Apple's Safari to gain new tab, search and form features

[AppleInsider]

In addition to some of the larger features such as "Web Clip," which was demonstrated at Apple Computer's recent developer's conference, the next-generation of the company's Safari web browser will also deliver several other incremental innovations that aim to improve the overall web browsing experience.

According to a Musings from Mars post, three of these more subtle advancements stand out in the recent developer preview of Leopard, the next major overhaul to the Mac OS X operating system. They include manipulatable tabs, in-page searching and resizable text areas.

Manipulatable browser tabs

Beginning with Safari 3.0 -- which will ship as part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard -- Apple will offer users more flexibility in the way they manage the numerous browser tabs that too often seem to multiply exponentially during a lengthy web surfing session.

In addition to being able to reorder tabs through drag-and-drop, Apple in Safari 3.0 is adding the ability to drag individual tabs off an existing browser window, thus creating a fresh browser window with the contents of that tab.

Users will also be able to drag tabbed windows from one Safari window to another, or ask the browser to consolidate all open windows into one, making tabs for each existing page in a single Safari browser window.

Screenshot credit: Musings from Mars

In-page lightbox searching

Safari 3.0 will dip further into Apple's Spotlight toolkit, offering in-page searching that allows users search "live" for specific search terms on any web page.

Unlike the existing version of the browser, which highlights only the first instance of a text match on a page, Safari 3.0 will find all instances of the search term right off the bat.

Instead of identifying matches with a semi-translucent blue or yellow background highlight -- which is sometimes difficult to discern -- Apple is implementing the "lightbox" technique it invented for Dashboard, dimming the web page background and shinning a spotlight on the text matches.

Screenshot credit: Musings from Mars

Resizable text areas

Finally, Web designers developing pages for Safari will no longer have to fiddle with TEXTAREA form elements in order to satisfy user requirements, while at the same time maintaining some semblence of good page design.

The version of Safari 3.0 shipping as part of Leopard Preview enables a "resize" corner that allows users to resize text fields on a web page in real time, to suit their text-editing needs.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, along with Safari 3.0, remains on track for a release during the first half of 2007.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[bdj21ya]

Sounds cool. Maybe I'll have to consider switching back from Firefox, or at least sharing time between them.

By the way, I just wanted to say that this forum has some dang good smileys.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by bdj21ya

Sounds cool. Maybe I'll have to consider switching back from Firefox, or at least sharing time between them.

By the way, I just wanted to say that this forum has some dang good smileys.

dang!

[henrikmk]

Resizable text areas

I saw this in Webkit not long ago, but it disappeared again. Really handy. I thought it might become a part of a later build of Safari for Tiger, though.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

In addition to being able to reorder tabs through drag-and-drop, Apple in Safari 3.0 is adding the ability to drag individual tabs off an existing browser window, thus creating a fresh browser window with the contents of that tab.

Users will also be able to drag tabbed windows from one Safari window to another, or ask the browser to consolidate all open windows into one, making tabs for each existing page in a single Safari browser window.

Firefox does all of this now.

In-page lightbox searching

Safari 3.0 will dip further into Apple's Spotlight toolkit, offering in-page searching that allows users search "live" for specific search terms on any web page.

Unlike the existing version of the browser, which highlights only the first instance of a text match on a page, Safari 3.0 will find all instances of the search term right off the bat.

Instead of identifying matches with a semi-translucent blue or yellow background highlight -- which is sometimes difficult to discern -- Apple is implementing the "lightbox" technique it invented for Dashboard, dimming the web page background and shinning a spotlight on the text matches.

This might be pretty nice. Firefox does offer a "highlight all" but no "dim everything else". They both perform the same function, which is better is probably a matter of personal preference.

Finally, Web designers developing pages for Safari will no longer have to fiddle with TEXTAREA form elements in order to satisfy user requirements, while at the same time maintaining some semblence of good page design.

Is this fixing a bug or adding a feature?

The version of Safari 3.0 shipping as part of Leopard Preview enables a "resize" corner that allows users to resize text fields on a web page in real time, to suit their text-editing needs.

OK, maybe this is pretty nice. Some sites only provide a tiny post-entry area.

[Chucker]

Originally Posted by henrikmk

I saw this in Webkit not long ago, but it disappeared again.

