iCab X 3.0.3 Released; Mini-Review Update - Browser Watch
iCab is an alternative web browser for the Apple Macintosh with numerous useful features not found in other browsers. It supports HTML 4, image filtering, cookie filtering, bookmarks, java and javascript support, search modes, importing of web archives from Explorer, download manager, and more.
iCab features include:
• Advertising banner filtering
• Kiosk mode
• Error protocol (Smiley)
• Portable web archives
• Download Manager
• Link Manager
• Souce code manager
I especially appreciate that iCab is the only browser still being actively developed to support the Classic Mac OS, including an available version that suports even 68k Macs back to Systam 7.1. I'm a longtime iCab fan It's my number one recommendation for use with Mac OS Classic, and having used it since 1997, before there was an English version I know this browser and its formidable capabilities inside out. On OS X, however, it's up against a lot stiffer competition.
Nevertheless, one thing I immediately liked about iCab 3.0.3 is that it starts up almost instantly, even faster than Safari. And iCab has one of the best - if not THE best - and most configurable Preferences interfaces in the business.
iCab's tabbed browsing configuration customizability and flexibility are second to none as well.
On the downside, iCab is really lagging the competiton in terms of speed optimization, and I'm obliged to report that it's the slowest browser I've tried out recently, and by a significant margin. I've been spoiled by the speed of Opera and SeaMonkey. iCap 3.0.3 really struggled with the ctv.ca Website, not only loading slowly, but not rendering all of the content.
iCab developer Alexander Clauss notes that many web authors are not able to write proper HTML, CSS and JavaScript code. So if something doesn't work, this can be just because of bugs in the code of the Web site which is written for MSIE or Netscape only. Changing the browser identity of iCab (iCab can masquerade as an astonishing variety of other browsers � MSIE 5 and 6, Netscape 4 through 7, Safari, Opera, Konquerer, even Lynx) can often help in these cases to bypass the non-working "browser sniffer." (this is especially true for many "DHTML-JavaScript-DropDown-Menu-Libraries", which Alexander says "are often programmed in a really strange and ugly way which makes it extremely likely that these libraries will execute the wrong � browser-specific - code").
iCab is able to import the bookmarks from Safari, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, Phoenix, FireFox, OmniWeb, Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. iCab automatically asks to import bookmarks when launched the very first time (that means there are no preferences found). But you can manually import bookmarks at any time as well, by selecting "import" from the "hotlist" menu.
Cab 3.0's Forms Manager allows it to automatically fill out forms.
There are three levels to help filling out forms (see details below)
New features in iCab 3.0.3:
The most important change in iCab is that it is now also available as Universal Binary, which runs natively on the new Intel-Macs. The Universal Binary version will also run on PPC Macs with Mac OS X 10.2.8 and newer and G4 or G5 prcessors. This UB version should run faster on all Macs (PPC and Intel) but only on Intel-Mac it's really very much faster than before (no need to run under the Rosetta emulation).
Users of older MacOS versions (MacOSX 10.1.5 and later and for Macs width G3 processors and of course for "classic" MacOS 8.5-9.2.2) can still get a version of iCab which runs on their system.
Intel Macs
Some important information for Users of an Intel-Mac: The Intel code of MacOSX (current version is 10.4.7) still has a lot of bugs, which are not present in the PPC code of the same MacOS release. For some of these bugs I could implement a workaround, so they are not visible at all. But for some bugs, we have to wait for Apple, fixing these issues. There are the following problems (only when running natively on Intel-Macs):
Images with Alpha channel (affects PNG images and the FavIcons) will be drawn with a yellow shade. Other (Carbon) applications like GraphicsConverter show exactly the same problem. Apple has fixed this bug in 10.4.7, so if you haven't done it yet, just update your MacOSX. (Apple introduced a bug which is similar in the 10.4.7 update, but iCab includes a workaround for this bug, so you won't see it there)
This problem doesn't exist on PPC Macs or when running in the "Rosetta" emulation on Intel Macs.
Currently, Java doesn't work at all on Intel Macs (regardless if running natively or under "Rosetta"). Under "Rosetta" it's generally impossible to call "native" Intel code or Java. But Apple abandoned the Java Embedding API in the Intel code, so currently there's no legal/documented way to embed Java Applets within Carbon applications.
Please note that Java is not JavaScript. There's no problem at all with JavaScript. This is running fine on Intel Macs.
Native Browser plug-ins for Intel are very rare at the moment. There're only the Quicktime plugin and a test version of the Flash 8 plugin. Both are installed by default on all Intel Macs. PPC plugins won't work in a browser when it is running natively on Intel Macs. They work fine when iCab is running under "Rosetta". Unfortunately the Flash 8 plugin for Intel ist still very buggy and crashes very easily. The native Quicktime plugin is running fine. But there's already a beta version of Flash 9 for Intel Macs available. It can be found at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/public_beta/ and it is recommended that all users of Intel Macs will install the Flash 9 beta (at least until the final Flash 9 release for Intel Macs is out, then you should update again).
If you want to use browsers on Intel Macs natively only then you should deinstall all plugins which are only available for PPC. Only keep plugins which are Universal binary (or available for Intel only).
In Rosetta or on PPC Macs, there should be no problem with plugins.
