New Safari Features In Latest Leopard Preview?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

A recent posting on an Apple developer's blog (http://www.musingsfrommars.org/) Musings from Mars depicts new Safari features built into the latest developer preview of Leopard. As of this posting, MacRumors cannot independently verify the claims, however the blogger posts multiple video clips of the features. The blogger highlights the following features:

Tabbed Browsing Enhancements
Following the lead of other browsers, Apple has implemented a customizable tab-bar so that users can re-order tabs via drag-and-drop. Apple has also extended the concept to be able to make a window from a tab by dragging a tab off of the tab bar.

Search Improvements
The Safari search option is now integrated into the browser window much like Firefox's implementation. However search results are displayed all at once by default rather than Firefox's one-at-a-time approach.

Resizable TEXTAREAs
Safari will allow the user to resize a text area (via a drag corner) in an HTML form and dynamically redraw the web page to fit the new size.

Leopard was previewed (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/08/20060807161421.shtml) at this year's Worldwide Developer Conference, and should ship next spring.

[twoodcc]

sounds like good news to me. not really big features, but features nonetheless.

looking forward to more new features from Leopard:cool:

[macdong]

Sounds like very awesome features. :cool:

[narco]

Sounds awesome, but I'll still stick with Camino until Safari speeds up a bit and is more stable. Those were my only two issues.

Fishes,
narco.

[fenixx]

mmm, leopard anticipation building!

[Tymmz]

I was waiting for these features for a long time.


Great stuff!

[reckless_0001]

Sounds awesome, but I'll still stick with Camino until Safari speeds up a bit and is more stable. Those were my only two issues.

Fishes,
narco.

Download the Safari Webkit Nightly, it's plenty fast. Today's build is pretty stable too (r16812)...

http://nightly.webkit.org/

[bdj21ya]

The new search feature actually looks pretty awesome. It works like spotlight in System Preferences (where it darkens everything except the items that match your search string).

[iProd]

Woo, Shiira :D

[reckless_0001]

Woo, Shiira :D

Shiira's pretty good too... :)

[psychometry]

This is my first post. It takes a lot for me to stop being a lurker, but the idea that any user can resize a textarea on a site I design, dynamically redrawing the page, is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. This will break valid page layouts in new and unheard of ways. Designers make form elements a size and shape for a reason.

I look forward to finding a way using JavaScript to disable that feature the day that browser is released.

[AoWolf]

Excellent sounding. I must admit I like vistas tab system (clicking the box to make a new tab. Not that there is a problem with a ?T but I sometimes I want to click.

[Willis]

Hmm, the link doesnt seem to work with me. Says I dont have permission to access :mad:

[Buschmaster]

This is my first post. It takes a lot for me to stop being a lurker, but the idea that any user can resize a textarea on a site I design, dynamically redrawing the page, is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. This will break valid page layouts in new and unheard of ways. Designers make form elements a size and shape for a reason.

I look forward to finding a way using JavaScript to disable that feature the day that browser is released.
I think it's a nice feature, it's not like it's going to destory how the page looks initially.

[reckless_0001]

Hmm, the link doesnt seem to work with me. Says I dont have permission to access :mad:

Slash Dot ---> Translation ---> It's not gonna work. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect

[EricNau]

Sounds good to me.

I've been waiting for drag-and-drop tabs for awhile now.

[squirrellydw]

I will use firefox till they allow extensions in safari

[Small White Car]

This is my first post. It takes a lot for me to stop being a lurker, but the idea that any user can resize a textarea on a site I design, dynamically redrawing the page, is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. This will break valid page layouts in new and unheard of ways. Designers make form elements a size and shape for a reason.

I look forward to finding a way using JavaScript to disable that feature the day that browser is released.

Why do you need to disable something you don't want to use? Can't you just not use it?

Are you afraid you might accidentally change your mind someday and need to prevent yourself from doing this in the future?

Also, many BBS's that I use offer me the chance to change the text-reply field size in my personal preferences. The window can be any size and the page looks just fine. Pretty much ANY text entry field has to be built into a page in such a way that changing the size just pushes things below it lower, just in case a browser draws it larger than planned. I can't think of any sites that don't work that way. This box I'm using on Macrumors right now follows that rule. If I were to drag it large nothing would "break." The stuff below it would just move down.

Can you give any examples of a page that fails this test? I can't think of any offhand.

[Max on Macs]

Why do you need to disable something you don't want to use? Can't you just not use it?

Are you afraid you might accidentally change your mind someday and need to prevent yourself from doing this in the future?

Also, many BBS's that I use offer me the chance to change the text-reply field size in my personal preferences. The window can be any size and the page looks just fine. Pretty much ANY text entry field has to be built into a page in such a way that changing the size just pushes things below it lower, just in case a browser draws it larger than planned. I can't think of any sites that don't work that way. This box I'm using on Macrumors right now follows that rule. If I were to drag it large nothing would "break." The stuff below it would just move down.

Can you give any examples of a page that fails this test? I can't think of any offhand.
I think he's talking about making it so people who use the web pages he designs can't resize the textareas (supposedly ruining his designs). IMHO this is a non-issue since when the user first sees the page they will se it as it should be, if they want to make a textarea bigger so they can type in it comfortably then it's their own choice.

[apfhex]

This is news? I heard about these things (and saw screenshots, and videos) back in August when people got ahold of the Leopard WWDC preview and broke their NDAs (or pirated it).

[diogowerner]

i'm a webdesigner and totally agree with psychometry.

the new textarea feature is the worst way to resolve one of safari worst layout problems. current textarea doesn't show the scrollbars everytime it's necessary and sometimes resizes horizontaly while you're typing, damaging some page layouts.

if the new feature allows users to resize both verticaly and horizontaly it's probably a bad sollution apple found to the scroll problem.

if you don't design pages you may not understand, but sometimes its necessary to fix a size to a textarea and other components (height and width), otherwise it will push other elements and images would look like a puzzle. fixing size is one of the solutions to make pages working in different browsers, once each one show form elements diffrently.

even if the resize feature doesn't push other elements, override them would be terrible as well. if you have links and other text fields for example, how would it behave if you use tab key to swich field in a form?

