Otter Browser
Rick Murray (539) 13444 posts |
Malcolm: Semi-rant reply taken to Aldershot. ☺ |
Paul Sprangers (346) 493 posts |
Is Otter still being maintained? Where can updates be downloaded? |
David Pitt (102) 743 posts |
Otter-browser is still being maintained, the latest weekly build is 21st October 2015. That’s the source code, Linux for the use of, and that is what the ‘Check for updates’ looks for. The RISC OS port is something else and would not be updated by that mechanism.
Likewise but on xubuntu. |
John Ballance (21) 85 posts |
Hi FWIW, I have now successfully built otter from code checked out of the through the gccsdk yesterday, which means also it uses the latest, current, Qt5 ‘flavour’. Built on gcc5 on ubuntu15.10 there are a number of patches that need to be applied to to bits and pieces, all of which have been reported recently on the gccsdk mail list. I have produced a zip of the changes which I’ll post a link to once I’ve rebuilt it all from scratch using these patches. I suspect that these mods would be safe to apply to code built on gcc4.7 etc, but am no longer in a position to do so. I have no intention to be ‘the maintainer’ but have done this mainly because it tends to irk me when the upstream stuff moves forward and the port doesn’t. At present the only major issue I have with it is that I haven’t managed to get suitable root Ca certificates for the ssl sites to ‘not grumble’. I did find a link earlier in the thread, which helped, but it still leaves issues. |
David Feugey (2125) 2687 posts |
No problem. Thanks anyway :) |
John Ballance (21) 85 posts |
Hi relevant patch set here have fun, and feedback appreciated Cheers |
David R. Lane (77) 745 posts |
Just had another go at getting Otter to work, but this time with a recent ROM (V5.23 30/10/15). It is working now as I type this. |
John Ballance (21) 85 posts |
Hi Chris The fixed library and included CA bundle is available here. Just merge it with !Boot. Can you tell me where you hardcoded/patched the ssl sources please? Thanks John |
Chris Gransden (337) 1152 posts |
The version you’re using at the moment is the initial test release. I’ve just finished getting everything ready to be uploaded to riscos.info. Once this is done you’ll be able to use either !PackMan to update it automatically or download and install it manually. Using !PackMan to keep it updated will be the recommended way as there are so many dependencies which change on regular basis. Otter browser itself is changing on an almost daily basis. The plan is to do a release every couple of weeks or so which will include the latest upstream changes at that point.
I’ve removed that option from the menu in the latest version to avoid problems. It also includes SVG support. The diagrams on e.g. phoronix.com are now visible. If anyone is interested in testing the latest version before it appears on riscos.info I can make it available for download. It will be a single zip file containing everything required so will mean downloading everything again. |
Chris Gransden (337) 1152 posts |
Tabbed browsing should just work. Either by clicking on the ‘New Tab’ icon or ‘File→New tab’. In ‘Tools→Preferences→General’ there are various tick boxes to change the behaviour of ‘Tabs’. Keyboard shortcuts is one of the things that is unimplemented in the RISC OS port of Qt5. |
George T. Greenfield (154) 721 posts |
Tabbed browsing works fine here (Pi 1B, 512MB RAM, RO 5.21 [12-Jan-15]). |
Chris Gransden (337) 1152 posts |
A new version of Otter Browser is available from here. New in this version, SVG display support. The zip file contains everything needed for a fresh install. Just merge the supplied !Boot. Overwrite !Otter-browser, !UnixFC and !UnixFont. !Unix FC contains the fonts pre-cached. |
David R. Lane (77) 745 posts |
I have got tabbing to work and finding text, the latter via the Edit menu. I don’t know why it didn’t seem to work before. Thanks, Chris, for new version and will try it soon. |
George T. Greenfield (154) 721 posts |
I’ve been using the new version since Chris made it available, and it is significantly more responsive on my relatively low-powered setup (Pi 1B, 512MB RAM, 5.21 [12-Jan-15]), to the point where I’m using it (as now) for general browsing in preference to NetSurf. |
patric aristide (434) 418 posts |
Don’t think it’ll work on my Pi Model A but what’s Otter like on an ARMini/BB-xM? |
George T. Greenfield (154) 721 posts |
Well, of course it is slow in absolute terms – the site I mentioned loads in about 25 secs on my Wintel PC using Firefox, or about 40 secs using NS (JS-disabled) on the Pi. But I wouldn’t describe it as painfully slow, and it /is/ getting faster, so as far as testing and feedback is concerned, the more users the better. And crucially IMO, we now have a genuinely javascript-capable browser on the platform – you don’t have to fire up a PC to do stuff involving JS. The quality of page-rendering is superior to NetSurf as well, I think. As to speed on the ARMini/BB-xM, I have no idea, but as both are faster than the Pi, they should show some improvement. |
John Ballance (21) 85 posts |
Hi Chris. Well done with this: on http://www.bbc.co.uk the main frontpage images don’t load.. Any idea why that might be? |
Chris Gransden (337) 1152 posts |
I think it’s to do with the images being displayed/fetched using javascript. The Javascript engine still has a lot of bugs. |
patric aristide (434) 418 posts |
@George T. Greenfield Thanks, I’ll give it a try. |
David R. Lane (77) 745 posts |
Can anyone try www.co-operativebank.co.uk ? This is an easy one on Netsurf including logging in, but just attempting to load this main page on Otter freezes my Pandaboard ES running RISC OS v5.23 (30th Oct 15) and so I don’t even get to log in. One can login with NetSurf with JS off (or on). Attempting to login to my Cooperative energy account failed with window, titled Javascript, popping up with lines like the following. message=‘Browser history management is not supported on this platform’ level=SEVERE at 23:02:57 Apart from the fact that whoever wrote these messages can’t spell ( :-( ) , some details in the last 2 lines may be wrong as I didn’t write everything down. At the bottom of the window was a “Disable JavaScript popups” box for ticking, and an “OK” box for clicking. |
Chris Gransden (337) 1152 posts |
Try turning off Javascript (Tools→Preferences→Advanced→Content) and also setting the ‘User agent’ to Firefox (Tools→Preferences→Advanced→Network). |
George T. Greenfield (154) 721 posts |
www.co-operativebank.co.uk: no problems opening this site on my setup (Pi 1B, 5.21 [12-Jan-15]). Tried twice, worked each time and loaded in <30 secs. |
Chris Gransden (337) 1152 posts |
Otter browser is now available to download and install via !PackMan. It’s just a matter of selecting ‘Otter-Browser’ for install. The rest of the dependencies will automatically be downloaded and installed. A major new feature appearing soon is the password manager. Also work is about to begin on enabling the Javascript JIT in the RISC OS port of QtWebkit. This should give a big speed improvement and hopefully be more reliable. |
George T. Greenfield (154) 721 posts |
That’s all good news! Thanks, Chris, for all the work you’ve put in. |
David R. Lane (77) 745 posts |
Otter freezes my Pandaboard on a web page when static.doubleclick.net is being accessed. I have seen this with websites www.bettertransport.org.uk and www.pi-top.com/ . |