Minimo 007 Released: Tab Browsing On PPC

[Jon Westfall]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/dougt/' target='_blank'>http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/dougt/</a><br /><br /></div>"* This implements NPAPI plugin support<br />* first cut a tab browser interface for PPC<br />* xul progress meter bar in url bar while loading pages<br />* Significant footprint and performance improvements. 75% the size of 006 with no feature loss."<br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/westfall-20050727-minimo.jpg" /> <br /><br />If you're an addict of browsing pages on your PPC, Tabbed browsing is a blessing. While work-arounds exist, personally tab browsing is a must for me. Take Minimo for a spin and let us know what you think.

[butterfly2]

This sounds and looks great. I went to the link and downloaded it. Opened the zip file and clicked on the exe file. Windows said it wasn't a valid win32 program. So I copied the whole folder to my Program Files on my PDA. Then i clicked on the exe file and the PDA said it was missing some libraries. I would love to try this, if someone could explain how I am supposed to install this.

Thanks

[Menneisyys]

This sounds and looks great. I went to the link and downloaded it. Opened the zip file and clicked on the exe file. Windows said it wasn't a valid win32 program. So I copied the whole folder to my Program Files on my PDA. Then i clicked on the exe file and the PDA said it was missing some libraries. I would love to try this, if someone could explain how I am supposed to install this.

Thanks

Just copy the entire folder (with all its subfolders!) to a memory card. Works flawlessly so far. Will post a detailed review later - it's certainly worth it (much as it does have problems).

[Tierran]

I think this has a long way to go to be considered "worth it" ;)

I'll stick with NF3.2 for the time being

[Menneisyys]

I think this has a long way to go to be considered "worth it" ;)

I'll stick with NF3.2 for the time being

Yup, it does have a lot of problems (doesn't even copy/paste work), but it's not as big a memory hog as the previous versions and is considerably faster. Its page loading speed isn't considerably worse than that of PIE and is even better than that of NF3.2 in standard (non-rapid-render) mode. So, the engine seems to be promising.

I'm just re-running my JavaScript compatibility tests to see how compatible it is.

[OSUKid7]

Just copy the entire folder (with all its subfolders!) to a memory card.
That's what I did, and my device stalled with the "busy" animation for a very long time. Couldn't seem to get it past that point. :(

[Menneisyys]

Just copy the entire folder (with all its subfolders!) to a memory card.
That's what I did, and my device stalled with the "busy" animation for a very long time. Couldn't seem to get it past that point. :(

It did the same on my iPAQ 2210 - loaded for at least a minute. Maybe of the (relatively) small amount of free RAM.

On my PL720 (some 80 MByte free RAM), it loaded in 5-6 seconds.

[Jonathan1]

This sounds and looks great. I went to the link and downloaded it. Opened the zip file and clicked on the exe file. Windows said it wasn't a valid win32 program. So I copied the whole folder to my Program Files on my PDA. Then i clicked on the exe file and the PDA said it was missing some libraries. I would love to try this, if someone could explain how I am supposed to install this.

Thanks

Same problem here. Spent an hour yesterday trying to get it to work. No go.

[Menneisyys]

Strange it doesn't work on a lot of PDA's... it's running pretty OK on my PL720 (and much slower on my 2210 - I may end up hard resetting that because it's already full of unnecessary stuff).

[Menneisyys]

Uploaded a table with some quantitive benchmark results at http://winmobiletech.com/sekalaiset/browsertable.htm

A generic roundup and explanation will follow soon (tomorrow? on the weekend? Dunno yet)

[i_spock]

It doesn't work on my x50v... either in real VGA or standard vga modes.

[Franc_Furter]

I have just loaded it up on the CF card of the iPAQ hx2410 and it works fine. There is a slow "boot up", the splash screen displays for far too long (progress meter needed), I was just about to soft reset when the lovely reassuring colourful word "Google" apperaed on the screen, so I googles myself the speed was rather good. Then opened up a new tab as that is what we all want tight? WOW!!! pretty cool.

I like the fact that you can hide the address bar but you should laso be able to hide the tabs too, they are way too big. I am not sure I like the default font either but I am sure that can be tweaked.

First thing that I noticed that was missing was a bookmark feature, I was half expecting to see a few preloaded sites to visit. The missing copy and paste really sucks as that means you now have to use the manual input which is pretty buggy, a big square character appears on a letter if you tap on it and then you have to re-enter it.

One thing I am hoping is that I will finally be ablen to acces my home router admin page and use the "connect" button whenever the DSL connection gets dropped. PIE is just useless with javascript functionality

I must admit that is starting to sound a little too negative but the truth is that I really do like it. I think must of us who have been waiting arounf to see something since the winter were expecting to see a few more fetaures as this is what got us all hooked on Firefox. I'm afraid that for the moment, the best option for me is still PIE with the Spb Pocket Plus plugins.

[Menneisyys]

One thing I am hoping is that I will finally be ablen to acces my home router admin page and use the "connect" button whenever the DSL connection gets dropped. PIE is just useless with javascript functionality

Tried NetFront? It has much better JS support than PIE.