[bretm]

This is my first post. It takes a lot for me to stop being a lurker, but the idea that any user can resize a textarea on a site I design, dynamically redrawing the page, is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. This will break valid page layouts in new and unheard of ways. Designers make form elements a size and shape for a reason.

I look forward to finding a way using JavaScript to disable that feature the day that browser is released.

Well, ya. Dontca hate text zoom? Hey, I design too and as long as it looks right at default settins + a text size or two higher I'm fine. If people need to resize forms or make their text huge then they're probably used to every site looking like utter junk. These are not the power users I'm designing for.

[reckless_0001]

i'm a webdesigner and totally agree with psychometry.

the new textarea feature is the worst way to resolve one of safari worst layout problems. current textarea doesn't show the scrollbars everytime it's necessary and sometimes resizes horizontaly while you're typing, damaging some page layouts.

if the new feature allows users to resize both verticaly and horizontaly it's probably a bad sollution apple found to the scroll problem.

if you don't design pages you may not understand, but sometimes its necessary to fix a size to a textarea and other components (height and width), otherwise it will push other elements and images would look like a puzzle. fixing size is one of the solutions to make pages working in different browsers, once each one show form elements diffrently.

even if the resize feature doesn't push other elements, override them would be terrible as well. if you have links and other text fields for example, how would it behave if you use tab key to swich field in a form?

Just tried the *similar* feature in OmniWeb's browser it's not even half as bad as you guys are making it out to be... don't be a whine-o :D

Oh yah and by the way, I design websites. From my experience with people, it's better for them to have a good user experience on a site and the text area thing WILL help out. I believe that the text area expansion will only be temporary, and when the page is refreshed the design will look as good as it always was.

[Crager724]

I am not a webdesigner so could someone explain the TEXTAREA upgrade? It sounded like a good idea when I read it, but it seems to have struck a nerve with a couple people, and I'm not sure why. I'm guessing it would be like if I went to an art auction and bought a painting by Monet, I bring the painting home and realize that the wallspace I have for it isn't wide enough, so I grab a corner of the painting a pull it down, hence making it skinnier and fitting my wall? Nobody would ever consider doing that to a Monet, yet isn't this what the new TEXTAREA feature does?

[psychometry]

I did, in fact, mean using JavaScript on page load to disable the user from changing the size of the textarea, not within my browser. It's like using CSS to disable the dotted border Firefox puts around links when they are active.

Form elements, and the divs that contain them, often need either fixed widths or have widths that are proportional to their containers.

Take Google (http://www.google.com). Depending on how the layout is set up (this is just hypothetical), resizing the search box would push those three links next to it off into oblivion if they were all in a div that was fixed or proportional to the page width. It doesn't matter if Safari "dynamically redraws the page" since the div would still be calculated to be the same. Worse yet, depending on its overflow attribute, they could be pushed onto a new line.

I'd really not like to see Safari become the next IE 5. It already has its share of JavaScript bugs. This would just mean us designers would have to spend that much more time envisioning what would happen if a user resized every form element on every page and incorporating it into our layouts. This is why I hope there's a way to disable it outright.

[p0intblank]

These new features sound awesome, especially the ability to resize a text box. Also the imroved search functionality will be a god send for me, as I use it very much.

[PsyKi]

Well, to be honest, I think Safari is one of the very, very few Mac software things I don't use.

Opera, firefox, camino, sure.
Never really like Safari, no idea why.

Anyway, I only see 1 actual 'new' feature, which is the resizing textfields thing.
As a user, I have to say, I like it.
Being a webdesigner too, I hate the idea of people raping my design.
So, good feature??? I don't know. After all, I don't think this is a feature many users will actually use, except when it's REALLY necessary, which usually only happens with crappy webpages, which I tend not to design....

The other features, well, sorry people, but these are things I do daily in all of my other browsers. Nothing new there. I think it's terrible They weren't in yet though.

I still can't get why Apple uses Safari. Totally doesn't fit in their 'good, innovating software' thing. I'd expect Opera to be made by Apple.

[slb]

This is my first post. It takes a lot for me to stop being a lurker, but the idea that any user can resize a textarea on a site I design, dynamically redrawing the page, is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. This will break valid page layouts in new and unheard of ways. Designers make form elements a size and shape for a reason.

I look forward to finding a way using JavaScript to disable that feature the day that browser is released.

On the contrary, resizeable textareas are part of the CSS3 standard; Safari 3.0 will simply be the first mainstream browser to implement it. Once you try it, I promise you will not want to go back. It's really a non-issue, and I'm surprised anybody's complaining about it to the point they would disable this end-user feature using JavaScript. I'll just disable JavaScript on your site, then, buddy.

[Scarlet Fever]

Tabbed Browsing Enhancements
Following the lead of other browsers, Apple has implemented a customizable tab-bar so that users can re-order tabs via drag-and-drop. Apple has also extended the concept to be able to make a window from a tab by dragging a tab off of the tab bar.sounds like the tabbing feature that is built into Adium!

[mixel]

I still can't get why Apple uses Safari. Totally doesn't fit in their 'good, innovating software' thing. I'd expect Opera to be made by Apple.
But opera is full of bloat features and doesn't perform at all macishly..

I have issues with Safari too though, on a lot of sites I visit it's unreasonably slow in comparison to Firefox/Camino.. The Firefox 2 betas are shaping up great. :)

I'm not sure of the point of the resizing text box thing.. i've never wanted that to be possible whilst using any browser, safari or not. The new tab stuff sounds very handy though!

[timmillwood]

its suprising with all the copies of leopard floating about that this wasnt spotted ages ago

[diogowerner]

I'd really not like to see Safari become the next IE 5. It already has its share of JavaScript bugs.

exactly! once there is no safari for windows, there is no longer IE for mac (even if it wasn't the same for windows) and any of those for linux, looks like the web standards will be what firefox and opera "decides".

apple should worry about improving new features for the browser like tabs, page thumbnails and etc... html, javascript and css they have to make work like every browser does (or should). and javascript and css are not working well in safari right now.

[clintob]

Wow... that whole site is down. Too much traffic, or has Apple's top secret FBI assasin group struck again. One things for sure... don't "F" with those boys and their secrets.

