Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software
Roundup: Top X Requested Safari features
Last week we asked y'all "What would you change about Safari?" and the response was excellent. I'd have to say the two overwhelmingly desired features were better tab management (dragging, session saving, etc), and embracing a more friendly and robust plug-in architecture a la Firefox, especially since PimpMySafari.com is such a runaway hit. But without further adeu, here are the other Top X Requested Features of Safari, in no particular order:
- bookmark sorting
- easier to use plug-in system, (a la Firefox) especially since PimpMySafari.com is so big
- Allow for different search engines in the search bar
- Windows Media and Real plug-ins pre-installed, so Safari is even more web-friendly
- Much better tab features, such as dragging/re-ordering and session saving
- better RSS management
- Graphical history browsing (great idea!)
- better support for rich text editing (open a Blogger.com or Wordpress post window in Firefox to grasp this one)
- better image/media handling, such as the ability to stop obnoxious gif and Flash animations
- search-as-you-type, with a text search bar at the bottom of the window, again like Firefox
For those who can't wait for Apple to roll out all these requests, I'd highly recommend checking out PimpMySafari.com as a lot of these features can be had with a plug-in or three from that site. One very popular plug-in I'll point you towards that can pick up the bill on a lot of these features is Saft, although it'll cost you $12 USD.
In the meantime, let's all hope we've made enough noise to grasp the attention of a developer or two at Apple (Hey, we can dream, right?). If you have any more requests you want to add to the discussion, please do so on the original You're in Charge post.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason said 5:46PM on 11-23-2005
no! no windows media or real installed! there's a reason i use a mac and it's so that i don't have to have those programs installed. especially real that piece of CRAP can stay far FAR away from my computer.
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XIV said 7:16PM on 11-23-2005
1. Jason
And if you had the choice to install it or not ? Like a plug-in.
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kg said 7:21PM on 11-23-2005
WiMP and RealPlayer generally work well enough here, when they are absolutely needed (Amazon, CNN, etc.). But I've discovered recently that the only time Safari crashes, the ONLY time, is when I hit an amateur page on which someone has embedded a certain kind of Windows Media video. I get a spinning beach-ball which never recovers. Disable the Windows Media Plug-in, problem goes away. So until Microdaft learns how to write something that's more than just enough to get by, I don't think I'd want it pre-installed.
Btw, Saft rocks, though I wish its ad-blocking was more like the Firefox Adblock extension, which prevents them from loading instead of letting them blip on screen before being removed. And Firefox's search-as-you-type is the best. It's more "Apple" than Apple managed to do.
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Fredi Bach said 7:44AM on 11-24-2005
Sounds like most people want a Safarifox, an Apple branded browser with Firefox features.
Fredi
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eggman said 1:00PM on 11-24-2005
I find Firefox's Find-As-You-Type extremely awkward (backspace doesn't work, the bar stays present even after inactivity, FAYT can't be cancelled by navigation commands, annoying beep, etc.). I don't mind Firefox copying Opera's features, but I do mind the half-assed implementations.
Again, what I feel Safari needs most is keyboard support. SafariStand adds in tab navigation with period and comma, which is a nice first step, but it is not enough. vi-like keys would be great, but even Opera-defaults-like behavior (z to go back, x to go forward, / for FAYT) would be fine. Obviously these shortcuts would supplement rather than replace the lackluster already-present shortcuts.
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Matt said 3:21PM on 11-24-2005
All I really want Apple to do is to fix the enormous memory leaks present in the last couple of versions of Safari, so that it doesn't stop (bring on the spinning beachball) every few minutes for no apparent reason.
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Don said 4:13PM on 11-24-2005
It seems like every time Safari crashes on a website, when I use FireFox or (ugh) IE to examine the site, it is always, always, always coded in that disaster of an application, FrontPage.
I would like Safari, when it encounters such a page, to give you the option of trying to open it or not, with this notice:
Warning:
The page you are trying to access was created in FrontPage, probably by a moron who didn't know any better. The poor quality of code, which is not standards-compliant, may cause Safari to crash. If it does, please do not send us a crash report. We already know how bad that piece of crap application is and we're not going to ruin our standards-compliant coding by trying to read garbage you don't really need to know about anyway. Please select one of the following buttons:
I'M SMART!
(Take me to my home page)
or
I"M STUPID
(I like to watch applications crash due to moron web page coders)
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Don said 4:13PM on 11-24-2005
It seems like every time Safari crashes on a website, when I use FireFox or (ugh) IE to examine the site, it is always, always, always coded in that disaster of an application, FrontPage.
I would like Safari, when it encounters such a page, to give you the option of trying to open it or not, with this notice:
Warning:
The page you are trying to access was created in FrontPage, probably by a moron who didn't know any better. The poor quality of code, which is not standards-compliant, may cause Safari to crash. If it does, please do not send us a crash report. We already know how bad that piece of crap application is and we're not going to ruin our standards-compliant coding by trying to read garbage you don't really need to know about anyway. Please select one of the following buttons:
I'M SMART!
(Take me to my home page)
or
I"M STUPID
(I like to watch applications crash due to moron web page coders)
Reply
Xenedar said 10:12PM on 11-24-2005
Umm... the Windows Media and RealPlayer plug-ins are only of any use if the Windows Media and RealPlayer applications themselves are also installed. And there's no way Apple is going to do that. They might as well also bundle in a copy of Konfabulator to go with your nifty Dashboard, and throw in MSN and Yahoo Messengers programs to go alongside your iChat application.
They could give you the plug-ins (RealPlayer is actually aliases to plug-ins stored inside the RealPlayer bundle), but it won't do you any good; you'll still have to download the players from Microsoft and Real respectively.
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Robert de BIe said 11:03PM on 11-24-2005
One of the great new feature of Safari in Tiger is the possibility to safe webpages in Apple Mail thru "Mail Contents of This Page" (Commend I). This command leave most of the time the lay-out of the webpages intact. I wish that Apple made this feature available under the Services menu for all applications. This make it possible to safe complete webpages to other Applications like Sticky Brain without losing the layout. Right now there is still not a good way to keep content of Webpages. Printing as a pdf is not always an option, because it is impossible to print to one page in a conveniant way
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