Inet Tabs - Surfin' in Style...
by Snowman

Once upon a time in the west, a young lad by the name of Richard Jon Vivash was
surfing happily around the internet using different browsers like Opera and Netcaptor. But as it is with so many other free softwares, these browsers were disappointing... with their constant popup registration reminders and nag-screens!

One day Richard thought to himself: "...all these browsers available, with all these cool features...What if someone could make a browser with all of these cool features and distribute it for free!!!!"

Rich had some experience in programming from way back in time - when the hippest computer around was the Amstrad CPC464, which, as a matter in fact, he got for Christmas one year. How fortunate!! ;)

So in the late Winter of 1999 Rich sat down and started this "little" project of programming a browser with all kinds of features in it. Just for personal use!! Slowly the work progressed as his was "borrowing" features from the wast amount of downloaded browsers.

But as time went by, Rich got other things to do and lay the programming on the shelf. For nearly a whole year the project lay abandoned before being dusted off and resumed.

When the project was finally finished (if you can call "just the basics done" finished), he sat back and enjoyed his very own custom made browser - iNet-Tabs!!

One day, a friend of his saw the browser and was quite impressed. He suggested that the browser should be uploaded to some freeware sites, because such a cool browser just had to loved by "the masses"!

After a short while the feedback started pouring in from around the world! Just for the fun of it, Rich tried doing a search for his program on Google, and to his amazement, hundreds of results came up, ranging from Japanese FTP's to Spanish freeware sites!

So here we are with todays version of iNet-Tabs or ITabs or IT or etc. etc...

We have a saying here in Denmark that says something like this:
"Beloved child, many names."
Meaning, if something is liked and/or used by many people, it's called many different names!

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A closer look at iNet-Tabs and it's features:
Use: Internet Browser. Built with use of many featrues from many other browsers.
Current release: 0.82 released 06-12-2001

Cool features:
- TABS: Better and easier navigation. I guess this feature is picked from Oligo. (My favorite feature)
- COOKIE MANAGER: Highly configurable. Auto removale, view cookies ect. ect. Adopted from IE, most likely.
- POPUP MANAGER: Avoid popups, open in new window -> will open in new tab(!!!) or don't open popups. (Great feature) Got that one from Neoplanet, I bet.
- LAUNCH MENU: Starts any application of your choice, all you have to do is show ITabs where the .EXE file is and a shortcut is made in the menu.
- UPDATE CHECKER.
- HISTORY.
- KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS.
And the most important feature:
- it's SKINNABLE!! ;) I must admit, it's not easy at first look but once you learn how to do it, it's quite manageable! The best/easiest way to do it first time is to take one of the existing skins and edit the individual images provided to see what changes! That's how I did it!!
This feature wasn't available in the earlier versions but thank God (or Richard) that it's in the newer versions, or else we might not have heard about iNet-Tabs!
- INIFILE CREATOR (This one was actually released as this article was written) After this ini creator was released it's alot easier to skin iNet-Tabs!
- ANIMATED "THROBBER" From v 0.82 it's possible to replace the animated logo in the top right hand corner with one single animated gif instead of 9 bmp's!

Future additions:
Download Manager
+ some fixes (when time allows it).

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OK, now that we've heard about iNet-Tabs, how about taking a closer look at Richard Vivash:
Richard or "The Fifth" as he calls him self on the net, is 28 years young, single (To the women: Don't swamp him with E-mail!! ;) ) from Plymoth, UK, currently employed at Coleridge Productions Ltd.

At first he had some jobs in the TV business doing some video editing, which is his favored line of work. Plans for the furture look something like this:
Doing some independent TV/film work, most likely drama or documentaries. So if you see the Richard Jon Vivash in the credits at the end of a movie, you know who it is! :)

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If you wish to learn more about or download iNet-Tabs it can be reached at http://itabs.cjb.net or http://go.to/inettabs

I wish to thank Richard for fitting my questions into his busy schedule and I have to thank Teknidermy for giving me the oppotunity to write this article!

-->> The Snowman <<--

eds note:

For a down and dirty look at the Inet Tabs skinning methodology, take a visit to http://itut.cjb.net. And don't forget to download the INI file creator from the Inet Tabs homesite.

When you're done, please consider uploading your work to skinbase.org....happy skinning...