Safari 4 beta released

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/24/safari-4-finally-a-reason-to-come-back/

by amitt • 17 years ago

99 88 17 years ago

CalmQuiet• 17 years ago

Who can complain about an (alleged) increase of javascript speed of 4x.

Unfortunately, apparently still no support for plug-ins?

And the vaguely suggested help for developers... marginal: "built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility"

sc2• 17 years ago

The built-in web developer is definitely on-par with Firebug and Web Developer. In some ways it's even nicer.

As far as plug-ins go, Safari's had them for years. Apple just doesn't support them or advertise them.

jws• 17 years ago

Funny, the flash blocking plugin I use still works.

http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash/tree/master

dchest6• 17 years ago

It works because it uses Safari's real plugin architecture, not input manager hacks.

unalone12• 17 years ago

Unfortunately, apparently still no support for plug-ins?

Safari has supported plugins since before I got my first Mac. I use Inquisitor for searching right now. Google SafariStand if you don't believe me.

Mac users who want to block ads can get GlimmerBlocker, which blocks ads on every browser at once. If you want to customize Safari further, GreaseKit allows you to inject your own code into sites (it's Greasemonkey).

Apple won't do anything further. In their mind a program should be designed with the right features in mind up front, and then everything else can be hacked for the people who really, really care. Most of the people who use Safari like that a lot. I do.

dchest6• 17 years ago

These are input manager hacks, they are not real plugins.

silvestrov• 17 years ago

GlimmerBlocker supports injecting javascript and css, and it supports transforming the html (search-and-replace using javascript) before the html hits the browser.

marbletiles2• 17 years ago

I've been using a lot of this in a developer preview for a while now, and the improvements over 3 are many, especially in the massively improved web inspector. The majority of the new things today are in the UI -- the tabs at the top, the top sites home screen -- and the majority of that is just Chrome done better.

I'm surprised at how quickly they've aped Google, actually. Perhaps just to spite them for taking so goddamn long over Mac Chrome? To be honest, I'd rather they'd aped the process-per-tab thing more.

Still missing: undo last tab close. Don't like the fixed "Add bookmark" button much, either.

sc2• 17 years ago

The Web Inspector is actually part of WebKit itself (the rendering engine). You can get any improvements that happen there and between the chrome (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) by downloading WebKit nightlies: http://nightly.webkit.org

This update is for Safari itself, which is the UI/chrome.

icefox• 17 years ago

As it is part of WebKit it on Linux you can play with the inspector using Arora

http://code.google.com/p/arora/wiki/Screenshots

sant0sk1• 17 years ago

I've been using the Web Inspector in WebKit nightlies for awhile now and it still doesn't measure up to FireBug.

Even the simplest thing like changing CSS properties on the fly just don't work right in Web Inspector yet. I can't wait for it to catch up though so I can quit running 2 browsers simultaneously all the time!

gruseom• 17 years ago

I still like Firebug better too. Unfortunately its debugger has massive stability issues (at least on larger files). I can kind of get it to work if I talk really nicely to it. Not clear to me what the source of the problem really is, but the last few releases have been mostly bug fixes, and they seem to introduce as many bugs as they fix. That's a bad sign.

bretthoerner• 17 years ago

I don't see why they'd "spite" Google for taking long on Chrome. They don't want Chrome on the Mac... they get to charge Google for the searches that come through Safari.

peregrine3• 17 years ago

Chrome is the best browser I've used yet. Firefox is nice but I'm a big fan of minimalism and chrome is minimal in most aspects.(Except Memory but I will sacrifice memory for sanity)

Dobbs• 17 years ago

I'll take a Vimperator over Chrome for minimalism at least as far as interface. It has all the Firefox issues with memory.

bradgessler• 17 years ago

Did they fix the bugs from 3.2.1 where Safari would forget your Facebook login and screw up logging into Gmail?

tbeseda• 17 years ago

Yes. It was fixed nearly right away in Webkit nightlies.

amichail2• 17 years ago

I can't log into gmail with Version 4 Public Beta (5528.16) on mac.

amichail2• 17 years ago

You need to disable offline mode for it to work.

cpr• 17 years ago

That was fixed (without comment) in the recent Security Update for Leopard.

mcav• 17 years ago

I'll be interested to see how this compares to the Webkit nightly builds...

