[PosterBoy]

So, like many of you I have been playing around with Safari since Tuesday at around 11:00 am. Overall, I am impressed, it has a lot of promise, but there are some things I'd like to see implemented that I think would make it a much better experience. After you are dont reading my (somewhat lengthy) list, give me some feedback, or your own list. I am interested to know what you guys think of it so far and what might make it better.

So here is the list, in no particular order.

1: On UBB Forums (and i assume other forums as well) when you add a smiley or press the button for a URL or something along those lines, the cursor jumps from the place you were last typing to the very top of the text box. This is annoying to say the least.

2: When scrolling with the arrow keys on the keyboard, can the cursor disappear please? Small thing I know, but it helps a lot if you are scrolling a page where the text width is variable. This would be a major boon for laptop users.

3: Tabs. I have talked about something different before, but all the suggested alternatives that I have seen suggested have only served to make me think that tabs are the best solution to reducing window clutter. To improve on existing implementations of tabs, it'd be nice to re-arrange them as well as save a few tabs into one bookmark. The other alternative is a sidebar that shows little previews of the other pages (think of Preview.app for Jaguar, if you don't know what I am talking about, open a few photos all at the same time) which might work, but I can see it getting a little chunky for users of older machines.

4: Ability to identify as a different browser. Useful for some of the more proprietary sites out there. (Hotmail, Blogger Pro)

5: Get rid of the word "Google" in the search bar (and the "Go to this address" in the address bar) , it can be confusing to some people. It doesn't bother me so much, but a lot of people could tend to be confused by it.

6: When clicking on a link that is coded to open in a new window, it doesn't always go to the address automatically, I have had to select the address and hit return (or the go button) to make it load the page. Kind of annoying.

7: Can we please customize the toolbar? To be really different, let us put the buttons anywhere we please. It might be more productive to have the toolbars at the bottom, or on the left or right side. I already keep the dick to the left side, so the toobars (or even just the bookmarks bar) on the left side. Probably not, but at least some basic customization would be nice.

8: Dock integration. A lot of Apps do this quite nicely, but not many Apple apps do. All you get right now if you click and hold on the dock icon (or cntrl click) is a list of open windows. If i do the same on the Chimera icon, I get a menu that lets me select any of the bookmarks in my links bar (bookmarks bar in Safari). As another example, in iChat if you click & hold on the dock icon all you get is Show in finder and quit, not even a window listing. In MSN Messenger, you get all kind of options regarding sending messages and files to any online users. Just a thought.

9: A password manager that can access my usernames/passwords stored in my keychain for forums, webmail and etc. Seriously, this is an Apple technology we're talking about here, you'd think they'd implement it in their own app. Then again, this is only a beta, but hopefully it will be coming.

For the moment, I can't think of anything else. Your thoughts?

--PB

 

[Chealion]

Pretty much the same, and one more...
In most browsers, the bar at the bottom allowed you to see where a link went if you had the mouse over it, it would be nice if this was integrated somewhere, like the Tool Tip Text things as they are called in the Windows world if you just hold the mouse over them (Don't know the Mac name as I've never dealt with them)

 

[PosterBoy]

The status bar is there in Safari actually, it is just off by default. Under the view menu, Status Bar, or hit Command-\. I was going to add that to my list until i found it.

The status bar will also show how the new window will open. i.e., when you mouse over a link from an ehMac thread the status bar says 'Open "InsertURLHere.com" in a new window', which is kind of cool.

--PB

 

[minnes]

Posterboy
How does safari perform with cookies
and sending / receiving form data. ?
these are very important in ecommerce
and other web applications
Opera does not function properly in both these areas

 

[Chealion]

I feel like an idiot
Well thanks for the heads up PosterBoy...
I'll change mine to having the status bar being turned on for default.

 

[Jordan]

Right click or Control click for Back, Forward, Save Pic, etc.....

 

[Strongblade]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PosterBoy:
1: On UBB Forums (and i assume other forums as well) when you add a smiley or press the button for a URL or something along those lines, the cursor jumps from the place you were last typing to the very top of the text box. This is annoying to say the least.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree. Very annoying. Although it doesn't happen every time (at least, not for me).

