Rockmelt Blog

RockMelt Update: Chromium 13, Improved Support for Themes

We’re excited to announce the new version of RockMelt fresh out of the oven! Here’s what’s new in version 0.9.64.253:

Chromium 13

RockMelt is now better than ever thanks to all the security and performance improvements in the latest stable version of Chromium.

Theme Support on New Tab Pages

Themes now apply to every part of RockMelt, including the New Tab page! To give your browser some personality, just head over to the Chrome Web Store and pick out a theme that catches your eye.

Here are some of our favorite themes:

We’ve also fixed over 100 bugs in the this update to make RockMelt even more reliable (including the issue a few of you were experiencing of having to log into facebook.com every time).

Your RockMelt will update automatically over the next few days, but if you want the new version now (while it’s still hot), look for About RockMelt under the RockMelt menu, and then restart RockMelt.

Happy browsing!

p.s. There are some known issues in Chromium 13 that may prevent some extensions and themes from working properly. We’re keeping a close watch on these and will update RockMelt once the Chromium fixes are available.

To improve our flexibility in the ring, we’re going to do yoga every day.

RockMelt Updated to 0.9.62.313: Improved Performance, Better Mac OS X Lion Support

The latest version of RockMelt includes several improvements to overall performance and stability. In addition to adding the latest Chromium enhancements, we’ve also fixed over 130 issues to make your browsing experience better.

This update also makes RockMelt runs more smoothly on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. That said, we are working on a few things to make the RockMelt experience on Lion even better in the near future. This includes better support for full-screen mode, gesture-based navigation, and hiding scrollbars until sites are scrolled.

To update, go to the RockMelt menu, look for About RockMelt, and then restart RockMelt.

As always, please let us know what you think and thanks for your feedback. Happy browsing!

Meet Our Rock-Solid Conference Rooms

There comes a time in a startup’s growth when… conference rooms suddenly become a hot commodity and are always being used. Having reached that point a few weeks ago, we decided to make room reservations easier by giving each conference room a different personality.

First, we gave the rooms memorable names so people know the exact room they’re reserving online. Asking to meet in the “glass room” or “the third-biggest room on the right” was already confusing, and would only get more so later on. Initially, we wanted to name the rooms after volcanoes. We quickly changed our minds after trying to pronounce Eyjafjallajokull.

Eventually, we thought it would be nice to name the rooms after traits of the RockMelt browser, like “supremely secure”, “rock solid”, and “totally trustworthy.” Coincidentally, we had also been thinking of ways to graffiti the office since we have some big fans of graffiti art. From there, an idea was born!

After settling on the names, we reached out to our awesome friends at New Edge Creative Services. They came into the office, decided on a stylistic hybrid of acrylic and graffiti, and started pimping out our conference rooms immediately with creative themes and amazing artwork.

Since the completion of the conference decorations, we’ve never had problems with room reservations. And we feel more productive too!

Hope you like them as much as we do!

Our Beta 3 Launch in Pictures

What does a big launch look like at a startup? Want to learn about the people behind RockMelt and our company culture? Read on for more details! (Note: pictures were taken from a few hours before launch through a few hours after launch)

The weeks leading up to our Beta 3 launch were some of our busiest ones yet. To make the user experience as awesome as possible, RockMelters had several late nights (and some all-nighters). Good thing our office has comfy sofas, bunk beds, and giant bean bags — not to mention a kitchen full of food.

Below, meet the RockMelter who helped add Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications into RockMelt. The red bean bag is always in high demand.

We always take great care to test the performance of a new version before releasing it into the wild, and Beta 3 was no exception. Here’s a picture of our (stylish) Quality Assurance gurus right after Beta 3 passed all inspections.

People came in extra early to support the big release. And yes, we’re big fans of yoga balls (we have nine of them scattered throughout the office) and improvised ping pong tables.

