Apple's Safari 3.1 to support downloadable web fonts, more

[AppleInsider]

The ability to download and immediately render non-standard web fonts is just one of several advancements Apple Inc. has planned for Safari 3.1, a small but significant update to its share-gaining web browser for both the Mac and Windows PCs.

The release, which underwent private testing this week, will tie in a number of other enhancements, most of which have been under constant development as part of the company's WebKit open source application framework since last fall. They aim to provide Web developers a means of writing more dynamic and customizable web pages and iPhone apps, which will in turn provide surfers with a more feature-rich and enjoyable experience.

For example, CSS Transforms and CSS Animations will join web downloadable fonts in allowing Safari 3.1 and iPhone users to render web pages and web apps with enhanced design messages and real-time visual effects. By applying Transforms, developers can author trigger actions that scale, rotate, skew and translate HTML boxes in real time. Similarly, Animations offer a quicker route to DHTML/JavaScript effects, such as fading out an HTML element, or increasing the border of a box when hovered over.

Another significant addition to Safari 3.1 will be support of HTML5's SQL storage application programming interface (API), which is a client-side database storage programming interface that will allow a future array of web applications to store structured data locally on a user's machine using SQL. The API is asynchronous, according to Apple, and uses callback functions to track the results of a database query.



Also on tap for the new version of the Apple browser is support for video and audio tags as outlined in the draft specification of HTML5, which add native support for embedding video and audio content in web pages. Additionally, they provide a rich scripting (API) that will allow developers tailor playback controls.



Among the other features expected as part of Safari 3.1 are enhanced web page debugging tools, a database browser tool that's been built into the Web Inspector for use alongside the new SQL storage API, and a native version of the getElementsByClassName JavaScript function.

The latter is one of the more common functions requested by JavaScript programmers, and often added via clunky JavaScript libraries that serve only to bog down page loads. It works along the same lines as getElementsByTagName and getElementById in looking up elements of a web page by their properties.



According to Apple, the native version of the function provides many advantages, chief among them "blindingly fast" speed. For testing purposes, company engineers wrote a simple benchmark to pit the native version of their function against those using both XPath and a straight JavaScript/DOM implementation. The native function executed 10,000 iterations of the getElementsByClassName benchmark in 155ms, compared to 4,728ms and 13,053ms for the XPath and JavaScript/DOM versions, respectively.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[CREB]

What year will Apple be releasing Safari 3.1?

[teckstud]

Why does Firefox still work better & faster than Safari?

[TenoBell]

Why does Firefox still work better & faster than Safari?

Is this a known fact or one man's opinion?

I've found Firefox makes your whole computer run slower.

[TednDi]

3.1 by summer!



seriously,

This is all wonderful news to rendering speeds for the iphone.

[drjjones]

Still a lot of bugs in the old safari. Started viewing this site today and safari unexpectedly quit. I get that a lot . Especially when i come here to read the articles. It quits about 30 seconds into reading.
It's like Apple doesn't like the site . And that is what they do on purpose .

[bobo28]

Originally Posted by TenoBell

Is this a known fact or one man's opinion?

I've found Firefox makes your whole computer run slower.

If you're not a Safari fan, there are several better choices than Firefox ; Camino, SeaMonkey, Navagator 9. . . , Flock. Just to mention several good and free options .

[Booga]

Although all these features are pretty much a "yawn" on the internet because no one will use them for years, I think the interesting part is when the iPhone and Touch will get these updates. Especially the local SQL could be really useful for some of the iPhone/Touch-targeted web pages.

[bluedalmatian]

Originally Posted by teckstud

Why does Firefox still work better & faster than Safari?

Possibly because Apple has never got the hang of putting network transmission & UI updating under the control of separate threads.

As another example...try using Finder to connect to a file server which is down or on a slow network....Finder hangs for several minutes until the network connection times out.

[ken the macster]

I'm happy that Safari is continuing development.

However, all I really want is for it to just work. There are soooo many sites that have a problem. For example, t-Mobile, many banks and airlines. You can't apply online for lots of jobs. You cannot even get student loan info from the US government. It's embarrassing.

[GQB]

Originally Posted by TenoBell

Is this a known fact or one man's opinion?