And to the Safari-haters, show some love. Safari might be a little short on features if you're used to Fox or Omni, but at the end of the day it's still the most elegant and simple browser out there, and it does have its strengths. It's RSS reader was pretty groundbreaking, and still is one of the best, it's one of the few browsers that actually handles fonts and anti-aliasing properly, and it renders CSS layouts very cleanly and without bugs for the most part. So don't hate so much. It's only going to get better every time.

[LordJohnWhorfin]

When you join the Apple developers program, you sign an agreement to not discuss confidential and pre-release software outside of approved forums. Posting reviews of Leopard features in a public blog is the best way to get your developer membership voided and get a nastygram from Apple Legal, at the very least. You'd imagine that people would have caught on by now...

[bmcgrath]

all sounds good! now show me leopard :)

[psychometry]

On the contrary, resizeable textareas are part of the CSS3 standard; Safari 3.0 will simply be the first mainstream browser to implement it. Once you try it, I promise you will not want to go back. It's really a non-issue, and I'm surprised anybody's complaining about it to the point they would disable this end-user feature using JavaScript. I'll just disable JavaScript on your site, then, buddy.

The CSS3 resizer property is fine and good because you can set resizer:none to a form element if you want to. As a side note, resizer applies to all elements, including html, meaning a site could prevent you from resizing the browser window. That has the potential to be very annoying if abused, as I'm sure it will be. Right now, I don't think any of the main 5 or 6 browsers support this propery for any element.

What worries me is if Safari is implementing this feature using built-in DOM functions instead of just supporting the CSS3 property. This is a possibility to me. They've got quite a ways to go in terms of the standard right now.

[dashiel]

The CSS3 resizer property is fine and good because you can set resizer:none to a form element if you want to. As a side note, resizer applies to all elements, including html, meaning a site could prevent you from resizing the browser window. That has the potential to be very annoying if abused, as I'm sure it will be. Right now, I don't think any of the main 5 or 6 browsers support this propery for any element.

What worries me is if Safari is implementing this feature using built-in DOM functions instead of just supporting the CSS3 property. This is a possibility to me. They've got quite a ways to go in terms of the standard right now.

no, it's CSS3 download the nightly then visit this site. http://www.css3.info/preview/resize.html

[psychometry]

no, it's CSS3 download the nightly then visit this site. http://www.css3.info/preview/resize.html

Thanks for the link. It does look like WebKit's doing it with the CSS property, so that's good. Interestingly, that page is a good example of how easy it is to do strange, bad things to the scrollbars if you resize it to certain shapes. Developers will have to remember to set mins and maxes for all sorts of elements now if they want to allow resizing. The phrase "can of worms" comes to mind. Oh well.

[Matt T]

I'm a web designer and I think that part of good web design is flexibility and compatibility; in other words, a good website design should be one that can be customized at the will of the user, such as resizing a text box that is too small.

Besides, have you seen this in action? (I got a 403 when I tried to view the blog - I don't know about you). Do we know that resizing a text box will rearrange any other elements of the site? Knowing Apple, they've probably come up with some way to resize the text box in a non-destructive manor, and maybe resize it back to it's original size when a user isn't using it. Does that make sense?

All these features sound like great additions to Safari - especially searching text in a web page; it's about bloody time Apple!

[ChrisA]

This is my first post. It takes a lot for me to stop being a lurker, but the idea that any user can resize a textarea on a site I design, dynamically redrawing the page, is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. This will break valid page layouts in new and unheard of ways. Designers make form elements a size and shape for a reason.


Web designers will just have to become more sophisticated. They will have to learn to work with relative units. For example a button size should be specified as "m times the lenght of this string in the current user specified font" and a image size rather then being fixed might be "80% in the frames width as set by the user

We should get back to the way HTML markup is envisioned. The author tags the test by functions like "title" or "larger" and the browser descides how to display it

[Doctor Q]

If some web pages would "break" if you resize a text area, why is it such a problem? If I broke a web page by resizing, I'd simply drag it back to a "good" size again, and be no worse off than before. If it redraws dynamically it'll be quite obvious as you drag.

Having a screen come out wrong is already the case with many websites if I resize my browser window to make it very skinny, yet I don't hear people complaining that browsers allow you to do that.

[Superdrive]

How do we know that the extendable text box might not become an overlay of the page that wouldn't damage the design? As you tab out or deactivate the box, it shrinks back to size. I'm sure this design has been thought through more in Cupertino than most people have spent here in the past hour.

[psychometry]

How do we know that the extendable text box might not become an overlay of the page that wouldn't damage the design? As you tab out or deactivate the box, it shrinks back to size. I'm sure this design has been thought through more in Cupertino than most people have spent here in the past hour.

The WebKit nightly I just tried moves stuff around, as specified by the CSS3 standard. It's really not much of a problem as long as designers are careful with their positioning.

[psychometry]

Wow... that whole site is down. Too much traffic, or has Apple's top secret FBI assasin group struck again. One things for sure... don't "F" with those boys and their secrets.

And to the Safari-haters, show some love. Safari might be a little short on features if you're used to Fox or Omni, but at the end of the day it's still the most elegant and simple browser out there, and it does have its strengths. It's RSS reader was pretty groundbreaking, and still is one of the best, it's one of the few browsers that actually handles fonts and anti-aliasing properly, and it renders CSS layouts very cleanly and without bugs for the most part. So don't hate so much. It's only going to get better every time.

Safari's CSS is pretty good, but DOM support is lagging, in my opinion. I use Camino for general web browsing and Firefox with Firebug and other extensions for development. Maybe if Firefox 2 runs faster and leaks and uses less memory I'll use it for everything.

IE7's RSS aggregator looks like it might shape out to be among the best.

[crees!]

I have to say this is "old news". Right after WWDC this info came out.

[srf4real]

Opera will zoom entire pages, very useful for resizing tiny little thumnail photos or huge images too big for my hpvs17 monitor... if it can be done, why isn't Apple on top of it?

[ErikGrim]

This is news? I heard about these things (and saw screenshots, and videos) back in August when people got ahold of the Leopard WWDC preview and broke their NDAs (or pirated it).Correct. This was leaked the day after Leopard Preview was released. Sheesh.

