xScope Browser Update

[garysui]

I see.
I have two more major obstacles:
1. plugin enabled sites (like this one???)
2. secure websites with outdated certificates (normally there will be a popup to ask user intervention)

I get same problem in the mobile & normal versions of this site, no embedded youtube preview/link.

[garysui]

Hello bosses,

I have spent whole night for youtube downloading thing and I know how to do now. It will be include in the next update if everything goes well.

Thank you.

[KZIWarrior]

Hello bosses,

I have spent whole night for youtube downloading thing and I know how to do now. It will be include in the next update if everything goes well.

Thank you.

Well what are you waiting for???

LOL, just kidding, great job again, looking forward to the update(s). Keep up the good work.

[rjax]

So, I had a thought about my problem noted in this post linked in this hyperlink -- it's not very reproducible, so I think that Android OS was simply shutting down xScope because I had too many other apps running. I don't know if there's anything you can do to make xScope less likely to be closed off by the Android OS, but since no one else seems to be having this problem, I wouldn't worry about -- I'll just have to try to have fewer apps open!

Regarding tabs, as quoted below, I have another thought... I absolutely love the fact that a simple long press on a link opens the link in a new tab without having to go through any sort of menu. I also really like the fact that when you close a tab, you go to the tab that was opened most recently (I think?) instead of the going back always to the tab that originated the new tab. So I wouldn't want to interfere with that aspect of operation.

So here's the tab-switching idea -- right now, a simple long press on a non-link, non-image part of a page does nothing. So maybe that kind of long press could launch a context-menu to choose tabs as well as to refresh the current tab? (Right now, the refresh button can be a little hard to get to if I'm all the way on the bottom of the page. And for tab-switching, not having to hit the menu key, then select a tab-switch option, then select the tab you want would be a real annoyance-saver.)

Thanks again for the great browser and the amazing support!

Dave,

It is a great idea to append open tabs in the bar. Now I have couple of ideas for tabs (not exclusive):
1. Tabs in scrollable address bar
2. If page is at its leftest, further move left will bring the left tab. vice versa
3. Having a quick dial kind of dialog to for user to pick one tab
I will think over and experiment more.

Regarding the load speed. I have no idea about it. I believe xScope, Dolphin, and stock browers all use the same webkit frame work, where I don't think apps are in control of any aspect of network communications. Simply put, all an webkit app does is issue a onetime request like 'navigate to Google' and then the webkit framework takes control. So if any user noticed xScope is faster or slower, it is mainly caused by the network status fluctuations. The app on the other hand, listen to webkit's status event, such as hey I am 20% finished, or I am all done. Onething I have noticed, for lots of sites like engadget.com, is that even though a webpage apears to be fully loaded and displayed nicely, its progress still shows as not finished yet for quite possible long time. It might due to one or more image resource though I am not sure.
I have read http piplining and it sounds great. But again, I think it is the underlying web engine's job to include it or not. It seems that only firefox supports it to some extend right now and webkit doesn't yet. No clue so far. If it can be implemented in xScope in anyway, it would be FANTASTIC!

Graphics, YES! I haven't find a way yet. But here is my understanding on how the customized theme pack work (might be totally wrong).
So UI consists lots of icons for buttons and colors and background images. They are refered as resource files and stored in a particular folder once deployed in phone. However, the folder seems not accessible from outsider due to android's signature system. So we have two choices here: 1. include theme pack at compile time. This is not a good solution. It causes app larger and larger. 2. indicate a special folder outside of app so that at starttime, the app will try to load those graphics. I don't know how robust this solution will be.
I need to do more research on the theme pack issue and I will send you my current graphics in a zip file.

Gary, Just wanted to commend you for your great work on xScope. You clearly have your eye on the goal of creating an intuitive, powerful, and efficient browser for Android touch-screen devices. I really appreciate how Xscope just gets out of the user's way letting he/she browse the web.

Along those lines, I was wondering if you've considered extending the 'roll-away url/nav blind' to also include the tabs? This would allow full-screen mode even with multiple tabs open and make the browser even more intuitive. There would no longer be a need for the 'hide tab if only one left' option or the 'New Tab' icons in the bottom menu and url/nav bar respectively.

One direct comparison I noted coming from Dolphin is the page load speed. Dolphin seems to be slightly faster loading a page but certainly not by a large margin.Was wondering if you have any theories on what optimizations they did? Is there anything you could do to implement http pipelining to really put xScope in the lead there?

Finally, was wondering if you need any volunteers to help with future skin work? I'd gladly volunteer my time. :-)

All the best,
Dave

[Mr. Premium]

Love the browser so far. However I was pinching to zoom on a picture gallery on facebook and the page wouldn't render correctly and made the zoom feature useless.

it was on facebooks mobile page.

[DigiK]

Hey RJax,
I also agree that scrolling all the way to top of page to access nav blind can get tedious. I was curious to see if Gary had already implemented the solution I was thinking of, so I went back and tested a little bit... Low and behold Gary did include the ability to bring the nav blind back into view from ANYWHERE on the page if you flick the slender pixel strip at top. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to swipe the nav bar down, though, so slight enlargement of the hitbox/pixel strip might do the trick here. Maybe the the hidden nav-blind starts to give subtle cues that it's like the Android app drawer/notification bar to make this functionality more obvious. Make it a few pixels thicker and add a simple black arrow or dots.

Your idea of utilizing page white space to invoke a thumb-nailed tab switcher is interesting, but the one thing I questioned when using Dolphin was do we really need a verbose tab switcher when dealing with just 6 or less tabs? Let's carry that idea through though, because I think it can still be helpful for a lot of people especially if implemented the right way just showing 6 thumbnails simultaneously.