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>2: When scrolling with the arrow keys on the keyboard, can the cursor disappear please? Small thing I know, but it helps a lot if you are scrolling a page where the text width is variable. This would be a major boon for laptop users.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Certainly a good idea, but I see this as purely cosmetic.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>3: Tabs. I have talked about something different before, but all the suggested alternatives that I have seen suggested have only served to make me think that tabs are the best solution to reducing window clutter. To improve on existing implementations of tabs, it'd be nice to re-arrange them as well as save a few tabs into one bookmark. The other alternative is a sidebar that shows little previews of the other pages (think of Preview.app for Jaguar, if you don't know what I am talking about, open a few photos all at the same time) which might work, but I can see it getting a little chunky for users of older machines.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Personally, I hate tabs in Chimera. Once you have one, there doesn't appear to be a way to remove it without losing all your pages at once. Drove me nuts. Now, if they would have tabs that you could pull out of the list a'la an App from the dock and have it go *poof*, then we'll talk.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>4: Ability to identify as a different browser. Useful for some of the more proprietary sites out there. (Hotmail, Blogger Pro)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A shareware/freeware app called Safari Enhancer already unlocks this hidden feature, however, it is still not perfect, because some sites are fooled, others are not. Hotmail still doesn't work ("Enable JavaScript" error messages, despite it being enabled and the Safari Enhancer feature set to Internet Explorer 5.2.2). but I can access tdcanadatrust.com's easyweb flawlessly now.

However, this is more likely an issue with the site in question that gives you a problem than it is for Safari. From my own testing, 9/10 problem sites don't check the browser type. It's poor coding and only time and effort on the part of the web-site makers will change this.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>5: Get rid of the word "Google" in the search bar (and the "Go to this address" in the address bar) , it can be confusing to some people. It doesn't bother me so much, but a lot of people could tend to be confused by it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't know about this one. Personally, I notice the word "Google" disappears when I click into the Google field.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>6: When clicking on a link that is coded to open in a new window, it doesn't always go to the address automatically, I have had to select the address and hit return (or the go button) to make it load the page. Kind of annoying. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hmmm... I don't think I've encountered this problem before...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>7: Can we please customize the toolbar? To be really different, let us put the buttons anywhere we please. It might be more productive to have the toolbars at the bottom, or on the left or right side. I already keep the dock to the left side, so the toobars (or even just the bookmarks bar) on the left side. Probably not, but at least some basic customization would be nice.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, there is some customization of the toolbar already (although exact placement appears to be set in stone at this stage. I've never heard of a browser that lets you put buttons down the side or something.

Clicking the bookmark button brings up your bookmarks and clicking it again brings back your page you were last at (kind of a toggle-switch function)

Tweaking the screen area of the browser window solved my dock-overlap problems. Sure, it's not "full screen" but it's darn close.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>8: Dock integration. A lot of Apps do this quite nicely, but not many Apple apps do. All you get right now if you click and hold on the dock icon (or cntrl click) is a list of open windows. If i do the same on the Chimera icon, I get a menu that lets me select any of the bookmarks in my links bar (bookmarks bar in Safari). As another example, in iChat if you click & hold on the dock icon all you get is Show in finder and quit, not even a window listing. In MSN Messenger, you get all kind of options regarding sending messages and files to any online users. Just a thought.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, personally, I would rather NOT have all my bookmarks come up in the dock, and in the version of Safari I have, the active browser windows DO show up when you control-click or click and hold. You might need to D/L the newer release of Safari (About Safari should indicate v51, not v48, I suspect, for this feature.) or it might be something Safari Enhancer did.

As well, there are several Visual Customization freeware apps out for the GUI of Safari. Lioness is pretty simple and you can even get creative with your own themes if you are even slightly clever...

Apple Apps don't do integration with the Dock? I don't think you are doing it right then...

Seriously, I get a plethora of things show in the Dock for an active Apple application. I'm not really sure what is missing.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>9: A password manager that can access my usernames/passwords stored in my keychain for forums, webmail and etc. Seriously, this is an Apple technology we're talking about here, you'd think they'd implement it in their own app. Then again, this is only a beta, but hopefully it will be coming.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This already exists in the form of a KeyChain program/utility. You can even have it as an icon in the menubar (looks like a lock) for ease of access. Maybe it isn't embedded within Safari (or any other application for that matter) but if it's in the menu bar, it's about as easy as I can imagine it getting. You may just need to turn your icon on (which is in the Keychain Utility itself as a preference I believe)

 

[PosterBoy]

Personally, I hate tabs in Chimera. Once you have one, there doesn't appear to be a way to remove it without losing all your pages at once. Drove me nuts. Now, if they would have tabs that you could pull out of the list a'la an App from the dock and have it go *poof*, then we'll talk.

