HN Gopher Feed (2017-09-18) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Doogie - A Chromium-Based Browser with Tree-Style Pages
172 points by kodablah
https://cretz.github.io/doogie/___________________________________________________________________
mvdwoord - 4 hours ago
This looks very promising, I'll keep an eye out for macos version,
and in the mean time might play around in my VMs. In any case,
thanks and godspeed to you.Currently juggling between FF Nightly
(for speed and memory usage) but lacking critical add-ons
(LastPass), and Chrome(/ium). I tried Vivaldi for a bit but was
really disappointed with the UX after a while. I miss the golden
era of Opera.
cjbillington - 5 hours ago
Cool idea. Can't run on the latest Ubuntu though, it seems the
latest Qt in the Ubuntu repos is 5.7? $ ./doogie ./doogie:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: version `Qt_5.9' not
found (required by ./doogie) Or is it supposed to use the Qt
shared objects in the current directory? It seems to find the
system ones first.
kodablah - 5 hours ago
Eek, yeah, I didn't have a global Qt install when I was testing.
I do bundle the Qt libs along side. Maybe change LD_LIBRARY_PATH
to local dir? I have filed an issue:
https://github.com/cretz/doogie/issues/45. That's why it's an
alpha release :-)
cjbillington - 4 hours ago
Doesn't seem to work - not sure why.Perhaps you can fix by
calling dlopen on the shared objects explicitly rather than
linking them and relying on the linker to find the libraries at
runtime. I'm not sure, not totally familiar with C linking.
jcelerier - 2 hours ago
You should look into distributing an AppImage. Its author has a
very nice script that you can use to ship Qt apps that works on
all linux distros:
https://github.com/probonopd/linuxdeployqtAlso, is there a
particular technical reason you went with CEF directly instead
of QtWebEngine or QtWebkit ? It would be interesting to know
about it.
kodablah - 1 hours ago
I'll look into linuxdeployqt. I am probably just going to
statically link Qt. I am not using anything security
conscious with Qt and I don't want versions changing
underneath, so a system-level Qt makes little sense I
think.QtWebKit was deprecated then just recently undeprecated
IIRC (with a non-Qt maintainer). As for the QWebEngine stuff,
it was a bit premature when I was looking and didn't offer
everything I needed at a low level. It's quite possible it
does now (and would make my work easier!), but I have not
looked.
jpfed - 5 hours ago
I love everything about this except that it's not done right now.
This is excellent.
dotancohen - 2 hours ago
My thoughts exactly. I'm having a hard time getting Qt 5.9 to
install thoroughly on CentOS 7, but if this works it will be
worth it.
jcelerier - 2 hours ago
How so ? Don't the binary packages work ?
(http://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/5.9/5.9.1/)
Cacti - 3 hours ago
No OSX support? :( :(
0xCMP - 5 hours ago
I wish someone would create an Emacs buffer style browser where we
could easily switch between tabs similar to how Emacs lets you
switch buffers. I know you can do this in Emacs, but I just think
for all the work people do to get tabs working nicely, maybe the
way Emacs has done it actually works pretty well without
overwhelming the screen with so much information all the time.That
tree on the left would be better in some kind fuzzy search screen
that appears on a key-binding (e.g. like some setups in Emacs) and
otherwise be hidden so the full screen can be used for the page.
Either as a panel like it is now or a modal/window.
yellowapple - 59 minutes ago
This is what Conkeror was meant to be.Unfortunately, Conkeror is
reliant on XULRunner, which is deprecated if not outright EOL now
(especially since XUL itself is deprecated / nearing EOL).
mbrock - 5 hours ago
It's not what you're looking for, but it might be interesting to
note that there's a pretty capable window manager (hybrid
tiling/floating) that runs in Emacs, written in Emacs Lisp, and
indeed lets you jump between windows using your buffer
switcher.https://github.com/ch11ng/exwmIn the tiling mode, Emacs
buffers and X11 windows map 1:1. It's like having arbitrary X
programs inside Emacs.
tetraca - 3 hours ago
Conkeror, perhaps?
jdc0589 - 2 hours ago
I switched to Firefox (dev edition) a month or so ago almost
completely becuase the TreeStyleTabs extension is better than
anything for chrome.I LOVE having nested tabs. It totally prevents
me from getting lost when I'm links deep in technical
documentation.
anotheryou - 1 hours ago
it will change a bit though. A rewrite for firefox' new plugin
architecture is on the way
gwenzek - 2 hours ago
It's funny how the feature description is exactly my firefox setup.
Tree style tab, mouse gestures to close and switch tabs, ability to
suspend tabs?
heywire - 4 hours ago
Completely unrelated, but I just had to comment that I love the
style of this webpage. Those double-line borders take me back to
my days of writing toy programs in Clipper.
jkeat - 4 hours ago
Yes! It reminds me of some sites listed on
http://brutalistwebsites.com (discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11517491)
agumonkey - 4 hours ago
Ho the website made me think it was ascii UI .. too bad. Still
great, the page tree is useful right away.