[ErikGrim]

Excellent sounding. I must admit I like vistas tab system (clicking the box to make a new tab. Not that there is a problem with a ?T but I sometimes I want to click.You can get this already (along with Tab dragging and dropping) in Safari by getting SAFT:

http://www.pimpmysafari.com

Other free plugins might also have it, but Saft is so good I never bothered to check anything else.

[Gjunkie]

Im sorry, but wasn't tabbed browsing covered when Steve debuted Leaopard? and I saw the improved find feature in Safari 3 like almost 2 months ago... the only "new" feature that I see is the resizeable text fields....
I love safari and everything, but this isn't news.... why is everyone making such a big deal over this??

It's like as if I said, "Hey everyone! check this out! Tiger has an awesome NEW feature called WIDGETS!"

[rikers_mailbox]

Those Safari updates? I would expect no less!!

If Safari didn't at least keep up with FireFox, then shame Apple. At best Safari should innovate just as much as Apple claims. How about CoverFlow for cached pages?

[psychometry]

Correct. This was leaked the day after Leopard Preview was released. Sheesh.

Yes, but now we have (had) videos. Did anyone save them?

[Analog Kid]

I did, in fact, mean using JavaScript on page load to disable the user from changing the size of the textarea, not within my browser. It's like using CSS to disable the dotted border Firefox puts around links when they are active.

Form elements, and the divs that contain them, often need either fixed widths or have widths that are proportional to their containers.

Take Google (http://www.google.com). Depending on how the layout is set up (this is just hypothetical), resizing the search box would push those three links next to it off into oblivion if they were all in a div that was fixed or proportional to the page width. It doesn't matter if Safari "dynamically redraws the page" since the div would still be calculated to be the same. Worse yet, depending on its overflow attribute, they could be pushed onto a new line.

I'd really not like to see Safari become the next IE 5. It already has its share of JavaScript bugs. This would just mean us designers would have to spend that much more time envisioning what would happen if a user resized every form element on every page and incorporating it into our layouts. This is why I hope there's a way to disable it outright.
Funny, this was the feature from the list I thought would be most useful. In particular, it would be useful when posting to MacRumors-- I'd love to make this little box bigger...

I hear where you're coming from though. Hopefully Apple would honor CSS clues that the field should remain fixed-- for example if you've set up pixel accurate sizing, you probably don't want it resized.

If nothing else, remember that the user is the one that resized it, not the browser. Even if the other elements get shoved around and the layout made ugly, the user will have seen their actions responsible for pushing things around.

[zwida]

You can get this already (along with Tab dragging and dropping) in Safari by getting SAFT:

http://www.pimpmysafari.com

Other free plugins might also have it, but Saft is so good I never bothered to check anything else.

SAFT is a rockstar. I can't imagine using Safari without it. Frankly, I'd be happy if Apple integrates even half of what SAFT provides.

[kcmac]

The resizable text box will be awesome. There is nothing worse than some lame brain web designer that only lets you see one or two lines at a time when you need to see a lot more.

The solution that was shown on the blog site looked simple and elegant. Its about the user. Listen up you snot a$$ designers. :D :p ;)

[wgschick]

i agree 100%. "dynamically redraw the page"? based on WHAT?

This is my first post. It takes a lot for me to stop being a lurker, but the idea that any user can resize a textarea on a site I design, dynamically redrawing the page, is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. This will break valid page layouts in new and unheard of ways. Designers make form elements a size and shape for a reason.

I look forward to finding a way using JavaScript to disable that feature the day that browser is released.

[59031]

Sounds awesome, but I'll still stick with Camino until Safari speeds up a bit and is more stable. Those were my only two issues.

Fishes,
narco.

HUH? Camino is slow as ****!

[x86isslow]

HUH? Camino is slow as ****!

Are you sure you're using the latest Camino? I'm not sure what things are like on the mactel side but on PPCmacs, Camino is hands-down faster than Safari- an advantage that becomes more obvious the longer you surf without restarting the browser...

[JONNYCHO]

I don't know about you guys but I have Windows/OS X and for the windows part I am falling in love with Opera it is the fastest browser for windows, in is small with tight coding and it doesn't use all your RAM. I hope this comes to mac if it does well that would be the ****

[psychometry]

I don't know about you guys but I have Windows/OS X and for the windows part I am falling in love with Opera it is the fastest browser for windows, in is small with tight coding and it doesn't use all your RAM. I hope this comes to mac if it does well that would be the ****

ummmm... (http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?step=2&opsys=MacOS&platform=MacOS)

[nevir]

just watch this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMCxRl0NzqM), or any of the other related videos there

[MistaBungle]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Leopard ship at Macworld, to beat Vista to the stores and undercut them once more. Will Jobs do it?

[jettredmont]

This is my first post. It takes a lot for me to stop being a lurker, but the idea that any user can resize a textarea on a site I design, dynamically redrawing the page, is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. This will break valid page layouts in new and unheard of ways. Designers make form elements a size and shape for a reason.

I look forward to finding a way using JavaScript to disable that feature the day that browser is released.

Wow, you must really freak out about cascading style sheets too. Bit of a control freak?

Look: the page design is for the benefit of the USER, not the designer. If the page looks like crap if a text area is resized larger than you expected, what's going to happen when a new browser comes out that uses a larger default font in the text area, or adds additional margin padding, etc? If that will make it look like crap, then that's your problem, not the user's!

The problem with text entry boxes in (so far as I can tell) every single browser out today, is that they are fixed width. I can have a nice big 30" monitor and want to be able to type a paragraph about this size in a single friggin' line of text across the whole monitor (more common is trying to convey source code in a text window; wrapping really sucks for source code). But, I can't, because the text box is default sized so that it fits without scrolling on my mother in law's 10-year-old 15" CRT set at 640x480. So, it's a little postage-stamp square on my 30" cinema.

The solution to date is that the user, if they're smart enough, opens up TextEdit (or Notepad), edits their text however they want, then cut/paste into the anemically-sized text box on the browser. The ability to skip the middle-app simplifies things tremendously.

One design suggestion (if Apple's listening): also provide some kind of a widget to "snap" the text box back to it's original size.