New features since Beta 382
In the Universal Binary version of iCab all saved forms (menu "View > Save/fill out Forms") will be now stored in the Keychain, if the kaychain is configured to be used for passwords in iCab. Though Forms are not passwords, they do sometimes contain passwords. The non-Universal Binary versions don't use the keychain, because the keychain doesn't support the required calls in all the system versions these iCab versions will run. iCab will automatically transfer the form data into the keychain when iCab saves its preferences. Depending of your keychain settings, you may be asked to unlock the keychain when iCab updates the formdata in the keychain. In general this will only happen once and also whenever iCab is updated (because the keychain has to know that the new version of iCab is also allowed to access the data).
When holding down the Command key and clicking on an URL in the text of a web page, which is not(!) a link and therefore not clickable in general, iCab will open this URL in a new window nevertheless. iCab will do this only if the Command key is pressed. Holding down other keys (ALT and/or Shift) the URL can also be opened in a Tab, in the background or forground, as usual.
iCab now supports the CSS property "text-shadow" (when running under MacOSX. Shadows can not be displayed unter "classic" MacOS). Unlike Safari (which is the only other browser which supports text shadows at the moment), iCab also supports multiple shadows. An example for the new shadow feature can be seen at:
http://icab.clauss-net.de/textshadow.html
Now, the internal RSS-Reader of iCab also supports ATOM feeds.
Now, the RSS-Reader supports some iTunes extensions for podcast feeds.
When dragging text within a form field you can now hold down the option key to copy the text instead of moving it.
Normal Downloads can now use long file names under MacOSX
German Umlaut characters will now also work when used as "accesskey" in HTML code.
With Shift-Delete or Shift-BS in the URL location field the currently selected URL from the autocomplete feature can be deleted (it will be deleted in the global history as well).
CSS 3-Cursor "zoom-in"/"zoom-out" are now supported (these are not yet part of any web standard, but are used for the image display of iCab to switch the scaling).
New Option in the "image" preferences. You can configure iCab to either display images which are opened directly in iCab in heir original size or scaled so that they will be completely visible in the browser window.
When opening images directly in iCab, you can click on the image to switch between two different views to the image: The image is either shown in its original size or it is scaled so that it will be completely visible in the browser window (that means the initialy view of the image according to the preferences (see above) can be changed by a click at any time).
New menu item in the "file" menu to save the current "session" into a file. Opening the file later will restore the session (all windows with their Tabs) again.
New menu item "auto-save session" in the "File" menu. If this menu item is checked, iCab will save all the open windows and tabs when quitting, and will restore all the open documents and windows when launching iCab.
Fav-Icons are now supported and will be shown in the Tabs and in the URL location field.
When iCab is running under MacOS 9.1 and older the very first time, it now disabling usage of Unicode text input fields (MLTE) by default (can be configured in the preferences dialog of iCab). MacOS 9.1 has some serious bugs which make the Unicode input fields useless, so it's better to switch them off. Apple has fixed this bug in MacOS 9.2, so under MacOS 9.2 the Unicode text edit fields are enabled under 9.2.
The HTTP header "Link" is now supported.
"Digest Authentication" is now supported.
Forms Manager
In the tools menu you'll now find the "forms manager", which allows to automatically fill out forms.
There are three levels to help filling out forms. For each level there's one Tab in the forms manager window:
first tab: "Input fields"
While typing letters in form fields, iCab can autocomplete your input based on th words in the list of these settings. You can add/delete/edit items to/from this list here. But you can also add new items through the contextual menu of form fields (control-click in the field to open the contextual menu): selecting "Remember test for field-based autocompletion" from the contextual menu will add the current content of the form field into the list.
second tab: "All Forms"
In this level, all forms of all web sites will be addressed. Whenever you select the menu item "Fill out forms" from the "View" menu, iCab will try to fill out each form field based on the data from the list in this settings panel. iCab will look for the ID/NAME attribute (HTML code) of the input field, if it matches one of the names of the "name of field" column of the list, iCab will insert the corresponding "value" from the list into the form field. The "name of field" column can contain multiple names, seperated by comma. You can add new items directly here, but also through the contextual menu of the input field by selecting "Remember Input field and Text for general form completion" from the contextual menu. Works well for general fields where you have to enter name, street and city, because most web authors tend to label these fields with "name", "street" and "city". Other less common fields may not work here.
third tab "Special Web Sites"
Here iCab will handle complete forms (including checkboxes, popup buttons etc.) of certain web sites. Using the menu item "Save forms" from the "View" menu iCab saves all forms of the current page. Using the menu item "Fill out forms" fill out the form of the current page, if they were saved before. In the list of these settings, you'll find the URL of each site, iCab has saved the form data.
The settings of tab 3 has higher priority than the settings of tab 2.
Importing Bookmarks
iCab is able to import the bookmarks from Safari, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, Phoenix, FireFox, OmniWeb, Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. iCab automatically asks to import bookmarks when launched the very first time (that means there're no preferences found). But you can manually import bookmarks at any time as well, by selecting "import" from the "hotlist" menu.
ACCESSKEY Attribute
iCab 3.0 will now use [Control][Letter] for the ACCESSKEY attribute (which is the same in Safari, FireFox and Opera).
In the preferences (Web Content/Display) and in the filter manager this stylesheet can be switched off, in case there's a conflict with some web sites which are using a different approach to visualize the accesskey attribute.
System requirements:
G4 or better, Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later (Classic version also available
Free
System support:
PPC/Intel
For more information, visit:
http://www.icab.de/
Charles W. Moore
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