Apple's Safari 4 UI changes hint at plans for Snow Leopard

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  • Reply 101 of 144
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I'm guessing that the others, sans IE, will place their tabs truly on top in the next major version.



    Out of curiosity, where did certain features start. For instance, I first now of the included Google search bar from Firefox. And I first recall seeing the URL listing of history and bookmarks in Firefox 3. But those may not be the first inception. Does anyone recall where other common features first got their public debut? Like the tabs (in general), links bar, suggestive search, the multi-site splash page?



    I think Opera's speed dial was the first "Top Site" like feature.
  • Reply 102 of 144
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by noirdesir View Post


    Ever had 20+ tabs open? Crtl-tabbing through them is not the most efficient way.



    That is a good point. I think some sort of Safari Spaces or instant Safari Coverflow for all opened tabs would be handy. Sometimes I have to open up a separate window so I can keep track of all my tabs. Funny how solving one problem will eventually lead to another. gottta love progress.
  • Reply 103 of 144
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    I think Opera's speed dial was the first "Top Site" like feature.



    It looks like it. Wikipedia states that it firs appeared in Opera Mini, which makes sense. It also state that Opera v1 had tabbed browsing in 1994, whist on another Wikipgeslists the earliest as NetCaptor, an IE shel,l since 1997. They both may be correct as it wasn't until Opera v2 that a public release was made.
  • Reply 104 of 144
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    There are definitely images of Opera with the tabs above the URL, just like in Chrome, but most images still have its menu bar above it, though not all. The reason why Google is probably getting credit (besides how little known Opera is) is that Opera didn't integrate it visually like Chrome did to make it truly look like paper file folders. The colour and feel of the menu bar integrates with the free space next to the tabs. From my preliminary search, Wobegon is correct in that Safari is the first to actually integrate the window bar with tabs.







    When Chrome is maximized, they do go all the way to the top, and it breaks the way Windows 7 (Vista too?) is supposed to allow you to grab the title bar of a maximized window and drag it off to return it to windowed mode.
  • Reply 105 of 144
    meelashmeelash Posts: 1,045member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rasnet View Post


    When Chrome is maximized, they do go all the way to the top, and it breaks the way Windows 7 (Vista too?) is supposed to allow you to grab the title bar of a maximized window and drag it off to return it to windowed mode.



    They go all the way to the top, but the window is still distinct from the tabs. If you only have a few tabs open (i.e. empty windows space available) does dragging on the window part still not work?
  • Reply 106 of 144
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    There are definitely images of Opera with the tabs above the URL, just like in Chrome, but most images still have its menu bar above it, though not all. The reason why Google is probably getting credit (besides how little known Opera is) is that Opera didn't integrate it visually like Chrome did to make it truly look like paper file folders. The colour and feel of the menu bar integrates with the free space next to the tabs. From my preliminary search, Wobegon is correct in that Safari is the first to actually integrate the window bar with tabs.







    In addition, Safari 4 manages to fit near identical functionality into less space than Chrome, at least on Windows XP. It'll be interesting to see how Chrome for Mac compares as it seems Windows XP's top window borders are needlessly large.
  • Reply 107 of 144
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post




    Out of curiosity, where did certain features start.



    Gosh I feel as though I've just stepped into a time machine! I remember reading years ago in MacFormat magazine about tabs, so out came the old box to see if I could track it down. Man searching was slow back then (manually searching through a huge pile of mags ) and eventually found the 'Browser Wars' article I was looking for, which was in the April 2003 issue. I can't answer the tabs query precisely, but by then they were available in Gecko browsers, which at that time were Chimera Navigator; iCab 2.9; Mozilla 1.3b; Netscape 7.02 and the non-Gecko ( I think) Opera 6.0. An interesting comment in the Opera section: "In fact once you get used to tabbed browsing you may find it difficult to switch back. It's bound to be one of the first upgrades Apple makes to Safari."



    So didn't find the answer, but did narrow it down a bit!
  • Reply 108 of 144
    I don't have a problem with "mouse distance" but I do think it's silly not to have tabs right below the bookmarks bar - I always felt it was most intuitive to have "sites i'm visiting right now" directly adjacent to "bookmarked sites" - but now the address/search/toolbar is in between. Sigh.



    I'm all for saving screen real estate, but with my 24" screen I've got plenty of room for the tab bar.
  • Reply 109 of 144
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by psychodoughboy View Post


    I don't have a problem with "mouse distance" but I do think it's silly not to have tabs right below the bookmarks bar - I always felt it was most intuitive to have "sites i'm visiting right now" directly adjacent to "bookmarked sites" - but now the address/search/toolbar is in between. Sigh.



    I'm all for saving screen real estate, but with my 24" screen I've got plenty of room for the tab bar.



    Assuming you have a Mac you can revert to the old tab style by editing Safari's PLIST. Apple seems to often do this. They add a way to go back, change or remove a feature in PLIST, but when they are pushing it and it will take some getting used to they don't add a direct option for it in the app.