It didn't disappear. You need to manually enable it. Set WebKitTextAreasAreResizable to true.

[pmjoe]

So far, the best solution I've found for too many tabs in Safari:

• go into Preferences
• click on the Tabs tab
• uncheck "Enable Tabbed Browsing"

[Matthew Yohe]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Firefox does all of this now.

Actually Firefox doesn't do all of this... yes it allows you to reorder tabs, but you can drag a tab off a window to make a new one, or drag a tab over to another browser... Very nice feature.

[physguy]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Firefox does all of this now.

Huh??? Mine (1.5.0.7) certainly doesn't do this. IF i have another window open I can drag a tab to it and the page goes to the tab page. The original tab isn't removed from the original window and I can't just drag it off the page. Also, if there's a way to consolidate tab in one window I haven't found it yet.

[bdj21ya]

Originally Posted by pmjoe

So far, the best solution I've found for too many tabs in Safari:

• go into Preferences
• click on the Tabs tab
• uncheck "Enable Tabbed Browsing"

Are you trying to be clever, or just annoying? Do you really prefer the proliferation of windows over the proliferation of tabs?

[Matthew Yohe]

Also.. these things were all discovered during the week of WWDC... nothing new to see here folks.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Matthew Yohe

Actually Firefox doesn't do all of this... yes it allows you to reorder tabs, but you can drag a tab off a window to make a new one, or drag a tab over to another browser... Very nice feature.

OK, you are right, a couple of the features aren't currently performed, namely combining and splitting windows. You can drag a tab to another existing window though, or another browser. I just dragged this tab from Firefox to Safari.

[Ringo]

Originally Posted by pmjoe

So far, the best solution I've found for too many tabs in Safari:

• go into Preferences
• click on the Tabs tab
• uncheck "Enable Tabbed Browsing"

Haha.

Well that's true, though I doubt that having way too many windows is better...

[Matthew Yohe]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

OK, you are right, a couple of the features aren't currently performed, namely combining and splitting windows. You can drag a tab to another existing window though, or another browser. I just dragged this tab from Firefox to Safari.

Yeah but that just reloads the page... you could just drag the "clipping" from any browser on a mac and drag it to another window's address panel.. The cool thing about this, is it isn't treated as a page to open, it's treated as a consistant page that say if you are changing things on it (text boxes etc) those "changes" remain even after moving it arround.

[Marvin]

I hope this allows the downloads window to be turned into another tab like the plugins page but I suspect not.

Even better would be if there was a permanent toggle button that made the downloads appear and disappear in the window.

[Feynman]

Would just be nice if there was a way to alphabetize the bookmarks.

[smashbrosfan]

It depends on what I'm doing. I perfer windows to tabs in some cases, and tabs in others. For instance, if I'm doing something that requires me to look at multiple windows at the same time, and it's too many to set side-by-side, I'll use windows because I can view them all at once via Expose, then quickly go back to my text field. Although this wouldn't work without Expose... It's easier then constantly switching between tabs and having to find where I left off over and over again.

But for normal browsing, I'll use tabs to save space.

[Mac~N~Cheese]

Originally Posted by bdj21ya

Sounds cool. Maybe I'll have to consider switching back from Firefox, or at least sharing time between them.

By the way, I just wanted to say that this forum has some dang good smileys.

Odd then that you chose not to use any in your post.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Firefox does all of this now.

You forgot: "Less space than an iRiver. No wireless. Lame."

[JimUrban]

Originally Posted by Feynman

Would just be nice if there was a way to alphabetize the bookmarks.

Here Ya Go....Saft Plug-In http://haoli.dnsalias.com/Saft/
It does MUCH more than just alphabetize Bookmarks,Check it out.

[shidoshi]

What Safari REALLY needs is to get serious about allowing users to force Safari to open any and all windows in tabs no matter what. Even with all of the settings set to open new items in tabs, it's still anybody's guess sometimes if a link or whatnot will open in a tab or a new window.

That's why I like Opera 9 so much - EVERYTHING opens in a new tab, unless the link is a specific, allowed pop-up. I want one and only one browser window, and that's one of the things that really pisses me off about Safari when I use it. (I also love how Opera handles downloads via a tab, instead of a new window, and wish Safari had an option to do the same.)

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Kickaha

You forgot: "Less space than an iRiver. No wireless. Lame."