In Chimera, if you have two tabs open, pressing Command-W closes the active tab. In earlier versions it closed the whole windows, but since version 0.5 it just closes the active tab.

This already exists in the form of a KeyChain program/utility. You can even have it as an icon in the menubar (looks like a lock) for ease of access. Maybe it isn't embedded within Safari (or any other application for that matter) but if it's in the menu bar, it's about as easy as I can imagine it getting. You may just need to turn your icon on (which is in the Keychain Utility itself as a preference I believe)

In Chimera, when I go to hotmail. a window pops up and says "Chimera Navigator wants to permission to decode for webpage [insert page here]" you click allow and it drops the user/pass in the boxes.

I have not yet seen this kind of functionality in Safari. I have alos not see this menu widget you were mantioning, does Safari Enhance unlock this?

Re: disappearing cursor.

When I surf to a thread in ehMac, I click the name of the thread and then when the page loads, immediatly start scrolling with the arrow keys, the cursos stays where it is and block the text it moves over. In Chimera (my only real comparision right now because it is the only other really good browser right now) the cursor disappears. Like I said, a boon for laptop users. Not so much for mouse wielding desktop users.

--PB

 

[jfpoole]

PosterBoy wrote:
I have alos not see this menu widget you were mantioning, does Safari Enhance unlock this?

It's part of Mac OS X. Open Keychain Access (found in /Applications/Utilities/) and click on "Show Status in Menu Bar" in the View menu. You should see a little lock on the right-hand side of your menu bar.

 

[PosterBoy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jfpoole:
PosterBoy wrote:
I have alos not see this menu widget you were mantioning, does Safari Enhance unlock this?

It's part of Mac OS X. Open Keychain Access (found in /Applications/Utilities/) and click on "Show Status in Menu Bar" in the View menu. You should see a little lock on the right-hand side of your menu bar.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh that one, sorry, was confusing Menu bar with Tool Bar. I did have the keychain one there a while ago, but my menu bar is kind of full as it is (ten widgets in there if you count the clock). I'd still prefer the browser just do it though.

--PB

 

[Strongblade]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PosterBoy:
Personally, I hate tabs in Chimera. Once you have one, there doesn't appear to be a way to remove it without losing all your pages at once. Drove me nuts. Now, if they would have tabs that you could pull out of the list a'la an App from the dock and have it go *poof*, then we'll talk.

In Chimera, if you have two tabs open, pressing Command-W closes the active tab. In earlier versions it closed the whole windows, but since version 0.5 it just closes the active tab.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, but does it do that *POOF* effect? Hmmm? I LIVE for that effect!

Okay. well, I'll have to try it (if I ever fire up Chimera again...)

 

[Strongblade]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PosterBoy:
[QBIn Chimera, when I go to hotmail. a window pops up and says "Chimera Navigator wants to permission to decode for webpage [insert page here]" you click allow and it drops the user/pass in the boxes.

I have not yet seen this kind of functionality in Safari. I have alos not see this menu widget you were mantioning, does Safari Enhance unlock this?[/QB]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, since Hotmail refuses Safari admittance based on erroneous Javascript error messages, I can't yet say if it has this feature.

The KeyChain Utility is in the Applications -> Utilities folder and you can use that to add the menubar icon. I think. I'm slow today. Let me check...

Yup. Open the KeyChain utility and under it's View menu , the last item is Show Status in Menubar.

 

[Strongblade]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PosterBoy:
Re: disappearing cursor.

When I surf to a thread in ehMac, I click the name of the thread and then when the page loads, immediatly start scrolling with the arrow keys, the cursos stays where it is and block the text it moves over. In Chimera (my only real comparision right now because it is the only other really good browser right now) the cursor disappears. Like I said, a boon for laptop users. Not so much for mouse wielding desktop users.

--PB<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Funny. I only noticed that in IE and Chimera after you mentioedn it (See! I told you I was slow these days...)

Indeed it is a nice feature, but it's probably something they just hadn't got to yet (Or, like me, completely missed to due to being less than observant... Although it is hard to observe something that you can't see...

).

 

[CubaMark]

I've not been able to weigh in on this topic until now, as I've just upgraded my friend's iMac to Jag, and downloaded Safari. WOW.