[Tierran]

Nice mennei...very interesting overview.

[Jason Lee]

No go on my sx66. just get the busy icon. I let it try for 5 minutes, totaly locked the device. :( maybe next build.

[Patrick Y.]

It doesn't work on my x50v... either in real VGA or standard vga modes.

Same here. :cry:

[Ir0nman]

I had 005 working on my x50v copied this over and replaced it, and now I'ts missing a lot of libraries as well. I don't understand as the previous version is working fine. Oh well, anyone have any ideas?

[Ward]

It doesn't work on my x50v... either in real VGA or standard vga modes.

Same here. :cry:

Me an' all.

*sob*

[Hugh Nano]

It doesn't work on my x50v... either in real VGA or standard vga modes.

Same here. :cry:

Me an' all.

*sob*

Not working on my x50v either. :(

[Pinnacle]

:D Works great on my hw6515 Phone. Even though I use Mapopolis for GPS, the support for Google Maps may come in handy sometimes.

Images show up great. The interface is fairly unpolished, that's for sure, so it's not a browser that I'd want to use 100 percent of the time. But another browser thrown into the mix can't hurt, especially when Thunderhawk and Netfront don't work with the 240x240 resolution.

[Gerard]

On my Dell X5/WM2003:

- Changelog says 75% of the size of .007, but that was about 12.5MB, and this is about 12.5MB... huh? Must be some new quantum math.

- Can open new tab, but not open a link into a new tab. Not very useful really, especially with no 'copy link url' feature nor paste.

- Can't close tabs, just open. Gets kind of cluttered...

- HUGE memory hog. I started a session with 31MB RAM free and PIE and nPOPw open. Those auto-closed within 2 minutes, after I visited 3 pages - Google (default), Google search result, and a simple text page. With only Minimo then running, 12MB free RAM remained.

- No 'options' or 'settings' dialogue apparent.

- SIP goes buggy, icons in lower-right not properly displayed.

- No 'Favorites', not by itself nor tying into the existing \Windows\Favorites folders.

- Sloooooooowwwww...... About twice as long waiting over NetFront, and much slower than PIE.

- Initialization well over 30 seconds. That's gotta speed up, though the ugly dinosaur splash is kind of cute.

[UnLoGiC]

Uploaded a table with some quantitive benchmark results at http://winmobiletech.com/sekalaiset/browsertable.htm

A generic roundup and explanation will follow soon (tomorrow? on the weekend? Dunno yet)

That's a very nice comparison you've done!

[vicott]

On my Dell X5/WM2003:

- Changelog says 75% of the size of .007, but that was about 12.5MB, and this is about 12.5MB... huh? Must be some new quantum math.

- Can open new tab, but not open a link into a new tab. Not very useful really, especially with no 'copy link url' feature nor paste.

- Can't close tabs, just open. Gets kind of cluttered...

- HUGE memory hog. I started a session with 31MB RAM free and PIE and nPOPw open. Those auto-closed within 2 minutes, after I visited 3 pages - Google (default), Google search result, and a simple text page. With only Minimo then running, 12MB free RAM remained.

- No 'options' or 'settings' dialogue apparent.

- SIP goes buggy, icons in lower-right not properly displayed.

- No 'Favorites', not by itself nor tying into the existing \Windows\Favorites folders.

- Sloooooooowwwww...... About twice as long waiting over NetFront, and much slower than PIE.

- Initialization well over 30 seconds. That's gotta speed up, though the ugly dinosaur splash is kind of cute.
I had tried .006 on my iPAQ h1940 before. Like you, I'm unimpressed by the speed, the initialization time, memory hogging, program interface, and program size, etc. By the way, .006 was 21MB in size. Because of these reasons, I won't be interested to try out .007 and would rather stick with NetFront/ftxPBrowser. I think Minimo still has a long way to go. :roll:

[gibson042]

Version 0.001 of Minimo for Windows CE was released on January 19. It's now six months later, and I'd say version 0.007 is looking good. I like the direction it's taking, although it wouldn't surprise me if they drop tabs for multiple windows with easy switching (like MultiIE and Pocket Plus), or at least make that a default option. Anyway, I bet that six months from now, Minimo 0.15 (or whatever else they call the first or second update to 0.1) will be my (and many other people's) browser of choice. I also expect ftxPBrowser and NetFront to take some cues from it, hopefully improving everyone's browsing experience (well, except the majority of "everyone" who will still use PIE exclusively... have fun with JavaScript! :razz:).

[Gerard]

Sorry, guess I'd missed .006 and was remembering the size of .005, which didn't really work at all on my device. .007 is definitely a big improvement... but it's a long way from ready to grab the crown. I do look forward to having a 'mobile Firefox' if that's possible, complete with plugins like a reliable View Source In... and maybe PIE link importing.

[sabesh]

:D Works great on my hw6515 Phone. Thunderhawk and Netfront don't work with the 240x240 resolution.
I can't see the scrollbar at the bottom with MiniMo on my hw6515. Also, Netfront 3.2 works on my hw6515. Cheers, Sabesh.