[ero87]

just watch this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMCxRl0NzqM), or any of the other related videos there


woah mama. Is that video legit?!! what was that iPod-like thing at the end!

[nevir]

The problem with text entry boxes in (so far as I can tell) every single browser out today, is that they are fixed width. I can have a nice big 30" monitor and want to be able to type a paragraph about this size in a single friggin' line of text across the whole monitor (more common is trying to convey source code in a text window; wrapping really sucks for source code). But, I can't, because the text box is default sized so that it fits without scrolling on my mother in law's 10-year-old 15" CRT set at 640x480. So, it's a little postage-stamp square on my 30" cinema.

Unfortunately this is more of an issue with the designers, and not the technology. It's quite easy to make a textarea that resizes with your site design (unless the site is fixed with... but any site that heavily relies on user input generally is not.. and should not be). takes a few width: 100%'s, and you're good to go.

Now of course, that only deals with horizontal scaling. But hey, try making a post here, and click on those up and down arrows in the top right of the input area.

[nevir]

woah mama. Is that video legit?!! what was that iPod-like thing at the end!

nah, pretty sure that last part is doctored - fun though :p

[pewtermoose]

Resizable textarea's have been implemented in WebKit nightlies for a few months now but were turned off by default at some point.

For this to be included in a front page news item when its been publicly available for months is ludicrous.

[psychometry]

Resizable textarea's have been implemented in WebKit nightlies for a few months now but were turned off by default at some point.

For this to be included in a front page news item when its been publicly available for months is ludicrous.

Yeah, there haven't been any Page 2 rumors recently, either. At least half the stuff from the past 2 weeks should be there instead.

[MatthewCobb]

I quite understand why the web designers are complaining about this - it means that users can screw up something they have spent ages sorting out. But that already happens - enlarge the text size/window size/screen resolution adn everything goes out of whack. You're not telling me that the pages are designed to look marvellous at every combination of the above?! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I hate doing web design. Paper doesn't have that problem - users can't fool around with the end product. But that's the way we're going, so you'd better get used to it, or move back into the paper industry...

[pewtermoose]

People here seem to really be freaking out about this textarea business. Its really not that big a deal.

How many users are going to resize the textarea so large that its double or quadruple its original size? - Probably not too many and unless you have a layout that tries to deal with every edge case perfectly, your site is going to break a bit.

Now in the real world most users - if they even bother to resize at all - are going to expand it just enough to make it easier to write in, probably not making it even 1.5x original size.

In most cases your layout is not going to break if you've put any thought into it.

Finally, are we all forgetting that WebKit supports min/max-width and height? This DOES apply to textarea's so everyone can stop freaking out about users breaking their layouts. Though I must say, having used the feature it is quite handy so don't knock it until you've tried it - and I am a web designer so I do realize the havoc it can wreak.

No need for user agent sniffing. No need for Javascript hacks. A couple lines of standards compliant CSS is all thats needed.

The Safari/WebKit engineers are some very smart and talented people - that people would assume that they would go off and implement such a feature willy nilly without giving any thought to it like people are implying is an insult and plain rude.

[c-Row]

If the page looks like crap if a text area is resized larger than you expected, what's going to happen when a new browser comes out that uses a larger default font in the text area, or adds additional margin padding, etc? If that will make it look like crap, then that's your problem, not the user's!

That's why we use style tags to set a default font (yes, even in text areas) or fixed margins. If the W3 gives us the tools, then why should the browser render them void? That just makes no sense.


We should get back to the way HTML markup is envisioned. The author tags the test by functions like "title" or "larger" and the browser descides how to display it

That's the most ridiculous statement I've read in this thread so far - and there are quite a few.

[iMikeT]

Only ~6 months to go until the rest of us can get our hands on Leopard...;)

[sunfast]

Draggable tabs is really good news. I like the way things are being gradually improved too. I think Leopard could be a pretty polished OS when we see it.

[cbetta]

I can, and therefore hereby will, confirm all these features.

[generik]

Why are browser features worth paying $129 for a new OS?

[c-Row]

Why are browser features worth paying $129 for a new OS?

I got a feeling that those features won't be the only improvements in Leopard... ;)

[willybNL]

Can't wait for LiveBookmarks (RSS inside bar like in firefox) to get into safari...

[aegisdesign]

That's why we use style tags to set a default font (yes, even in text areas) or fixed margins. If the W3 gives us the tools, then why should the browser render them void? That just makes no sense.


Safari is implementing a CSS3 feature with resizeable text areas. Apart from that, if your site design relies on fixed font sizes and text area sizes, they'll just break when the user Command-+/-'s the page. It will only break your site design if your site design is badly designed in the first place.

If you're worried about text areas overflowing other page elements then you can still use max-width and max-height to restrict growth and/or the overflow attribute so that scroll bars get introduced.

As one person pointed out in this thread, see the two arrows up ad down on the first line of the toolbar in this very textarea you type in to. It's very useful with long posts. That's why expandable text areas are a good idea.

It's actually not hard to do either. Look at http://www.aegisdesign.co.uk/examples/textarea/textexample.html and view the source for a simple example.

I'd disagree that designers should be making text areas 100% wide though. I've a 2560 wide screen. That'd be silly. Letting users on the other hand size it themselves and giving designers the tools to accommodate resizing is the way to go.



That's the most ridiculous statement I've read in this thread so far - and there are quite a few.

It's called the 'semantic web'. You may want to look it up. Decent web designers have been designing this way for some time where they can and the W3 want everyone to go this way.

The problem is of course with any of these new W3 features is that Microsoft have barely reached the basics in the CSS 2.1 standard yet in IE7. The chances of them supporting CSS3 anytime soon are slim. That means we'll still as designers have to support the older standards and only enlightened Firefox/Safari based designers will add on CSS3 based features should they prove compatible with IE7 and even IE6.

[mdntcallr]

safari needs a little work on it. Right now I prefer Firefox because of the tabbed window function and even more so because i can add search engines within the same window, such as google, yahoo, amazon, ebay, IMDB and webster dictionary.

the ease of use, and the fact that my Yahoo Toolbar makes it easy to share my very same bookmarks among several computers.

[c-Row]

It's called the 'semantic web'. You may want to look it up. Decent web designers have been designing this way for some time where they can and the W3 want everyone to go this way.

