Plainview is a full-screen Internet browser mainly created for webpage presentation purposes. It offers the best of both “worlds”, a web browser and a presentation software, packed into a single, intuitive and modern layout.
The application is especially designed for web developers who want to show their work (website portfolio for example) in a browser environment, while borrowing some features from a presentation software like the full-screen mode and automatic slide playback.
As a browser, Plainview provides some overly minimalistic set of features in both windowed and full-screen modes. You can import Safari bookmarks automatically but there is no tab support, the address bar is not a part of the layout, nothing I would expect from a modern browser. Even with hotkey support available, browsing remains stuck in full-screen and cannot toggle back to windowed mode. As a dedicated full-screen browser, Plainview needs a lot of work; there are many other browsers out there that can run in full-screen and do the job better (Chrome, Firefox).
As a webpage presentation tool, the utility allows you to pick URLs and set up a display order. There are no options for setting the delay timer between webpages or controlling playback with a hotkey, both present in similar applications.
The idea of combining a browser and a presentation tool is certainly welcomed but Plainview at the moment requires improvement. In terms of interface, the application looks great but as far as the functionality goes, it serves little to no purpose at all for presentation or browsing.
v1.0 [Apr 29, 2010]
[FIXED] issue where only the first bookmark was imported on Snow Leopard
[NEW] ability to download files
[FIXED] resizing issues with progress indicator
[NEW] font resizing
[NEW] you can now launch from the command line and pass a url to open using: /Applications/Plainview.app/Contents/MacOS/Plainview -url http://theurl.com &
[NEW] Added high res icon
[FIXED] Added a mouse event before launching in kiosk to try and fix apple menu bug
[NEW] Return home in kiosk mode kills all windows except for a new window with the startpage
[NEW] Plainview now opens strings and webloc’s when dragged to the icon
[NEW] Added clear history menu option
[NEW] Added setting in preference pane for duration to wait before automatically returning to the Start Page
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