[Judge Dredd]

Thanks for the nice work! Tried a free version for one day and just bought the full one. Very fast, works with bridge connection, lets you choose the agent. These are very useful features. One of the best and a must have apps for PB!!!

[nimrodity]

@ Hatax
do you have any idea when the next version will be ready.
I would like to do beta testing fir you or something like that,would even pay for it.
I dont know how i could do it without simplebrowser for so long,right now for me its the #1 app overall.
adblocking and text reflow FTW !!! cant wait

[HaTaX]

Next version is just going through some final bug testing, I figured since I was so close to the weekend I'd wait to submit it so I can squash any other bugs I find. I'll get it in the queue this weekend and you all should have the update next week.

Few things coming in this version:
Lots of fixes and requests from users implemented. (Seriously quite a few here, too many to remember and list)
Favicons from sites will be saved with bookmark entries and displayed in the list. (Small icon that's representative of the site)
UI has been smoothed out. (For example, in the settings menu, selecting a checkbox no longer goes to the top of the list, and selecting list items no longer causes the redraw lag on the list items)
Tabs are now animated when you go in and out of tab mode, this has some other side benefits as well, the pages don't get re-sized at all when going full screen so the transition is smoother.
Added Text reflow, ad-blocking, private browsing mode, and the ability to block JavaScript requests for a new window to be opened.
Ad-Blocking!! This is a pretty cool feature and I tried to make the ad-checking portion of things go as quickly as possible, I spent a few days going over the checking routine and have gotten it to a point where it checks the requests very quickly. Ad-Blocking comes defaulted to update it's locally cached copy of the block list once a week and the source is from an actively maintained site. If you would like, you can point it to a different URL to get the block list from, and you can even use a locally stored block list if you use the "file:///" URL format. If you're using a local block list, it checks and loads it every time the browser is started. List formats supported are either Hosts files, or just one URL per line in a text file format. This should suit most people pretty well and will block most all of the advertisements on webpages.

That's kind of a laundry list of changes huh? Hopefully there's a little something that each person will find in this release they like.

No more dragging my feet on a history & downloads pane. Those are my next items on the to-do list.


Free version will get most of these enhancements as well, but won't get any of the tab, bookmark, or ad-blocking features. Otherwise it's code base is the same as the plus version so the UI improvements carry over. I think the last version (1.0.6) had a few leftover things in it and the speed on the free version wasn't as good as it was before, that should be fixed.

[sx4dude2013]

really excited to purchase and try it out next week when its updated

[HaTaX]

Alright guys! Time for another release.... It's been submitted to app world and should be en-queue for them first thing when they get in on Monday. Hopefully the approval goes a little quicker then last time since we're out of the holiday season now.

Check the main post for things that have changed along with the new screenshots. I'm sure you'll find a few of them interesting.

Also if you're needing that text reflow right away, you can grab the free version and sideload it, that will give you a peek at how it works and looks. I REALLY like it for browsing the CB forums in portrait mode, makes it so easy to roll through a thread..

[blackjack93117]

Is it no longer "simple"?

I actually am hoping for a browser with tabs that are functional - any plans along those lines?

complaint about playbooks tabs are - they always get out of order, (of opening) - sometime last is first, sometimes first is last - it's a mess... are difficult to close (tiny "x") without accidentally opening them instead, and they don't run in the background when switching tabs....

[HaTaX]

You should give my implementation of tabs a shot, it's not the same as the stock browser at all, all the tabs stay active at any given time, though some may have their rendering shut off if you have one full screen. They keep playing their videos and music and such though.


Edit: Ohh yeah, and it is still quite simple overall, nothing is more then a few taps deep and overall the entire UI and framework take up 870K of memory. Everything else is all the OS webkit rendering engine, even the block list and bookmarks are taken into account. (6K entry block list with about 20 bookmarks). Still feels simple to me at least...

[blackjack93117]

Sounds awesome cant wait to check it out. Eventually it will have to be called complicated browser lol

[blackjack93117]

Ook I got it - first impressions are dream come true - just what I wanted and everything I hated about the stock browser - watch four tabs live at once with simultaneous video and audio from each! Love it. This is a must have app.

Nice Hatax let me give it a longer drive and I'll give you more feedback.

[nimrodity]

@hatax
wanted to test text reflow andbsideloaded the last version but i dont have the text reflow option in my settings menu?why?

[HaTaX]

Crud, I'm not seeing it in there either... Going to find out what's going on and roll a new version if needed... Sorry about that!

[HaTaX]

Link now points to 1.0.8, and here's the link for it:
http://forward-thinking.net/simplebr...wser-1_0_8.bar

Sad part is, all the code was there, but it wasn't in the default config that was being set up, so you didn't see the option.

