Safari 4 Tips, Tricks and Special Effects

MacRumors · 12:33 PM

The release of the Safari 4 Beta yesterday has generated a massive number of comments. Here are a few interesting tips, tricks and observations.

CNet benchmarked Safari 4's Javascript and found it to be 42x faster than IE 7, 6x faster than IE 8 and the fastest compared to any browser:

Javascript is a key scripting language that is heavily used in interactive websites such as GMail and MobileMe.

We previously discussed the inclusion of CSS Animation into Webkit and its long term implications. Well, the latest Safari 4 beta incorporates these new features which allows you to view these impressive demos that use CSS/javascript:

CSS Animation: Falling Leaves, Bouncing Box, Pulse
3D with Canvas: JS Cloth, Miku, Touch (via Kawanet and Ajaxian)
Presentations: Sample slideshow (use right/left arrows to advance)

Finally, those who are still trying to get used to the new Safari 4 changes might want to follow these tips:

Safari 4 Hidden Preferences - how to move the tabs back to the bottom, restore the blue loading bar, turn off URL autocompletion, Google Suggest and more. (Original site is down - content copied here.)
1Password - How to get it to work in Safari 4

Article Link: Safari 4 Tips, Tricks and Special Effects

DMBGuru · Feb 25, 2009, 11:03 AM

Definitely excited for what this has to offer for developers

jellomizer · Feb 25, 2009, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMBGuru

Definitely excited for what this has to offer for developers

As a developer this is a nightmare. All these cool features and high performance which will allow me to do excellent things. Only for me to not use them as they need to work for IE too.

rockdog · Feb 25, 2009, 11:06 AM

Nice, but I'm not sure I will abandon Firefox just yet though.

Khryz · Feb 25, 2009, 11:07 AM

What about the Mac version?

Eidorian · Feb 25, 2009, 11:08 AM

Glad to have my tabs back down where they should be.

Spades · Feb 25, 2009, 11:11 AM

The performance of those 3D demos isn't very good. Is that software rendering or is it supposed to be accelerated? Miku was especially chunky. (I mean the FPS, not Miku herself)

Aldaris · Feb 25, 2009, 11:14 AM

I love my progress bar, and I like the tabs where they were! This is the best of both worlds being able to have a "Classic" Safari 4 (beta)!

diamond.g · Feb 25, 2009, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spades

The performance of those 3D demos isn't very good. Is that software rendering or is it supposed to be accelerated? Miku was especially chunky. (I mean the FPS, not Miku herself)

Since when is javascript something that can be accelerated by a gpu?

Phil A. · Feb 25, 2009, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eidorian

Glad to have my tabs back down where they should be.

+1
I love everything about Safari 4, except the ridiculous location of the tabs. Happy to get them back where they belong now

HLdan · Feb 25, 2009, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil A.

+1
I love everything about Safari 4, except the ridiculous location of the tabs. Happy to get them back where they belong now

Nope, I hope Apple keeps them at the top and there's no way to change them on the final version. Having the tabs at the bottom of the address bar took up browsing space, I'm very happy to have them at the top.

BRLawyer · Feb 25, 2009, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil A.

+1
I love everything about Safari 4, except the ridiculous location of the tabs. Happy to get them back where they belong now

What a great release by Apple...Safari MOPS THE FLOOR with competing browsers...NOTHING comes close and I am absolutely happy with the beta version (apart from the tabs position, which I reverted to the old position but may still return to the top ones, and the broken currency widget)...GO APPLE!

IEatApples · Feb 26, 2009, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil A.

+1
I love everything about Safari 4, except the ridiculous location of the tabs. Happy to get them back where they belong now

+1

I hope Apple understands how impractical the new ones are… but it's fun that they "dare" to try new things.

Oh, and I hope they change the location of the refresh button! I want it to the left where they've put the (to me) useless "bookmark" button.

millar876 · Feb 25, 2009, 11:14 AM

I Prefer my tabs at the top, NOW. it took me an hour or two to get used to it, but i like theme there now. Definitely a LOT faster for me, on my 512kbps connection G-Mail is a lot more responsive, and a lot of other sites just seem to work a bit better.

slicecom · Feb 25, 2009, 11:20 AM

Tabs make more sense on top, and give me a bit more screen real estate on my 12" Powerbook. Now if they'd only add other features such as the address bar / google search bar combo from Chrome and I'd be completely satisfied.

