Shiira
Shiira (シイラ, Japanese for the common dolphin-fish) is a discontinued open source web browser for the Mac OS X operating system. According to its lead developer Makoto Kinoshita, the goal of Shiira was "to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari". Shiira used WebKit for rendering and scripting.[1] The project reached version 2.3 before it was discontinued, and by December 2011 the developer's website had been removed.
 | |
 Shiira (シイラ) 2.3 under Mac OS X 10.5.8 | |
| Developer(s) | Shiira Project |
|---|---|
| Initial release | April 11, 2004 (Version 0.9) |
| Final release | 2.3 (August 11, 2009) [±] |
| Preview release | none (n/a) [±] |
| Written in | Objective-C Cocoa |
| Engine | WebKit |
| Operating system | Mac OS X 10.4 or later |
| Available in | Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese,Czech Language |
| Type | Web browser |
| License | BSD license |
| Website | (in Japanese) shiira.jp/blog |
Features and performance
Since the browser was developed with Safari in mind, the main characteristics of the two browsers are similar.[1] For example, Shiira employs private browsing options so that history and cookies are not recorded when activated. However, the search engines search field on the toolbar includes many search engines. Shiira also uses Cocoa programming to provide users with a customizable drawer extending from the left or right of the window. The drawer includes bookmarks, history, downloads, and an RSS reader. In version 2.0, the sidebar was replaced by a series of palettes opened and closed from the main window toolbar. Shiira natively supports in-browser PDF viewing.
Style
The features of Shiira include appearance options. Users may switch between Aqua or Metal styles in addition to changing the buttons' appearances. However, in the current 2.0 release, changes in themes are, as yet, not available. Tabs are also customizable. Another option is "Tab Exposé", which acts much like the Exposé feature of Mac OS X; each tab is visible in its totality, enabling users to select the tab to which they wish to navigate.[1] The 1.x releases of Shiira also have a page-turning effect for transitions between any two webpages; however, this was dropped from 2.x releases. The new interface in Shiira 2.0 can be set to display tabs as thumbnails along the bottom or sides of the window.[2]
Versions
The latest release (version 2.3) requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Shiira 2.3 has not been tested on the latest versions of the OS, and has been reported to be buggy on Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6.[2] The final release for Mac OS X 10.3 was 1.2.2.
References
- Jason Cranford Teague (March 4, 2008). "Shiira Project Shiira 2.2". Macworld. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
- Charles Moore (March 8, 2010). "Shiira Browser Is Lightning Fast". Low End Mac. Retrieved April 25, 2011.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shiira. |