    I have to wonder what else will lose the window bar. Do we really need it for most things? I don't think so. How about just the left corner with buttons and a small area for dragging the window like Safari now has?
  • Reply 110 of 144
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    I think your just afraid of new stuff. When you look at tabs in a file cabinet, they are on the top bar. It is intuitive to put them there. I think the change is great. What I don't like is changing the progress bar from appearing in the address WIndow to the more subtle spinning circle.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah View Post


    I'm not sure about 'Tabs On Top' and I don't agree with comment that there is any 'wasted space' in the Title Bar.



    Like whitespace on a page, the space in the Title Bar allows the user to identify the window quickly in an otherwise busy environment. When you start to introduce tabs, the OS will start to look cluttered very quickly.



    Or perhaps I'm just scared of new stuff...



  • Reply 111 of 144
    My biggest gripe with Safari 4 is how one cannot determine which top sites are the top sites! (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Sure, you can move them, pin them, select grid size, etc. but what's the point if you can't SET THEM FOR YOURSELF? It's neat that it suggests sites to put on there, but they should also include the ability to choose my own. I found myself visiting a site over and over just so that Safari would suggest it in my Top Sites. I got the same feeling that I get when Microsoft Office says, "It looks like you're making a list!" and doesn't let me format my own bullets.



    Also, it would be nice to have YouTube, Wikipedia and other common sites built into the search field.
  • Reply 112 of 144
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by acslater017 View Post


    My biggest gripe with Safari 4 is how one cannot determine which top sites are the top sites! (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Sure, you can move them, pin them, select grid size, etc. but what's the point if you can't SET THEM FOR YOURSELF? It's neat that it suggests sites to put on there, but they should also include the ability to choose my own. I found myself visiting a site over and over just so that Safari would suggest it in my Top Sites. I got the same feeling that I get when Microsoft Office says, "It looks like you're making a list!" and doesn't let me format my own bullets.



    Also, it would be nice to have YouTube, Wikipedia and other common sites built into the search field.



    What you can do is edit the top sites page and remove the pages you don't want. Then just keep doing that until the ones you want show up and voila. Not quite perfect, but it works.
  • Reply 113 of 144
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MacHope theWorld View Post


    What you can do is edit the top sites page and remove the pages you don't want. Then just keep doing that until the ones you want show up and voila. Not quite perfect, but it works.



    I imagine that they will offer a better option in the future. For instance, when you hit the Edit button in Top Sites to see a search field, like the one present to search your browser history in CoverFlow, to quickly find then pin to your Top Sites. Though, they may have to default to the very top left so you can arrange them yourself in the correct location in the grid space.
  • Reply 114 of 144
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TBell View Post


    I think your just afraid of new stuff. When you look at tabs in a file cabinet, they are on the top bar. It is intuitive to put them there. I think the change is great. What I don't like is changing the progress bar from appearing in the address WIndow to the more subtle spinning circle.



    Having a progress bar in a web browser is useful, as they say, as teats on a bull.



    They display nothing more than the fact that a page is still in the process of being downloaded. So, having a bar that illustrates an inaccurate degree of completion is ludicrous.



    At least the spinning circle informs us that there is an active connection. But with the speed that I am getting on most links with 4, I am finding that it too may now be redundant.
  • Reply 115 of 144
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Abster2core View Post


    Having a progress bar in a web browser is useful, as they say, as teats on a bull.



    They display nothing more than the fact that a page is still in the process of being downloaded. So, having a bar that illustrates an inaccurate degree of completion is ludicrous.



    At least the spinning circle informs us that there is an active connection. But with the speed that I am getting on most links with 4, I am finding that it too may now be redundant.



    That's a good point. I had an immediate adverse reaction to the disappearance of the loading bar, but you're right, Safari 4 is so fast, it's almost a moot point (and that's on my 4 year old PBG4 running Tiger!). I'm also reminded of sites that never seem to finish loading *ahem, gmail! cough cough* so you have this useless blue bar along the top for no apparent reason.



    Another reason they likely ditched it, as alluded to in the original article, is because it's a big shinny piece of Aqua! It's funny they didn't just drop the Aqua scroll bars too, but perhaps that'll be in the final version, or, as also suggested in the article, Apple may replace them with black scroll bars that disappear and reappear depending on what you're doing. They might not want to show their hand on what is likely to be system wide in Snow Leopard.



    One change I haven't heard mentioned anywhere is how .MOV videos appear. Drag one into Safari or go to one on the internet and once it starts playing, the playhead and controls fade out, leaving the video to play with no distractions. Move your mouse to the video, the controls fade back in. Nifty.
  • Reply 116 of 144
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wobegon View Post


    That's a good point. I had an immediate adverse reaction to the disappearance of the loading bar, but you're right, Safari 4 is so fast, it's almost a moot point (and that's on my 4 year old PBG4 running Tiger!). I'm also reminded of sites that never seem to finish loading *ahem, gmail! cough cough* so you have this useless blue bar along the top for no apparent reason.