DrJD · Feb 25, 2009, 11:20 AM

I installed the beta yesterday and thought it was awesome.

Did anyone else have problems with their Mail.app crashing after you installed it? I had to uninstall the beta and then mail went back to normal... Anyone?

big_malk · Feb 25, 2009, 11:21 AM

I didn't like the tabs at the top to start with, but I'm getting used to it now!
The missing progress bar is daft though, the spinning circle is no substitute at all.

The 'Top sites' wall would be a lot more useful if you could manually add sites you want to it.
Anyone care to speculate on when Google Gears might be working with Safari 4?

lftrghtparadigm · Feb 25, 2009, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eidorian

Glad to have my tabs back down where I like them

fixed.

The new tabs are great, and the intuitive new tab button > top sites flow is extremely satisfying. Great Java experience as well so far.

Small White Car · Feb 25, 2009, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eidorian

Glad to have my tabs back down where they should be.

Wimp

I give any change like this 3 days to impress me. Sometimes I like changes, sometimes I don't and will find a way to go back.

But I ALWAYS give myself the chance to make the choice. You really can't make that choice after just 1 day.

QCassidy352 · Feb 25, 2009, 12:46 PM

Nice to see this review. I have to say, Safari is seriously blazing fast now. I've always rotated camino, safari, and firefox and liked them all about equally. But I can't see leaving safari at this point - it's just that much faster.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eidorian

Glad to have my tabs back down where they should be.

I agreed with you, for the first five minutes I was using Safari 4. Then I spent a few minutes feeling ambivalent. And now I'm kinda surprised nobody had done this before. They really are much nicer at the top. Still good that the old way is there as an option for those who prefer it though.

All in all, this is a really nice release, and I haven't had any stability issues yet (crosses fingers).

zeebe · Feb 25, 2009, 12:49 PM

If you are a RapidWeaver user, Safari 4 breaks RapidWeaver. Try changing colors of a theme or a theme itself in Rapidweaver with Safari 4 installed, doesn't work! I am back at Safari 3.

axual · Feb 25, 2009, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khryz

What about the Mac version?

Is that your question? Download it and see.

Hattig · Feb 25, 2009, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rockdog

Nice, but I'm not sure I will abandon Firefox just yet though.

This Safari 4 finally won out over Firefox on my iBook. It's faster, finally. Also Firefox has been getting more and more unstable and irritating recently. Just need flashblock for Safari

iMaggot · Feb 26, 2009, 03:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rockdog

Nice, but I'm not sure I will abandon Firefox just yet though.

Yeah me to, I just hope Firefox gets a "speed boost" update soon.

PUREVIL · Feb 26, 2009, 03:43 AM

Ive been a mac user for 2 years now and during that time I used firefox. FF has a plug in called unlinker which is handy when viewing directories... does safari have something similar?

Also is there a way to import my book marks from FF to safari?

Lastly how can I make it so when I click on an email it opens the link in a new tab.... not new window? I read some where to open terminal and type in a code..... but i dont know what/where terminal is at so can someone give me the turn by turn directions... thanks other than these little issues I like S4 so far.

Feb 25, 2009, 11:02 AM	#1
MacRumors macrumors bot Join Date: Apr 2001	Safari 4 Tips, Tricks and Special Effects The release of the Safari 4 Beta yesterday has generated a massive number of comments. Here are a few interesting tips, tricks and observations. CNet benchmarked Safari 4's Javascript and found it to be 42x faster than IE 7, 6x faster than IE 8 and the fastest compared to any browser: Javascript is a key scripting language that is heavily used in interactive websites such as GMail and MobileMe. We previously discussed the inclusion of CSS Animation into Webkit and its long term implications. Well, the latest Safari 4 beta incorporates these new features which allows you to view these impressive demos that use CSS/javascript: CSS Animation: Falling Leaves, Bouncing Box, Pulse 3D with Canvas: JS Cloth, Miku, Touch (via Kawanet and Ajaxian) Presentations: Sample slideshow (use right/left arrows to advance) Finally, those who are still trying to get used to the new Safari 4 changes might want to follow these tips: Safari 4 Hidden Preferences - how to move the tabs back to the bottom, restore the blue loading bar, turn off URL autocompletion, Google Suggest and more. (Original site is down - content copied here.) 1Password - How to get it to work in Safari 4 Article Link: Safari 4 Tips, Tricks and Special Effects Last edited by WildCowboy : Feb 25, 2009 at 12:33 PM.

