Existing users, 
Of all the awesome free/shareware written for the Mac over the years and later seemingly abandoned, I lament AcidSearch most of all. Instantly a "must have" add-on for Safari it is another one of those features Apple should just build right into their browser and be done with it.
(PithHelmet, another Safari plug-in based on SIMBL is the other. But at least begging and pleading from the Mac community have seemingly succeeded in arm-twisting the developer into keeping it alive from Safari build to build.)
The latest betas up through 0.7b3 on Pozytron's site are not fully functional in Safari 3.x, constantly misbehaving by not clearing previous search lists, losing channel settings sporadically, menu items that don't function, etc. And development appears to have ceased back in November with nary an explanation-- long before the latest Safari 3.1 came along.
Oh how I wish more of these little Mac gems were developed by a team of folks similar to open source projects. Of course, anyone can (and should) donate to show support to a solo developer but it's no guarantee the development will go forward when life interrupts their ability to stay up all night squashing bugs and fulfilling the endless supply of feature requests from their users. (I'm sure the few dozen donators listed on Pozytron's site can attest.)
Alas, I'm left wrestling with this thing as-is because I can't make myself let go. I'll just carry on until it completely breaks and keeping praying that 0.7b3.1 will appear someday. ;-)
AcidSearch
Safari search box enhancement
Version: 0.62
A brilliant mess - updater2534
I use 0.7b3 and have for some time, the only problems are that it won't clear the recent search list (which doesn't really bother me) and every once in a while (1-2x/month?) the list of customized search engines reverts back to the default settings. For this I've just learned to keep an extra copy of the preferences file, when it happens I just drop a copy into the appropriate folder and AS is up-and-running again.Note: I've never had a problem with the search engines not working, as long as they are listed in the dropdown menu.
I'm on a G4 Powerbook with System 10.4.11, so I can't speak to any potential Intel or Leopard-compatibility issues. Nevertheless I consider this my own "killer app", it is the *sole* reason I use Safari as my default browser. The author is busy with other projects, but if he could be encouraged to complete it, or even (gasp!) port it to FF or Camino (my preference) it would be unreal--I would encourage people to try it, even those (or maybe especially those) who already have their list of search engines customized in FF but don't know that there's something like AS which has the added feature of allowing the search string to be entered by highlighting and right-clicking it, obviating the need to do *any* typing!
P.S. I also use it on my iMac G5 (PPC) desktop, the loss of the customized search engine list is even more infrequent (my laptop is a bit buggier than my desktop, probably in part because I have FileVault enabled.)
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Tuesday, April 15 2008 @ 06:51 AM PDT