An update to my dearest users

[bestall666]

Hello

i'm waiting full ie8 compatibility beofe replacing ie7 !!!

i'm hoping possibility to choise easyly search engine (google) with the possibility to choose it in the search bar like ie7 !!

do i need to wait avant 12 ?

Bestall666

[statm1]

You don't need to wait for Avant v12 to beable to use IE8. IE8 works just fine with Avant 11.7

[travllr]

1. please please please bring back groups feature with seperate groups menu. i am still staying with V10.52 because of this. Dont why or who proposed to remove it.

Heck, I'm using 10.38 with IE7 (but I think it ran better under IE6). In versions after .38, while working in Full Screen, when I'd mouseover to the top, or sides, there'd be a delay before the menu/tabs would appear - drove me crazy. I'd even have to click the mouse sometimes to get to get menu/tabs into view.

Then, when I installed a new version (with online bookmarks) and saw groups gone, back I came again to 10.38 and have been pretty happy ever since.

Funny though, it seems like my Yahoo Classic email has gotten slower and slower. Was that because of IE7?

[notestracker]

G'day travllr, here's my tuppence worth -- or two cents worth, if you're too young to remember penny coins.

I have recently upgraded from IE6 to IE8 and find that it behaves very well. I had IE7 installed for quite a few months during early 2007, and found Avant gobbling up lots and lots of RAM, sometimes it was well over 1 GB with 70 or 80 or more tabs opened.

So I uninstalled IE7 and stayed with IE6 for a long time (also due to the fact that IE7 did away with Ctrl + Mouse Wheel for Text Size changing, as I've discussed in other threads such as the currently active http://forum.avantbrowser.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=25356&p=156773#p156773)

After just a week or two with IE8, I've arrived at the preliminary conclusion that IE8 is a lot better behaved than IE7 in terms of stability and memory management. For example, right now I have around 60 tabs open and it's only consuming about 190 MB of RAM, whereas with IE7 it would already have been heading toward 1 GB or so.

Anyhow, for me so far there haven't been any serious issues using Avant with IE8. Note that there might also have been some under-the-hood Avant stability/performance/memory handling improvements too, I don't know enough to comments on this aspect.

I have been updating to each new Avant release (currently on version 11.7 Build 23) and have no problems, with the fairly restricted set of features I use anyway. But I quite understand what you mean about groups not being a separate menu item as it was in version 10, and I found that preferable too. (I think that Anderson merged the design of Groups/Bookmarks for good technical or programming workload reasons, which I can't recall -- can anybody else explain why?)

[weather909]

so when do we get are 1st look at 12.0 do you have a date set yet???

[statm1]

Won't be anytime soon weather.. Maybe 2009, maybe 2010.. A date has not been set.

[Jasmine]

Do you know which requests have made it to v12?

And, to follow on from kudos' question just above. is there a staged list of what might be in the version 12 sub-releases?

Didn't talk to Anderson very often lately as he's busy. If I am right he's just resolved all technical difficulties on 12.0 and still working on the framework of the program. So except for previously mentioned adjustable tab width, profile backup/recovery, customizable profile location and keeping browser from often freezing all other requests aren't confirmed to be included into list yet. We'll discuss them after he's ready for it.

[Jasmine]

Hello

i'm waiting full ie8 compatibility beofe replacing ie7 !!!

i'm hoping possibility to choise easyly search engine (google) with the possibility to choose it in the search bar like ie7 !!

do i need to wait avant 12 ?

Bestall666

You can define the default search engine to google's.

[Jasmine]

1. please please please bring back groups feature with seperate groups menu. i am still staying with V10.52 because of this. Dont why or who proposed to remove it.

Then, when I installed a new version (with online bookmarks) and saw groups gone, back I came again to 10.38 and have been pretty happy ever since.

Funny though, it seems like my Yahoo Classic email has gotten slower and slower. Was that because of IE7?

Could we add a feature to import groups into bookmarks?
Don't know why groups are so important. There is also a feature in Bookmarks which enabling you to add all opened tabs into a folder.

[addonsfan]

...and still working on the framework of the program.

New framework is a great idea imo.

[notestracker]

Jasmine, I can't find anywhere the ability to save all open tabs into a new bookmark folder (that is like the ability to add all open tabs into a new group), could you tell us where this feature is? Indeed, is not the main reason for using groups due to the fact that this capability is missing from bookmark management.

