How to perfect Safari

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I know most of these options can be found at Pimpmysafari.com (although, some you have to pay for) but they should come standard with Safari. I really don't understand why they don't.



-option to have warning pop up to ask if you're sure you want to exit Safari if you have tabs open

-Moveable tabs

-Full screen browsing

-History search

-Some sort of tab saver (so if you need to close Safari or restart your coputer, yo don't lose your tabs

-Bigger bookmarks bar

-Change Google search bar to search other sites than google (much like Firefox's ability to search dictionary.com Wikipedia)



I'm sure there are others but I can't think of them right now. If these were added, I think Safari would be perfect!
«13

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 56
    I don't use Safari for two reasons. 1 - you can't do command-enter, shift-enter or command-shift-enter to complete URLs with .com, .net or .org. I do this all the time on Firefox.



    2 - All my PCs use Firefox, and I use shared bookmarks. If you could get safari's bookmark syncing to work with Firefox (or at the very least not force you to use .mac), then I'd be a very happy man.



    Rich text editing would be handy too, as MSIE and FF both have this, but it's not a show stopping feature for me.



    Apart from these issues, it's a decent enough browser. If they implemented them, then I'd switch to it because it feels quite fast.
  • Reply 2 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Sekio

    I know most of these options can be found at Pimpmysafari.com (although, some you have to pay for) but they should come standard with Safari. I really don't understand why they don't.



    -option to have warning pop up to ask if you're sure you want to exit Safari if you have tabs open

    -Moveable tabs

    -Full screen browsing

    -History search

    -Some sort of tab saver (so if you need to close Safari or restart your coputer, yo don't lose your tabs

    -Bigger bookmarks bar

    -Change Google search bar to search other sites than google (much like Firefox's ability to search dictionary.com Wikipedia)



    I'm sure there are others but I can't think of them right now. If these were added, I think Safari would be perfect!




    You can do history search, though it's hidden? click on the bookmarks icon, then on history. The field is at the bottom. The others I agree with 100%.
  • Reply 3 of 56
    Argghhhh... my pet Safari hate: the blasted address autocomplete, which cannot be switched off. I hate quickly typing "appleinsider.com" only to find that it's taken me to "http://forums.appleinsider.com/newreply.php?s=&action=newreply&threadid=59355".
  • Reply 4 of 56
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    YES! That for sure is annoying, the unintelligence of autocomplete.



    In addition, the History can not be configured at all, which is stupid. The Download Manager doesn't have a retry button or pause button. Windows aren't saveable. Full screen is key, and a key combo for it would be nice. The User Agent thing should be in the app, not the debug menu, as well as open page with...and a few other things in that menu. The Search window should be configureable a la FireFox. Link prefetching might be a cool feature too.



    Safari 2 was quite the disappointment. All these things are easy. Safari has fallen behind FireFox again. Come on Apple get back in the game! FF 1.5 is giving Safari a run for its money.
  • Reply 5 of 56
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    The Download Manager doesn't have a retry button or pause button.



    Sure it does. It has since... 1.2? 1.1?
  • Reply 6 of 56
    sekiosekio Posts: 150member
    That's the worst part. Most, if not all of these things are quite easy and have already been done by other browsers/with the plugins.



    Also, I would like to see something done with the download manager. Instead of it being it's own window, maybe it could be a bar at the bottom of the browser wondow that shows what is being downloaded and could be pulled up to show other/past downloads.
  • Reply 7 of 56
    The ability to turn off favicons would be nice...
  • Reply 8 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dojobi

    I don't use Safari for two reasons. 1 - you can't do command-enter, shift-enter or command-shift-enter to complete URLs with .com, .net or .org. I do this all the time on Firefox.



    Funny, Camino does this automatically with any url that doesnt have a suffix if you hit enter!
  • Reply 9 of 56
    sc_marktsc_markt Posts: 1,401member
    Since were talking Safari, is there a way to stop other users from being able to download stuff? My son tried to download and install windows media player and luckily it asked for an admin name and password which he didn't know.



