New versions, new features
A couple of pieces of software I use recently released new versions, so I thought I'd talk a bit about a couple of the little touches added to them that, in my opinion, just make life a little bit easier.
Firefox 3
One of Firefox's new features is an updated location bar, aptly named the AwesomeBar. Firefox searches bookmarks, tags, and history as you type in the location bar.
This feature actually ties very strongly in to FF's completely redesigned bookmarking system, which fully supports tags and "smart bookmark folders," which are based on customizable database queries to the bookmark engine.
Bookmarking has also been made extraordinarily simple, for such a robust system. At the end of the location bar is a small star icon.
Click this icon, and the page is bookmarked - as simple as that. Click it again, and a dialog will pop up that allows the bookmark to be saved into a different folder, to add tags, etc. It makes bookmarking that much simpler. In my experience, it has also made sorting bookmarks easier, with the combination of tags and the AwesomeBar. Rather than having to manually add every martial arts page I have bookmarked to my MA folder, I can tag it with martial arts much more quickly, and find it with a quick search.
Another FF feature I've used extensively in previous versions is keyword searches. Save a search on, say, snopes.com, add a keyword, and I can search directly from the location bar. This involved bookmarking a search, and editing the saved URL, though - not always a fun proposition. Now, FF has added a context menu item when right-clicking on a search text field.
Makes setting these searches up SO much easier.
iPhone
This is a feature I was actually surprised wasn't implemented earlier on this device. On previous versions, when using the software keyboard, holding down a key will give options for that key - holding down the A key, for example, presents options of A with various accents.
When typing in web addresses into MobileSafari, there is a quick button for adding .com to the end of an address.
Holding down this button did nothing, despite how intuitive it would be for it to offere the options of .net, .org, .edu, etc. Finally, Apple added this little helper.
Simple little thing, nothing ground breaking... but I like it.
Of course, there's still no copy/paste.
Oh - and I can type in Korean now, too. Shows up as boxes when I send texts to people though. :/
