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Safari Beta Leaked, With Tabs
ollie_ob writes "Seems a bit too good to be true: Apple listening to its community and implementing the features most requested? Apparently a build (v62) of Safari has been leaked into the wild, and has tabs -- though not fully implemented yet -- and primitive support for autocomplete in forms. The Think Secret rumor site has the scoop." It is not merely a rumor, I've confirmed it. It works nicely, too, in a brief test. Then I, uh, deleted the copy I looked at.
Tabs ho!
.62) and choose "Tabbed Browsing" in the debug menu.
;)
You need to activate the debug menu. While Safari is not running, write this in the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
Start Safari (Beta
Command-T will open a new tab as will right clicking on a link and choose "Open link in new tab". Command-W will close the tab you are currently using. Command-shift-right/leftarrow wil choose the prev/next tab.
One thing though, tabs slows down the gui, not page-load-time, but it takes longer to switch between tabs than to switch between windows. Also, if you have, say, 5 tabs in one window and are looking at the last (the one most to the right) command-shift-rightarrow will not cycle you back to the first tab. Another thing is that Safari sometimes closes the whole window instead of just the tab when you press command-W.
Ive got only small complaints, Im very impressed they got it working so well already. Cant wait for the final.
Tabbing is a nice feature, but Ive kinda got used to not using tabs after shifting to Safari. well, Ive just got to get used to tabbing again
So, Galeon, Konqueror, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, Safari, (...!) all have tabbed browsing?
Who's missing? oh! sorry, I remember, they don't care about usability anymore, they have 95% of the market.
"People don't use tabs, look, mommy, 95% of people live without."
Innovation: don't ever use bright ideas from others.
Apple has been doing alot of listening lately. The Apple menu was replaced in 10.0 (it was an ornament in the Public Beta), spring loaded folders reappeared in Jaguar to much fanfare. They even listened on the unix side... bash replaced zsh as the default "bourne" shell around the jaguar release (possibly a bit sooner I use ksh and didnt pay that close attention). Now if they would only listen release the "G5"... In whatever form it takes.
On my Mac I opened Chimera and filled up the window with as many tabs as it would allow (16 in a single window). All windows displayed the Slashdot mainpage. My Slashdot prefs are set to show all stories from all sections.
I checked the system usage in the Process Viewer app:
I then closed all the windows and did the same thing, this time opening 16 SEPARATE windows. Again with Slashdot's mainpage loaded in each.
Process Viewer showed:
So, according to this unscientific off-the-cuff test, you cut your RAM requirements in half by using tabs. YMMV.
I noticed this the other day when I opened over 50 different images in different windows. My Mac almost ground to a halt. I then opened the same images in tabs (in only a few windows
So, to all those who think tabbed browsing is purely a matter of personal preference, I suggest that there is at least a reasonable performance based argument for it.
The wide success of "Tabbed browsing", heralded in by Opera seems to indicate Microsoft was wrong to call MDI "depricated" and attempt to force users to a "document centric" rather than "application centric" view of the computer.
Microsoft's implementation of MDI could easily be called confusing, with multiple sets of window control decorations so close together, however, I don't think that points as much to a fatal flaw in the idea of MDI, as it does to a flawed implementation. MDI has real life analogies too.
Imagine your computer is a large shop, each application is a machine that does a certain function. It is perfectly natural to think in terms of "I need to lathe this piece of metal, so I'll to take it to the lathe. I can set other pieces I am going to lathe on the lathe table."
Document centric is like, "OK I have metal, I need to run it through the lathe, so I will feed it into this huge machine that will try to guess what I want to do with it, and hopefully it will wind up on the lathe." It's very unnatural.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
To prevent massive Slashdotting I'm not going to link directly to the beta from here, but if you go to Dave Hyatt's weblog and have a look at the comments for the most recent story, there's apparently a working link there. Ollie
#define ROSE any_other_name
It's hard being a mindless Apple zealot with Apple changing their minds so much. Our job as zealots is to screamingly defend whatever Apple does without thinking or considering what's best for the user or common sense. We defend Apple Corporation's interests over the users' desires at all costs. Our job is to claim tabs suck when they don't have tabs, the G4 1Ghz is as fast as the Pentium4 3.0Ghz, RISC is better than CISC, slower memory and busspeed is a GOOD thing, proprietary software is freer than open source, Safari Beta is more stable than established and mature browsers, paying for .Mac is a privilege, Steve didn't lie when he said "Free Forever .Mac", using the DMCA is justified when Apple does it but not anyone else, etc etc.
Originally, all us zealots had to violently attack everyone who said tabs were a good idea, saying they were crude and unintuitive. Now, we have to do a complete reversal and furiously attack anyone who is against tabs. It just never ends.
The life of a spin doctor is a tough one, but immensely satisfying.
Now that Safari will presumably be getting tabs, the next feature that's needed is Keychain integration similar to that in Chimera. In fact, Keychain integration was #1 on my list (just ahead of tabs at #2) of new features I'd really like to see in Safari. Yeah, I know the Keychain will work for login dialogs and web sites that have been written to support it, but what makes Chimera really nice is that it'll use the Keychain for sites that don't explicitly support it.
Get your Safari Beta (with tabs!) HERE:
2 .d mg
http://www.domestikalien.com/imagenes/safari_v6
Umm... no. They wrote a Windows interface for the iPod because a) it is a relatively simple, specialized file manager and b) it sold iPods. Apple is a hardware company. The iLife apps exist as a bonus to Mac users, an incentive to upgrade or switch to new Macs. It costs money and time to port software, and you know that iPhoto and iMovie are heavily invested in Cocoa, Quartz and other Mac-exclusive properties. Porting even just iPhoto would involve porting all the exporting/publishing options, plus support hundreds of camera/hardware combinations. They do not have the software engineers to do any of these ports, which would in the end on deter people from buying Macs since the price difference with PC's is much more than the $100 or even $150 you suggest.
Given the overall progress on the iApps, not to mention Safari and OS X in general, I personally think they are managing their development projects pretty well. They are riding out the recession better than most companies, and the more distinct software solutions they develop will make their products look even better when the recession ending combines with Windows DRM backlash. OK, that last was an unprovoked slam, but it is something to be aware of when looking at the big picture. Apple has said and acted in varying degrees that they want to give customers tools, not restrictions, and I think they just keep subtly positioning themselves to jump when the axe falls.
Of course, that's just my hop^H^H^Hopinion. I could be wrong.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.