The following picture was taken just seconds before Beta 3 is released by the smiling RockMelter! All of our hard work the past few weeks came down to this one moment. Some people were a little more nervous than others, but everybody was excited and looking forward to the launch.

We even hired “professional” photographers to capture this historic moment. We also had photographers capturing photographers capturing this moment. In the background you’ll notice our love for avant-garde blox structures, lava lamps, and standing desks.

With Beta 3 released into the public, how did we celebrate? By eating (copious amounts of) crepes, of course. If you’ve never tried them, there’s nothing quite like fresh, flavorful crepes to kick off the post-launch morning right.

The line was long but boy, the wait was worth it. The crepes were so tasty that everybody kept returning for second and third helpings. Company favorites included bananas, strawberries, and nutella crepes; ham, egg, and cheese crepes; and tomatoes, chicken, and pesto crepes.

Thanks for trying Beta 3! We can’t wait to show you what’s coming next.

p.s. if you’d like to help us change how people browse the web, check out our open positions here.

Welcome to RockMelt Beta 3: Richer Chat, More Facebook, Better Facebook.com Experience

Staying in touch with friends is now easier than ever with RockMelt Beta 3, our most exciting update yet!

For this major update, we’ve partnered with Facebook to give you the best possible browsing experience. Available for download and upgrade today, RockMelt Beta 3 adds over 30 features, including better Facebook chat, more Facebook integration, and a streamlined facebook.com experience on RockMelt.

Our goal is to build a browser that makes surfing the web better, easier, and more fun. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Facebook to make social a core browser component and to continue the browser revolution. By the way, Beta 3 is just a preview of what’s to come later!

You can download RockMelt Beta 3 here. We can’t wait to see what you think.

Happy browsing!

Here’s what’s new:

Brand New Friend Edge for Richer Chat Experience

Your love of chat on RockMelt is loud and clear! Since nearly 40% of RockMelters chat every day, we wanted to make the chat experience even better. In Beta 3, we’ve completely re-designed the Friend Edge with three new features so it’s even easier to stay in touch.

1. Expandable

Your Friend Edge can now be expanded to a full buddy list complete with names and search. This expanded view makes it a cinch to find any friend and manage your Friend Edge. Highly recommended if you have a high-resolution screen!

2. Swappable

You can now pick which side of RockMelt you want your Friend Edge – on the left or the right. If you’re used to chatting on facebook.com, you’ll feel right at home with your App Edge on the left and your Friend Edge on the right.

3. Scrollable

To make browsing through friends even easier, you can now use your mouse to scroll through friends in your Friend Edge. Scrolling can be done whether your Friend Edge is fully expanded or collapsed.

Quick Access to Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications

One of our most popular requests has been to let you manage Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications right in RockMelt. Now you can!

In Beta 3, you can confirm Friend Requests, send and reply to Messages, and see all your Notifications (along with the posts or links that you’re getting Notifications for). Like on facebook.com, these are located next to your profile picture in the top left corner of your RockMelt for quick access.

Unified Facebook.com and RockMelt Experience

We’re excited to announce that, by working together with Facebook, we’ve streamlined your facebook.com experience! You’ll now only have one set of Friend Requests, Messages, Notifications, friend lists, and chats when you visit facebook.com – the ones right in RockMelt. Additionally, chats you initiate on facebook.com will open RockMelt chat windows. We hope you like this is a unified effort to make your browsing experience even better.

