Flock: Flying towards an (eventual) goal
So here I am, blogging from inside Flock, the “next-generation web browser”. I’ve got to keep reminding myself that this is a “Developer Preview – 0.5pre” else I get too excited, and thereby disappointed. There are certainly a lot of bugs, and a lot of features don’t yet seem intuitive, but there’s definitely potential on its way to being realized.
The primary advantages of Flock are being discussed all over the web: easy viewing of Flickr photos (from anyone’s account), drag-and-drop blogging (to an extent – see below), integration with del.icio.us bookmarks, etc.
There are a number of things that still need work, though, the first few of which I’m listing here:
- I have bookmarks that I need available in my Default Favorites (aka the Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox) that I can by no means post to del.icio.us. I’d get fired. How can I exclude selected bookmarks from syncing with del.icio.us?
- The wysiwyg editor for blog posting needs a little love. After the first item in a list, if I press Return, it should create a second item. Instead, I have to edit the HTML manually (not really a big deal, but wouldn’t you know it, I discovered this bug while creating this list).
- When I drag a linked picture (think <a href=”"><img src=”"></a>) to the blog bar, do I want to blog the picture itself or the link? Flock doesn’t seem to know yet and seems to randomly guess for me (well, I can’t discern a pattern).
Oh, I could go on, but I suppose I should just take my gripes directly to the flock team.
And I don’t mean to detract from the pleasant advances in Flock — it is an advancement in web browsing — it just isn’t yet ready for prime time. I will be watching future developments closely. Good job so far, guys.