Safari - Page 4

After using Safari for an evening, I'm very pleased with it. I can think of a few things it needs, mostly cribbed from the ultra-sleek OmniWeb, but it's close enough that I cheerfully threw every other browser out of my Dock.

I agree that having a way to load and browse multiple sites without multiple windows is nice. Opera for Windows spoiled me (MDI interface notwithstanding) back when Mozilla was barely getting off the ground.

But please, please, please not tabs. Using them that way is a violation of UI guidelines, they're awkward, and you can only load so many sites at once before things become unreadable, or arrows start appearing.

If Apple goes this way - and I'd like them to - they should go the whole hog. Allow sets of pages to be bookmarked, and labelled with a short name the way single pages can be renamed. Integrate that into the excellent bookmarks manager they have. That would be seriously cool. But, as with other things, I'd like Apple to really think through what the best UI is to present and manage collections of pages, rather than just blindly copying tabs from Mozilla because they're "good enough."

As for the metal look: It vanishes in relation to the size of the web page on my screen (which is "only" 10x7); it provides a clear contrast between the toolbar section and the document section, given the arbitrary appearances of most web sites; and the Aqua hack, frankly, looks terrible. You need to open the nib up in Interface Builder and get some clearance between the buttons and the title bar for it to look at all Mac-like, and then you've got the controls taking up that much more space. I'll admit that it's not as flat-out gorgeous as OmniWeb's interface is, but it's clear, compact, and attractive. I can appreciate that.

[ 01-08-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>

Every bit of the slideshow works fine for me. Hrmm.

What I'm amazed about Safari is how smooth dock minimizations are.

This is on a Dual 1.25, but it is still visibly smoother than other applications.

Barto

Apparently Safari is deleting people's home folders and messing up Printing, CD Burning, and Classic.

<a href="http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?50@103.p2VUaXzZfJZ.565249@.3bbdb9d6" target="_blank">http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?50@103.p2VUaXzZfJZ.565249@.3bbdb9d6</a>

<a href="http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?50@202.K7NOarcbf3d.2@.3bbdbb52" target="_blank">http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?50@202.K7NOarcbf3d.2@.3bbdbb52</a>

BTW, does anyone know how/where to get the source?

Whoa! :eek:

I guess we've been lucky?

Does it bother anyone else about the way bookmarks are organized? I know lots of people keep saying that the way Safari does it is much better, but I disagree.

I want all my bookmarks to be in the bookmarks menu, regardless of how they're organized. It takes two clicks to get to a bookmark when it's in the menu, compared to the bookmarks panel, where you have to click AT LEAST 3 times to do the same thing.

I know I can add all my bookmarks to the menu, but then that defeats the purpose of the panel. I hope Apple modifies this so that all bookmarks are automatically added to the menu, in addition to wherever else you might like to file them (sort of like with the Address Book and Rendezvous bookmarks).

Am I alone in feeling this way?

-

[ 01-08-2003: Message edited by: JLL ]</p>

Another thing: It renders beautifully. I´m making tabels in SPSS in 9 (SPSS doesn´t work in Classic) and the easiest way to see them while I´m using the data for PowerPoint presentations is by exporting them in HTML. Simply much more beatiful than in any other browser in X.

Is it because its a cocoa app?

gah you clearly dont understand the bookmarks library, the menu is for slightly common stuff, the toolbar for really common stuff, and the folders in the library for stuff that isnt so common. Lets take an example a mac fanatic would use it
toolbar - things like these forums, daily visits and such
menu - maybe apple.com seen as you dont visit it daily
bookmarks library - maybe mac musuem etc, places you dont visit every day but you can still all bookmark without clogging up your bookmark menu

[quote]Originally posted by vas:
<strong>Does it bother anyone else about the way bookmarks are organized? I know lots of people keep saying that the way Safari does it is much better, but I disagree.

I want all my bookmarks to be in the bookmarks menu, regardless of how they're organized. It takes two clicks to get to a bookmark when it's in the menu, compared to the bookmarks panel, where you have to click AT LEAST 3 times to do the same thing.

I know I can add all my bookmarks to the menu, but then that defeats the purpose of the panel. I hope Apple modifies this so that all bookmarks are automatically added to the menu, in addition to wherever else you might like to file them (sort of like with the Address Book and Rendezvous bookmarks).

Am I alone in feeling this way?</strong><hr></blockquote>

The purpose is not defeated at all. Without the bookmarks view, how would you go about editing and organizing your bookmarks? What, a tiny window that gets lost? Are you mad? Rather than do it the time-tested way, Apple scores some points for keeping it all in the same window.