I think this makes us web programmers rather than designers.


It will only break your site design if your site design is badly designed in the first place.

Then please go visit www.csszengarden.com and see how user-applied changes break their designs to the point where elements are covered by others. Those designs usually apply to the W3 standards, and I bet they are far better at this things than either you or me.

[aegisdesign]

safari needs a little work on it. Right now I prefer Firefox because of the tabbed window function and even more so because i can add search engines within the same window, such as google, yahoo, amazon, ebay, IMDB and webster dictionary.

Safari has tabs or do you mean something else? You can also add search engines to the searchbox using one of the many plugins at http://www.pimpmysafari.com/

the ease of use, and the fact that my Yahoo Toolbar makes it easy to share my very same bookmarks among several computers.

.Mac does the same. Obviously it's not free though.

I'd imagine you could do the same by sticking an alias to Safari's .plist on a net share but it certainly could be easier than it is now.

Personally, I prefer Safari because it integrates with OSX's spell checker, supports Bonjour, behaves like a proper OSX app with OSX native widgets and looks better.

[aegisdesign]

I think this makes us web programmers rather than designers.

No. It's fairly common sense stuff really to stick code in like class="title" instead of class="blue" to infer structure in a document, not the design.



Then please go visit www.csszengarden.com and see how user-applied changes break their designs to the point where elements are covered by others. Those designs usually apply to the W3 standards, and I bet they are far better at this things than either you or me.

Whilst I think csszengarden has some pretty designs, there's more to design than just how something looks. If their designs break because of users resizing the page, then their design is broken. That doesn't take away from the artwork, which is often excellent.

csszengarden is also just ONE underlying document structure and not a terribly practical one either. It's there to showcase what can be done just with CSS, not how to design a practical semantically led page.

[c-Row]

No. It's fairly common sense stuff really to stick code in like class="title" instead of class="blue" to infer structure in a document, not the design.

I agree - especially about the class="blue" example. This will lead into problems as soon as the element should be given another colour in the future. However, the original post reads like "Hey, let's say this <element> is LARGE and let the browser decide what a LARGE <element> should look like, how large it should be, etc..."; and that's what I criticise.


csszengarden is also just ONE underlying document structure and not a terribly practical one either. It's there to showcase what can be done just with CSS, not how to design a practical semantically led page.

Guess the main problem is that they can't update the initial document structure afterwards - otherwise there would be problems with all the designs.

[Yvan256]

[...] This would just mean us designers would have to spend that much more time envisioning what would happen if a user resized every form element on every page and incorporating it into our layouts. This is why I hope there's a way to disable it outright.

You already have to envision what will happen when a user changes the text size. The web is not print or TV, it's supposed to be flexible and to be controlled by the user, not the designer. Your website should look good wether the user changes the text size, disables plug-ins, disables images or even disables CSS.

Granted, the website won't look exactly the same in each case, but the content and the structure should be visible in all cases if the website is coded properly. That's the power of CSS and structured content.

Using javascript to disable a browser feature (like the useless "disable right-click" one) is working against your viewers. A simple "disable javascript" will also bypass your script.

[Yvan256]

Then please go visit www.csszengarden.com and see how user-applied changes break their designs to the point where elements are covered by others. Those designs usually apply to the W3 standards, and I bet they are far better at this things than either you or me.

Having valid (X)HTML/CSS code doesn't mean it's well-coded. Some designers still think that webpages are static images where they (should) have pixel-perfect control. I hate those websites, some even go to the length of putting actual text content inside a GIF file because the browser couldn't render their 5-pixels-high font correctly.

CSS Zen Garden shows how the web should be coded (XHTML structured content styled with CSS), but some of the designs (CSS files) are bad (yet use valid CSS code).

If you view CSS Zen Garden with CSS disabled, you'll still have access to the content. It won't be pretty, but it'll be there. Content is more important than style (style with no content is useless).

[kcbruce]

What I've been waiting for is true javascript support for wysiwyg textarea editors. I run a Mac blog site and I have to ask users to use Firefox. It seems a little sucky to do that for a Mac specific blogger site. Since Safari 1.3 Apple said they included the nessesary "hooks" for these editors, but no one has been successful in getting any of them to work in Safari.

I downloaded the latest nightly build of Webkit and it still doen't work :(

[Yvan256]

No. It's fairly common sense stuff really to stick code in like class="title" instead of class="blue" to infer structure in a document, not the design.
I'm sorry to say that "class=title" is not structure either. It may look structured to you in the code (especially compared to "class=blue"), but it has no meaning as far as content structure goes. You should be using the headings tags (H1, H2, etc) and then apply styles to those tags.

Unless you're using <h1 class="title">, in which case I'll have to say "redundant". ;-)

[nevir]

What I've been waiting for is true javascript support for wysiwyg textarea editors. I run a Mac blog site and I have to ask users to use Firefox. It seems a little sucky to do that for a Mac specific blogger site. Since Safari 1.3 Apple said they included the nessesary "hooks" for these editors, but no one has been successful in getting any of them to work in Safari.

I downloaded the latest nightly build of Webkit and it still doen't work :(

Considering Apple is releasing what looks like a full-page wysiwyg editor (http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/leopard/wikiserver.html), I don't think you'll have to wait too much longer (Leopard) for that type of wysiwyg support.

[nevir]

I'd disagree that designers should be making text areas 100% wide though. I've a 2560 wide screen. That'd be silly. Letting users on the other hand size it themselves and giving designers the tools to accommodate resizing is the way to go

At the same time, it's kinda silly to view most web pages at 2560 wide, even 1200+. At that point a paragraph is usually only one or two lines, forcing you to do quite a bit of tracking to read what you want. If you're comfortable viewing the text that way, why not edit it that way as well?

But I definitely agree that letting the users resize the textareas inside the page is a great usability feature. Just was trying to point out that there are already (simple) solutions to the issue.

[aegisdesign]

What I've been waiting for is true javascript support for wysiwyg textarea editors. I run a Mac blog site and I have to ask users to use Firefox. It seems a little sucky to do that for a Mac specific blogger site. Since Safari 1.3 Apple said they included the nessesary "hooks" for these editors, but no one has been successful in getting any of them to work in Safari.