That's one sweet browser.

Since I told Hotmail to go straight to Redmond (my Community Net provides webmail now, and I have a @canada.com webmail too), I can't comment on the issues with Safari there.

I can say that on a 56k (actually 46,000) dialup connection with an 800mhz LCD iMac, Safari is surprisingly fast, and this was "out of the box" with no pages cached as yet.

We were a little thrown by the bookmark window, as it includes icons for "Directory" and "Rendezvous" and "Address Book", and the fact that there are two places to put bookmarks (menu and bar). My friend, a senior and still-novice computer owner, kept putting bookmarks on the "bookmark bar" instead of "bookmark menu". This could probably be cleaned up a bit to make things more obvious, even by throwing in some separation space in the left-pane between the bookmark-related icons and the other misc icons.

Snapback is wicked cool.

Download window doesn't go away by itself after downloading a file, and gets in the way. Didn't see a preference to tell it to buzz off.

Status bar should be on by default.

Safari is the default browser now, and MSIE remains on the HD only for the odd incompatibility issue (waiting for the day when we can turf it with confidence).

I Like!


M

 

[elmer]

I like that it doesn't ask you where to put your downloads but just puts them in the default place and opens them. But there should be a "Download to..." option in the Control-click menu for a link or image, too. Or even "Open with...".

 

[Sandy McMurray]

On the subject of TABS:

I suspect Apple will add Tabs as an option in a post-beta Safari release. Right now, there are more important things to fix.

The implementation of Bookmarks suggests to me that the Safari team 'gets' the value of Tabs. Safari is the first browser I've seen that doesn't open a new window for Bookmarks.

However, Apple's approach has to take into account a new user's response to Tabs. New users tend to ignore keyboard shortcuts at first, so having Command-W close the curent tab is NOT enough -- Safari may need an intuitive "close" widget that appears on each tab.

Another approach that might work: when tabs are in use and the user clicks the red "close window" button, ask whether the user wants to close the TAB or the WINDOW.

However they solve this problem, I suspect that Tabs will come to Safari, but they will be turned OFF by default. We'll see.

McMe

 

[Sandy McMurray]

About the Google searchbar:

It seems natural to me to turn the Google search into a multiple search -- integration with Sherlock 3, in fact, would be a logical direction to take this little feature.

By default, it might search Google, but clicking on the magnifying glass in future could open a drop-down menu of search services.

For now, I like the fact that your Google search history appears when you click there. (I just have to watch what I search for in Google!)

McMe

 

[PosterBoy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Strongblade:

Yup. Open the KeyChain utility and under it's View menu , the last item is Show Status in Menubar.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I actually had this menu widget enabled for a while, but I had to get rid of it because my mune bar is just too full, and I will probably be adding one more thing to it in the near-ish future. I really need to slim it down.

--PB

 

[Sandy McMurray]

I'll stop posting soon, I promise!

One more change I'd like to see: when filling out forms in Safari, it currently skips over pull-down lists when the user jumps from field to field using the TAB key.

For example, when filling out a form on a Web page in Chimera, I can type my address, then TAB to the pull-down menu for Province and type 'O' to get 'Ontario' -- two keystrokes.

Safari skips pull-down menus when tabbing, so I have to use my keyboard AND mouse when filling in forms.

 

[PosterBoy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sandy McMurray:

However, Apple's approach has to take into account a new user's response to Tabs. New users tend to ignore keyboard shortcuts at first, so having Command-W close the curent tab is NOT enough -- Safari may need an intuitive "close" widget that appears on each tab.

Another approach that might work: when tabs are in use and the user clicks the red "close window" button, ask whether the user wants to close the TAB or the WINDOW.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I agree, a lot of people don;t like using the keyboard. Perhaps a better way than having a dialogue box come up though would be to have a small closebox on each tab (similar to Limwire). Personally, I hate dialogue boxes, they slow you down. You have to stop and react to them. Surely, there is a more elegant solution than a Dialogue box.

As to whether they are on or off, probably there wont be a distinction (if their implementation is anything like Mozilla, Chimera or Netscape. If you are using them, you see them. If you dont want to use them you never see them.

Stongblade: It doesn't make the "poof" effect in Chimera when you close a tab, but really, it would seem a little busy. maybe if you could drag a tab off of a window it would work. I understand though, the 'poof' is cool.

--PB