many new features, enhancements and bug fixes from previous releases. Highlights of this release include a new version of ABrowse; the web browser has been re-written using the WebKit engine. A new version of Whisper, and the Contact address book is now included. A large number of usability and user interface fixes, largely curtesy of Anthony Morphett. New drivers for the SysKonnect Yukon1 network cards & ACPI CPU management and updated drivers for Radeon, GeForceFX, SiS and Trident video cards, HD Audio, Intel & VIA SATA controllers and Realtek 8169 network cards. The usual clutch of bug fixes and enhancements."
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Member since:2006-11-30
"That's a debatable statement. Many of us (inlcuding myself) prefer WebKit/khtml to Gecko."
That's not the point. The point is that the ABrowse team will never ever be able to keep up with FF.
a.k.a: a user wants a browser with the features he has come to expect (flash, scripting, ajax, etc) rather than a slightly better rendering engine.
Member since:2005-07-06
Flash support has nothing to do with the rendering engine really. WebKit supports most scripting on the web.. can you be more specific about what standard features it's lacking?
Member since:2005-06-29
a.k.a: a user wants a browser with the features he has come to expect (flash, scripting, ajax, etc) rather than a slightly better rendering engine.
Scripting, AJAX, and Flash are browser-independant. Even if they DID port Firefox/Geck, they still would not have had Flash.
Member since:2005-07-06
ABrowse team? Damn, I wish!
Flash isn't part of the browser and is not a W3 standard, and ABrowse supports "scripting", AJAX and everything else very nicely, being based on WebKit and all.
Even if a working port of FireFox magically appeared on Syllable it would be more work to maintain that than the WebKit port & ABrowse. Seriously, FireFox and Gecko are huge, and WebKit gets us the same features in a much smaller footprint, so why bother?
Member since:2005-04-01
a.k.a: a user wants a browser with the features he has come to expect (flash, scripting, ajax, etc) rather than a slightly better rendering engine.
So I assume you feel as though Safari and Konqueror should also be dropped in favor of Firefox? They are KHTML based too. In fact, the iPhone should immediately drop iSafari and move to Gecko too. Right?
Member since:2006-01-06
I'm pretty frustrated with firefox as it is right now. It's the absolute most resource hungry application I run, and it's non responsive to boot!
It needs to go on a diet and it needs more competition. I certainly hope the work here will help fix some of the bugs seen in the webkit port to linux.
On another topic, trying to figure out which architecture syllable runs on...I guess it only runs x86 32-bit? Any work on 64bit?
It would benice if they and other OS projects actually put some hard information like that into their FAQs or hardware compatibility lists.
Edited 2007-07-17 04:24 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
Yes. There has been no work on x86-64 yet, and there is some work that is needed to the kernel before it could even begin properly.
Sorry about that. It was on our "About" page but I've recently been working on the website and having yet moved that information to our FAQ.
Member since:2006-03-16
It will never be responsive in it's current state. It's single threaded in the way that one thread handles rendering (incl animations), messaging and receiving input. This is never good and when you start to open a few tabs or windows it degrades and shows. Notice that it's totally unresponsive for a short while when opening a new tab.
Member since:
2005-06-29
However, plz drop the ABrowse craze a port a proper browser (FF)
That's a debatable statement. Many of us (inlcuding myself) prefer WebKit/khtml to Gecko.