I downloaded the latest nightly build of Webkit and it still doen't work :(

Actually, there are a few that do work, mostly commercial like Asbru's editor - http://editor.asbrusoft.com/

The problem is, the support in Safari still isn't brilliant and the other guys like FCK, TinyMCE etc so far aren't willing to work around the bugs knowing that Apple is fixing them in a forthcoming release anyway.

[DPazdanISU]

Sounds awesome, but I'll still stick with Camino until Safari speeds up a bit and is more stable. Those were my only two issues.

Fishes,
narco.

I suggest buying a mac pro with 16gb ram that way you can use safari:eek:
jokes aside, I use it on my g4 mini and its fine, I'm sure camino is faster but I guess I got used to safari's feel

[aegisdesign]

I'm sorry to say that "class=title" is not structure either. It may look structured to you in the code (especially compared to "class=blue"), but it has no meaning as far as content structure goes. You should be using the headings tags (H1, H2, etc) and then apply styles to those tags.

Unless you're using <h1 class="title">, in which case I'll have to say "redundant". ;-)

There are other places you might use class="title", eg. in a form such as the form you type replies to posts in. It has a 'Title:' input field. I just meant class="title" as an example of semantic design.

[pewtermoose]

What I've been waiting for is true javascript support for wysiwyg textarea editors. I run a Mac blog site and I have to ask users to use Firefox. It seems a little sucky to do that for a Mac specific blogger site. Since Safari 1.3 Apple said they included the nessesary "hooks" for these editors, but no one has been successful in getting any of them to work in Safari.

I downloaded the latest nightly build of Webkit and it still doen't work :(

WYSIWYG support is there and is improving all the time. The developers realize this is is an area of concern and it is on their compatibility hit list (http://webkit.org/projects/compat/hitlist.html). The latest TinyMCE development sources work very well in the WebKit nightlies.

If you discover a bug in your website, please report it using the guide (http://webkit.org/quality/reporting.html) on webkit.org. Bugs can't get fixed if the developers don't know about them.

[Yannick]

Those three new features look very good to me. It's going to be so exciting to try out all the new things when Leopard comes out. :D

[jrmontag]

Perhaps I missed part of the new Google search feature in the new version of Safari, but isn't there an already-existing (and awesomely functioning :) ) Google searchbar in there? I'm still using Panther with Safari v1.3.2!

[skwoytek]

I welcome this feature.

People want a layout with usability, not a design that looks just so. Still, both are easy to achieve if your skilled.

I always surf with my text zoomed at least one level which is available on every browser - this messes up more wabpages than it should. Some of my favorite websites have comment textareas with 3-4 lines of text and are as few as 20 characters wide. I always end up writing in Pages and copying into the textarea.

[SpanishUser]

I did, in fact, mean using JavaScript on page load to disable the user from changing the size of the textarea, not within my browser. It's like using CSS to disable the dotted border Firefox puts around links when they are active.

Form elements, and the divs that contain them, often need either fixed widths or have widths that are proportional to their containers.

Take Google (http://www.google.com). Depending on how the layout is set up (this is just hypothetical), resizing the search box would push those three links next to it off into oblivion if they were all in a div that was fixed or proportional to the page width. It doesn't matter if Safari "dynamically redraws the page" since the div would still be calculated to be the same. Worse yet, depending on its overflow attribute, they could be pushed onto a new line.

I'd really not like to see Safari become the next IE 5. It already has its share of JavaScript bugs. This would just mean us designers would have to spend that much more time envisioning what would happen if a user resized every form element on every page and incorporating it into our layouts. This is why I hope there's a way to disable it outright.

I hope you remember the user CSS take precedence, the user can choose a minimum font size and run an extension like nonscript to firefox so by default
no javascript would run.

The Web is based in that is the reader the one that decide how a page would look if you do not like that begin to design magazines or book.

Note: the noscript funcinality is something I would like to see added to safari.

[Warbrain]

All fine and dandy that they're putting in new features...

but make it stable and make it compatible with most of the websites out there. Safari is so behind some other browsers...

[weldon]

Perhaps I missed part of the new Google search feature in the new version of Safari, but isn't there an already-existing (and awesomely functioning :) ) Google searchbar in there? I'm still using Panther with Safari v1.3.2!
The new search feature is not a new Google search feature. I'm pretty sure what they mean is that you can search the text in the current page by typing and have a little find search box come up at the bottom of the window like it does in Firefox (rather than having a floating dialog box for find). One blogger mentioned it would work like spotlight and shade everything else so that the found search terms were highlighted.

[morespce54]

Web designers will just have to become more sophisticated. They will have to learn to work with relative units. For example a button size should be specified as "m times the lenght of this string in the current user specified font" and a image size rather then being fixed might be "80% in the frames width as set by the user


The would... If the browsers (not to mention IE) could properly implement the "basic standards" for once... :(

Imagine everybody writing something in C++ but with their own (and only) version...

[FaasNat]

Here's hoping Safari implements some sort of cookie manager and popup window blocker perferences similar to how Firefox's are.

[MACLUVERPro]

Did you hear that Safari will not work with some older macs if it is installed with Leopard ??? OMG I hope they fix that before the release... Will I be mad!!

[Don't panic]

All fine and dandy that they're putting in new features...

but make it stable and make it compatible with most of the websites out there. Safari is so behind some other browsers...


agree.
it crashes regularly, even on macrumors or on the apple site!
just make it work!

[Sam0r]

Something like this is what i had in mind..

Crappy photoshop job attached.

[Eric5h5]

it crashes regularly, even on macrumors or on the apple site!
just make it work!

No it doesn't. Seriously, I've visited this site zillions of times and Safari has never crashed on it.

As for resizable text areas, it's a good idea in theory. Too many "web designers" think they are designing for print...the user is supposed to have control over how things look. That's one of the whole points of the web; everything should be as relative as possible.

--Eric

[bretm]

agree.
it crashes regularly, even on macrumors or on the apple site!
just make it work!

If macrumors or the apple site is crashing safari (my safari hasn't crashed in years) you have something severely wrong with your system. Time for a checkup buddy.

[bretm]

No it doesn't. Seriously, I've visited this site zillions of times and Safari has never crashed on it.

