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xScope, a multitouch pinch zoom browser

I am also thinking about a way to let user know notification events in the near future. Full screen is nice, but users sometimes do care about notifications a lot.
droiiiiid said:
Ahhhh--very nice. Perfect. Thanks. At first, I was going to the veryv ery top and pulling dwn my notification bar accidentally.
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What if a new notification triggered the notification bar to slide back down into view for a moment and then slide away again after a moment?

It's going to be hard to beat the system notification bar in terms of efficiency and polish.
 
Chuck,
Thanks for the details explanation. I got it. And I tried on several sites. Yes, it seems the build in scrolling system does offer some sort of lockups when you scroll up and down but drifting happens. The scrolling of content is not handled by apps but by the WebView (WebKit) implementation, which is out of app developer's control. There might be somesettings though.
Google has done a good job on this open system in general. However, no always. For example, there is a setting in the webview that allows users to load page in overview mode. But this setting is not public until Android 2.1. However, the stock browser, can access it in pre-2.1 systems. Apparently those APIs are not well planned.

chuck-fu said:
The 'swipe down' address bar sounds like a great approach. Looking forward to trying it out.

As for my scrolling request: i'm not talking about adding one of those odd silver tabs that exists for the native contacts app. I'm talking about something a bit different. Hopefully I can explain:

Lets say you visit this site on your phone (i have a Droid). If i want to see the latest post, i'd scroll to the bottom right side of the overall page. Now, if i want to scroll back up for some reason, Safari on the iPhone is very smart about locking in just a y-axis scroll so that the screen doesn't drift left to right as i scroll up. Android browsers (including xScope) seem to have some tolerance built in, so it doesn't drift all crazy on the user, but it doesn't seem as 'locked in' as Safari. As i mentioned earlier, this may be beyond the scope (no pun intended) of what you can do legally or technically. Just an idea for you...
Click to expand...
 
Agreed. It is not easy.
I actually tried to find a way to pull down the notification bar programmatically with no luck. So it seems the only option will be showing up something and let users to choose to handle it or not. If they do choose to handle it, the browser will no longer in foreground. Then users have to manually launch the browser back. (not sure if there is a way to capture event that user's finished handling notification)
droiiiiid said:
What if a new notification triggered :othe notification bar to slide back down into view for a moment and then slide away again after a moment?

It's going to be hard to beat the system notification bar in terms of efficiency and polish.
Click to expand...
 
it appears that i may be the only one who is having the going back to home problem after you end a phone conversation. That being the case it must be a settings issue, does any one have any suggestions on what i can do or may be doing wrong?
 
Go to your options and make sure you don't have "clear cache after exit" or anything like that selected. ONly thing I can think of.
 
smacinskyjr and droiiiid,

I tested again, both call from my phone and receive call. No problem here. No clue:(
 
Hey, what about copy text? Can you make that just hold screen or something like the itouch? If you have it, sorry but I couldn't find it...
 
The notification bar has been brought up and on the Droid I know that if you go Menu -> Windowed it will bring back the notification bar. I don't think that is what was being discussed but yeah... lol
 
Another thing I've just realized is there appears to be a limit of bookmarks you can set? I might be wrong but when I try to add one, it gets rid of the last one on the list. Another nice thing would be to have "bookmarks" be an option when you click the menu button like the default browser does. Just a couple ideas.
 
RocknSteve,
It is 5 for Lite, 20 for paid version for now. Thanks. Bookmarking is achieved by toggle the 'Star' in front of address bar.
Thanks
RocknSteve said:
Another thing I've just realized is there appears to be a limit of bookmarks you can set? I might be wrong but when I try to add one, it gets rid of the last one on the list. Another nice thing would be to have "bookmarks" be an option when you click the menu button like the default browser does. Just a couple ideas.
Click to expand...
 
New Update today (1/24).
1. New GUI. It is even plainer.
2. Added find, copy&paste functions. Address bar is scrollable to select those.
3. Push up to hide address bar or pull down to show.
4. Fixed clearing cache issue.
Thanks for using.
 
Love the interface changes in the latest release. Cleaner and easier to navigate. Looks great and runs great!
 
xScope said:
RocknSteve,
It is 5 for Lite, 20 for paid version for now. Thanks. Bookmarking is achieved by toggle the 'Star' in front of address bar.
Thanks
Click to expand...
What I was talking about was more of going Menu -> Bookmarks which allows you to choose one of your bookmarks from there to go to. As I'm thinking about it, I guess it's the same amount of work as going "Home" and then choosing the bookmark so I guess this suggestion is just a preference that many might not really share so I guess it's not too big of a deal.

One thing that I would like to strongly suggest is redoing the bookmarks page. Something more like the default browser does (square blocks that have a preview of the page, etc) as I feel that would make it much easier to navigate. By default, the homepage where it lists all my bookmarks has tiny font and makes it harder to select the right one. But I trust that you'll find someway to make it even better! Keep up the good work!

FYI I'm about to buy the full version to help support!