Putting the icon in the bottom menu is perfectly reasonable but takes two inputs to access, and we're trying not to overwhelm the user with bottom menu with options since it slows navigation down. If tab expose is a necessary ONE-input feature , how do we expose tab switcher with a single user input?

• Utilize a hardware button if we have one available...nope not really
• Implement long-press on website 'white space'...possibly but maybe not consistent enough to be efficient or not frustrating especially on busy pages
• More consistent would be a long press on an slightly enlarged nav-blind hitbox to invoke tab switcher. Not immediately obvious either, unless you provide a tip or in help files.
• User Gesture: Double tap currently used as alt zoom so probably not. Triple tap a bit cumbersome but doable. Multi-finger swipes patented by Apple.
• Adding a fixed icon far right in the top tab bar. Immediately obviuosly functionality and one input if tab bar always shown; two if appended to blind.

Overall, each one of these ideas is going to have a trade-off; but if I were to put my personal vote in on a future thumbnailed tab switcher, I'd be quite happy with a fixed floating icon (similar to the current 'new tab [+] icon' at far right in the tab bar. If a person chooses to always keep tab bar in view, this is a one-click input. If the tab bar is appended to blind, it becomes two inputs. In either case, the functionality of this button will be immediately discovered and remembered.

[DigiK]

Oh before I head off to bed, Gary, one page-rendering bug I discovered was with Reddit.com and a few other sites. The first few user-submitted entries which are flanked to the right by ads near top of page are squeezed by the ads. Looks like they're not using tables there so the column integrity isn't being maintained. This bug seemed to persist no matter what user agent or auto-fit mode I tried.

Thanks again for all your hard work. I bought my first share of the X-Scope company in Android market today. ;-)

[garysui]

Hello,
Other than obvious ones, what is your ranking of some of the most frequently used functions:

Candidates:
1. Forward
2. Show favorite list
3. Show history
4. Show tabs (where a list of pictures is shown so that a user can click to switch to or click X to remove. To be implemented in xScope)
5. Show files
6. Find text in page
7. Copy text

My ranking is:
2 > 4 > 3 > 1 > 5 > 7 > 6.
What do you guys think?

I have posted the same question on another forum as well.

Thanks

[garysui]

It is wideview port setting I believe. Stock browser turns it on but I have found it is more problematic if it is on, (wikipedia.org). I don't have reddit account but it seems fine on its homepage?
Regarding share of company: Good move, you have got the preferred stock. It is better than common stocks (LITE version) because you will get higher priority of liquidity in case of bankruptcy

Oh before I head off to bed, Gary, one page-rendering bug I discovered was with Reddit.com and a few other sites. The first few user-submitted entries which are flanked to the right by ads near top of page are squeezed by the ads. Looks like they're not using tables there so the column integrity isn't being maintained. This bug seemed to persist no matter what user agent or auto-fit mode I tried.

Thanks again for all your hard work. I bought my first share of the X-Scope company in Android market today. ;-)

[garysui]

VEry good analysis and reasoning. THanks.
Regarding the tabs, I am going to implement something like a dialog popup that displays all tabs pages as pictures. Then you can click one to switch to it or delete or add new. How to activate this popup? Maybe replace the 'Neww Tab' button at address bar and also replace position of forward button? I personally don't find the Forward button often used.

Hey RJax,
I also agree that scrolling all the way to top of page to access nav blind can get tedious. I was curious to see if Gary had already implemented the solution I was thinking of, so I went back and tested a little bit... Low and behold Gary did include the ability to bring the nav blind back into view from ANYWHERE on the page if you flick the slender pixel strip at top. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to swipe the nav bar down, though, so slight enlargement of the hitbox/pixel strip might do the trick here. Maybe the the hidden nav-blind starts to give subtle cues that it's like the Android app drawer/notification bar to make this functionality more obvious. Make it a few pixels thicker and add a simple black arrow or dots.

Your idea of utilizing page white space to invoke a thumb-nailed tab switcher is interesting, but the one thing I questioned when using Dolphin was do we really need a verbose tab switcher when dealing with just 6 or less tabs? Let's carry that idea through though, because I think it can still be helpful for a lot of people especially if implemented the right way just showing 6 thumbnails simultaneously.

Putting the icon in the bottom menu is perfectly reasonable but takes two inputs to access, and we're trying not to overwhelm the user with bottom menu with options since it slows navigation down. If tab expose is a necessary ONE-input feature , how do we expose tab switcher with a single user input?

• Utilize a hardware button if we have one available...nope not really
• Implement long-press on website 'white space'...possibly but maybe not consistent enough to be efficient or not frustrating especially on busy pages
• More consistent would be a long press on an slightly enlarged nav-blind hitbox to invoke tab switcher. Not immediately obvious either, unless you provide a tip or in help files.
• User Gesture: Double tap currently used as alt zoom so probably not. Triple tap a bit cumbersome but doable. Multi-finger swipes patented by Apple.
• Adding a fixed icon far right in the top tab bar. Immediately obviuosly functionality and one input if tab bar always shown; two if appended to blind.

Overall, each one of these ideas is going to have a trade-off; but if I were to put my personal vote in on a future thumbnailed tab switcher, I'd be quite happy with a fixed floating icon (similar to the current 'new tab [+] icon' at far right in the tab bar. If a person chooses to always keep tab bar in view, this is a one-click input. If the tab bar is appended to blind, it becomes two inputs. In either case, the functionality of this button will be immediately discovered and remembered.