As for resizable text areas, it's a good idea in theory. Too many "web designers" think they are designing for print...the user is supposed to have control over how things look. That's one of the whole points of the web; everything should be as relative as possible.

--Eric

If the user (who knows nothing of design, fonts, color, etc.) has control over the presentation of a company's image then there is absolutely no point in having a designer. Might as well have the intern throw something up there. Think before you write.

[Platform]

Great, Safari needed new features, and it needs even more :D

[Eric5h5]

If the user (who knows nothing of design, fonts, color, etc.) has control over the presentation of a company's image then there is absolutely no point in having a designer. Might as well have the intern throw something up there. Think before you write.

That's good advice; why don't you take it? I've done quite a bit of professional design...print and web...and the user doesn't have "control over the presentation of a company's image" on a web site; the user has control (or should have control) over aspects of how that image is presented. That's why you have the ability to override text sizes and style sheets. As I said, the web is not print and should not be treated as such. If you have anything to do with web design and you don't understand that, I'd suggest getting out of the business before you inflict any more harm.

--Eric

[JGowan]

I have always used Safari since it came out, but since Jan '06 (and moving to the country), I have had to switch to Camino/Firefox because I now have Satellite internet.

The problem I have is that Safari is lazy and won't wait as long as it takes for a page to load. It will just show broken image icons where the graphics should be. The other aforementioned browsers take their time and keep accessing the page until it loads, even if I open multiple tab pages at once.

I would love to go back to Safari if they would fix this problem or if there was some box I needed to check/uncheck in the prefs.

Any ideas?

[MacMan314]

I am not a webdesigner so could someone explain the TEXTAREA upgrade? It sounded like a good idea when I read it, but it seems to have struck a nerve with a couple people, and I'm not sure why. I'm guessing it would be like if I went to an art auction and bought a painting by Monet, I bring the painting home and realize that the wallspace I have for it isn't wide enough, so I grab a corner of the painting a pull it down, hence making it skinnier and fitting my wall? Nobody would ever consider doing that to a Monet, yet isn't this what the new TEXTAREA feature does?

I think you have it backwards, the feature is destroying the art to make room for something else, not destroying the art so it fits a predefined space. It's more like having a beautifully built house, realizing that the dining room isn't big enough for the table you'd like, then taking a sledgehammer and bashing several walls down to make it bigger.

Yes, it sounds like a good idea. No, it will not work perfectly with all websites. No, web designers will not expend much effort making it work correctly, because nobody uses Safari and this feature isn't even an official standard.

So basically it will ruin more than a few pages, but all the mac centric websites will make sure it works perfectly with theirs. It all depends on how the layouts (wait for it...) laid out.

[SiliconAddict]

sounds like good news to me. not really big features, but features nonetheless.

looking forward to more new features from Leopard:cool:


Features for the sake of features does not impress me. Unless there is some hidden bombshell of a feature in Leopard it's looking more and more likely I won't be upgrading. I'm still holding out hope for a bombshell at MWSF this January. Vista will be all but released. Apple's excuses for not announcing will have dried up and it will be put up or shut up time. Come on jobs put your code where your mouth is.

[sundoggy]

agree.
it crashes regularly, even on macrumors or on the apple site!
just make it work!

One thing Safari doesn't do is crash on its own. I am macrumors and the apple site all the time, and get no crashes. The problems I have had with Safari--slow downs mostly--have been the result of other system problems. I didn't realize this until the whole system came down due to a hard drive failure and I had to restore all my directories to the new HD. Since then, Safari has been speedier than ever, and some of the other Safari-specific annoyances (like cached site icons slowing it down) have stopped completely. I also find that it renders almost everything properly. However, I do use Flock, which is really Firefox 1.5, and it seems a bit quicker (faster than Firefox actually--not sure why, but maybe because Fox is loaded with too many plugins).

ABOUT SAFT: Saft is a way cool addition to Safari, and I don't think Apple is planning to add everything in Saft to v3. I highly recommend this cheap add on. BUT, NOTE, it is not free, and it has a pain in the butt upgrade procedure, which you have to do everytime there is an OS upgrade, because Safari releases are tied to OS releases (unless you download the webkit builds, which BTW, will pick up anything you have added to Safari).

[Catfish_Man]

Features for the sake of features does not impress me.

Uh.. except these are features for the sake of usability.

[jTreu]

built in search sounds pretty cool:cool:

[EagerDragon]

I find some pages are designed to be too wide or and some too narrow. If I can control the width of the pages and the fileds, it would be good if it remeber those settings for that page and site.

[Whistleway]

I just d/led the newest build from webkit and it is really a great improvement. It is very fast and responsive and is not a memory hog. I encourage you to try it out.

I never been happy with safari. But this newest build, 419.3, suprised me.

[clintob]

I find some pages are designed to be too wide or and some too narrow. If I can control the width of the pages and the fileds, it would be good if it remeber those settings for that page and site.

At the risk of sounding rude, this is exactly the type of thinking that makes those of us who make our living as designers squirm in our chairs. The concept of a user being able to resize elements that we have sized for a particular reason is awful. Yes, of couse there are many poorly designed webpages out there, but that doesn't mean users should have the ability to alter the appearance and layout of any page they want. If a page is designed poorly, write to the webmaster and let him/her know why you think it's poor and how they might fix it. Toying with people's designs is opening a terrible can of worms. Let qualified, educated designers build web pages, and let users view them and critique them if necessary, but don't blur the line. We've all seen what happens when you allow that line to blur (ahem... MySpace!)

[meepm00pmeep]

At the risk of sounding rude, this is exactly the type of thinking that makes those of us who make our living as designers squirm in our chairs. The concept of a user being able to resize elements that we have sized for a particular reason is awful. Yes, of couse there are many poorly designed webpages out there, but that doesn't mean users should have the ability to alter the appearance and layout of any page they want. If a page is designed poorly, write to the webmaster and let him/her know why you think it's poor and how they might fix it. Toying with people's designs is opening a terrible can of worms. Let qualified, educated designers build web pages, and let users view them and critique them if necessary, but don't blur the line. We've all seen what happens when you allow that line to blur (ahem... MySpace!)

agreed