GHFigs2• 17 years ago

It is recent enough to support CSS explicit animations, one of the newest visible features added in WebKit. For example: http://webkit.org/blog-files/leaves/index.html

hellweaver666• 17 years ago

I'm really not liking the Chrome style 'tabs on top' my eyes are used to looking in one place for a tab and now it's somewhere else! I use Firefox as my primary browser and only use Safari as a dedicated browser for Google Reader - the difference in tabs is going to confuse me for quite some time I imagine.

peregrine3• 17 years ago

But when you get used to it you won't be able to go back.

gry• 17 years ago

I have a hunch this is a prelude to seeing it as a pervasive UI element in iLife and possibly as core UI element within Snow Leopard.

It seems when different Apple teams introduce something, it trickles into other applications. Smart Playlists/Mailboxes, and brushed metal theme come to mind. It'd be fun to do a study to see how one application influenced others and possibly the OS.

quantumhobbit• 17 years ago

It does take some getting used to, but I love the extra vertical space it leaves for showing content. It's only a few pixels but I'll take what I can get on the 13" MacBook.

waratuman• 17 years ago

I don't like the tabs on top either, I can't use them when browsing in full screen with mega zoomer.

joshuaxls• 17 years ago

I agree. I'm really irritated as well that when you click the any of the tabs while Safari is in the background, it will bring Safari to the foreground AND make that tab active. I primarily use the "title bar" area of my windows to switch around. This is a huge annoyance.

callahad2• 17 years ago

Goodbye, native controls and window decorations. I'll miss you.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2mk2uo.png

unalone12• 17 years ago

Surprising that they skimped on XP. On Vista it looks excellent.

jeroen• 17 years ago

Better, but not excellent.

The min-max-close buttons look good, but the mouseover effect on the menubar is horrible, the input fields for url and search are non-standard. And why can I drag a tab when there is only one?

Zev• 17 years ago

It might not be native, but it works really well.

To be fair, Firefox has never used native controls. Not on Mac at least. So if thats your best comparison, there's not much to miss (from some peoples POV at least.)

marbletiles2• 17 years ago

How does it look in the Classic view? I'm curious how they fit all the widgetry into the smaller frame

callahad2• 17 years ago

It doesn't look good. But not for the reason you're expecting.

http://i41.tinypic.com/33mpwus.png

Notice anything missing?

timcederman• 17 years ago

Great pic, shame you didn't include an Office product with the ribbon showing.

evaneykelen• 17 years ago

Still baffled by lack of proper auto completion for URLs based on the (HTML) title, e.g. typing 'hacker' into the address bar still does not offer me e.g. news.ycombinator.com even when this page has been loaded before, cached and stored in the history (btw: the new history search _does_ find URLs based on the title and other page content).

unalone12• 17 years ago

Is that a huge complaint? I've always liked that I can just use the URL and have it autocomplete. (On Firefox, if I type "n" and hit enter it doesn't take me directly to news.ycombinator.com, and that always irritates me.)

pmsaue0• 17 years ago

mine does ;) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7423

unalone12• 17 years ago

A few thoughts:

1) The Top Sites needs a way for me to manually add a site I want to add. It looks beautiful but right now I've got one site in my top list that I feel shouldn't be there, because I didn't like my #6 and cycled through far too long, looking in vain for the one I wanted. (EDIT: Fixed!)

2) The feel is incredibly Mac-like. This is what I've wanted Safari to be like all along.

