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Safari 4 Public Beta is a UI disaster
Mac Daily News ^ | 02/28/2009

Posted on 02/28/2009 3:41:57 PM PST by Swordmaker

Apple’s Safari 4 Public Beta is a UI disaster
Saturday, February 28, 2009 - 03:28 PM EST

"A few days ago, Apple surprised everyone by releasing the first beta of Safari 4, the company's latest version of their WebKit browser. While I generally love Safari on the Mac (my browser of choice on that side of the fence), I've never felt as comfortable with it on the Windows side of things. In any case, this latest beta has made a very bold move in the interface department, and I'm sad to say that it's not for the better," Thom Holwerda writes for OS News.

"This is where it goes wrong for Safari 4. There, the tabs are the titlebar, leading to a rather schizophrenic UI widget: it has to act as a titlebar and a tab bar, and consequently, does neither of the two very well. Since you have to be able to drag the window via this new tabtitlebar widget, Apple had to create a special and small handle for moving tabs, while making the tabs themselves the place to drag the window. This design decision is something I expect from a 6 year old who writes his first tabbed text editor - not from a company that prides itself on UI design," Holwerda writes.

"That's not all, though. Because Apple wanted the tabs to make up the titlebar, they had to ditch this well-established concept of spatial memory, making tabs change size continiously, since even if you have one tab, it needs to be wide enough to cover the entire titlebar. This makes the resize handle and tab title move around like crazy," Holwerda writes.

"To me, it seems like Apple had heard that 'Chrome has tabs on top,' but instead of just being honest and admitting that Google got it right, they set a goal for themselves to make as many arbitrary and useless changes as possible so they could still claim they were innovating. All these changes resulted in this botched and confusing tabtitlebar abomination that not only looks horribly out of place on both Mac OS X and Windows, but is also a functional disaster," Holwerda writes. "I hope Apple's Safari engineers recover from this monumental design frak-up quickly, because if this stays the way it is, I won't be using Safari on my Mac anymore."

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: It's highly likely that we use the Safari web browser more than, or at least as much as, any living person. 16, 18, and even more hours per day. When the very first thing we did after the first day with Safari 4 Public Beta was to fire up the Terminal to nuke the poorly-thought-out tabs, restoring them back under the Bookmarks Bar where they belong, and re-enable the blue loading bar behind the URL, then there's a problem.

Hopefully, Apple is listening: Rethink and rework the current default Tabs in Safari 4 Public Beta before the final release. They suck enough to have come out of Microsoft.

Holwerda doesn't need to junk Safari 4, he just needs to do this:

$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO
$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
$ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO

So that Safari 4 Public Beta looks and works like this:


For more info on changing and restoring Safari 4 Public Beta features, see "Safari 4 Hidden Preferences," here.


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: ilovebillgates; iwanthim; iwanthimbad; microsoftfanboys
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To: wastedyears

You should try FireFox on XP-Memory Leaks-Only used for youtube like downloading

K-Meleon rocks the house on XP except for Google Chrome to use with Facebook


21 posted on 02/28/2009 5:57:33 PM PST by Force of Truth (Sarah Palin in 2012!!!!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!)
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To: wastedyears
"You should try FireFox on XP. More friendly and customizable, far more so than Internet Explorer."

Firefox 3 is my default browser on all my machines-- due to my work, I use Windows, Linux and (my personal favorite and recommendation) Mac OS X. Firefox, with the Foxmarks extension, keeps my bookmarks in synch between all three platforms. Wonderful.

But I also have IE 7 on Windows and use it occasionally. I have Safari as well on Windows and of course Mac. No doubt about it: IE 7 is the slowest and least stable of the three. And Safari is now by far the fastest. But Firefox is the only one with versions for all three platforms and a way of keeping my bookmarks in sync, so it will remain my default. It has usually been the only browser that could stand up to my insane tab usage during my research work, when I've had more than 80 tabs open at a time. I have yet to stress-test this latest version of Safari in usage of that sort. (IE7 pukes at about ten or twelve tabs-- pathetic.) But I gotta say, this latest Safari is one impressive technical achievement. Type in a URL, hit Enter, and >bam<, there it is. Astonishing. It's just scary fast.
22 posted on 02/28/2009 6:07:46 PM PST by RightOnTheLeftCoast (1st call: Abbas. 1st interview: Al Arabiya. 1st energy decision: halt drilling in UT. Arabs 1st!)
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To: RightOnTheLeftCoast
But Firefox is the only one with versions for all three platforms and a way of keeping my bookmarks in sync, so it will remain my default. It has usually been the only browser that could stand up to my insane tab usage during my research work, when I've had more than 80 tabs open at a time.

I open up a lot of tabs too and IE7 kept on locking and crashing under Vista
Moved to Firefox and it's much more stable and passes the stress test

23 posted on 02/28/2009 6:14:43 PM PST by dennisw (Archimedes--- Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth)
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To: RightOnTheLeftCoast

And I thought I was a tab abuser...not unusual for me to have 40 open at any one time...