An architectural matter regarding groups is that they are stored in an internal format that you cannot read (and edit) using a text editor like Notepad. This complicates the renaming and rearrangement of groups.

I would like to see groups in a folder hierarchy like bookmarks, and the "Organize Groups" then becomes like the "Organize Bookmarks" management interface. I use groups very frequently, and find the management of groups currently to be a rather painful procedure.
Cheers...

[kudos]

Jasmine, I can't find anywhere the ability to save all open tabs into a new bookmark folder (that is like the ability to add all open tabs into a new group), could you tell us where this feature is?

Bookmarks >> New Bookmark... >> Add all tabs to bookmarks >> OK

[kudos]

I use groups very frequently, and find the management of groups currently to be a rather painful procedure.

Do you mean bookmark folders? I thought groups were no longer present.

[notestracker]

Do you mean bookmark folders? I thought groups were no longer present.

No, I really do mean groups, stored in the groups.dat file which resides in the .default folder of the Avant Profiles folder, and found in the Application Data folder of your Documents and Settings folder (in Windows XP, anyway). This is as distinct from Favorites/Bookmarks, which of course are stored elsewhere in Documents and Settings.

But now I need to correct myself, since I now recall that the groups.dat file is not some sort of binary file in an obscure internal format but just a plain text file with a fairly simple structure (see for yourself). If you take care you can edit this file with Notepad to reorganize your groups, however it's safer to use the "Organize Groups" interface -- even if this needs improved in usability as I and others have requested in other threads of the forum.

[kudos]

I had to go back to Avant v10.2 in order to get groups. How do you enable this in v11.x?

What is wrong with the drag and drop feature of organising bookmarks? I find it easy to reorgainise them.

And to get them into a text-editable format, the export bookmarks feature seems ideal.

[notestracker]

I had to go back to Avant v10.2 in order to get groups. How do you enable this in v11.x?

Crikey, groups were just handled differently, not removed. Go to the Miscellaneous Avant option and select "Use IE Favorites as Bookmarks" (not at all intuitive, eh?)

What is wrong with the drag and drop feature of organizing bookmarks? I find it easy to reorganize them. And to get them into a text-editable format, the export bookmarks feature seems ideal.

I agree that bookmarks are relatively easy to organize (via drag and drop, or cut and paste, or whatever). The "Organize Bookmarks" dialog is another way, but with a fixed-size dialog box it's a little awkward if you a=have lots of bookmarks.

Managing groups is a LOT harder, since the dialog box is also fixed in size and has several usability limitations, such as truncation of group names, and not "Sort by name" capability.

IMPORTANT TIP:
Following a tip a few weeks ago in another thread, I now use the free ResizeEnable tool from http://www.digitallis.co.uk/pc/released.html and it helps lot for both the above dialogs (except that group names remain truncated so sometimes you have to guess what the missing part of a name is, and only Anderson can properly fix this shortcoming). More important is that ResizeEnable is of enormous value not just inside Avant but all over the place in Windows and numerous Windows applications.

I continue to be amazed by how many apps out there don't allow resizable dialog boxes wherever they make sense (for long names, long lists, etc). Shame Microsoft, and all the other developers!

[addonsfan]

I wonder why groups arent't available for bookmarks...

[Jasmine]

I wonder why groups arent't available for bookmarks...

If using IE favorites as bookmarks, groups are available. It's a submenu of Bookmarks. Since Avant's bookmarks allow you to add all open tabs to a folder why is it needed to have groups back? Isn't it duplicated in feature?

[Jasmine]

IMPORTANT TIP:
Following a tip a few weeks ago in another thread, I now use the free ResizeEnable tool from http://www.digitallis.co.uk/pc/released.html and it helps lot for both the above dialogs (except that group names remain truncated so sometimes you have to guess what the missing part of a name is, and only Anderson can properly fix this shortcoming). More important is that ResizeEnable is of enormous value not just inside Avant but all over the place in Windows and numerous Windows applications.

What do you mean by truncated group name? Is sometimes the name too long to show them completely? If so, hovering the mouse over the name you'll see all.

[notestracker]

What do you mean by truncated group name? Is sometimes the name too long to show them completely? If so, hovering the mouse over the name you'll see all.

But Jasmine, I don't WANT to hover the mouse over the entry to see the full name. Since I've used ResizeEnable to widen the Group Name column, I want to see the full name in plain view. That's what usability is all about.
Cheers...