I've found Firefox makes your whole computer run slower.

We run our Mac in multi-user mode, and 9 times out of 10, when returning to my desktop, Firefox is frozen solid, requiring a 'force quit'.
I need to bite the bullet and switch to Safari as soon as I take the time to figure out how to xfer my bookmarks.

[johnhood]

Would've been cool to have seen Safari 3.1 rolled into 10.5.2! Certainly Safari is less stable in Mac OS X 10.5!

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by TenoBell

Is this a known fact or one man's opinion?

I've found Firefox makes your whole computer run slower.

Me too.

Originally Posted by bobo28

If you're not a Safari fan, there are several better choices than Firefox ; Camino, SeaMonkey, Navagator 9. . . , Flock. Just to mention several good and free options.

Firefox's add-ons are huge plus to many.

Originally Posted by drjjones

Still a lot of bugs in the old safari. Started viewing this site today and safari unexpectedly quit. I get that a lot . Especially when i come here to read the articles. It quits about 30 seconds into reading.
It's like Apple doesn't like the site . And that is what they do on purpose .

hehe I can't recall Safari quitting once while using 3.0. That is, until today while trying to read this article on Safari 3.1.

[.mac]

L0ve safari :d

[macanoid™]

as nice as this is, and as nice as safari is, I wish they'd put more effort into making Safari less resource-hungry. it gobbles up memory like there's no tomorrow.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by teckstud

Why does Firefox still work better & faster than Safari?

At least there's a choice.

I can't get Firefox to last longer than three days without requiring a restart, with the latest versions of 1.5 and 2.0. But I wouldn't use Safari or Camino long term, they're too inflexible.

[abilstein]

I'm curious - are those of you having problems with Safari running any plugins? I find Safari to be faster than Firefox and very stable. This was not the case with Safari 2, but Safari 3 has been a huge improvement to me. It has replaced Firefox as my default browser for personal use, although I still use FF for development.

I realize this is all anecdotal but I'm still curious.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

At least there's a choice.

I can't get Firefox to last longer than three days without requiring a restart, with the latest versions of 1.5 and 2.0. But I wouldn't use Safari or Camino long term, they're too inflexible.

So what do you use? I find Safari hangs on some sites forever especially one's with imageing whereas Firefox just snaps. I still use Safari as my default because I prefer the interface but it does has issues.

[abilstein]

I also disagree that developers won't use the HTML5 features for years. I'll begin using them immediately in cases where they will offer a better user experience under the principles of progressive enhancement. Downloadable fonts come immediately to mind.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by TenoBell

Is this a known fact or one man's opinion?

I've found Firefox makes your whole computer run slower.

It's obviously more than one man's opinion as you can see more than one man's complaint today.

[Buck]

Originally Posted by ken the macster

I'm happy that Safari is continuing development.

However, all I really want is for it to just work. There are soooo many sites that have a problem. For example, t-Mobile, many banks and airlines. You can't apply online for lots of jobs. You cannot even get student loan info from the US government. It's embarrassing.

Talk to the webmasters so they can have their websites fixed. 95% of the time that happens because they don't want/know how to follow the web standards. If nobody acts on that nothing will ever change.

[hmurchison]

Firefox is not faster on my computer. It "is" more flexible though.

I welcome further advancements for Safari. Since Leopard I've been relatively happy with it.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by Buck

Talk to the webmasters so they can have their websites fixed. 95% of the time that happens because they don't want/know how to follow the web standards. If nobody acts on that nothing will ever change.

Are you serious? Then why do they work on Firefox, etal? That's like asking the water company to slow down their pressure in order to fix your leaking faucet.

[fahlman]

For you Firefox users, Mozilla released a second beta version of Firefox 3.0 with a Mac-like theme. The beta can be downloaded here –> http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html. The theme can be found here –> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6050.

[MariusX86]

I won't say Opera never crashes or that all websites display fine with it, but mostly I notice that if I identify as any other browser they do work, and if not than use unicode UTF-8 and bang. I've been using Opera for years, since win2k, through Linux and now OS X, admitedly side by side with IE, Mozilla and now Safari. But seriously, if you get used to tabs, which they've had long before Safari, Firefox or IE, mouse gestures, and pretty speedy rendering, how can you switch back?

here, my first 2 € cents...