[quote]Originally posted by KidRed:
<strong>hehe, just a little surprised that you of all people didn't catch those things </strong><hr></blockquote>

I have a feeling moki doesn't use Cocoa or Cocoa apps very often.

Otherwise, his first instinct would have been to control click on the text field and enable it.

[quote]Originally posted by Harald:
<strong>Two small points Hassan (you twat):

1) It's thoroughbred not bread. It's a horse, not a loaf. Or rather a browser-horse, not a browser-loaf.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Oh yes. And, er, it has spellchecking too, which is something Chimera doesn't.

I've turned it on now.

OmniWeb 5.0 will use the kHTML renderer.

According to this:

<a href="http://www.macfixit.com/MFIbeta/article.php?story=20030108084927319" target="_blank">http://www.macfixit.com/MFIbeta/article.php?story=20030108084927319</a>


Also, you can upgrade the kHTML renderer component, called WebCore separately from the rest of the app.

So says this guy:

<a href="http://www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/hyatt/" target="_blank">http://www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/hyatt/</a>

Turns out that all the people who thought that David Hyatt would be building a Web-Browser for Apple were right... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

Barto

[quote]Originally posted by Brad:
<strong>That page loads fine in Safari and clicking images works fine too.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Funny to look at that page in Safari mainly because you have a brushed metal window with a (slightly different) brushed metal window from the wweb page inside it.

Interesting to see how images are loaded too. They sort of appear to "drop down," where the bottom of the image renders first and is shown at the to of the image then drops as the rest of the miage is loaded. (This isn't slow or smooth mind you, actually rather quick and renders in big chunks at a time.)

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:
<strong>
Why did Apple pick KHTML instead of Mozilla though? Mozilla seems to be picking up support from everywhere, there's a real bandwagon forming. I mean, AOL blessed, it has legs. What is better about KHTML?</strong><hr></blockquote>

According to Apple:

"For its Web page rendering engine, Safari draws on software from the Konqueror open source project. Weighing in at less than one tenth the size of another open source renderer, Konqueror helps Safari stay lean and responsive."

I'm sure someone with more experience programming web browsers would know a bunch of other reasons as well.

Interesting snippet from David Hyatt's weblog:

[quote] Various members of the Flash community have been reporting low frame rates when using Flash in Safari. I'm pleased to report that we have corrected the problem. The issue was not in WebCore, so I can't post a patch, but the issue has been addressed. <hr></blockquote>

As much as we all love Dave Hyatt, why does he get all the credit anyway? He's not the only guy on the Safari team.

The possibility of OW5 using Webcore and KHTML occurred to me this morning too. Great.. I guess OW5 won't be squashed by Safari after all. And so the Mac browser market is safe for the time being. Open source really is great.

I have the topper of all errors!

On my brothers B&W G3/400MHz, the prefrences in Safari wouldn't show up, the window showed but it was blank, obviously this was a bug.

...so i cliked on the report a bug button and nothing happened, ANOTHER bug...how do you report this one? <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

[quote]Originally posted by frawgz:
<strong>As much as we all love Dave Hyatt, why does he get all the credit anyway? He's not the only guy on the Safari team.

The possibility of OW5 using Webcore and KHTML occurred to me this morning too. Great.. I guess OW5 won't be squashed by Safari after all. And so the Mac browser market is safe for the time being. Open source really is great.</strong><hr></blockquote>

A lot of folks from the old Eazel team worked on this. They get a lot of the credit really. Hell, they probably did a huge chunk of the legwork! These folks are very versatile too, aren't they?

I see Safari remaining a simple application. Like other iApps, it will constantly be criticised for not having enough advanced features, but I don't see it as that kind of software, and I doubt Apple sees it that way either. OW will still have a big chunk of the market with its more advanced features, the ability to fine-tune settings more, more flexible UI, etc. If anything, this will help Omni focus OmniWeb's development. Same goes for Chimera, Opera and even IE if it isn't exclusively part of MSN service in the future.

[ 01-08-2003: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>

I wanna see a WebCore iCab...

Barto

What I really want is the ability to set the number of simultaneous downloads i.e. ability to set it to 1 so you can que downloads (like IE does) . Ability to block images not originating from the site you are on (like OW), ability to block paths/ads (like OW). All the contextual menu options like OW. Apart from that Safari is really nice. OW is gone almost now, since I still have the freeze the machine bug still. Oh and the window to open correctly on startup in the same place etc and either having proper cascading/tiling pages or for them to open right on top of each other and not open below the dock...

[ 01-09-2003: Message edited by: gsxrboy ]</p>

Ah if you have the status bar turned on then widows open properly

Edit - not anymore :confused:

Also could do with some font control, i.e. setting default sizes etc...