    Another reason they likely ditched it, as alluded to in the original article, is because it's a big shinny piece of Aqua! It's funny they didn't just drop the Aqua scroll bars too, but perhaps that'll be in the final version, or, as also suggested in the article, Apple may replace them with black scroll bars that disappear and reappear depending on what you're doing. They might not want to show their hand on what is likely to be system wide in Snow Leopard.



    One change I haven't heard mentioned anywhere is how .MOV videos appear. Drag one into Safari or go to one on the internet and once it starts playing, the playhead and controls fade out, leaving the video to play with no distractions. Move your mouse to the video, the controls fade back in. Nifty.



    You may be on to something there.
  • Reply 117 of 144
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KingdomArtist View Post


    http://www.flickr.com/photos/35835860@N08/3308614371/



    Here's a mockup design of what I think could be the new look of the Finder in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Has tabbed interface like Safari 4 beta and other interface elements from iTunes 8. I think this look could be used across all Apple applications too.





    Likes it! We have all (well most) come to love tabs. Apple, let's take this universal. I have been waiting and waiting for universal tabs in applications like Finder, Pages, Numbers, Excel, Word, iTunes, Mail...well you get the picture...any app that can have multiple documents or pages to be viewed, let's throw in Tabs and boost productivity (since we all know that tabs have boosted our browsing).



    Also....Spaces...well, its ok....but virtual desktops in a tabbed environment!!! Now, that would be productive and fast and neat and tidy....and....best of all...universal to the way we do other things.
  • Reply 118 of 144
    Safari 4 looks very good. It's certainly as fast or faster than Chrome when loading webpages but slightly slower in application launching. All it needs is Adblock Plus and mouse gestures from Firefox, and we're good.



    I do find the UI for the tab-on-top to be terrible on Vista. See my screenshot below. For reason, it literally hurts my eyes staring at those tabs when the window is maximized. You can see how much better Chrome implementation is for the tabs (at least to me). We should also be able to rearrange the tabs without having to click on that tiny "rib" on the right corner. Why make that harder than it should be? Just click-hold-and-drag anywhere on each tab.



    My only other suggestion: Make the tabs management the same as Chrome.



    http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/432...hrome1beta.jpg
  • Reply 119 of 144
    solsunsolsun Posts: 763member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mrjoec123 View Post


    Control + Tab will switch tabs for you. No need for the mouse.



    If you have a lot of open tabs, using a mouse is much more efficient than Control + Tabbing through 5-10 open tabs..
  • Reply 120 of 144
    rcfarcfa Posts: 1,124member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Messiah View Post


    I'm not sure about 'Tabs On Top' and I don't agree with comment that there is any 'wasted space' in the Title Bar.



    Like whitespace on a page, the space in the Title Bar allows the user to identify the window quickly in an otherwise busy environment. When you start to introduce tabs, the OS will start to look cluttered very quickly.



    I totally agree! This has nothing to do with wasted space. If Apple wanted to fight wasted space, I could give them tons of ways of how to do that, starting with the Finder sidebar which can't be resized down to just show the icons as was possible in earlier releases of the OS, continuing with useless section headings that prevent a user from grouping items in a way it would be semantically meaningful, etc. etc.



    I'm a pretty heavy web user, often I have tens of windows with over a hundred tabs open, plus lots of other stuff going on. That happens if you do research on the web. This used to be no problem at all.



    Now, I don't even know where to grab anymore, because the entity called "Window" dissolves visually through the tab on top thing. If you have a hundred, partially overlapping tabs instead of ten solid title bars, you have a major problem.



    It's extremely distracting and annoying. Just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be done. I strongly hope this is just an option and can be turned off.



    Also, besides kissing Apple butt and justifying every change (even if it's not useful), the writer of the article doesn't even understand how Mac programming works.



    Of course Safari is going to have the blue scroll bar, as long as it's written in Cocoa with standard widgets, it will inherit whatever is currently standard, and that's the blue scroll bars! There's absolutely NOTHING surprising about this.



    Apple only needs to change a few system resources, and all blue scroll bars will turn into whatever may or may not replace them.



    The fact that iTunes has different looking scroll bars is due to the fact that it's not a "real" Mac application, but cross-platform code, that tries to run more or less unchanged on Mac and Windows, so it contains iTunes specific GUI code and controls, which resulted in all sorts of inconsisten GUI behavior in iTunes (e.g. text editing short cuts didn't work in iTunes for a long time, etc.)

    In that sense iTunes is more like the crap Adobe perpetrates on Mac users, than a typical Apple app like say Mail.app



    The fact that Safari under Windows now looks like a Windows app shows that Apple abstracted away these cross-platform items into libraries that use no longer custom code but each platform's native GUI. Thus things on Windows look like Windows, and things on the Mac look like on the Mac, and with Leopard, that includes blue scroll bars. So, no, there's absolutely nothing surprising about these scroll bars. It would be surprising and stupid if Apple would NOT use shared libraries and would write custom code for each single app, and such hypothetical stupidity would be surprising, were it to manifest itself.



    Maybe AI should start hiring writers who actually understand technology?
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