TooMuchGreen

Due to the lack of an OSX version for the (apparently) swish and whizzy new browser from Google (Google ‘Chrome’) I thought I’d give the multi processing session concept a tryout for myself by installing the beta of Stainless on to the MacBook Air.

Stainless started out merely as a technology demo for Mesa Dynamics however due to it’s rapidly growing fan base and corresponding list of evolving features it’s continuing on toward a fully fledged release (V1.0). The present version (0.6) is still only at beta development stages however it’s already offering some nice touches above and beyond Chrome itself, to quote from the site -

“A prime example is parallel sessions, which allow you to log into a site using different credentials in separate tabs at the same time. This new technology is woven throughout Stainless, from the private cookie storage system, to session-aware bookmarks that remember the session in which they were saved”

Most useful, especially for those of us with a few Twitter accounts

Stainless is most obviously still in the development stages with no RSS menus or further extended browsing capability, however it does already have one very nice feature which virtually (for me anyway) negates the enhancements of missing technicality, namely the icon driven ‘Bookmark Shelf’ (see header image). I absolutely love it, just drag the web icon (favicon) over from the selected page into the leftside window strip, quick, easy and a nice simple alternative to those endless drop down lists of cascading bookmarks. I used to think the tab bar in Firefox was a cool idea but this takes it up (or sideways) to another level of lateral simplicity.

I’m a huge fan of graphics over lists and personally find it much easier to zip through visual recognition formats rather than by searching text, is that the same for everyone else I wonder? And if so what does it tell us about ourselves and the way *business* predominantly works with information? Take CD’s for example (yes, I hear some people do actually still own vast libraries of this antiquated physical media, however didn’t we all at some stage?), the question is how did (or do) you organise your collections? Alphabetically? Or further split down into genre? Such granularity always seemed too labour intense for me so I dropped into lining them up by colour, i.e starting with all white spines, moving into cream, to light yellow, to orange, to shades of red and flowing on into each other as the hue dictated ending with black (you get the idea?). I always knew the colour of the box and the corresponding album art (see previous post ‘Listen in Colour‘) so found it an incredibly quick method of finding the CD I wanted to listen to, not only that but there was a double bonus of the collection looking groovy and colourful racked up across the wall. Leading on from this is (I think) an interesting point regarding the inherent facility for colour tagging files and folders under the AppleMac operating systems of new and old, something which I believe says untold amounts about the Apple vs *PC* mindset.

Anyway, yes, my colour matched image freindly brain really rates the Bookmark Shelf concept and I can’t believe nobody’s thought of it before, or have they? Have I just been stuck in Firefox drop down/tab world and missed a whole new area of simple clickability? I know Safari 4 offers coverflow and the eye popping panorama view of the ‘Favourite Sites’ window but even that involves an extra click or two (clicks are a valuable commodity) and still lists the site description as text in a space hogging sidebar. The only drawback of course is that (as yet) there’s no specifically legitimate reason for every site to have it’s own bespoke web icon (although I think they should, and any site worth it’s salt actually already does) and as such you could just end up with a few generic globes. The site name does pop into view at mouse over, and you can easily drop a custom image in with a quick right click & ‘configure’ so I suppose it’s no real biggie to get things looking swish and organised if you only have a few dozen main faves (like me).

I believe it’s worth the extra effort just to fill in a few blanks for the resulting overall effect and I’m looking forward to seeing how slick the finished version is.

Download Stainless HERE