[ 01-09-2003: Message edited by: gsxrboy ]</p>

Safari initially looked awesome to me... but it has since been a nightmare. It has literally wreaked havoc on my system. Last night, i tried to reboot after my printing wasn't working... i got the question mark startup screen... followed by a type of blue screen of death. i tried zapping P-RAM, no dice. So i booted up to OS 9 (on a CD), copied as much as i could onto my iPod and bit the bullet, reformatting and installing jaguar. It ran great, until i downloaded Safari on the new system. Suddenly, i couldn't install any pkg's (including my samsung ml 1210 printer driver....). So.. i did an archive install of Jaguar... when i booted up to that OS, (the new system folder) i tried installing the printer drivers, and it appeared to install successfully (the installer.app didn't quite unexpectedly). However, then i launched Safari, and everything went to hell! My printer won't work (i can't select it from my printer list... it shows up.. just won't select because of error type 2), classic is screwy, and software update fails. This is a major pain in the ass.... i wonder why its not affecting everyone...
I'm running 10.2.3 on a 700 Mhz G4 iMac, 256 megs of ram. this is weird.... i have a paper i have to print tonight, so i think i might bite the bullet, and reinstall jag for the third time, and decide against going on another Safari to hell tonight.
Its a great app... i just don't like what it does to my system hopefully a fix will crop up soon.

The good news is Safari holds the promise of becoming another great browser for OSX. Chimera isn't going to stop improving any time soon, and it is a cinch that Safari is going to get tabbed browsing in some form. The Opera browser is also very, very nice. While the other browser projects may take a minor hit, I think they will continue. The competition will be good for the platform.

For all of the challenges Apple has faced, methinks they are doing fine. They are negotiating passage through a narrow place. They are already mostly through the danger period when withdrawel of Microsoft support might have been fatal. The hardware drought appears to have a more than adequate solution on the way. Glad I came over to Mac in 1998. Wouldn't go back for all the PCs in China.

[quote]Originally posted by Spart:
<strong>I have a feeling moki doesn't use Cocoa or Cocoa apps very often.

Otherwise, his first instinct would have been to control click on the text field and enable it.</strong><hr></blockquote>

No, moki just plain posted too quickly. How many hail mary's do I need to do, already?

<a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/omniweb-l/2003-January/009160.html" target="_blank">http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archive/omniweb-l/2003-January/009160.html</a>

Ast3r3x I saw an error like that once too. I was trying to load a page and the error dialogue popped up, but it had some white junk on it and was unclickable. I couldn't click anywhere in Safari but I just restarted it and haven't seen that again.

Logan Cale I believe the problem with killing your home directory is caused by OPTION clicking a download (why would you ever do that?)

Gah while I was typing this, I clicked page 4 on the little window in the frame below since it loads page 1. It just took me there, the whole window, not just inside the little frame.

My dad also says Safari renders his page terribly: <a href="http://www.usace.army.mil/" target="_blank">http://www.usace.army.mil/</a> Indeed the first time I checked it, none of the pictures loaded. At ResExcellence when I was looking at Boot Panels I had to reload the pages MANY times to make the finish completely. Sometimes Safari just doesn't seem to finish loading a page. Some pics are left out for example.

Amorph: Tabs are quicker and you can see all your pages in a glance. Apple will surely come up with a good way to deal with lots of them all at the same time. Perhaps just a new row in the toolbar, that'd be fine with me. They should just turn them off by default. I'm suffering Tab withdrawal. Safari's speed over Chimera is easily lost cycling through and moving windows around. Back to Chimera for now. By the way why doesn't Chimera use the latest Mozilla? I heard it still uses 1.0.

edit: the USACE webpage doesn't show the table of images on the front page right in Safari, they're supposed to be aligned straight.

[ 01-09-2003: Message edited by: Aquatic ]</p>

Yup when I replied here, the AI page didn't reload all the way! Just to where someone was commenting about bookmarks, which is the best thing about Safari I must say. However I couldn't see who said that since frames apparently don't work right as I noted, the frame in the response page takes over the whole window.

Also I just realized that all URLs are underlined. That's annoying and should definately be off by default with an option.

And I noticed something else that may have to do with pages not loading completely. It seems Safari likes to "hog" bandwith for ONE page or download. I'm on a modem at 26400. When I have two downloads going it gives one all the bandwith and if I start opening a few AI threads and a couple other pages the downloads will fail and none of the pages will load completely. Anyone else on a modem seeing this? I'm sure I won't care once I'm back at URI though.

