What Do Web Browsers Need To Do More Of?

General discussion about Slimjet, or other issues related to web browser in general.
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zoldefoxx
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Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2015 4:05 pm

What Do Web Browsers Need To Do More Of?

Post by zoldefoxx »

I have email and webmail accounts. Email accounts are serviced by email client software that go and fetch the mail for me periodically, and give me screen messages when new mails has arrived. Webmail is accessed by a web browser like Slimjet that... well, what do browsers really do in this regard? Not terribly much, I am afraid. You have to bookmark a link to your email account, have the browser log in automatically (if you set it up that way) or the webmails service "remember" you with cookies and whatnot, and then you have to find out for yourself if you have any new mail or not. Not convenient.

Browsers should do more, and not just for webmail. Perhaps they could check on your webmail accounts on a routine basis, have tabs that come up with flags when you have new mail there and take you right to it. Perhaps they could do more than that, have tabs that you can set up to follow threads on different forums, so that a tab is there in place when somebody else posts something to that thread. I get email notifications from some forums when a thread gets posted to, but that means juggling back and forth between my email program, follow the included link back to my default browser, then trying to find the given post at the end of the thread, because the link always takes you to the start of the thread, not where you want to go to.

And you usually don't get logged in automatically to the forum, you have to go through their login screen, which separates you from where that email link was trying to take you in the first place. So.you either look back at the email to see if the link will help you now, or you use the forum's search feature to find the post or something with your name in it, then you pick our the relevant post from a list, and again have to go to the rear end to see what has been added to it.

That's just the way things are at present. In order for the PC to become a real Personal Assistant, it needs software that gets us beyond having to go through the same steps repeatedly, cut down on the clutter, and get us to the heart of the matter more quickly. An email client, a good one, allows me to write message filters to sort through and deal with my email more effectively. For a browser, what would be the equivalent? How about tabs that can be activated and deactivated on some schedule, that can be shown what to look for on the screen and what action to take at that point, whether it is to go through a specified link to another page, raise a flag to let you know its your turn now, bring a background task to the fore, or just terminate and end until its next appointment.

Maybe the browser should be set up to run behind the scenes when you want it to. Email clients have to be activated before they do their job, although some can be set up to be started as soon as the operating system comes up, and others have a monitor thar loads and begins checking for emails, but without making themselves evident, unless there is mail to be had. I don't care for noisy alerts myselt, but if there is an icon or some indicator that ties into the browser, maybe it could change or flash to let you know that it has something that needs your attention.

Get it to work for you with some independence of action, rather than sit there like a bump on a log, though you will have to show it how. One method that has been shown to work is to record what you do yourself. And when you have done it several times over, it breaks it down into discrete steps which are reduced to script form, sort of like a map of dance moves. For instance, if at the start of a thread on a forum, you might want to go to the last post on the last page. This involves a couple of mouse clicks or maybe the use of the scroll wheel or Page Down button.
But you don't want to do this for just this one thread. How about every thread you pick on this particular forum?

This sounds like a lot more than simple web browsing, and it is. But when you are already at the point of being the leanest, fastest, meanest browser available, where do you go next? Firefox leads in extensions. It has one that allows two tabs to occupy the same screen side by side, but they share the same profile and cookies, so it does not rival having an Incognito Window. I also found on one site that setting up multiple tabs in Firefox, which are effectively duplicates of each other, just "blead" information across to the others, so that several will in effect be just one. That doesn't happen with Slimjet, Chromium, or Chrome. With these browsers, the tabs are each different, though from or pointed at a common source.

Opera and Slimboat fall into a different category. Though good for many things, with certain action screens the visuals get all screwed up. Things don't show up, or come at the wrong time, and the overlaps and object conflicts just makes the screen a mess. Slimboat has been replaced by Slimjet, but Opera still tries on its own. I have them all, just in case I find a need that the others aren't quite up to. Right now, Slimjet is my default browser. Not just because I find many things I like about it, but their Support has answered my feedback about what I think of it and what I would like it to do in the future. Slimjet's problems, aside from the lacks mentioned above, are these three:
(1) Problems with the Password Manager, as it won't accept the passwords now required for added security on many sites.
(2) Issues with QuickFill, in that it supports only one profile and doesn't do much sometimes, except complete an entry in a box once I begin to type.
(3) Would like to have multiple profiles that I can set up and use as I see fit, particularly with the Incognito Window.

I have guests and family come in time to time, and want them to share what I have if they like. I can set up new accounts for each, but that is a bit of an overkill, since they aren't here that long. Adding a new account is only part of the story, since you want it to look nice (wallpaper) and have a few desktop icons for basic things like playing games or using the internet. As a Guest, they get very little, so I added a Friend account. Trouble is, who's the Friend this time, and what does he/she need in the way of a profile? Maybe a simle First, Last name check at the start will bring up a simple profile checker that can restore their settings if they have used the PC before. That is not really a browser-centric issue, but that is one of two areas affected most by profiles, The other is email.

dev
Posts: 761
Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2014 10:30 pm

Re: What Do Web Browsers Need To Do More Of?

Post by dev »

:roll: Just a few thoughts then ... :geek: :)

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