31 NEW FEATURES

○ Brand New Friend Edge

Expandable View with names and favorite status
Scrollable
Swappable Friend Edge and App Edge
Friend search
Chat status can now be changed to online / offline even easier
Option to hide offline friends
Improved context menu when right-clicking friends
Unified View of Friends: Favorite Friends and Other Friends now shown together
Drag-and-drop to remove or add friends to Favorites

○ Facebook Friend Requests, Messages, and Notifications

Confirm and reject Friend Requests
View and reply to Messages
See Notifications and the associated item of interest (status updates, links, or photos)

○ Unified Facebook.com and RockMelt Experience

Universal chat experience from RockMelt – no more duplicate chat windows and friend lists
Initiating chats on Facebook.com will open chats in RockMelt
Universal Friend Requests, Messages and Notifications right in RockMelt – no more duplicates on Facebook.com

○ New Facebook App with Photo Album Viewer
○ Quick access to your own Facebook Profile
○ Better Chat

Previous chat history now shown when chatting with friends
Improved notification when chats are received
Simplified chat window

○ Easy status updater
○ One-click Quiet Mode button
○ Twitter: Option for growl and taskbar notifications for incoming tweets
○ (Mac) Scrollable App Edge so you can get updates from even more Apps
○ (Mac) Share Improvements

Quick image picker - just click on the embedded image to see all the ones that can be selected
Link titles and descriptions can now be edited

166 Bugs Fixed

Improved Twitter App reliability and performance
Improved syncing for App Edge contents and updates
More robust sharing
Improved spell check reliability
More consistent App Edge updates
Retain search engine preferences
Causes of several crashes

RockMelt for iPhone Updated to v0.9.2

We’ve made several improvements based on your feedback to make RockMelt for iPhone better than ever. Here’s what’s new:

Better Web Experience

Not only have we added support for double-tap-to-zoom, we’ve also made video playback smoother and sped up web performance overall.

Sync for Other Bookmarks Folder

In addition to syncing items in the bookmarks bar on your computer, RockMelt for iPhone will now also automatically sync everything in your Other Bookmarks folder.

We’ve also made this version of RockMelt for iPhone better by:

Improving ease of sharing to Facebook and Twitter
Enhancing support for international fonts
Fixing incorrect dates for feed items
Various performance improvements

You can install the latest version of RockMelt for iPhone here.

Thanks for all of your feedback. More coming soon!

RockMelt: Now with Quiet Mode, Localized Search, and Chromium 11

Thanks for all of your feedback on Beta 2! We’re glad you like the new chat experience and improved support for Chrome themes, as well as the new Twitter and View Later Apps and how they sync with RockMelt for iPhone.

Today, in addition to several performance improvements, we’re happy to announce that RockMelt now has Quiet Mode, supports localized results from the Search Box, and is now on Chromium 11.

These are features that many of you have been asking for, and are also ones that we’re excited to use ourselves.

Quiet Mode

Need to focus? Have exams coming up? Just turn on Quiet Mode to remove any potential distractions.

Since everyone will have different preferences for what Quiet Mode does, we’ve made it fully customizable. As you can see in the image above, you can choose to have Quiet Mode make you go offline in chat, hide Edges, hide notifications of new updates, and more.

Turning on and configuring Quiet Mode is easy. If you’re using Mac, you can enable and set preferences for Quiet Mode under View in the menu bar. If you’re using Windows, you can turn on Quiet Mode from the RockMelt menu. We plan on making it even easier to enter and leave Quiet Mode in the near future.

Localized Search

If you’ve ever tried using RockMelt while studying abroad or traveling overseas, you know that RockMelt’s built-in sync lets you conveniently access your feeds, apps, bookmarks, and preferences. All you have to do is download RockMelt, login, and we’ll take care of the rest.

Now, no matter where you are, you can get even more relevant results when using the Search Box. All you have to do is choose which country you want to see results from.

To change your settings, just look for Search inside the Basics tab under the Options (Windows) or Preferences (Mac) menu.

Chromium 11

RockMelt now has all the enhancements that come with the latest version of Chromium, making it better than ever.

We’ll start rolling out the updates today and everybody should have it in about a week. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

p.s. Good luck to everybody studying for final exams. We hope Quiet Mode helps!

