Favicon woes
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It seems like 10 years ago I was doing the same thing. Struggling with a new browser to get it to handle Favicions correctly. I have resorted to installing Xmarks bookmark sync in Vivaldi and two other browsers. I disable automatic sync and use the Upload and Download Buttons to overwrite everything on the Xmarks server, then download that to Vivaldi overwriting everything there. Except it doesn't. It merges into a bunch of dupes. Even then it still does not show the Favicons after a restart. This is depressing. I am using 1.2.470.11 (Developer Build) (32-bit)
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According to this (long thread), Xmarks should be working in V1.2
https://vivaldi.net/en-US/forum/3rd-party-extensions/4527-xmarks-extension -
According to this (long thread), Xmarks should be working in V1.2
https://vivaldi.net/en-US/forum/3rd-party-extensions/4527-xmarks-extensionMaybe I will try again later. I have SlimJet which I am using in the meantime. It is essentially the same except I use Fast Dial instead of the built-in Vivaldi Dial. The Vivaldi Dial may come up just a tad faster. But I think SlimJet's initial load is quicker. Plus it is portable. With one tab it opens 8 instances of the exe same as Vivaldi. The major difference is the favicons work as expected. But I will keep an eye on Vivaldi. It may be fine to use once a few more wrinkles are ironed out.
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Good to know that Fast Dial is finally fixed, it is a decent alternative to FVD Speed Dial (and vivaldi's own SD)
Anyway I think that until Vivaldi's own sync will take place, syncing the bookmark file over a cloud/server (and powertoys rsync or a similar tool) will do a better job than syncing them using a third party extension.
I think that if you sync also the topsites file also the graphical resources should be correctly managed.
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Speaking of Dials, one thing that caused me to search out alternatives to Firefox lately has been its reluctance to accept input for 20 or 30 seconds after the window appears. Even when I set it to start with a blank page rather than displaying the dials. Vivaldi too seems to have a slight hesitation. I notice now with SlimJet that even though it is set to display dials on startup, if I launch it as default browser by launching a url it snaps up quickly and accepts the url without delay.
I used chromium snapshot portables for a couple of years. Then that seemed to sour. I do not know what happens but it seems impossible these days to keep the browser development in the sweet spot for long. And the version number game is insane.
Pardon my pontificating. I feel much better now.
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For grins I updated to the latest 32 bit snapshot and installed XMarks bookmark sync again. It downloaded/overwrote without the dupes. But it still failed to charge the favicons. The favicon part works in other flavors of chrome. I don't know why.
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It's because other flavors actually import/sync the favicons, which Vivaldi can't do via XMarks because it does not use a Chromium copycat directory structure.
This whole concept of syncing favicons is actually kind of new. Those of us who have been using browsers for a couple of decades would have laughed at anyone who complained they had no favicons for their newly-imported bookmarks. "Well, just visit the site, silly!" But then the whole idea of completely replacing your bookmarks daily is foreign to me as well. My bookmarks are sufficiently static that such a strategy would be overkill. I would never do it.
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It's because other flavors actually import/sync the favicons, which Vivaldi can't do via XMarks because it does not use a Chromium copycat directory structure.
Maybe it should. Then stuff would work out of the box.
This whole concept of syncing favicons is actually kind of new. Those of us who have been using browsers for a couple of decades would have laughed at anyone who complained they had no favicons for their newly-imported bookmarks. "Well, just visit the site, silly!"
My first graphical browser was Mosaic on 3 1/2" diskette with a book. Before that I used lynx text mode browser. Visiting the sites is too time consuming when I have over 250 bookmarks that actually go somewhere as opposed to bookmarklets and whatnot. The need was obviated in Firefox via extensions such as CheckPlaces and Favicon Reloader. It is a shame someone hasn't ported one of those to chrome.
But then the whole idea of completely replacing your bookmarks daily is foreign to me as well. My bookmarks are sufficiently static that such a strategy would be overkill. I would never do it.
I don't know what that means. Replacing bookmarks daily? I am installing a new browser and therefore want the same bookmarks toolbar setup complete with favicons. This technology is well understood. The fact that these new browsers have to go through these growing pains even though they use the same engines makes me wonder what the developers do while messing with this stuff. As I mentioned before, this same old drudgery with the favicons has been plaguing me for over a decade. Instead of sticking new window dressings on browser engines maybe they could do something productive like reworking the flaky technology that lingers on decade after decade?
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In this case, what they have done is written a completely new interface, unrelated to Chrome. The need for a different directory structure and different database structures is related to this.
They don't write the engine nor, at this point, do they tweak it. In time, they will contribute upstream to the Chromium Project, but that is not yet.
"Growing pains" is an appropriate phrase for this project, in its infancy. It's young yet. Don't expect overly much from it.
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My first graphical browser was Mosaic on 3 1/2" diskette with a book.
It was single sided or doble sided? Formatted @720 or @800MB?
20 years ago improving something had the side effect of making it not compatible with the less advanced thing, just like today.
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My first graphical browser was Mosaic on 3 1/2" diskette with a book.
It was single sided or doble sided? Formatted @720 or @800MB?
20 years ago improving something had the side effect of making it not compatible with the less advanced thing, just like today.
Instead of sticking new window dressings on browser engines maybe they could do something productive like reworking the flaky technology that lingers on decade after decade?
Why lately each new users talks as he was the galaxy emperor?
What's wrong in a sentence like "please, fix it asap, it's important for me" ?
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What's wrong in a sentence like "please, fix it asap, it's important for me" ?
What's wrong with the moderator answering the question without using condescension? "Those of us who have been doing this for awhile.. blah blah"
That's condescending. I suppose those who do it for awhile never install a new browser where the import from another competing browser does not import everything correctly. They just magically hum along in the perfect life.
After a few tastes it gets obvious when forum seeks to discourage criticism rather than solve problems. I see it is a wasted effort here. SlimJet works now.
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