3) People that run the browser in "anti-chrome" mode (remove the bookmarks bar and the URL bar and run all searches with CMD-L) will find this to be the best solution they've ever used. Now there's a single line, since even the tab bar is gone. Brilliant solution on Apple's part to the problem of eliminating chrome. Furthermore, there used to be a bug where the search bar wouldn't vanish if you used the Google search bar during CMD-L. That bug is gone, meaning there's no need for a workaround (though I still think having a shortcut for a javascript-prompt Google search is the best solution).

4) It's a little harder to drag the tab bars around: I like that they let you detach more simply, but rearranging will take a week's getting used to.

5) Using Zoom with multitouch is incredible - I love how that feels - but not quite perfect. It's too responsive.

6) Multiple tabs look great - I like the expanded view and the faded out text that appears.

7) Trying to open an old tab I keep trying to double click, which minimizes the window. Not quite optimal.

8) No spinning loader for the page I'm currently on? Frustrating.

dchest6• 17 years ago

On 1) You can (at least on Mac) — drag a site icon from address to Desktop, then open a new tab with Top Sites and drag the alias into it. (But be careful: I just did this, and can't remove the site from Top Sites :)

unalone12• 17 years ago

Excellent! Worked perfectly. (If you go to Edit, you should be able to delete it. I tried and it worked.)

jsdalton3• 17 years ago

The one thing I always, always miss when I attempt to switch from Firefox to Safari is how Firefox automatically executes an I'm Feeling Lucky search from the address bar. It's an even better feature now that it searches my history/bookmarks first, allowing me to save the I'm Feeling Lucky step if I find a match first.

Safari mimics the live search of bookmarks/history in Safari 4, but what happens if I don't find a match there? I'm left with the search term in my address bar, and now I have to jump over to the Google Search field, retype my query, execute it, and then mouse down to the search results to get where I'm going.

Sigh.

Of course, if Firefox didn't regularly take up 15-20% of my CPU resources after having it open for 10 minutes I wouldn't be trying out new browsers every 3 months!

unalone12• 17 years ago

I liked the unified approach that Chrome used a lot. Safari's wonky solution (go to "[].com") is one of the few things I dislike about the browser. However, I don't often find a need to search for a query I type into my browser, since I most often use direct URLs for that.

jsdalton3• 17 years ago

Once you get used to using the address bar as a search field, it's addicting. Right now, for example, I'm working on a project in Django, so I'll type things like "django queryset" in my browser bar and it will pop me straight through to the documentation for it.

Point being, I use it for more than just hitting the home page of a website.

nirmal• 17 years ago

I accomplished this effect with Keywurl (http://purefiction.net/keywurl/) but apparently it doesn't work with the beta.

ja2ke• 17 years ago

Yeah Firefox's address bar is the best. One feature which few people seem to know is the "keyword" field in bookmarks -- you can type a phrase in there (eg "bugs" for your local bug database) and Firefox will read that in the address bar properly. It makes browsing to key sites amazingly quick if you're a keyboard-focused user.

superchink3• 17 years ago

This is the main thing keeping me using Firefox. Now that I'm used to this, every time I try going back to Safari I feel crippled.

anatoli• 17 years ago

Cool stuff, but I'm having a problem with the new Web Inspector... it seems to show the ungzipped file size for all files, rather than the gzipped one (which would be more useful).

MikeCapone• 17 years ago

I like it so far. The only thing that bugs me a little is that when you open a lot of tabs, it's a bit more cramped than before (and I'm always afraid of hitting the "close tab" button), and that to re-arrange tabs, you have to drag them by the corner (otherwise you move the whole window).

kyro• 17 years ago

So, what's webymnd's take on this?

amirnathoo• 17 years ago

There's a lot here that is the same as WebMynd's history functionality as we launched it last year. But now we're really focused on aggregating search sources on Google, and the history component and cover-flow visualization are only small elements of it.

akirk2• 17 years ago

Best point for me: more screen space because what used to be the tab bar has been reduced to 0px.

