Filed under: Browsers

"As you know, all of these features are still pretty experimental (they're not even in the dev channel yet) and we're trying out different approaches to see what works. In this case this is part of a larger set of tweaks we are making related to extensions but we haven't yet fleshed out all the details of app tabs specifically."

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I've been using Fluid for a couple of years now to create site-specific browsers on my Mac for certain very useful web applications like Gmail, and Jay points out 10 web apps you should be running on your mac with Fluid. Though the current version of Fluid still works well, it hasn't updated in awhile and that got me curious as to what the developer behind Fuild, Todd Ditchendorf, was currently up to.

It turns out he's currently working on a project called Fluidium, which takes the site-specific browser concept of Fluid, and does two important things: it makes it available to developers so that they can create self-contained SSBs that they can distribute, and it open-sources the code behind Fluidium so that developers can not only use it, but they can make changes as they need.

This is some neat stuff, but as a non-developer my main question was, "when will Fluid be updated?" My question was answered on the Fluidium blog, and the answer is soon. First a small update will be released to address some bug fixes, but later we can expect to see a revamped version of Fluid that takes advantage of some of the rewrites Todd did for Fluidium to make it even better.

I can't wait.

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I think it's pretty safe to say that most people who are not using some kind of stand-alone todo list are using their email inboxes as their de facto todo list. While that clearly works for some people, it's not kosher in the Getting Things Done universe.

If you're a Gmail user and you're finding yourself overwhelmed with trying to keep track of things in your inbox, but don't really want yet another place to check on things, consider trying GTDInbox. GTDInbox is a Firefox Add-on that adds todo list functionality to Gmail that is far more functional than the pathetic Tasks functionality that is built in to Gmail.

The functionality of GTDInbox is impressive. It uses a set of pre-defined labels to track the tasks that are sourced from email messages. You can create new tasks that are not linked to email messages, and track them all in a very Getting Things Done compatible environment.

There are, however, a couple things to be aware of. First of all is the fact that GTDInbox currently relies on Firefox, since it's implemented as a browser add-on. There are plans to release a Chrome version which will be nice from a performance improvement perspective, as well as to release a desktop version of Gmail+GTDInbox.

The second, and possibly more important one is that having a todo list rely on Gmail is a bit of a gamble; Google is often updating the code behind Gmail, and they do sometimes inadvertently break features that add-on software rely on. Then you're in a waiting game, while either the add-on provider or Google themselves fix whatever was broken. When it's your todo list that's not working, this is a big problem. Luckily, all of the tasks in GTDInbox are represented by email messages that you can still see and interact with even if the add-on is not working. You just lose all of the automated goodness GTDInbox offers.

Mozilla's long-awaited mobile version of Firefox has finally been released, albeit only for Nokia's Maemo (what used to be code-named Fennec) platform. Like the desktop version of Firefox, version 1.0 of Firefox for Mobile looks to set itself apart from other mobile browsers with the inclusion of browser add-ons.

Mozilla's Weave Sync add-on is already available for Firefox for Mobile, and in the blog post announcing the new browser's release Mozilla point out some third-party add-ons that they anticipate will be useful in a mobile context, including AdBlock Plus, URL Fixer, TwitterBar, language translators, and geo guides.

While I love the additional functionality that browser add-ons provide, I have to say that they are also often responsible for speed and stability issues. When I enable all of the add-ons that I like to use in Firefox, it perceptibly slows, 30-40% on some pages. Certainly this has as much to do with how well-written the add-on is as it does the nature of an add-on architecture, but I bring it up as it relates to one of the most important aspects of mobile computing (even, and maybe particularly on a phone): battery life. If add-ons put an additional load on your mobile browser, isn't this going to negatively impact your battery life? For you, is it worth the trade-off?

[via Technology News]