SmartCookieWeb Preview: Needed fixes and potential new features

[Bardock88]

Discussed in #122

^{Originally posted by Bardock88 June 18, 2023}
SmartCookieWeb Preview: Current version ⬇️

Need to fix:
1° Can't get into 'Downloads' when it's selected from the three-dot menu on the homepage:

ScreenRecording_20230616_221106.mp4

2° When bookmarking a site and adding it again the same site is duplicated instead of showing a popup saying the site has already been added:

ScreenRecording_20230616_221903.mp4

3° The 'About:About' page does not properly scale to mobile resolution =>

Wrong appearance:

Right appearance:

4° Reorder options menu list when on homepage to 'history', 'bookmarks', 'downloads', 'extensions' and 'settings':

5° Reorder option menu list when accessing a website to 'New tab', 'New private tab', 'Add to home screen', 'Save to PDF', 'Print', 'History', 'Bookmarks', ' Downloads', 'Extensions', 'Desktop site', 'Find in page' and 'Settings':

Possible resources:
1° 'Downloads' button in the three-dot menu when the site is open in a normal or private tab

2° The possibility to select several bookmarks to move at once to a certain folder as in browsers based on Blink.

3° Option in 'Bookmarks' menu to open bookmark in private tab and open in private tab in background.

4° Option to choose which installed extensions can be added to the toolbar.

5° Include the 'FF Wallpapers' or allow the user to customize the wallpaper to their liking:

6° Increase the display of the list of extensions from 50 to 100 or an undetermined value when using a custom collection of extensions.

7° Feature of holding the 'Back' button on Android to show the submenu of previously accessed sites, when you have a site open as in FF:

ScreenRecording_20230618_220231.mp4

8° Add the 'undo tab closing' function:

ScreenRecording_20230622_105530.mp4

9° Include 'Exit' button in the three-dot menu.

At the moment, these are aspects that I have observed and that can improve the project even more and if I forgot something important, please let me know, thank you.

[Nick768]

+1 for your feature requests. Especially the "hold to go back multiple steps" is really missing. A toggle to change the tab list button to the right side would be nice too...

[Bardock88]

+1 for your feature requests. Especially the "hold to go back multiple steps" is really missing.

The CookieJarApps project for the SmartCookieWeb browser being built in 'Gecko-View' has a lot of potential, unfortunately the team of developers doesn't have enough time available to dedicate it, if I had the knowledge and knew how to program I would try to help, but unfortunately I don't know.

A toggle to change the tab list button to the right side would be nice too...

Ah yes, to access the list of tabs on the right side you have to go to ︙ 'three dots menu', go to ⚙️ 'Settings', then 'Personalization settings' and then just below select 'Invert tab menus and favorites' exit the general settings and close the browser and reopen it again and you will see that the menus when dragging them to the sides will be on opposite sides.

[CookieJarApps]

+1 for your feature requests. Especially the "hold to go back multiple steps" is really missing.

The CookieJarApps project for the SmartCookieWeb browser being built in 'Gecko-View' has a lot of potential, unfortunately the team of developers doesn't have enough time available to dedicate it, if I had the knowledge and knew how to program I would try to help, but unfortunately I don't know.

A toggle to change the tab list button to the right side would be nice too...

Ah yes, to access the list of tabs on the right side you have to go to ︙ 'three dots menu', go to ⚙️ 'Settings', then 'Personalization settings' and then just below select 'Invert tab menus and favorites' exit the general settings and close the browser and reopen it again and you will see that the menus when dragging them to the sides will be on opposite sides.

Recently, I've been mostly working on a new GeckoView-based version of the browser that uses the old WebView-based code. I've been having trouble fixing some issues (e.g. buggy incognito mode, homepage sometimes doesn't load, etc) as the current SmartCookieWeb Preview extensively uses Mozilla's Android Components, which I have little control over. It's taken quite a while to port over all the current features and work is still ongoing, but I've made good progress - currently add-ons can be installed, add-on popups are working, basic browsing works, but key features like webpage popup alerts, web page icons, location services, etc are still missing. The plan is that it will then be easier to add in new features too. In the meantime, there probably won't be any significant updates for SCWP besides bug fixes and GeckoView updates.

