Technology Speed Track

Release notes/changes for 1.4/1.4.1

• fix to force close on mobile sites when double tap zoom cycle goes back to the “all the way out” setting
• double-tap/triple-tap anywhere on a page to zoom
• setting to change triple tap delay value in advanced settings (so the lower the setting, the more responsive double-taps are, but the quicker you have to get your triple-tap in!)
• setting to change double-tap behaviour, between the existing zoom cycle, and also now just a simple zoom out only setting (so if you want to just keep it simple, and have double-tap to zoom in, triple tap to zoom out,
  the latter will be the setting for you). How many zooms this will result in per cycle will depend on the page you’re viewing.
• change to double-tap zoom cycle behaviour - now zooms ALL the way out to give a true page overview, and also introduces an intermediate step between page overview and 1:1 zoom (this is a nice level for sites with
  big fonts, eg. aintitcool.com)
• click title bar (or top of screen) to bring down the address/search bar
• click top left of screen to go to home page. Click it a second time when on the home page to exit the browser completely (or double-click from elsewhere).

Yes, lovely, release notes are great. But, errrm, what actually is this?

This is a new build of the stock browser, that incorporates the multitouch code from Cyan’s build, along with some additional code of my own, primarily intended to make zooming less painful, and looking to gradually move towards an experience as rich as the Hero browser.

What does it do that’s new, then?

• the stuff it will say in the release notes for the latest version at the top of this thread, plus:
• option in settings to disable the obnoxious on-screen zoom buttons that usually appear (turn off “Visual Zoom Controls” in the menu to get rid of them - off by default).
• when Visual Zoom Controls is disabled, option in settings to add zoom in and zoom out to the menu (although this will bump over options that are normally on the main menu to the “More…” list)
• double-tap the screen to zoom in. When it gets too ginormous (about four zooms) a subsequent double-tap will zoom all the way out. Or you can just change this in the settings so double-tap always zooms in.
• triple-tap to zoom out!
• an option for “Mobile Web Settings”. Select from Android, iPhone or Desktop browsing.
• an option to lock in landscape mode.
• setting to enable hiding/showing of notification bar. Note that this needs the entire Browser process to be restarted to take effect (so you might need to use some kind of task killer, or if you don’t have one, reboot your phone).

What do I need to run it?

It was written to run on Cyanogen builds, originally. Others have tried it on JACxROM and other ROMs with multitouch in the kernel. I personally see no reason why it wouldn’t run on pretty much any Cupcake ROM, although multitouch won’t work. In fact I think some people have run it on Hero, although why you want to do such a thing is beyond me. I, personally, have only tried it on Cyan 4.0.x.

How do I install it?

I am assuming that anyone on this thread is familiar with pushing things to their phone with adb. So I, personally, would install with something like

adb remount
adb shell cp /system/sd/app_s/Browser.apk /system/sd/app_s/Browser.old
adb push Browser-bb-whatever-the-filename-is.apk /system/sd/app_s/Browser.apk

This, of course, is assuming you have an a2sd ROM with your system/app stuff on the SD card in app_s. If not, you will need to modify that accordingly.

However, some people have been reporting successful installations using Linda File Manager from the market and just installing the APK like any app. I don’t do it this way so caveat emptor.

Is this the same browser that’s been doing the rounds on this board lately? What’s with the version 1.x stuff? Wasn’t it on version 5 or something?

Yes. I’ve reset the version numbering and given it a name (i.e. BetterBrowser). So this is BetterBrowser v1 (which comes after Loccy’s Browser v5 ). Next versions will be 1.1, 1.2, etc. It was getting a bit silly going up a version number every time I added a single menu option!

I installed your browser and now I can’t browse the interweb, my phone exploded, I lost my job and suffered an embarrassing rectal prolapse in a public place. I blame you!

Thank you, please call again. All purchases are final. I would suggest that one uses a program to back up your bookmarks at the very least before installing this.

This is the best thing since self removing trousers! What do I do now?

Send me money by clicking here.

Future improvements I’m hoping to do:

• a proper full screen option (i.e. where you’d also hide the title bar as well as the notification bar, and only show it when pages are loading)
• maintain zoom level across pages on same site (so it doesn’t suddenly zoom back to 1:1 level when you browse to the next page).
• hero-style lairy Mac coverflow-esque bookmarks (some way off in the future me-thinks!)
• tidy up what behind the scenes is, unfortunately, some really kludgey code!

– Loccy, senior member of xda-developers.com –

[source]http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=551119