    I'd also like to be able to password protect the "Open safe files after downloading button" for other users.
  • Reply 10 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dojobi

    I don't use Safari for two reasons. 1 - you can't do command-enter, shift-enter or command-shift-enter to complete URLs with .com, .net or .org. I do this all the time on Firefox.







    command-enter, shift-enter is 4 keys. dot-c-o-m is also...FOUR keys. if you can type even marginally fast, it doesn't make a difference
  • Reply 11 of 56
    sekiosekio Posts: 150member
    Zing!
  • Reply 12 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Sekio

    I know most of these options can be found at Pimpmysafari.com (although, some you have to pay for) but they should come standard with Safari. I really don't understand why they don't.



    -option to have warning pop up to ask if you're sure you want to exit Safari if you have tabs open

    -Moveable tabs

    -Full screen browsing

    -History search

    -Some sort of tab saver (so if you need to close Safari or restart your coputer, yo don't lose your tabs

    -Bigger bookmarks bar

    -Change Google search bar to search other sites than google (much like Firefox's ability to search dictionary.com Wikipedia)



    I'm sure there are others but I can't think of them right now. If these were added, I think Safari would be perfect!




    I forgot to actuall answer the question. google for Taboo, it will do exactly what you want for the tabs when you close windows
  • Reply 13 of 56
    Again, I have tried them all. I really like Opera 9.0 but I don't use it because of the stupid wand thing.



    Every other browser does something neat that Safari should do, but Safari is still my favorite.



    I am not sure why, but I always have problems with FireFox working with weather.com??? There are big question marks where quicktime plugins should be running. I am to Neanderthal to learn how to make sure my plugins are installed.



    If Opera would use the Key Chain, I would use it all the time.
  • Reply 14 of 56
    sekiosekio Posts: 150member
    Does anyone know why Apple doesn't put these simple little things into Safari? it would make everybody's surfing experiences much better and it wouldn't take much work on their part.
  • Reply 15 of 56
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Okay, here's one: constantly auto-save all windows and tabs invisibly. When Safari is quit (whether by cmd-Q, quit menu item, computer reboot or whatever) or crashes (happens all the time to me), Safari is then able to open everything where it was on next launch.



    A nagging yes/no dialog that pops up upon wanting to quit Safari is the last thing they should put in. It's bad interface design and it bugs the heck out of me every single time I reboot, since some stupid apps pop exactly these kinds of dialogs instead quietly going away. If I want the app back up, I'll start it again, kthx. Or I'll set it to auto-launch on startup.
  • Reply 16 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gon

    Okay, here's one: constantly auto-save all windows and tabs invisibly. When Safari is quit (whether by cmd-Q, quit menu item, computer reboot or whatever) or crashes (happens all the time to me), Safari is then able to open everything where it was on next launch.



    This is good, and Opera had this...since, well, since forever (almost). Firefox has this too, by adding the SessionSaver extension.



    But I don't like it. It re-renders every page every single time you start your browser, plus it renders your browser useless until it re-renders all those pages.



    A simple (nagging) dialog is much better than this. IMHO, of course. To each his own.
  • Reply 17 of 56
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Just FYI, most of the features people are requesting are available in OmniWeb.
  • Reply 18 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Sekio

    Does anyone know why Apple doesn't put these simple little things into Safari? it would make everybody's surfing experiences much better and it wouldn't take much work on their part.



    *raises hand*



    The reason is because these features are not requested by the majority. These are quite honestly advanced features that would bloat an otherwise simple UI. Safari is *supposed* to be simple...



    If you want such advanced features, use Firefox or OmniWeb.



    Apple isn't trying to complicate things for the un-tech savvy.



    I know there's going to be an outcry when some of you read this post (there always is). Some of you will tell me "But you're wrong!"...but I'm not...for many reasons, I assure you.
  • Reply 19 of 56
    gene cleangene clean Posts: 3,481member
    I think you have a point. But they could offer a solution through some type of extension(s) a la Firefox. That way the majority would still be using that simple UI, whereas others would have the choice to add those little things to their browser.
  • Reply 20 of 56
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Apple isn't trying to complicate things for the un-tech savvy.





    Apart from the address autocomplete of course
Sign In or Register to comment.