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:
<strong>
Also I just realized that all URLs are underlined. That's annoying and should definately be off by default with an option.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

The release of Safari has unleashed some crazy opinions but wanting to have link underlining off by default somehow sums it all up for me.

btw You should be able to achieve this with a user style sheet like this:

a:link {text-decoration: none !important;}
a:hover {text-decoration: underline !important;}

The first line turns them off, the second turns them back on when you hover over the link. Just save in a text file called something .css and import through the preferences.

On a different topic here is a post by the Mozilla user-interface guy that sparred with Dave Hyatt over the inclusion of tabs in Mozilla. It adresses the 'if you don't like tabs, don't use them argument'.

<a href="http://mpt.phrasewise.com/2002/07/03#a292" target="_blank">http://mpt.phrasewise.com/2002/07/03#a292</a>

In my ideal world, Apple would let Omni make some money from the lust for a tabbed Safari.

Here's hoping.

edit: tested and improved the css for turning of link underlining

[ 01-09-2003: Message edited by: stupider...likeafox ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by Aquatic:
<strong>
Logan Cale I believe the problem with killing your home directory is caused by OPTION clicking a download (why would you ever do that?)
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Because "Download this link" is supposed to be a feature.

[quote]<strong>Amorph: Tabs are quicker and you can see all your pages in a glance.</strong><hr></blockquote>

There's more than one way to skin that cat, and there has to be a way that is an order of magnitude more correct and more elegant than using tabs. That's not what they're designed for, and it shows in Mozilla.

[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:
<strong>There's more than one way to skin that cat, and there has to be a way that is an order of magnitude more correct and more elegant than using tabs. That's not what they're designed for, and it shows in Mozilla.</strong><hr></blockquote>



Feedback?

The Page Pane on the right (as it's currently called, for lack of a better name) slides in at the touch of a button, and enables multipage viewing in a single window. Like the Dock, the size of the pages in the pane would dynamically adjust according to the number of pages it holds.

Turning on the pane would shift Safari into a slightly different Multipage View.

For more details, click <a href="http://look-designs.com/extras/safari_mp/safari_mp.html" target="_blank">here</a>.

[ 01-09-2003: Message edited by: Hobbes ]</p>

Yeah, something like either a drawer or a side tab/pane for page thumbnails would be better IMO. You can fight for whether they should side in or out.

I would rather see a "tab bar" or a "page bar" that would sit just underneath the bookmark bar.

Taking out screen width isn't very attractive to me.

Your mock-ups are very nice however.

(Veering into another direction) Could Apple make a download page similar to the bookmarks view? It would use a similar toggle function, and you could easily see your downloads without the use of another window.

Although this might be a bit much, you could even add a Windows explorer sidebar to interact with the finder and where you want your downloads.

Just a thought.

Edit: D@mn you Safari! First double post ever.

[ 01-09-2003: Message edited by: bauman ]</p>

Several hours with Safari. No crash yet.
ATTC

Right, I had a play (damn Apple, bringing out all sorts of nice new stuff while I'm on holiday!) and my opinion is that Safari has all the makings of a great app.

There are a few bugs in the javascript implementation (as in, stuff that works in every other browser sits there and does nothing), and some rendering issues around tables (natch), but it's quick, stable and does the job. Nice work.

Is it just me, or are status bar messages not working? Is this why the status bar is turned off by default, perhaps?

Oh, and I just love the URL box doubling up as the progress bar: subtle, but incredibly sensible and reclaims some real estate to boot!

wouldn't it be nice if the copass icon in the dock would move/turn around whenever safari is searching the internet. like explorer/navigator-logos but in the dock...

[quote]Originally posted by Overhope:
<strong>
There are a few bugs in the javascript implementation (as in, stuff that works in every other browser sits there and does nothing), and some rendering issues around tables (natch), but it's quick, stable and does the job. Nice work.

Is it just me, or are status bar messages not working? Is this why the status bar is turned off by default, perhaps?
</strong><hr></blockquote>

I read a quote from a developer somewhere that the DOM support was almost entirely missing, i.e. not buggy, just not done.

If by status bar messages you mean things written to the status bar by javascript, then I assumed that non-support was a conscious decision as the rest of the status bar shows evidence of some love and attention.

If you hold down shift, option, command then the message changes to reflect the change.

open "www.example.com/example"
open "www.example.com/example" in a new window
open "www.example.com/example" in a new window behind this one
download "www.example.com/example"

I hadn't realised how much I was in the habit of hovering over a link and glancing down to the status bar to see where it would take me. (In fact I usually look up as I used OmniWeb).

I'm intrigued to know if Apple did usability studies and found that ordinary joes don't do this and simply link blindly.