42 Bugs Fixed

Improved chat performance
More reliable sync
Improved RSS / feed reliability in App Edge
Fixed several causes of crashes and freezes

Our First Update to RockMelt for iPhone

Thanks for all of your feedback! We’re excited to release our first update for RockMelt for iPhone. In addition to several performance improvements and bug fixes, here’s what’s new in the latest version:

Integration with Email

Due to popular request, now you can email any item – tweets, Facebook updates, websites, links – over email! Just tap on the Action icon in the bottom left of the toolbar to send links and more to friends and family.

Expanded Twitter Links

Ever wonder where you’ll end up when you click on a shortened link? Wonder no more! Just like in RockMelt for your PC and Mac, shortened links are now automatically expanded inside your Twitter stream so you know what you’re clicking on.

Faster Facebook and Twitter Updates

For those of you that were having trouble seeing your Facebook and Twitter updates in a timely manner, they now load faster and are more reliable overall.

You can install the latest version of RockMelt for iPhone here.

As we mentioned before, we plan on releasing updates quickly to improve your mobile experience. There’s a lot more coming soon – stay tuned!

Welcome to RockMelt Beta 2 - New Chat, View Later, New Twitter App, and Chromium 10

We’re excited to introduce RockMelt Beta 2! While we’ve shipped 20 updates since November, RockMelt Beta 2 represents our most significant revision so far.

One thing we’re really proud of is how much people actually use RockMelt. People use RockMelt for more than 6 hours each day to share links, get quick previews with the search box, stay updated with App Edge notifications, and chat from the Friend Edge.

RockMelt Beta 2 doubles down on some of those features making them faster, easier and better. Here’s what’s new:

New Chat Experience

Did you know that people use chat more than 3 times per day? Chat is one of our most popular features and people love it because of how easy and accessible it is.

But we realized that while it was easy to talk with one person at a time, having multiple conversations was more difficult with all the separate chat windows. This was our most-requested feature so we decided to completely re-design the experience.

With our new chat bar, chatting with multiple people has never been easier. Chats are now docked in the chat bar along the bottom of RockMelt so they’ll stay visible while browsing. We’ve also created subtle notifications for new incoming messages so they aren’t distracting. Of course, chats can still be dragged off of the chat bar and made into separate windows like before.

New View Later App

When we set out to re-invent the browser, we quickly learned that bookmarking has really changed. With features like autocomplete, most-visited sites on the new tab page, and search built into the address bar, many people no longer use bookmarks.

On the other hand, we love services like Instapaper and how easy they make it to save websites to read when we have more time. These services inspired us to build View Later deeply into the browser.

With View Later, people can save any URL and any links from the App Edge to read later. This includes individual posts from Facebook, Twitter and other feeds. Find something you want to come back to later? Just click the clock icon to add it to your View Later. Of course, as with everything in RockMelt, View Later is sync’ed so you can access it everywhere you login.

New Twitter App

If you’re one of the 50% of RockMelt users who have connected their Twitter accounts, you’re going to love our new Twitter App.

It doesn’t just look better, it’s packed with new features. Now, in addition to your lists and @mentions, you can also edit retweets, view direct messages, reply to all users, and search Twitter easily. Did we mention that it uses the real-time API so you get updates instantly?

Chromium 10

RockMelt is now better and faster than ever with the latest Chromium updates.

We’ll start updating users to RockMelt Beta 2 today and everybody should have it in a week or so. We can’t wait to see what you think of the big changes.

Happy browsing!

(and no, this is not an April Fool’s joke)

P.S. In addition to all the great features, we’re on a never-ending quest to improve stability and performance. In this revision, we’ve fixed 78 bugs to make RockMelt Beta 2 the most stable and fastest version yet.

Bugs Fixed

Improved support for Chrome themes
Fixed issue with the Twitter App not displaying notifications for new tweets
Fixed issues with audio playback when watching videos inside the Twitter App
Improved reliability of sync for feeds
Improved overall RSS feed reliability
Fixed several causes of crashes