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by bluedalmatian

Possibly because Apple has never got the hang of putting network transmission & UI updating under the control of separate threads.

As another example...try using Finder to connect to a file server which is down or on a slow network....Finder hangs for several minutes until the network connection times out.

You've not upgraded to Leopard yet?

Originally Posted by teckstud

So what do you use? I find Safari hangs on some sites forever especially one's with imageing whereas Firefox just snaps. I still use Safari as my default because I prefer the interface but it does has issues.

Firefox is far from snappy by comparison to Safari v3. If anything is a bit slow it seems to be Adobe's Flash plugin lately. v9 seems to be slower than v8 for me causing occasional beachballs.

Originally Posted by abilstein

I also disagree that developers won't use the HTML5 features for years. I'll begin using them immediately in cases where they will offer a better user experience under the principles of progressive enhancement. Downloadable fonts come immediately to mind.

Exactly. It's why I've been using text-shadow and other Safari only CSS features for years. CSS transforms and animations are also a nice one to use since Safari users will get the nice effects whereas other users will get plain old CSS until they upgrade to a better browser.

Client side SQL is a harder one though as that's not just a presentation layer thing.

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by teckstud

So what do you use? I find Safari hangs on some sites forever especially one's with imageing whereas Firefox just snaps. I still use Safari as my default because I prefer the interface but it does has issues.

I've been using Firefox despite its problems eventually locking up on my, then I force quit and start again.

I just started using Flock when someone mentioned it here, it's working pretty well so far.

[aegisdesign]

Originally Posted by teckstud

Are you serious? Then why do they work on Firefox, etal? That's like asking the water company to slow down their pressure in order to fix your leaking faucet.

It's quite possible to code a site to work on IE and Firefox and not on Safari or Opera by ignoring web standards or just sticking in stupid browser sniffers that only know about IE or Firefox.

Both IE and Firefox also have their proprietary crap too like ActiveX components and XUL which aren't available in other browsers.

[diskimage]

Does anyone know of a mac web browser that supports Single File Web Pages. I know IE 7 displays them but I was looking for something I could use on my mac.

[leee]

I wish Safari 3.1 was at least as stable as Safari 2. S3 failed to impress me so far.

[eAi]

You can try out Safari 3.1's nightly builds at http://nightly.webkit.org/

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by aegisdesign

Both IE and Firefox also have their proprietary crap too like ActiveX components and XUL which aren't available in other browsers.

XUL isn't proprietary, and I've not seen a web page that demands loading one in order to use the site. I've not even seen a site request that I do. XUL works on Flock too, and I count four other browsers that support XUL to some extent.

As far as I've seen, there is no comparable architecture for Safari, Safari requires the use of unsupported back doors to allow the same type extensions that are available to the Gecko engine.

[lkrupp]

Originally Posted by teckstud

Why does Firefox still work better & faster than Safari?

Why do you ask? Safari runs rings around Firefox on my system. And is more compatible too. I haven't launched Firefox in months. Have no need to.

Looking forward to the Safari update.

[BlackPepper]

I think the engineers are taking time for their fantasies... Although these are "great" enhancements, if the other browsers don't support them also, they will be useless since not many websites will implement to make use of these features.

They should try working on making Safari a better browser. Firefox is way more advanced and flexible comparing the Safari, and it is way more compatible with web sites than Safari. I can't use Safari for a lot of web sites. You have to accept to fact that you have a very marginal market share, and you can't just force your own standards, but you you have to comply with others'.

They didn't even put a 'New Tab' button on Safari 3. Safari is the only browser missing that "essential" button. They are just being stubborn, forcing you to use cmd-T, as always. That's what I don't like about Apple in general, and Safari in particular.

[mjtomlin]

Every browser has problems, so your experiences may vary. Safari works fine on my system. Yeah it crashes from time to time, but so does Firefox. They are both just as quick at loading pages. So far I haven't had any issues with any specific sites as far not being able to render them. They both adhere to web standards.