Bah! I understand your point, but I'm not sure how much the comparison applies. I think there's a fundemental problem with tying Internet apps to operating system updates because similar programs are updated a lot more often. For all we know, Opera and Firefox will have all of the stated features before Leopard is released.

[Kickaha]

Then they have the leg up in competition. Problem is... ?

On the one hand, if Safari always has the latest and greatest first, then Apple gets dinged for unfairly locking competitors out.

On the other hand, if Safari lags, then Apple sucks.

Can't have it both ways.

And it's not the OS update that it's tied to, it's the WebKit/WebCore infrastructure. Which you can download the latest version of, and pop under a fresh copy of Safari. That's the version the 3rd party apps that leverage it use - OmniWeb, for instance.

Now, of course, WK/WC is generally updated with major releases along with the OS, due to secondary library dependencies, which makes sense.

Personally, I'd be okay with Safari the application sticking with a more methodical upgrade, if only the WK/WC bundles were updated faster.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Kickaha

Then they have the leg up in competition. Problem is... ?

On the one hand, if Safari always has the latest and greatest first, then Apple gets dinged for unfairly locking competitors out.

On the other hand, if Safari lags, then Apple sucks.

Can't have it both ways.

Having a better program than anyone else doesn't lock others out. Heck, if Safari did manage to leap ahead, it would only take a few months for others to catch up. Staying less than a year behind other programs doesn't lock anyone out either. Thankfully the OS doesn't preventing the owner from installing or using a different program.

[Kickaha]

Exactly. It's a pretty healthy selection of browsers we have, each with strengths and weaknesses. It could be much worse.

[kim kap sol]

Ahhh...I love it when 2 month old news is recycled.

[MacCrazy]

Originally Posted by Mac~N~Cheese

Odd then that you chose not to use any in your post.

I thought there was a maximum of 5 smilies after the new forum design was introduced - has this been lifted?

I think these new Safari features look pretty nice, Safari is a superb browser as far as accurate code rendering goes. That Firefox find feature was the one thing I thought was missing. Now we just need improved printing like in IE7.

[nathan22t]

Let's have an argument about which browser is the best!

I'll start... Safari is better than any other OS X browser.

KA-CHOW!!

[Superbass]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Bah! I understand your point, but I'm not sure how much the comparison applies. I think there's a fundemental problem with tying Internet apps to operating system updates because similar programs are updated a lot more often. For all we know, Opera and Firefox will have all of the stated features before Leopard is released.

Explorer 7 has all of those features as well, but I guess that's only for windows. I use it at work and Firefox at home on my mac, but will probably switch to expl.7 once it's released for mac. I used to be a netscape diehard and hated explorer, but they seem to have surpassed the competition on the latest release, although I'm sure Apple will copy the other features when they finally release safarti 3 in 2007. I like the fact that they've integrated popup and phishing filters as well as web search without needing extra menu-line space from a google toolbar or similar. Funny apple announced it now, probably because Safarti 2 is so far behind the others and they don't want to get a lame rep.

[Chucker]

Originally Posted by Superbass

Explorer 7 has all of those features as well,

No, it doesn't.

Funny apple announced it now

Apple announced something Safari-related? Where? When?

[bdj21ya]

Originally Posted by Superbass

Explorer 7 has all of those features as well, but I guess that's only for windows. I use it at work and Firefox at home on my mac, but will probably switch to expl.7 once it's released for mac. I used to be a netscape diehard and hated explorer, but they seem to have surpassed the competition on the latest release, although I'm sure Apple will copy the other features when they finally release safarti 3 in 2007. I like the fact that they've integrated popup and phishing filters as well as web search without needing extra menu-line space from a google toolbar or similar. Funny apple announced it now, probably because Safarti 2 is so far behind the others and they don't want to get a lame rep.

Huh? IE7 is a terrible browser. The interface takes up most of the screen real estate (we can see why IE tabs were slow getting to the party, they're so FAT, it's a wonder they made it here at all). Also, I don't think there is any plan to release IE7 for Mac, ever. Also, I'm not sure what you mean about searching without menu-bar space, Firefox and Safari have both had Google search without a toolbar for some time now (like over a year). Safari is behind Firefox is most respects, but far ahead of IE, IMO (though the point is somewhat moot, since neither is made for the other's OS).

