Category: software

Surfin’ Safari – reviewed from a web designer’s perspective…

From Macintouch:

You can command click on the title bar to go “up” directories in a url.

This is very nice addition allowing the Safari window to function much like a window in the finder.

O’Reilly has published a nice overview of Safari: Navigating the Safari Browser, It’s lean, it’s mean, but is it for you?

SafariNoBrush removes the brushed metal appearance on Apple’s Safari web browser. It also allows you to revert back to the brushed metal appearance at any time if you prefer.

Safari Update 1.0 Beta (v51) 1-10-03
This Safari Update is recommended for all Safari users.

eWeek’s Jason Brooks has written a Safari Review:

Maybe the browser wars aren’t over, after all.

Last June, Netscape’s expedition into the land of open source bore fruit in the form of Mozilla 1.0, a Web browser that arguably unseated Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer—certainly not in popularity, but in overall excellence. At this week’s MacWorld Expo, however, Apple Computer Inc. launched a Web browsing salvo of its own, called Safari, along with a reminder that there’s still plenty of room for innovation in this space.

As I started to use Safari for the first seconds I checked for tabs and pop-up blocking. One out of two covered and while I thought tabs were critical, I am starting to feel otherwise. I realize it is only one day later but I feel good out of tabs again having used only Safari today. Yesterday I did fire Chimera up a few times…

Anyway with the addition of the FullScreenSafari haxie and a nice script my buddy had sent me in the pre-Chimera days I can now quickly launch several windows – maintaining each in the top left of my screen space. I thought I would share this script with whoever might want it so just click here to get it. All you need to do it change (or keep if you like) the sites maintained within. It will open as many sites as you like and you can Apple+` through them to your hearts content. I noticed as well that Safari is kind enough to only cycle through full named windows which means that you won’t have to look at the CheapTickets or Orbitz pop-under which may occasionally sneak through from the NYT.

Could be an interesting path. I wonder what having that preview pane open would do to performance… Certainly seems to impact complex PDF performance in Preview.

Everybody talks about Tabbed Browsing (the Mozilla way), so here is my proposal for a Safari tabbed browsing experience. Looks more cocoa than tabs. [JY’s weblog]

An interesting alternative… [Paolo Valdemarin: Paolo’s Weblog]

This is a great overview on how we got to the Public Beta for Safari along with some good technical background info. Thanks, John!

Apple’s Safari marketing is heavily focused on performance, and rightly so. Even in beta, Safari is kicking ass. Application launch times, page loading, JavaScript execution — if you can put a stopwatch to it, Apple has Safari at the front of the race.

[Daring Fireball]

Methinks the keynote announcements of iLife and Safari were not unconnected, or at least on the level of subtext. We (meaning the Mac pundit brigade) have talked about an Apple-branded browser for years, and now that it’s here we are (naturally) distracted by compatibility, standards adherence, bugs, GUI, etc. But let’s step back for a second and look at the larger picture…

[MacSlash]

If you’ve enabled the status bar option under the View menu in Safari, you can see the link target as you mouse over a link.

If a link will open in a new window, the status bar says:
Open “http://www.domain.com/” in a new window.

Also, if you’re holding down the Option key it changes to:
Download “http://www.domain.com/”

The Command key forces the link to open in a new window, and so the status bar displays:
Open “http://www.domain.com/” in a new window.

Hold down the Control key and the status display again changes to:
Display a menu for “http://www.domain.com/”

[Source: Mac OS X Hints]

During his ” Power of X ” presentation at Macworld Expo today, Apple senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller announced that Safari , Apple’s new Web browser, has broken the company’s single day download record. Schiller said that since its introduction on Tuesday, Safari has been downloaded 300,000 times. The previous download record for Apple was held by iTunes with 100,000 downloads. He also noted that the public beta of X11 for OS X has been downloaded 25,000 times since its release yesterday.

Source: MacMinute

Safari has been really treating me well since I downloaded it, but one thing that has been driving me a bit nutty is how the windows open. My windows have been opening as if after the first one opens – cascading down. I guess I like things neat on screen and prefer the window locked in the upper left corner. I also prefer each new window to also take that placement and have been moving things there as needed. That is, until now.

FullScreenSafari.ape 1.0, which was just released prevents the cascading effect and keeps each window exactly where I like it. You need to use Application Enhancer from Unsanity which is freeware in order to activate this haxie. Enjoy!

Interesting perspective with a few interesting mockup screen shots. Definitely worth the browse.

Why the distinction between regular web browsing and web browsing using specialized interfaces for structured data? Using Watson to find movie times is great, but it means having a separate application running…and for ticket purchases, it dumps me back into a web browser anyway. Apple’s Sherlock app offers functionality similar to Watson. Why not merge Sherlock and Safari into one application? Wither Sherfari?

[kottke.org]

Don Melton, the Apple Team leader for Safari reached out to the Open Source KDE Team in this email exchange. It’s a very positive start for the relationship now that the Apple work is public. It’s great to see Apple and the KDE leadership openly embracing and respecting the work each has done.

Safari contains a number of new-and-existing keyboard commands. To see the entire list, click the Safari icon and choose “Show Package Contents.” In the new window that opens, navigate to Contents -> Resources -> English.lproj -> Shortcuts.html.

Thanks Sandro!