The main reason I prefer Safari over Firefox is, rendered pages in Safari are much more beautiful to look at, especially form controls and fonts. Firefox is just butt-ugly. Maybe the new version will fix that?

Anyway, I guess we all have our opinions... can't wait for Safari 3.1

[Robin Huber]

I am a long time satisfied Safari user, but after upgrading to Leopard a couple of weeks ago Safari has become very crash-prone. It usually happens as I dig down into a website by following links. Then, this morning, a couple of long time bookmarks failed to work. Had to do a reset of Safari (including loss of all my cookies, auto fill, passwords, etc.) which was a major pain. Even that didn't work immediately, but after waiting a few minutes, it "took" and I could once again access the two websites which previously Safari told me it couldn't find the server. My PowerBook running Tiger found them just fine, so it wasn't the sites' fault. I don't think I am the only one having these kind of problems. Hope 3.1 will address them.

[NasserAE]

Does that mean that I will be able to read complex fonts such as Hebrew and Arabic on my iPhone Safari?

[mjtomlin]

Originally Posted by BlackPepper

you can't just force your own standards, but you you have to comply with others'.

These features aren't Apple's standards, these are upcoming web standards; CSS3, HTML5... And speaking of "having" to comply with standards... uh, no you don't, it's just better if you do.

Originally Posted by BlackPepper

They didn't even put a 'New Tab' button on Safari 3. Safari is the only browser missing that "essential" button.

I'd hardly call that an "essential" button, but you're always free to make suggestions to Apple about it.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by BlackPepper

I think the engineers are taking time for their fantasies... Although these are "great" enhancements, if the other browsers don't support them also, they will be useless since not many websites will implement to make use of these features.

They should try working on making Safari a better browser. Firefox is way more advanced and flexible comparing the Safari, and it is way more compatible with web sites than Safari. I can't use Safari for a lot of web sites. You have to accept to fact that you have a very marginal market share, and you can't just force your own standards, but you you have to comply with others'.

They didn't even put a 'New Tab' button on Safari 3. Safari is the only browser missing that "essential" button. They are just being stubborn, forcing you to use cmd-T, as always. That's what I don't like about Apple in general, and Safari in particular.

Your post is a bit illogical. The Engineers are not adding fantasies they're adding support for features that are open and standard. Adding more functionality to CSS and Java is certainly not a fantasy endeavor. Preparing for HTML5 is not a fantasty feature either.

You cannot expect web authors to utilize features until the Browsers can support such features. While some may say Apple is jumping the gun here in reality they are not.

http://www.whatwg.org/

What is the WHATWG?

The WHATWG is a growing community of people interested in evolving the Web. It focuses primarily on the development of HTML and APIs needed for Web applications.

The WHATWG was founded by individuals of Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software in 2004, after a W3C workshop. Apple, Mozilla and Opera were becoming increasingly concerned about the W3C’s direction with XHTML, lack of interest in HTML and apparent disregard for the needs of real-world authors. So, in response, these organisations set out with a mission to address these concerns and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group was born.

Note Mozilla and Opera. Assuming that nextgen feature will not be supported in other browsers is folly. Assuming that improvements to browsers and adding new features is somehow mutually exclusive is short sighted IMO.

I think you probably need to work a bit harder at understanding who and what are the evolving web standards before you launch into assumptive misinformation. Apple is not forcing any standards that Mozilla, Opera and plenty of other web companies don't have access to.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by BlackPepper

I think the engineers are taking time for their fantasies... Although these are "great" enhancements, if the other browsers don't support them also, they will be useless since not many websites will implement to make use of these features.

They should try working on making Safari a better browser. Firefox is way more advanced and flexible comparing the Safari, and it is way more compatible with web sites than Safari. I can't use Safari for a lot of web sites. You have to accept to fact that you have a very marginal market share, and you can't just force your own standards, but you you have to comply with others'.

They didn't even put a 'New Tab' button on Safari 3. Safari is the only browser missing that "essential" button. They are just being stubborn, forcing you to use cmd-T, as always. That's what I don't like about Apple in general, and Safari in particular.

I would just like to reiterate what mjtomlin stated about following standards. Safari follows more open standards than Firefox or IE.

Also, there is no GUI button for a new tab but the simple Command+T will create a new tab.