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Safari beta 3.0: A Bigger Game |
One surprise at Apple's Developers Conference was the release of Safari (3.0) beta for Windows. There was considerable debate about the "why" of such a release, when Internet Explorer, for all its faults, will remain the dominant browser on Windows, despite inroads that Firefox has made.
Some considered it lightweight. Others, like Tom Gromak of The Detroit News called it "slick, lean and fast." The same, but different. Mike Elgan, although positive on Apple's software/hardware integration wrote, "I think Safari will get slaughtered in the bare-knuckled brawl that is the Windows browser market".
There were several questions concerning security after bugs were found, despite Steve Jobs' claim that Safari's security was exemplary. Within 48 hours, version 3.0 beta had become 3.0.1.. Nonetheless, those first couple of days saw over a million downloads, so some people must be having a look. Several of my students, despite my beta warning, decided to give it a try.
I downloaded the Mac 3.0 beta and found several changes. Some are reactions to user feedback. Overall improvements indicate why the Windows browser, which I have not tried, is valuable. The Mac version had two oddities: when installation was complete, a restart was needed; and the download had an uninstall package. Usually we just dump applications in the Trash. This uninstall package takes a user back to Safari version 2.0.4.
I find Safari's tabs and RSS a boon to efficient working. The feeds give me up-to-date access to news, the tabs help me organise. Unlike Firefox, feed data can be accessed while offline.
With tabs we do not need multiple open windows. A user can also work offline if wanted. With many tabs open, as well as other browser pages, the desktop can become cluttered. Tabs may also not be well-ordered.
In the Safari beta, tabs are movable: click on one to make it active and then slide it to the left or right. A tab may also be moved off the page to create a new browser page or moved from one page to another. The animation can be slowed by holding down the shift key.
In the Window menu, there are two commands (I hope that these will become key commands): to make tabs on one page new windows; or to merge all open browser windows (one page, several tabs).
A problem I have experienced with a lot of tabs open is clicking on the red "close window" button at top left: all the open tabs are lost. Apple now has a reminder, the sort that some people find annoying, but can save a lot of annoyance: "Are you sure you want to close the tabs?"
Some of us go ahead anyway despite the warning, but there is a rescue (when online) in the History menu: "Reopen last closed window". Further recovery is possible if, instead of closing the window you quit the browser. First you will be reminded of the number of open windows and tabs. When Safari is restarted, we can "Reopen all windows from last session." Also in the History menu is a facility to "Show all History" and a new tab will open to display a page in the form of bookmarks.
The dialogue boxes on web pages are sometimes too small: much of the message being typed is lost to view. Such a text box can now be resized using the cursor. I tried this on a number of pages including Apple's forums (where I would expect it to work) and Truecorp.co.th.
While playing with the Safari beta, I tried a Control click and saw a new item in the (slightly tidier) menu: Inspect Element. This was available as I had already activated the Debug menu using Terminal:
For those without the Debug menu, there is another Terminal command to activate the Inspector:
This tool provides a detailed examination of all the coding of a page. It is intended for those who are developing web applications, for example for the iPhone.
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Searching within a page using Find in the Edit menu (command + F) now brings up a bar beneath the toolbar with a window for search parameters. Search results are highlighted in orange. Additionally a second Google search window appears on a page should the server report that it cannot find a URL.
The browser handled Thai with no problem and almost anything I threw at it worked as intended. Not everyone was so lucky and some users had minor problems with pdf file handling which were easily fixed.
It is a beta application and for that reason alone I do not recommended it at this stage, but some may want to try. The new additions, including the Inspector, suggest that when the final version is released it will be a valuable application for improved web work and development.
Note: Both the Windows and OS X versions have now been updated to 3.0.2.
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