Worst point for me: Progress indicator is gone/almost invisible. I now have to check twice whether or not I properly clicked a link.

akirk2• 17 years ago

You can bring the process indicator back, as well as some other things, as I just found out at this blog post: http://swedishcampground.com/safari-4-hidden-preferences

karim• 17 years ago

According to http://www.apple.com/safari/features.html,

"Enhanced Keyboard Navigation

Thanks to the enhanced keyboard navigation options in Safari, you can navigate the web without a mouse. Press the Tab key, and Safari jumps to the next password field, pop-up menu, or input field."

This is innovation !

sarvesh• 17 years ago

It is pretty fast with respect javascript. Here are some results from my tests comparing it with Opera.

OS X: It way fater on every test except for 3D Mesh Transformation. (Safari:http://dromaeo.com/?id=60726, Opera:http://dromaeo.com/?id=60727). Safari was slower to respond compared to Opera during the tests and did consume more memory.

Windows XP: It way fater on every test except for 3D Mesh Transformation. (Safari:http://dromaeo.com/?id=60707, Opera:http://dromaeo.com/?id=60712). Safari wasn't responsive at all compared to Opera during the tests and did consume more memory.

Looks like my favourite browser, Opera, needs new javascript engine.

melvinram2• 17 years ago

My google hosted email won't load with this.

melvinram2• 17 years ago

Turns out it was because of Google Gears. I uninstalled Gears and it worked fine. If you have same issue, you can uninstall gears by running this command from your terminal (includ quotes):

'/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Gears.plugin/Contents/Resources/uninstall.command'

aboodman• 17 years ago

Sorry about that. We are working on a build to fix this now.

miguelpais2• 17 years ago

I don't know if this is just in the version 4, but it seems to me a major bug the fact that I'm not able to cycle through tabs when I'm on a page with an input text box selected, like in Google.com.

Does anyone confirm this or is it just ignorance from my part?

jgranby• 17 years ago

It still works for me. Are you just referring to keyboard shortcuts, or can you not cycle through using the menu bar either? If you're trying to use cmd-shift-arrows, it won't work when a text field has focus, because they're the keyboard shortcuts used for selecting from the cursor until/from the end/beginning of the line. This changed a while back. Best to use cmd-shift-[ and cmd-shift-] instead, or the crazy new ones described in the menu. I'm not sure what the situation is for Windows.

miguelpais2• 17 years ago

Yes, I am on the Mac (sorry for the lack of info of the last comment), and I was trying cmd+shift+arrows. And yes, control+tab works, although it stills not jumps directly to the next tab if, as an example, you're on google.com with the input box selected it will jump first to the adress bar...

don't know why... but thanks. ;)

GHFigs2• 17 years ago

Interesting that this release lacks the one notable feature of the Safari 4 Developer Preview. I wonder whether it's been cut entirely or simply cut from the beta release.

superchink3• 17 years ago

Which feature are you referring to?

unalone12• 17 years ago

The ability to save web sites as standalone applications.

arthurk• 17 years ago

Hidden settings: http://pastie.textmate.org/398861 (including blue progress bar and tab bar placing)

chiffonade• 17 years ago

Yes, this is good.

On first glance it seems like they also fixed some of the blocking i/o issues that caused beachballs in Safari 3 and earlier - I wouldn't be surprised if they vastly improved this, since the whole history indexing thing probably is fairly intensive with disk.

donniefitz2• 17 years ago

I do love how minimal it is. It seems to be running really well on Windows 7 too.

alexyim• 17 years ago

I like the location bar completion. It's a mixture of Safari/old Firefox's completion (+ faster speed) and the new Spotlight/FF3 style autocomplete. I think this is one example of good attention to detail on Apple's part.

releasedatez• 17 years ago

For frontend web coder, here's yet another browser to test on.

bkbleikamp• 17 years ago

It's WebKit...it passes Acid 3...what more do you want? If you write good markup and CSS, you should have no problem.

Safari 4 beta released

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