Good catch! Not sure how I missed that one... Now to send it off to appworld as well.

[emtunc]

As stated earlier, this is really awesome

A few notes from me:

• When option for auto hiding menu bar is 'on' and you manually swipe down to bring the menu up, the page does not resize so you cannot see the top of the site if that makes sense (it works as it should when the auto hide option is off and you hide/unhide it manually)
• Will there be some sort of developer/debug like 'plug-in' - something like firebug but a really minified version?

Also, seeing as I am blind, how do we add bookmarks?!
edit: yes I am blind, I just re-read the front page

[nimrodity]

testing 1.08 basic right now.
2 things improved would be great,but nothing the browser can do,its rims thing
1.with text reflow it would be great if there would be a vertical scroll lock like mentioned in another thread here,because the text exactky ending at the edge of the screen you often end up scrolling a bit to the side and than you cant read it because its outside of screen.
2.the browser performance seems a bit slower in portait mode,its the same in stock so no bug of the app.Seems its needs optimzing in portait.

but apart from that text reflow is great but no completly bugfree,on some sites if you double tap it zooms but to the left side no where you tapped,happened sometimes in stock too,so i dont know if its simplebrowsers fault.
Another bug i saw on sites,after double tap its zooms and reflows the text but it doesnt reflow correctly because some letters are cut off on the right or the zoom is a bit to close,or maybe a bit of both dont know.
But like mentioned in general its good,maybe its the matter of the sites coding and not the browsers.

Does anyone know how to change a rating in appworld,i gave the browser just 4,5 stars but it deserves 5 for sure,but i dont know how,i see my rating but cant edit

Edit:forget what i said about scroll lock ,just saw the youtube video,the playbook has lock indeed,my bad,i just did it wrong

[nimrodity]

here is a pic of the wrong reflow

[bitek]

I would buy plus version if it had option to identify itself as ie,firefox,opera browser etc.

[emtunc]

I would buy plus version if it had option to identify itself as ie,firefox,opera browser etc.

It does... even the free version has these.

[bitek]

It does... even the free version has these.

yes i just noticed that! time to get plus version thanks

[latarnik]

Bought a plus version yesterday. It is worth it, even without the ad-blocking feature, thanks for developing it!

With the next update and ad-blocking it will be perfect! I am so used to the AdBlock add-on in Firefox, it was the only thing that was annoying me on the PB. Would you allow to import host lists from AdBlock?

[HaTaX]

I actually started the ad-blocking thinking I would use AdBlock formatted lists, but that turned out to be a double edged sword.... AdBlock files are kind of like regex entries in that some say that a site is whitelisted, some say that they're blacklisted, and some only block certain portions of info that come from some sites.

I have no problem parsing the list into a usable format, but the way that the strings are organized, I would have to do regular expression searching on EVERY URL that the browser wants to load. Checking for a regular expression takes quite a bit more time then just a plain ol' string, and it really slowed down the ad-blocker. So ultimately if I want to use AdBlock lists, that will need to be refined into something that can be parsed quickly. Perhaps in the future I'll look into it again.

Also, noticed a bug with Ad-Blocking in 1.0.7 that doesn't turn Ad-Blocking on at first when you hit "On", have to go into custom URL, and hit "URL Only" to get it to activate. I'm fixing that right now and will upload a 1.0.8 to app world as well.

[HaTaX]

Okay, 1.0.8 is queued up for approval now, one of my testers found a small bug where if the block list is empty, it won't do the initial update of it. Easy fix and hopefully they'll just approve both at once.

For anyone that was frustrated with the pop-ups in the free version taking over the webpage you're on, there's an option in the settings to change that behavior. "JavaScript Block Open New Window" will give you a pop-up dialog whenever one of those links are called and you can hide the dialog once or for the whole session. I can see where those pop-ups would make browsing in a single window a royal pain, this should fix that problem.

[bitek]

how can i make it the browser to remember custom user string so i can switch it back and forth between different strings

[HaTaX]

how can i make it the browser to remember custom user string so i can switch it back and forth between different strings

You can only have one custom string in there at a time, so unless you're flipping between the presets, this could be a pain in the . Are you using the free version or Plus? With Plus you could save the user agent on one tab, and set another tab to have a different user agent, then just switch between the tabs depending on which one you want.

[nimrodity]

different setting for each tab is one of the most amazing features i think.
I mostly browse with javascript disabled and use it only on certain sites,so i set up the last tab with enabled and just have to switch the tab when i want,totally ingenius!!!!
but so are are other features hatax added what the stock couldnt

[KOOLWATER]

I have plus, love this browser! Will there ever be a way to set this as the default browser so when im in the crackberry app, and hit a link i'll go to this and not the default browser?

Thanks for your hardwork!