Tear

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Tear is a WebKit browser. It is currently under heavy development, so expect occasional bugs (including freezes & crashes) and quirks. However, because of Tear's speed, and the benefits of being WebKit based (such as perfect rendering of the Acid 3 test!) it's becoming a popular option.

Track and file bugs here. Garage page here. Latest Talk Maemo thread here. Please search these links before posting questions.

This wiki document applies to Tear version 0.3.5. You can see which version of Tear you're running by tapping menu -> Help -> About.

Contents

[edit] Installing Tear

Tear can be installed from extras-devel for Fremantle. There are barriers that are currently preventing Tear from being in the official repositories (even extras-devel) for Diablo. Therefore, the easiest way to install Tear right now using Diablo is using Qole's repository.

[edit] Adding Qole's Repository to Application manager (Diablo)

  • Go into the Application manager.
  • Tap the menu -> Tools -> Application catalog...
  • Tap New and enter the following information: 
  Catalogue Name: Qole
  Web address: http://qole.org/repository
  Distribution: maemo
  Components: main
  • Click OK and then Close.

This method doesn't work if you have a 770 *. Problems? Try this. Sources * * *

[edit] Installing From Qole's Repository (Diablo)

With the Application manager, search for "Tear" and install. If the Application Manager does not find it, don't panic - it probably just needs to download the update for Qole's repository; goto Main View, then hit the "Check for updates" button, and try again.

[edit] Alternate Installation Method (Diablo)

You could install Tear using Bundyo's link here, but then you would need to separately install some associated library files. See this for commands.

[edit] Installing TearBookmarks Side Panel

TearBookmarks is currently in Qole's repository. This information applies to version 0.3.1-4.

If you have enabled Qole's repository using the above steps, you can install TearBookmarks using the Application manager. Now you need to get it to appear on the left panel. Steps to do that:

  • Go into the Control Panel.
  • Tap "Panels".
  • You should see an option for "Tear Bookmarks". Uncheck one of the existing options and check "Tear Bookmarks".
  • Hit OK and close the Control Panel.

A Tear icon should appear on the left panel. Tapping this allows you to do such things as open a new page of Tear, open a bookmark manager, or open one of your bookmarks in Tear.

[edit] Tear FAQ

[edit] What are some of Tear's core functionalities?

Tear observes the tablet's hardware fullscreen button and the zoom button. Use the D-Pad arrows to scroll. Drag the stylus to drag the web page, flick the stylus to scroll, tap and hold the stylus to cause a context menu to appear.

Tear uses separate windows rather than tabs. Tap and hold on a link to get a choice to open up that link in another window.

[edit] How do I set/clear/access bookmarks?

Within Tear, navigate to the web page in question and tap the grey or yellow star on the toolbar. You can also set bookmarks using menu -> Page -> Add bookmark... You can also manage bookmarks from the side panel by selecting the "Bookmarks" option in that panel (see below for more info).

Access bookmarks within Tear by clicking the ^ symbol on the far right of the toolbar or via the Dashboard's "Bookmarks" tab.

See also this tip for integrating Tear with Google Bookmarks.

[edit] Can I switch the built-in bookmark panel to call Tear instead?

Yes, using the Browser Switchboard program! Saving bookmarks into the built-in panel from Tear, however, can't be done at present.

[edit] Can I get other programs to call Tear?

Probably. Try installing Browser Switchboard and setting your default browser to Tear.

[edit] Can I transfer bookmarks into Tear?

Tear currently has no way to import bookmarks. However, if another browser allows you to export bookmarks as an HTML file, you can open this HTML file within Tear *.

For MicroB, the steps are these:

  • Within MicroB, tap the menu -> Navigation -> Bookmarks. The bookmark manager will open.
  • Tap the menu -> Tools -> Export...
  • Choose a filename and location and hit OK.
  • Within Tear, tap the menu -> Page -> Open file... and select the file you exported.

You can bookmark this page within Tear. Or you can make it your home page by going to menu -> Page -> Set home page (or set home_page in menu -> Tools -> Options...).

[edit] How can I get the toolbar to appear in fullscreen mode?

You can make it appear on demand by holding and releasing the DPad Enter key *. You can make it always visible by selecting:

menu -> View -> Toolbar -> Show Toolbar in Fullscreen

[edit] How do I select text? Dragging the stylus drags the page.

Hold down the menu button as you drag *. Additionally, as with MicroB, you can double-tap to select a word of text or triple-tap to select a block of text.

Serendipitously, holding down the menu key also you to do drag-scrolling on Google Maps* and presumably other similar sites that co-opt the drag action.

[edit] Does Tear have adblocking functionality (e.g., a plugin)?

No, but see this hack.

[edit] Can Tear clear browsing history?

Yes, see options under menu -> Tools. (Previously, the only option was to delete this file.)

[edit] How do I change the User Agent?

Aka user agent spoofing. The purpose is to make a website think Tear is a different browser in order to hack past incompatibility problems or to trigger different behavior (e.g., the mobile version of a site).

Go to menu -> Tools -> Options and change user_agent * *. If you clear the field and click OK, the default user-agent will be restored.

Default agent: 

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux armv6l; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko, Safari/528.5+) tear

iPhone user agent (for iPhone spoofing -- reference -- for trouble-shooting see this & this): 

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3

iPad user agent (for iPad spoofing -- reference -- for trouble-shooting see this & this): 

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B334b Safari/531.21.10
Retrieved from "http://bugs.maemo.org/Tear"