24 posted on 02/28/2009 6:22:14 PM PST by Knitting A Conundrum (Beware, world! I haz camera!)
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To: Swordmaker
To me, it seems like Apple had heard that 'Chrome has tabs on top,' but instead of just being honest and admitting that Google got it right, they set a goal for themselves to make as many arbitrary and useless changes as possible so they could still claim they were innovating.
They hire away some programmers from MS? ;')
25 posted on 02/28/2009 6:45:45 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________ Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: Swordmaker
There, the tabs are the titlebar, leading to a rather schizophrenic UI widget: it has to act as a titlebar and a tab bar, and consequently, does neither of the two very well.

As soon as I saw those tabs, I closed Safari 4 and said "bye-bye".

26 posted on 02/28/2009 7:28:10 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: snarks_when_bored; All

The new tabs threw me at first, but I am getting used to them. They remind me of file folders.

When trying out any new software, there is usually a break-in period for this old woman to get used to the new way of doing things. I now kind of like having the window bar between my bookmarks bar and the tabs.

I don’t click on the wrong thing as often as I used to. I only wish I could modify the search engine. I do not trust google, and would like the default to be dogpile, just on principle.


27 posted on 02/28/2009 7:46:34 PM PST by jacquej
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To: Swordmaker

My only UI problem with Safari 4 is that they removed the blue progress bar from the URL and replaced it with the spinning gear. The tabs are fine, and are actually more coherent from a UI point of view than previous incarnations: given the top-down hierarchy of computer UI design, the way widgets are stacked is important.

Putting the tabs on top means that the URL bar and screen area display below are associated with that tab, borrowing the paradigm of a binder tab system. It makes more sense than putting tabs below the URL bar, even if we’ve had tabs below the URL bar for 20 years.


28 posted on 02/28/2009 8:00:55 PM PST by Terpfen (Ain't over yet, folks. Those 2004 Senate gains are up for grabs in 2 years.)
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To: RightOnTheLeftCoast

You’ve had 80 tabs open on one browser window at a time?


29 posted on 02/28/2009 8:10:10 PM PST by wastedyears (April 21st, 2009 - International Iron Maiden Day)
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To: Petronski
Do you know of a means to block ads in Safari on a windows box?

Sorry, Petronski, but I haven't investigated it.

30 posted on 02/28/2009 8:24:28 PM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: XeniaSt
I do however miss the blue thermometer.

Enter your terminal (It's in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder) and copy and paste the following two UNIX commands after the $ prompt:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO

hit return after each one... and you will revert to the standard URL address field with the blue thermometer.

If you don't like the tabs being on the top of the tool bar instead of below the Bookmark Bar, then also copy and paste this command at the $ prompt in terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO
and press return.
31 posted on 02/28/2009 8:34:33 PM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: Mr. Blonde
If you go to View-Customize Toolbar, you can drag the default buttons to it which includes the refresh/stop button.

AHHHH! You're right! It wasn't there when I looked for it after resetting the tool bar... but that was before I restarted Safari. Now it's there. Thanks!

32 posted on 02/28/2009 8:37:37 PM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: XeniaSt

Oh, you also have to restart Safari.. or at least close and re-open the windows.


33 posted on 02/28/2009 8:44:20 PM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: snarks_when_bored
As soon as I saw those tabs, I closed Safari 4 and said "bye-bye".

If you are on a Mac, open Terminal and at the $ prompt type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

And press return. You will have your tabs back where you like them.

34 posted on 02/28/2009 8:48:07 PM PST by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: Swordmaker
Thanks !

re-drive safari makes it work.


35 posted on 02/28/2009 8:49:56 PM PST by Uri’el-2012 (Psalm 119:174 I long for Your salvation, YHvH, Your law is my delight.)
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To: wastedyears
"You’ve had 80 tabs open on one browser window at a time?"

Sure, something like that. Pretty often, in fact. Of course, only a maximum of a dozen are visible at any given time, but Firefox has a drop-down button thingie at the far right of the tabs which lists all your tabs in order. Handy. It's a great browser. I find it hard to fathom it's a descendant of the old Netscape browser, which was buggier than a tropical isle and a quick uninstall every time I tried it. I was therefore reluctant to try Firefox, but it's marvelous. Far, far superior to IE.

But this new Safari is noticeably faster. Just, pow. Fast.
36 posted on 02/28/2009 9:05:20 PM PST by RightOnTheLeftCoast (1st call: Abbas. 1st interview: Al Arabiya. 1st energy decision: halt drilling in UT. Arabs 1st!)
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To: jacquej

What I noticed about the tabs on the title bar was that they were hard for me to read and didn’t appear to scale well when new tabs opened. I’ll admit, though, that I didn’t give them much of a chance. I just reacted with “phew, that stinks” and closed the browser.


37 posted on 02/28/2009 11:42:16 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: Swordmaker
If you are on a Mac,...

Nope, I'm on an old PC. I'll let Apple shake the bugs out of Safari 4 and try again in a few months.

38 posted on 02/28/2009 11:46:19 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
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To: Swordmaker

I downloaded the tweak menu and it works well. I like the new interface, but then I’m a Mac fanboy. So, I’m waiting for my next marching orders from Apple.


39 posted on 02/28/2009 11:47:52 PM PST by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)
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To: Ronin

Fox marks will syncronize book marks across all three


40 posted on 03/01/2009 12:41:36 AM PST by dennisw (Archimedes--- Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth)
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