[Nick768]

Ah yes, to access the list of tabs on the right side you have to go to ︙ 'three dots menu', go to ⚙️ 'Settings', then 'Personalization settings' and then just below select 'Invert tab menus and favorites' exit the general settings and close the browser and reopen it again and you will see that the menus when dragging them to the sides will be on opposite sides.

I knew that but I don't use gestures to open this menus. They conflict with my native Android gestures. I meant the buttons to open these menus.

Recently, I've been mostly working on a new GeckoView-based version of the browser that uses the old WebView-based code. I've been having trouble fixing some issues (e.g. buggy incognito mode, homepage sometimes doesn't load, etc) as the current SmartCookieWeb Preview extensively uses Mozilla's Android Components, which I have little control over. It's taken quite a while to port over all the current features and work is still ongoing, but I've made good progress - currently add-ons can be installed, add-on popups are working, basic browsing works, but key features like webpage popup alerts, web page icons, location services, etc are still missing. The plan is that it will then be easier to add in new features too. In the meantime, there probably won't be any significant updates for SCWP besides bug fixes and GeckoView updates.

This could be the browser I am waiting for because I see the potential of not using the complete Firefox code base and building a browser that is way faster than the original FF for Android

[daffydock]

Just as a question: The one killer feature I really like about SCWP is the manner it handles extension popups. If I have the ext. icon next to the address bar, pressing it opens the popup, right there, without having to leave the page. Just like on desktop.

I run uBO on at least Medium Mode. I have no issue unbreaking sites, I take that as just part of the course.

On mobile however, SCWP makes that a lot more convenient than on any other FF fork, or even FF itself. Requiring one key press, over the 3 button presses just to get to the uBO popup to make the changes and then having to go back to the original page and refresh. If for some reason something else needs to be tweaked on uBO, then re-doing this process becomes most tedious very quickly. On other forks I use, I mostly gave up and just dumbed it down and keep uBO on Easy Mode at the expense of privacy and security. Hence SCWP is my preferred daily driver.

Since on SCWP, this can be done on the fly. For uBO and other extensions I use.

Would this behaviour be able to be carried over or is it just going to be the same as the other Mozilla products/forks? Due to the current one using Android components over Fenix, which is what I had always thought that made the popup behaviour possible.

Cheers.

[CookieJarApps]

Just as a question: The one killer feature I really like about SCWP is the manner it handles extension popups. If I have the ext. icon next to the address bar, pressing it opens the popup, right there, without having to leave the page. Just like on desktop.

I run uBO on at least Medium Mode. I have no issue unbreaking sites, I take that as just part of the course.

On mobile however, SCWP makes that a lot more convenient than on any other FF fork, or even FF itself. Requiring one key press, over the 3 button presses just to get to the uBO popup to make the changes and then having to go back to the original page and refresh. If for some reason something else needs to be tweaked on uBO, then re-doing this process becomes most tedious very quickly. On other forks I use, I mostly gave up and just dumbed it down and keep uBO on Easy Mode at the expense of privacy and security. Hence SCWP is my preferred daily driver.

Since on SCWP, this can be done in the fly. For uBO and other extension I use.

Would this behaviour be able to be carried over or is it just going to be the same as the other Mozilla products/forks? Due to the current one using Android components over Fenix, which is what I had always thought that made the popup behaviour possible.

Cheers.

Yes, add-on popup support is done now and it uses the same overlay style as in Preview. It doesn't use Android Components and just uses GeckoView directly, though the add-on system now functions in essentially the same way. There will also be support for pinning some add-ons to the navbar and the rest appearing in the dropdown menu.

[daffydock]

@CookieJarApps

That is great news. Can't wait until it is available to try.