After I downloaded the preview release of the Phoenix Firestorm viewer, I was reminded of the Mini. You can download yours whilst you read on:
Windows
Mac
Linux
Firestorm is the Phoenix team's first Viewer 2 based viewer and, to quote, "should be considered Pre Alpha! Not beta, not Release Candidate.. it is pre alpha and as such it has a lot of bugs that still need to be worked out."
Effectively it brings a new dimension to the Viewer 1 or Viewer 2 debate and this is where I was reminded of the Mini, a much loved British car; perhaps the most loved car ever in Britain. During it's very long lifetime, which started in 1959, this little car was often the first owned by many and this earned it a sentimental place in the personal car ownership history of most.
During the Mini's first time around, let's call that Version 1 or V1, under the ownership of the British Motor Corporation (BMC), between 1959 and 2000, the car changed many times, spawned some variants (like estates, cabriolets, vans, pick-ups, etc), changed its badge as BMC morphed into British Leyland and beyond (it was a Morris Mini, an Austin Mini and a Rover Mini) and yet it remained true and V1, generally being referred to as The Mini.
Viewer 1 is somewhat like that as, through its many improvements, it was simply, The Viewer. However, just as The Mini V1 was bought out by BMW as part of their purchase of The Rover Group (the remnants of the BMC) and changed into something else which the purists balked at, The Viewer became Viewer 2 with much the same reaction.
For me, The Mini Version 2, has some of the spirit of the original Mini but it has lost a lot of its cute quirkiness and sentimental appeal. Was some of the reaction to Viewer 2 an almost sentimental funereal wake discussion and "good, old days" feeling about the Viewer 1?
Certainly, the reaction sometimes to merely saying, "actually, I don't mind Viewer 2", seems more emotional than just discussion about software. Yes, the search function is a mess and complete waste of the user's time and, yes, there are many things which must be improved, but this was partly true of Viewer 1 also (i.e. the search did actually work).
Since the launch of Viewer 2, I have used it now and then. When Viewer 1 was the only option, I started to use Emerald until it's bright green became slime, like kryptonite to Clark. It was then I started using Viewer 2 and quickly found Kirstens Viewer which, in my opinion, shows the Lab what Viewer 2 can be. It is excellent.
Nowadays, I tend to go back and forth between Kirstens V2 and Phoenix V1 (with separate caches - which is a MUST) and I find one as easy to use as the other, no longer having difficulty switching my mindset. It is no more difficult, to use another car analogy, than using two different cars regularly; one's brain seems to know where the switches are differently located, in each vehicle, without hassle.
Yesterday I downloaded Firestorm (based on Viewer 2) and, despite its claims to be less complete and robust than most cars manufactured by British Leyland in the 1970s, I found it did the job well and in a way which was very crossover with Viewer 1.
I will wait until Firestorm is declared as more robust before trusting it with my inventory, etc. but I look forward to it being a finished product I can use. After all, if yesterday's download is the rough version, I can't wait to try the finished product.
