Before Safari is Truly #1

posted on june 30, 2003, tag: software

Ever since the WWDC keynote, I've been using Safari as my default browser on my G4 at work. This wasn't initially by choice. For some reason, after installing Safari 1.0 on that machine, I can no longer get Camino to work. I tried everything—reinstalled, installed a fresh build, clean install of a nightly—but it just won't work any longer on that machine. It's weird, because Mozilla proper runs, just not Camino. Anyway, since all other OS X browsers are a bit sluggish, I decided to give Safari a shot. That was over a week ago.

Today I made Safari my default browser at home. I didn't think it would happen so soon (I love Camino), but it has. And I'm somewhat happy with it. There are some things, however, that Safari must have/change before it can truly become my only browser.

Bookmark Weirdness

For starters, the damned Bookmarks View should be loaded in its own layer above the loading/ed browser document. It's really quite ridiculous that clicking on the "Show All Bookmarks" button stops the current page from loading. While this might not be an issue for broadband users, as you may or may not know—I am still on dial-up. This is a constant problem for me. Camino's version of Safari's bookmark view does not do this.

JavaScript

Please, for the love of God—put in a JavaScript console. There is nothing worse than developing a website for a browser that can't tell you when there are JavaScript errors. Granted, if you enable the 'hidden' debug menu, you can tell Safari to log all JavaScript problems, but that's not nearly as useful as Mozilla's console. This is a must have. Speaking of JavaScript—the implementation has come a long way, but still isn't 100%. I'm sure this is being actively worked on, but it's still worth noting.

Preferences

There's a lot missing here. First all, I need to be able to set a minimum font size. The fact that I had to do this via editing the plist file is crazy. Also missing are more font specifcations (instead of just standard and fixed-width font settings, how about all of them (like Mozilla)), ability to change default search engine (I would still use Google, but), ability to not show the download manager, pop-up whitelist, ability to block/not show images, advanced encryption and certificate settings, and advanced cache control (I love that there's a quick way to empty the cache—now let me tell you how much cache/when to empty it regularly).

Interface

This is actually pretty tight. While I wasn't originally a fan of the brushed metal, it has grown on me and now I can't look at Safari de-metaled. There are a few bugs: Clicking a bookmark sets the new tab's title to the bookmark's title, rather than the page title. The little square that signifies a bookmark that will open in tabs is not at all user-friendly [see image]. How does a square mean multiple tabs? From a company like Apple, this is a surprisingly wrong icon. And, most notably, the fact that the loading status is behind the location bar still bothers the hell out of me. It is exactly like MSN Explorer 1.0, and that's not a good thing. At least give me the option to change that to a toolbar item instead. The zoom feature also needs work (it shouldn't zoom only vertically, it should fill the whole window).

OS Interaction

One of the biggest annoyances with Safari is the fact that it's dock contextual menu is absolutely useless. Camino does this best—it shows your toolbar bookmarks by default, but also allows you to set your own bookmarks to appear in this menu [see image]. That's a must have, because I use it all the time. It would also be nice if I could drag text onto the desktop and not have it become a clipping. I don't know if you know this, but clippings are absolutely useless, as you can't even select text from them. What a waste. On the same drag-and-drop note, it would be neat to be able to specify whether or not dragged on items open in a new window or in a tab (you can currently set Safari to open items from the OS in either a new window or the current one—I want tab options too).

Shortcut Keys

Safari has this annoying bug where the following happens: If you have one tab open, and try to select a line of text in a text field (or the location bar for that matter), hitting Command+Shift+Left/Right will work and select the whole line. But! If you have multiple tabs, this shortcut becomes Select Next/Previous tab. Basically, you can't select whole lines of text if you have multiple tabs open. Also annoying is that Safari has decided that the standard Command+Left/Right for Back and Forward are now Command+[/] (left and right square brackets). This is insanity and must be changed. You cannot override basic OS shortcuts on the fly. Also, view-source is Command+Option+V, rather than the standard Command+E. This is okay once you get used to it, but if it's going to be this way, make everyone else switch too (better idea—Safari switches). Update: I was wrong, and Safari does support Command+Left/Right for Back/Forth, it's just not listed. It also supports hitting the Delete button (backspace) (thanks shawnmorrison).

There are lots of great things about Safari, and it's come a long, long way in its short life-span. There's still a lot of work to be done, though. Don't get me wrong—I know 1.0 does not mean the end of development. I'm just voicing my opinions on why I will still keep Camino open at all times*, in case I need some of these features.

* Note that Camino needs a lot of work too. I'm not picking on Safari, I just want certain things in my primary browser. The reason for this is more because I want Safari to be default 100%, and hope these issues are fixed in the near future. I don't foresee Camino's development becoming any heavier any time soon, which is a disappointment.

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