Chimera, a Cocoa-based Mac OS X Mozilla browser, is now up to version 0.2.3.
The Chimera project focuses on delivering a best-of-breed browser for Mac OS X, according to Steve Dagley of the project. It’s a “blending of the brains/brawn of the core technologies from Mozilla, such as the Gecko layout engine, with the beauty of Quartz text rendering in a Cocoa app,” he said.
“Some major features, such as plug-in support and a user interface for editing preferences, have yet to be completed but when it comes to speed, looks and standards compliance, we think Chimera is already a browser in a class by itself,”
As of version 0.2.3, Chimera can now open URLs sent to it from other apps. This means you can now make Chimera your default browser “and not have it sit there looking stupid when you tell it to load something,” Dagley said. Text Zoom has been implemented, so you can now increase and decrease the font size used in a Web page. Chimera now obeys the new minimum font size pref, ensuring that Quartz-rendered fonts don’t fall below the typical anti-aliasing cutoff point, Dagley said.
Quartz rendering has also been improved. In addition to being faster, it now has fixes for printing and for text spacing. Chimera now has a bookmarks toolbar. Like the Mozilla Classic personal toolbar, Chimera’s toolbar can wrap to multiple rows and supports pages and folders.
Bookmarks management has been enhanced. You can now specify where you want to create a new bookmark and you can create new folders. The sidebar tree widget has been enhanced to support more keyboard navigation (left/right arrows to open/close, return to launch, delete key to delete, etc.) and Bookmark groups have been fully implemented. When adding a bookmark with multiple tabs open, you now have the option of bookmarking all the tabs as a single group. You can use this feature to load bundles of pages in a single click, Dagley said.
Background tab loading will now work in Chimera 0.2.3. Background tabs will now refresh properly if left unattended. And the latest build has working dropdown lists in Web pages.
Feedback can be directed to the Chimera mailing list. They’re also in the process of setting up a Chimera development newsgroup in the netscape.public.mozilla hierarchy for people that prefer a newsgroup forum, Dagley said.
For more info on downloading Chimera, go to the product Web site.