Leopard wish list – Part one: Safari
by Colin Devroe on November 10th, 2006
I fully realize that my “wish list” that I will be publishing is coming a little late to be included in the Spring-time update to the Mac OS – however it is good to note that much of what I am documenting has already been sent to Apple months ago.
The first thing I’m going to tackle is Safari (though I believe that Safari should be updated as a separate application and not part of the OS). I’ll try to focus my thoughts from fixes, to actual bugs, to feature requests.
Fixes
The following are not “bugs” in the traditional sense. I believe that most of the following was done intentionally, I just do not think they should have been done.
Setting your default browser is currently held within Safari’s preference panel. This “feature” definitely gets on the nerves of many and really I can’t figure out why this resides in here. In order to switch from Safari to Firefox you’d need to first open Safari and tell it you want Firefox to be the default browser.
This isn’t to say that Firefox (and other browsers) do not ask if you’d like to use them as the default browser on your system – but this does not mean that this is the proper location for this preference. What if I uninstalled Safari?
The blue RSS button at the top of the browser is fairly misleading. Apple is attempting to “brand” a doc-spec. In other words, they are saying that all “feeds” are RSS. Obviously this is not true. I do not want that icon to change from RSS to ATOM to “WHATEVER” when it applies, I’d much rather see Apple use the unified feed icons to go along with the unified feed theory (another post I have to bring over to my local site soon).
Multiple feeds detection kinda goes along with the above. I suppose this could be filed under a new feature request – but I feel like they might have kept it simple on purpose. I wouldn’t mind seeing a short list pop up with the available feeds for that site. Obviously this would only be useful if web masters actually listed these feeds in their documents.
Feature requests
Safari is definitely a browser for the average user, but I’d like to see a few of the “not so elementary” features from other browsers find their way into the Leopard release of Safari. Why? Because I’d much rather use Safari than Firefox if it only had the following.
Bookmark keywords (click to zoom)
Bookmark keywords is something I use heavily in Firefox. I am not sure how widely used this feature actually is, since even browsers like Flock do not currently have this feature built in (and Flock is built off of the same engine and core as Firefox). Side note: I’ve been told that Flock 1.0 (due out sooner than later) will have these features as it will be built off of the Firefox 2.0 release.
To explain really quick, for those that are not familiar with this feature – Bookmark keywords allow you to setup shortcuts for your bookmarks. Let’s say that you had a rather long URL that you visited often, and you didn’t want to traverse your long list of bookmarks in order to get to that page without typing in the name manually, you can setup a shorter keyword for that. (see screenshot) You type in that keyword, and poof, you’re there.
Searchable history is not something I use every day, but when you need it – you find it very handy. I suppose I could liken a searchable history to Spotlight. Before Spotlight was introduced we never knew how much of a pain it was to find things on our local system. But, after having Spotlight for awhile now, I find it indispensable. Such is the case with searchable history. Safari’s history menu is crude – and needs a significant update.
Update: As Nathan pointed out the history in Safari is indeed searchable. But I would have never found it if he hadn’t told me where it was. So the UI needs to be adjusted to make this much more accessible.
Final thoughts
Really my requests for Safari are very light and don’t hold a ton of water when it comes to my decision to use Firefox instead of Safari. There are other, underlying, reasons why I use Firefox that are much more “under the hood” type of reasons. For instance, many WYSIWYG editors inside of various web applications do not function properly within Safari. Hopefully, with the very latest version of Web kit no doubt being included in the upcoming release of Safari, we’ll see some of this functionality made available.
I remember the first day I wanted to jump ship from Safari to Firefox. I wanted to use Google Calendar and couldn’t because Safari was not a supported browser. But now that I rarely use any online web applications – I may switch back and deal with my little niggles mentioned above until they become available (hopefully) in the next release.
Note: Be sure to check out other parts of my Leopard wish list listed below:
[tags]leopard, mac os x, osx, macintosh, apple, safari, wish list, browsers, flock, firefox, bookmarks, history, rss, feeds, atom[/tags]
[slug]leopard-wishes-pt1-safari[/slug]
Wow, nice list. I am a Camino user myself. However, I do like Safari but wish it did not lack the features you listed above. Hopefully with the upgrade I’ll be able to use it once more.
