Omni screws up again, but there's a silver lining.

[William Shipley]

Good morning, OmniWeb 0.7.5 doesn't work again.

You're not going to believe it, but we thought we'd set the next timeout  
date to February 14th (Valentine's Day).  Instead, it turns out it was  
February 2nd (Groundhog's Day).  If you think you're mad, imagine how my  
girlfriend feels about me confusing the two.

I was planning to release OmniWeb 1.0 beta on February 7th, saving everyone  
the trouble they went through last time when I released 0.7.5.5 the day  
after OmniWeb expired (Christmas '94).  However, we screwed up again, and  
0.7.5.5 expired today.  But, take consolation in the fact that we have now  
RIPPED THE EXPIRATION CODE BLEEDING FROM OMNIWEB.  The license it comes with  
now will NEVER EXPIRE.

To make up for our screw up, we're releasing OmniWeb 0.9.1 early.  Today  
(at about noon) it will be submitted to:

ftp://ftp.cs.orst.edu/Incoming/OmniWeb-0.9.1.app.tar.gz

It'll probably move to:

ftp://ftp.cs.orst.edu/software/NeXT/binaries/wide-area-info/OmniWeb-0.9.1.app.tar.gz

If you set your clock back a day, you can use OmniWeb to download the new one.


  0.9 is an almost complete rewrite of OmniWeb.  Among the many improvements:

- New access methods to Text object speeds up document loading by ~5x.  No  
more speed complaints.
- Multiple browser windows are supported.  It's cool!
- Multiple bookmarks windows are supported.  Bookmark windows can even  
contain references to other bookmark windows.  (For example, my personal  
bookmark window has a links to all my friends' bookmarks windows, and the  
shared company bookmarks).
- Bookmarks look and work like Concurrence outlines; drag URLs around and  
arrange them into heirarchies as you see fit.  You can edit their titles,  
create empty headers, and add comments to any entry.
- Bookmarks save as plain HTML; you can share bookmarks with other OmniWeb  
users, or even users of other browsers.  You can even share bookmarks across  
the network (but not write to them).  Bookmarks windows do a reasonable job  
of parsing regular HTML (within limits).
- New history windows show recently accessed documents as well as a linear  
list of every document you've seen so far.
- Drag'n'drop of URLs from anywhere to almost anywhere.  Drag URLs out of  
the history and into your bookmarks to add a new bookmark, drag from  
bookmarks and into your browser to go back to that page, or drag from the  
browser and onto the Workspace background to open a new window.  Drag into  
Mail to include in a mail message.  Alt-drag an underlined link from inside  
the browser window to drag instead of follow it.
  Drag from the top of a browser window and you get a URL representing the  
document.  Drop into bookmarks and the title automatically is filled in.   
Drag from the top of a bookmarks window and into another and the target  
automatically creates a bookmark link to the first.  Alt-drag an underlined  
link in a browser and drop into bookmarks to store a bookmark without  
loading it.  Alt-drag from a browser onto the workspace to load the link in  
a new browser.
- New services exported to all apps: search for selection in NeXTanswers,  
and search for selection in WebCrawler, the only complete-text WWW index.
- Forms support is much more robust.  Check out  
http://www.research.digital.com/nsl/formtest/stats-matrix.html, and notice  
that OmniWeb0.9alpha7 is one of the very few that passes ALL the tests.
- New "openURL" program in the app-wrapper for opening URLs from the command-line.
- Tons of bugs fixed based on user feedback.  That's you.  Thank you!

OmniWeb will soon be marketed exclusively by Lighthouse Design.  0.9.1 is  
the first release that enforces the "single free user at any organization"  
licensing policy.  If you're using OmniWeb from home, it's free!  If you're  
the only person using OmniWeb at your business, not only are you a little  
superior to everyone else, but you also get it for free!  If you and some  
friends use OmniWeb together at the same organization, you'll have to race  
each other to work to see who can start it first.  Or leave it running and  
lock up your machine.  Careful, friendships have been broken up this way.   
Best to buy some extra licenses.

If you'd like more licenses to evaluate OmniWeb at your organization, for  
right now you can send e-mail to me (wjs at omnigroup.com).

For pricing information and general product information, contact Lighthouse  
Design, at either omniweb at lighthouse.com, or 1-800-FOO-BAR9.  We're not  
handling anything to do with sales, they are.  They've nicely agreed to let  
us continue to distribute the single-user free license on the net.  Needless  
to say, they won't provide product support or documentation to people using  
the free license.  Heck, neither do we.  You can send e-mail to our mailing  
list, omniweb-l at omnigroup.com, where lots of nice folks might be able to  
help you.

OmniWeb is still a beta product.  It has bugs.  Because it's rewritten, it  
might have some bugs that it didn't before.  Mind you, I use OmniWeb every  
day.  But, I'd still recommend against using it in situations where actual  
lives are at stake.  If you download OmniWeb, you do it with the  
understanding that you are a human guinea pig, helping us test a new  
product.  If you don't like this, wait a month for the final 1.0 version,  
which will be so solid you can cut diamonds with it.  Also, the final  
version will have actual help and documentation.  And professional icons.   
The whole nine yards!

-Wil Shipley
President, Omni Development, Inc.

PS: My groundhog didn't much appreciate the box of chocolates, either.