Feb 25, 2009, 11:03 AM	#2
DMBGuru macrumors member Join Date: Jan 2007	Definitely excited for what this has to offer for developers __________________ Macbook.C2D.80HDD.2RAM \| WD.EXT.400GB.120GB The Biology Blog \| Biological Sciences News & Articles

Feb 25, 2009, 11:06 AM	#4
rockdog macrumors member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: N Idaho	Nice, but I'm not sure I will abandon Firefox just yet though. __________________ "we have met the enemy and he is us" -Walt Kelly

Feb 25, 2009, 11:08 AM	#6
Eidorian macrumors G3 Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Indiana	Glad to have my tabs back down where they should be. __________________ MRoogle it! hikari T7500 2.2 GHz / 4 GB / 320 GB / GMA X3100 / 10.5.8 chobimaru Core i5 750 2.66 GHz / 4 GB / 640 GB / 4830 / Windows 7

Feb 25, 2009, 11:14 AM	#8
Aldaris macrumors 6502 Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Salt Lake City	Thank You MR I love my progress bar, and I like the tabs where they were! This is the best of both worlds being able to have a "Classic" Safari 4 (beta)! __________________ -Aldaris (The "real" Judicator) PMac G4\|PCube\|PB G4\|MBP\|iPhone and iPods Galore This is my iLife?

Feb 25, 2009, 11:07 AM	#5
Khryz macrumors 6502 Join Date: Jan 2007	What about the Mac version?

Feb 25, 2009, 11:11 AM	#7
Spades macrumors 6502 Join Date: Oct 2003	The performance of those 3D demos isn't very good. Is that software rendering or is it supposed to be accelerated? Miku was especially chunky. (I mean the FPS, not Miku herself)

Feb 25, 2009, 11:14 AM	#14
millar876 macrumors 6502a Join Date: May 2004 Location: Peterhead, Scotland UK	I Prefer my tabs at the top, NOW. it took me an hour or two to get used to it, but i like theme there now. Definitely a LOT faster for me, on my 512kbps connection G-Mail is a lot more responsive, and a lot of other sites just seem to work a bit better. __________________ 20 inch iMac CoreDuo 2.0 2GB 250GB Powerbook G4 12 1.0GHz 120GB iPod, 16GB iPhone Saving for a mac pro, charity/donations accepted/encouraged

Feb 25, 2009, 11:20 AM	#15
slicecom macrumors 6502a Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada	Tabs make more sense on top, and give me a bit more screen real estate on my 12" Powerbook. Now if they'd only add other features such as the address bar / google search bar combo from Chrome and I'd be completely satisfied.

Feb 25, 2009, 11:20 AM	#16
DrJD macrumors newbie Join Date: Feb 2009	Problems with Mail.app? I installed the beta yesterday and thought it was awesome. Did anyone else have problems with their Mail.app crashing after you installed it? I had to uninstall the beta and then mail went back to normal... Anyone?

Feb 25, 2009, 11:21 AM	#17
big_malk macrumors 6502 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Scotland	I didn't like the tabs at the top to start with, but I'm getting used to it now! The missing progress bar is daft though, the spinning circle is no substitute at all. The 'Top sites' wall would be a lot more useful if you could manually add sites you want to it. Anyone care to speculate on when Google Gears might be working with Safari 4?

Feb 25, 2009, 12:49 PM	#21
zeebe macrumors newbie Join Date: Feb 2006	If you are a RapidWeaver user, Safari 4 breaks RapidWeaver. Try changing colors of a theme or a theme itself in Rapidweaver with Safari 4 installed, doesn't work! I am back at Safari 3. __________________ Zeebe Support a charity as you search the Internet http://www.goodsearch.com I support Sacred Heart School, Robbinsdale, MN

Feb 26, 2009, 03:43 AM	#25
PUREVIL macrumors newbie Join Date: Feb 2009	Ive been a mac user for 2 years now and during that time I used firefox. FF has a plug in called unlinker which is handy when viewing directories... does safari have something similar? Also is there a way to import my book marks from FF to safari? Lastly how can I make it so when I click on an email it opens the link in a new tab.... not new window? I read some where to open terminal and type in a code..... but i dont know what/where terminal is at so can someone give me the turn by turn directions... thanks other than these little issues I like S4 so far.

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