Camino allows the Bookmark Keywords as well. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I just added some keywords to my favorite sites. Saves a bit of time there.
Also, Safari does not allow for the Gmail Chat which I use constantly. Firefox supports Gmail Chat as well, but it does not look too pretty.
So, for right now its Camino for me…
Shaun: Having tried Camino in the past I still can’t get myself to use it. Perhaps its the “update every year” mentality or – the fact that it doesn’t support extensions.
A small note about extensions in Firefox. I find it slightly ironic that I use Firefox extensions to help it bring Firefox’s features in accord with Safari’s. The features I require literally are so small, that I should just switch back if for nothing than the space and speed improvements. Something to think about.
Well said.
I agree with all, but it is possible to search the history in the current release. You just goto the bookmarks screen and click on history. There is a search box at the bottom. It’s not intuitive, which is the bug.
Nathan: Wow. I’ve never seen that – thanks for bringing it out. This seems like a huge UI problem to me. Again, thanks.
[...] I’m starting a series of posts regarding my wishes for Mac OS X 10.5. The first one concerns Safari. [...]
Wow, I hadn’t seen that history search function – I must remember that one … says she who visits, oh I don’t know, a gadzillion pages every day.
Hey Sarah – about time you commented! Lurker! Yeah, I was happy to find that feature as well. I’m almost ready to jump back out of Firefox I think. Maybe. I think. Maybe.
[...] Part one: Safari [...]
[...] Part one: Safari [...]
[...] Inizio con Safari il quale, secondo Colin, dovrebbe avere una nuova funzione, chiamata Bookmark keywords, per permettere di aggiungere parole chiave (tipo dei Tags) ai propri preferiti e un’altra, Searchable history, per permettere di effettuare ricerche all’interno della Cronologia. Le funzioni che invece, sempre secondo Colin, andrebbero migliorate sono l’icona degli Rss (a lui infatti non piace che rimanga sempre blu e presenti la scritta RSS anche quando magari è stato rilevato un Atom), la possibilità di settarlo come browser predefinito e Multiple feeds detection, vale a dire una opzione che dovrebbe permettere di rilevare nello stesso sito web tutti i Feed disponibili invece di uno solo. L’articolo su Safari termina con un’altra speranza, vale a dire quella di poter utilizzare gli editor WYSIWYG (presenti nella maggior parte delle applicazioni Web, come, per esempio, Wordpress) anche con questo browser che, molto spesso (l’avevo notato anche io) non li supporta. [...]
[...] Part one: Safari [...]
Colin: I think their small-ish userbase for Camino lets them think, “Oh we’ll just release it when it’s ready” sort of deals.
They’re always tinkering away at it of course. The nightlybuilds are hugely improved. =)
Anywho, nice list of things there.
[...] Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” will hopefully have some of the changes that I documented as my wishes for Leopard. Namely the changes I asked for in Safari, Mail, iChat, and the Finder. [...]
[...] I jotted down my wishes for Safari in Leopard I quickly mentioned the things I’d like to see changed and/or added in Safari to become my [...]
Nathan: Wow. I've never seen that – thanks for bringing it out. This seems like a huge UI problem to me. Again, thanks.
Missing Safari features:
1. THE BIGGEST GRIPE – no option to leave PRivate Browsing on permanently – WHY!!!!!!! (and don’t give me the ‘conscious decision’ rubbish – I want to make a conscious decision to leave private browsing on.
2. No ability to change the proxy settings independently of the underlying OS (unlike every other browser). Again – why.
3. Bonjour!!!!!
4. No full-screen/Kiosk mode. I use a netbook and wnat to browse using the whole page (with no title bars at all). Is a real full-screen option too hard to give me
Unfortunately, even though Safari is the nicest browser to use, I will have to stick with Firefox (or even Opera) instead.
PS. If Apple think the private browser setting is a minority requirement they should do a search to see how many times people ask how to do it (and the only option seems to be scripts!)