[kim kap sol]

Originally Posted by Superbass

Explorer 7 has all of those features as well, but I guess that's only for windows. I use it at work and Firefox at home on my mac, but will probably switch to expl.7 once it's released for mac...

*vinyl scratch sound*

Don't hold your breath.

[intlplby]

i would love to see them add bookmark sets....

instead of just a bookmark of one page, a bookmark that bookmarks all the tabs and that you can reopen all at once.....

i.e. it appears as a bookmark set, if you choose it, it opens all the pages with several bookmarks or if you hold over long enough it lets you choose individual bookmarks

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by intlplby

i would love to see them add bookmark sets....

instead of just a bookmark of one page, a bookmark that bookmarks all the tabs and that you can reopen all at once.....

i.e. it appears as a bookmark set, if you choose it, it opens all the pages with several bookmarks or if you hold over long enough it lets you choose individual bookmarks

Most of what you want is already there and it's pretty easy to use.

Make a folder in the bookmarks or bookmarks toolbar and put bookmarks in it. Click that folder with the scroll wheel/scroll ball/middle mouse button and it opens all the enclosed bookmarks into tabs. If you don't have a middle button or scroll thingie to click, right click the folder or control-click and pick "open in tabs".

The downside is that it closes all current tabs before opening the new tabs. You may want to open a new window first.

The behavior is pretty similar with Firefox too.

[wnurse]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

OK, you are right, a couple of the features aren't currently performed, namely combining and splitting windows. You can drag a tab to another existing window though, or another browser. I just dragged this tab from Firefox to Safari.

Jeff, it's more than just a couple of things firefox doesn't do, Firefox only does one thing currently (that is mentioned as a new feature of safari). I think your original post represented a major gaffe, no?.

[dahacouk]

I really like the way that Preview.app has always searched the contents of a .pdf - it brings up a side bar (ok draw) that shows each search term with a few words either side so you can get the context and jump to it quickly.

It would be great if this was added to Safari 3 though I'm not so keen on draws.

Cheers Daniel

[PB]

Originally Posted by Chucker

Apple announced something Safari-related? Where? When?

Oh, come on Chucker, you are pitiless. Perhaps the guy has not yet realised he is in an Apple rumors forum.

[Chucker]

Originally Posted by PB

Oh, come on Chucker, you are pitiless. Perhaps the guy has not yet realised he is in an Apple rumors forum.

Well, I just don't respond to well when a post is so full of false assertions.

Explorer 7 has all of those features as well,

No. Explorer 7 has rearrangeable tabs, but it does not let you turn a tab into its own window. Also, Explorer 7 does not highlight search terms on a page, nor does it allow textareas to be resized.

but I guess that's only for windows.

Yes, that's right. Explorer for Mac has been cancelled long ago, and was a separate project, with a completely different engine, later used in some other Microsoft products, such as WebTV.

I use it at work and Firefox at home on my mac, but will probably switch to expl.7 once it's released for mac.

Which is unlikely to ever happen. There's no good business reason for Microsoft to do that.

I used to be a netscape diehard and hated explorer, but they seem to have surpassed the competition on the latest release, although I'm sure Apple will copy the other features when they finally release safarti 3 in 2007.

I cannot think of much Explorer 7 has over Safari 3.0. Of course, neither is actually released as final, so the comparison is rather bogus anyway. The only feature I can indeed think of is an anti-phishing feature. That's a nice feature, and I hope Safari will eventually have it as well. Firefox 2.0 will.

I like the fact that they've integrated popup and phishing filters as well as web search without needing extra menu-line space from a google toolbar or similar.

As far as I recall, Safari has had popup blocking since 1.0. As for the search field, this is also something Safari and Firefox have had since 1.0.

Funny apple announced it now,

There is nothing whatsoever Safari-related that Apple has announced in the recent past.

probably because Safarti 2 is so far behind the others and they don't want to get a lame rep.

It is so far behind the others, in fact, that it is still the only major browser whose engine supports text shadow.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

Is this fixing a bug or adding a feature?

It's adding a feature.

It's Apple adding support for the CSS3 resizer property

http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/WD-css3-us...000216#resizer

edit: and also 'resize' too. Here's a better example - http://www.css3.info/preview/resize.html

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by Chucker

It is so far behind the others, in fact, that it is still the only major browser whose engine supports text shadow.

Do you have more examples than that?