EDIT: The paid version's homepage has, by default, bigger links. So that's better. Not sure why it changes between the two but it's a very minor problem. Just thought I'd mention it. And xScope I don't mean to be ripping on you if it's coming of that way! I'm just pointing out things to help improve. And I find even the minor things, when they work well together, help make a good application a great one. Like I said earlier, keep up the good work! :)

EDIT (again lol): I noticed how you redid the search bar and now that I'm thinking about it, adding a similar, light gray gradient to the main URL bar would probably and drastically change the "looks over functions" crowd's opinion of the app. I friggin love you xScope.
 
I see you point on the bookmarks. Thanks.

I will redo the favorite list. (Most likely happen next weekend). It will be like what's in Google chrome so that you can choose either list, or blocks style(taking most recent picture from visited site). Thanks

RocknSteve said:
What I was talking about was more of going Menu -> Bookmarks which allows you to choose one of your bookmarks from there to go to. As I'm thinking about it, I guess it's the same amount of work as going "Home" and then choosing the bookmark so I guess this suggestion is just a preference that many might not really share so I guess it's not too big of a deal.

One thing that I would like to strongly suggest is redoing the bookmarks page. Something more like the default browser does (square blocks that have a preview of the page, etc) as I feel that would make it much easier to navigate. By default, the homepage where it lists all my bookmarks has tiny font and makes it harder to select the right one. But I trust that you'll find someway to make it even better! Keep up the good work!

FYI I'm about to buy the full version to help support!

EDIT: The paid version's homepage has, by default, bigger links. So that's better. Not sure why it changes between the two but it's a very minor problem. Just thought I'd mention it. And xScope I don't mean to be ripping on you if it's coming of that way! I'm just pointing out things to help improve. And I find even the minor things, when they work well together, help make a good application a great one. Like I said earlier, keep up the good work! :)

EDIT (again lol): I noticed how you redid the search bar and now that I'm thinking about it, adding a similar, light gray gradient to the main URL bar would probably and drastically change the "looks over functions" crowd's opinion of the app. I friggin love you xScope.
Click to expand...
 
Gosh, updated yet again:

1. Allowing using Volume keys to control page scrolling
2. Fixed new window issue. Now it opens link in new Tab for Google news.

However, I am little nervous though because #2 hasn't been fully tested yet. Please help let me know any troubling websites.

Thanks a lot!
 
xScope,

The updated UI is fantastic. And Google News links launch new tab! You're my hero.

Couple of things, though.

One is that I seem to be experiencing a bug with zooming on Google's standard search page. If I zoom in and scroll around a bit, the zoom resets to default. This only seems to happen on Google's search pages, though, and not News, for instance.

The other thing is that now, with the new menu options, we have "Favorites" and "Home." But they both bring you to the same page. Seems redundant. I know you said you will be reworking the bookmark page soon, so maybe this is just temporary. Do you plan on having a "home page" button that brings you to a specified page, and another "favorites" button that brings you to the bookmarks page? I think this would make sense.

Again, thanks for your excellent work and keep it up!
 
calbruc said:
xScope,

The updated UI is fantastic. And Google News links launch new tab! You're my hero.

Couple of things, though.

One is that I seem to be experiencing a bug with zooming on Google's standard search page. If I zoom in and scroll around a bit, the zoom resets to default. This only seems to happen on Google's search pages, though, and not News, for instance.

The other thing is that now, with the new menu options, we have "Favorites" and "Home." But they both bring you to the same page. Seems redundant. I know you said you will be reworking the bookmark page soon, so maybe this is just temporary. Do you plan on having a "home page" button that brings you to a specified page, and another "favorites" button that brings you to the bookmarks page? I think this would make sense.

Again, thanks for your excellent work and keep it up!
Click to expand...

Calbruc,
Favourites and Home are two separate buttons because that will allow you to set your home page as something esle if you should so desire.....but still have access to favourites. IMHO, what Xscope has done is correct and not redundant.

Xscope......Loving the option for Volume control scroll. I might also agree with Rock n Steve about the looks over form crowd....and I'll be honest.....I'm not a huge fan of the icons within the menu.

I also LOVE the 'add new tab' option in the menu. Allows me to use the 'hide tab if only one left' option way better. Thank you!!!!!

Now..... :-)....everything that I am going to mention from here on is IMHO....and I realize pretty nitpicky.

// Start nitpicking

I think it looks like I am one of the only ones who liked the '3D page curl up'.....just because I thought it looked so cool.....but then again like somebody pointed out...it was a little too big and so it was hard to access any page content in the lower right corner until that 'page curl' disappeared......But I thought it gave the browser a very modern feel.
Also I feel I like the colour icons you implemented in the page curl better than the B/w line icons currently in the menu button.

Am I the ONLY one who like the page curl? Any one??? :-)

// End nitpicking.....for now.

I also LOVE the fact that you update the Market with a version change update. Keep doing that. Before I download an update...I'd really like to know what changes you have made...just a line or two like you do right now.....But very few devs actually do that.
Thanks!
 
I am liking the updates but trying to understand a few of the icons on top.

1. The find feature (magnifying glass) what exactly does the find feature do as i see if i click it it brings up a text box at the bottom with arrows on each side but when i type something in there is no enter? Am i missing something here and what are the arrows on each side for?

2. The last icon on the right. Looks like two pages of paper. What does that do? Oh never mind I accidentally think I figured it out! It allows to copy text correct?
 
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