Almost Camino
The recent beta of Camino is very close to being a browser I’d like to switch to but unless this beta stage yields a few more solid features I will be staying with Safari.
This isn’t to say that Camino is not a great alternative to Safari, nor that the Camino team hasn’t a great job so far with the development, just that there are certain features that I absolutely need in a browser for the Macintosh platform.
Missing features
Its hard not to compare, or judge, Camino against Safari - since Safari is by far the best browser on Mac OS X. And some of the features that I require do exist within Safari, and some do not. I suppose in some ways Safari ends up being the lesser of many evils when it comes to choosing a browser.
One thing Camino is definitely missing, that I require, is spell checking in Web forms. Mac OS has a built in spell checker that can be used within any application built natively, and Camino is lacking this. I find this feature essential for leaving comments, writing in forums and various other tasks.
To its credit, Camino has much more wide support for WYSIWYG form editors that allow Web applications like WordPress to make it easier for novices to create rich content for their Web sites. Which is something I really like using on my new personal blog.
Typically I open Firefox for Javascript debugging. Not only do I find it the best at this, but also it seems to have the easiest interface for quickly refreshing errors, etc. I realize that I can use Console.app for this with Camino, but its not as nice as just having a small debugging window open. I wouldn’t classify this as a feature that Camino is missing, but I’d like to see a way to enable it.
Adding images to iPhoto is something I do very often using using Flickr. Many of my family members upload their latest photos to Flickr, and being able to quickly add them to my iPhoto library at full resolution is very convenient. I’d like to see this as an option within Camino like it is with several other browsers.
Feed detection was a great addition to both Firefox and Safari. I’m not sure why Camino does not have feed detection, but it should at the very least have the ability to specify a default feed client which would automatically open and subscribe to it.
The speed of Camino, at least on my iBook, does rival Safari - so I will keep it around for using with WordPress 1.6 as well as writing on my personal blog. Because the alternative is just absolutely horrible on the Mac OS. Launching Firefox is the equivalent of committing RAM suicide, but then again so are many others.
Related sites
Recent features
Leah Andreone - Break Your Fall
The Format - Give It Up
Coheed and Cambria - The Velorium Camper II: Backend Of Forever
Song of the week
Sara Bareilles - Between the Lines
Sara Bareilles' "Between the Lines" is the Song of the Week for April 20 to 26.
I’ll say more later, but I have to comment that Camino has seriously slowed to a crawl lately so far. Normally it rivals Safari, but when you have a lot running, and a big text area filled with juicy, juicy words, is really starts to drag. Kinda sucks. Meh….
Chris Coleman on November 20th, 2005 3:26 am
I too really want to like Camino, it’s got some great features; the bookmarks menu in the dock icon, the colored source, the mail button, lots of just flat-out useful stuff. But then it’s crippled beyond use with the lack of spell-schecking in forms, and little things like “Add to iPhoto”.
So, yes. I completely agree, it’s a great browser but not good enough to make me change from Safari.
oliver taylor on November 20th, 2005 4:27 pm