Safari 4 Beta's new tab arrangement has me bothered. It seems to be largely lifted from Chrome's user interface that puts the tabs at the very top of the window. Not only is this a departure from Apple's typical UI choices, it presents problems for users with special needs.

On your average Apple user interface, every object -- a title bar, menu, button, or handle -- has a single function. It can resize the window, move it, close it, or scroll it. Safari 4's tabs, however, have a dual purpose: They not only can be selected to move the entire Safari 4 window, but can be clicked individually to display their contents. In Safari 3, this was handled by two different objects -- the title bar to move the window, and tabs in the tab bar.

Google chose to put tabs at the top of the window because it was an important part of the user metaphor for their web browser, Chrome. In Chrome, tabs are independent processes brought together in a kind of stack. This is all very well and good, but it poses the same problem of having the area at the top of the window do two things at once: move the window as a whole, and control each item in the stack.

We've seen the betas for quite some time now, but Shiira v2.0 - the feature-packed open source browser based on the same WebKit that powers Apple's Safari - has gone official. As far as I can tell, the feature list hasn't changed wildly from beta into this full version, but check out some of the slick tricks Shiira has up its sleeve:

• Tab Exposé (yep: Exposé comes to browser tabs)
  
• Sharing bookmarks with Safari
• Side drawer showing bookmarks and history
• Search field with choice of search engine
• Cache control panel
• Window appearance switching (Aqua and Metal)
• Enable/disable favicon with bookmark
• Wheel button operation (open in new tab, and tab switching)
• Auto-tab for bookmark folder
• Displaying back-forward list on toolbar buttons
• Search text field for bookmark and history

The feature list is far from over, however, so check out Shiira's official screenshot and features list for more details and even some movies of its features in action. Since Shiira is open source, it's available free from Shiira.jp.

Our friends at The Apple Blog (TAB for those in the know) have compiled a list of ten apps you might not know about but should. I am familiar with all the apps on the list, but there are only two that I use on a regular basis: Democracy and Paparazzi!, but they are all fine apps.

Check out the list for yourself, and you might find an app or two worth adding to your Dock.

For anyone involved in the day-to-day running of a website, a good reliable FTP client is vital to getting anything done. But with so many options available for users to choose from, how is a person to decide which client is right for them? Mike over at The Apple Blog provides some assistance in the form of a roundup of the 5 most popular FTP clients for OS X. As many of you would expect, Panic's Transmit came out on top, followed by Interarchy.

Personally, Transmit is my client of choice for most situations. However, every so often I'll come across a picky server which causes Transmit to start acting weird. In those rare instances, Interarchy comes in real handy.

Remember that Shiira v2 beta preview that delusions of grandeur had at the end of July? Well instead of simply reading about it, now you can take your own copy for a spin, as a public, localized beta has been released. Shiira, if you haven't been following the coverage as of late, is an open source and uniquely feature-packed browser based on WebKit, the same web (and also open source) rendering engine that powers Apple's own Safari.

Most of the new features that were previewed seem to be implemented, including the Shelf, Tab Exposé, a tab thumbnails option (instead of standard tabs found in Safari and Firefox), FullScreen Mode with a really slick and self-hiding navigation overlay, a palette replacement for the sidebar and more.

When this first landed on digg, the download was only a PowerPC build, but it has since been replaced with a true Universal version. So what are you waiting for? Get downloading!

Opera, the little browser that could (and did - go free, that is), has finished its beta and reached version 9, going Universal in the process. New features include:

• a built-in BitTorrent client
• adding your favorite search engines to Opera's search bar simply by right-clicking them
• site-specific preferences for cookies, pop-ups, etc.
• thumbnail previews of tabs when hovering over them
• widgets (hey, at least they didn't call 'em 'gadgets')
• customizable content blocker
• and more

This version definitely seems snappier now that it's Universal, and (say what you have to) these new enhancements like a built-in BitTorrent client show that Opera is blazing a trail faster than its competition. Give this version a whirl if you haven't touched Opera in a while but are still curious about it. If you need help with a browser transition, why not check out some of the del.icio.us tools (like my personal favorite: Delibar) we've blogged that take the 'bookmarks bar' out of the browser and into Mac OS X's menubar, removing the need for worrying about which browser you're using.

Hawk Wings has tracked down some details on a tantalizing v2.0 update to Thunderbird, Mozilla's email client. New features at the top of my list are message tagging, a tabbed message viewer and a built-in notification system. It's great to see more developers bringing the tagging paradigm to email, as Scott Morrison has done with his MailTags plug-in for Apple's Mail.

Check out Mozilla's Thunderbird development blog for the full (and lengthy) post of what's coming in this major release for Thunderbird, including plenty of Mac-specific features and fixes.

PimpMySafari noticed that Saft, a vital Safari plug-in, has been updated to version 8.3.0. New and updated features include:

• New feature: AutoComplete always on
• New feature: Tab thumbnails (like Shiira’s Tab Expose, not Omniweb style)
• Improvement: Also restore tab history when undoing closing tab
• Improvement: Undo support for closing other tabs

Saft is available from haoli and sells for $12 for either Panther or Tiger, though the Tiger version is the only one being updated. A demo is available, but if you're already an owner, you can snag the 8.3.0 upgrade from haoli's Saft for Tiger download page.

Today I was forced to use Internet Explorer on a Mac running OS 9, and I immediately realized just how much I've come to rely on tabbed browsing. Opening several windows was a pain, not to mention trying to navigate through the "pile" of windows I eventually created.

I spend a lot of time during my day job developing solutions in Filemaker Pro. We've been using tabbed interfaces in Filemaker for ages now, as it's a convenient way to store a lot of information when you've got limited space. So, while struggling with a "tabless" browser and thinking about just how much I like a tabbed interface, I thought, "What if the Mac Finder had tabs?"

Above is a very crude (don't laugh) mock up that I quickly created. Similar to multiple desktops, you could hop between dynamically created tabs. Perhaps a "create a new tab" option, or "send this process to tab..." Just thinking out loud, really.  So am I crazy? What do you think?