CharlesW - 5 hours ago
I love this way of managing tabs and windows! Today I approximate
this by using Chrome and the under-appreciated Tabs Outliner[1]
side-by-side.[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-
outliner/eggk...
agumonkey - 4 hours ago
most functions aren't free though
moe - 1 hours ago
Great work!I never understood why this isn't the default.Hopefully
this will finally gain traction in mainline Chrome. But I'm not
holding my breath...
mateuszf - 5 hours ago
Looks great! I'll wait for the OSX version. Also - vim or emacs
shortcuts would be appreciated.
kodablah - 5 hours ago
Yeah, sorry. I developed this on my Thinkpad and I didn't really
want to dev this in a hackintosh VM. My fear is that even if I
develop a OSX version, it will become stale because I don't use
it regularly. I abstracted all the platform-specific stuff, so it
should be really easy for anyone wanting to add OSX support. I'll
happily help/guide anyone.
dotancohen - 2 hours ago
> My fear is that even if I develop a OSX version, it will
become staleBeing open source and hosted on Github, I doubt
that will be a problem. The Mac community is rather active.By
the way, here's my vote for VIM keybindings!Do you have a
Paypal address that we could donate to?
kodablah - 1 hours ago
For macOS support: https://cretz.github.io/doogie/guide/faq
#where-is-the-macos-...For donations:
https://cretz.github.io/doogie/guide/faq#where-
can-i-donate-...
dotancohen - 2 hours ago
TreeStyleTabs and Vimperator are what keep me in Firefox. Any
decent alternative would be amazing.
gnicholas - 5 hours ago
You will be in good company! The only reason I use FF anymore is
Tree Style Tabs. But now that they're transitioning their addon
framework, I'm forced to choose between new goodies and critical
addons (for me) like TST. Can't wait to try this!
billconan - 3 hours ago
So can this be implemented as a chrome extension? instead of a
stand alone browser ?
gertef - 3 hours ago
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-outliner/eggk...
has overlap
mcintyre1994 - 3 hours ago
Bubbles sound like a really great feature! I'll be waiting on a Mac
version too so maybe this already exists - but it'd be awesome to
be able to pin domains to bubbles so they always open in that
bubble. Then Facebook can have their own bubble and can't see
anything even if their scripts/buttons get through ublock.
tradesmanhelix - 2 hours ago
The Firefox extension "Firefox Multi-Account Containers" by
Mozilla has the exact features you mention. I've been using it
ever since it was first released as a Firefox Test Pilot add-on
and it's great! So awesome to be able to keep things segregated.
Combined with the Tree Style Tabs and Tab Groups extensions, it's
killer.That said, Firefox 57 will kill the Tree Style Tabs and
Tab Groups extensions, so hoping some browser like Doogie picks
up those features and incorporates them into the browser core or
at least as extensions.[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
gogoengie - 2 hours ago
Tree Style Tab is being actively ported to a WebExtension:https
://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/issues?q=is%3Aissue+i...For a
general progress report:https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/
issues/1224#issuecomm...
bradhe - 5 hours ago
What problem is this solving exactly?
[deleted]
roywiggins - 5 hours ago
It actually seems very useful for people who like to research,
and organize their current stream-of-research into tabs.
sparkie - 3 hours ago
It's solving the problem that Firefox has nuked the tree-style-
tabs browser extension in FF57. It also highlights a good reason
to write a separate browser as opposed to implementing it as an
extension for one of the big player's browsers, because you can
guarantee they'll break your extension within 3 years.
jhasse - 3 hours ago
Will nuke. Firefox is at 55 currently.
gogoengie - 2 hours ago
Tree Style Tab is being ported to a WebExtension:https://github
.com/piroor/treestyletab/issues/1224#issuecomm...
TheCoreh - 5 hours ago
The problem of existing browsers poorly handling usage-cases with
hundreds, perhaps thousands of tabs open.
bradhe - 5 hours ago
So is it just a new way of organizing tabs? I'm not sure what
the issue is with browsers having many tabs open, besides it
being difficult to navigate between them (and obviously
resource consumption)
kodablah - 5 hours ago
> besides it being difficult to navigate between themThat's
it. Hierarchical pages makes it really easy to contextually
browse or what I call "immutable browsing" which is never
just clicking, but always ctrl+clicking links to never change
your current page.Also, the one thing many people don't
realize is how easy it should be to close dozens of pages. A
simple drag across the close buttons in Doogie (or drag over
which ones you want) helps close swaths of pages.
schindlabua - 5 hours ago
Difficult navigation is enough of a problem. Seeing just a
single letter of the page title because you have a hundred
tabs open makes finding tabs really hard and cumbersome.
gmurphy - 4 hours ago
This is a great use of Chromium!Storytime! When we started
designing Chrome back in 2006, and despite having spent the past
year working on Google's Firefox team, my favorite browser was
iRider, which was an IE shell with tree-style-tabs. It was too
power-user for what we were going for, but some of the concepts
(pinning) live on in Chrome today.
johansch - 4 hours ago
I wish you guys would build a multiple rows of tabs UI, like
Opera for desktop had. It was self-balancing (since you would
eventually run out of browsing space), but in a better way than
having everything just made tiny per column.The one UX challenge
you would need to solve though, that Opera did not, is how much
horizontal space to use per tab, after it gets cramped. No-one
would be happy with any particular default...
nachtigall - 4 hours ago
> It was too power-user for what we were going forChrome might as
well support the Sidebar API to make this possible like Firefox
will do with Tree-Tab-Style Add-on iirc. I read a bug report once
at the Chromium bug tracker saying roughly "Sidebar API wont be
implemented because UI needs to stay simple".
rprime - 4 hours ago
I remember a few years ago when Chrome actually had a hidden
feature flag that let you enable side tabs, not fully tree style,
but it was better than nothing. Sadly they removed it.