Safari 4 Tips, Tricks and Special Effects

[MacRumors]

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]

Definitely excited for what this has to offer for developers

 

[rockdog]

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

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

I do like the new Safari and can tell a bit of a speed boost on sites like MobileMe and Gmail but I don't like the Tabs at the top. I'm glad somone has found a way to change this.

 

[Khryz]

What about the Mac version?

 

[Eidorian]

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

 

[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)

 

[Phil A.]

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

 

[Aldaris]

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)!

 

[millar876]

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]

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.

 

[lftrghtparadigm]

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.

 

[DrJD]

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?

 

[big_malk]

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?

 

[telecomm]

Wow, falling leaves shows as using upwards of 90% of a processor (this is on a 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo). Hope the people reading that lawn care ad have new computers!

 

[Melan]

Anyone able to get Sogudi working on Safari 4?

 

[okrelayer]

I just need inquisitor updated and all will be well with safari 4!

Weatherbug widget doesn't work after safari , however webclips update near instantly now. I'll give it a few days for things to sort out.

 

[wijzewillem]

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?

Hmm, I also encountered the mail-crash problem! Though the error message mentioned it might have to do with GrowMail plugin as source of the problem. Don't want to revert to the old Safari though!

 

[superduperultra]

The instructions page is down, here are the commands:

 # http://swedishcampground.com/safari-4-hidden-preferences

Having a quick poke through the new Safari binary yields the following strings:
  
  $ strings /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari | grep DebugSafari4
  DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop
  DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign
  DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList
  DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest
  DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle
  DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView
  DebugSafari4TopSitesZoomToPageAnimationDimsSnapshot
  DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites

*NB: Need to restart Safari after changing any of these.*

## DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop

This moves the tab bar back where you expect it to be:

  $ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

## DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign and DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle

When both set to NO it restores the blue loading bar behind the URL.

  $ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
  $ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO

## DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList

Switches off the new URL autocomplete menu and goes back to the original one.

  $ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeFancyURLCompletionList -bool NO

## DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest

Turns off the new Google suggest menu.

  $ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeGoogleSuggest -bool NO

## DebugSafari4IncludeFlowViewInBookmarksView

Unknown.

## DebugSafari4TopSitesZoomToPageAnimationDimsSnapshot

Unknown.

## DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites

Disables Top Sites feature completely.

  $ defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeTopSites -bool NO

## Undoing changes

Just run the defaults command with the `delete` flag for the appropriate key you wish to delete.

  $ defaults delete com.apple.Safari <key>

 

[HLdan]

+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.

 

[Serensun]

i like it

I like the new Safari 4!

The Taps at the Top are usefull and it is much faster on my MacBook (can't say anything to Windows or faster Macs)

I like it and the new "Top Site" Overview is very nice and easy to edit...

love it already... very good beta

 

[riversky]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

I do like the new Safari and can tell a bit of a speed boost on sites like MobileMe and Gmail but I don't like the Tabs at the top. I'm glad somone has found a way to change this.

Appleinsider as well as a few developers are saying that the "tabs on top" interface may extend to other apps and the finder in the future. It may be a new interface going forward on the Mac OS X Snow Leopard and beyond.

 

[lamar777]

Really?

I love the new Safari including where the tabs are but why is Apple with the iPod Touch, iPhone, and multi touch trackpad lagging on support of multi touch gestures in Safari? I thought this would have been one of the majorly touted features firefox still has more multi touch options.

 

[Melan]

Give the new tabs a chance, I say. I'm not used to them yet either but I'm keeping them for a week or so before I decide I want them or not.

 

[gholland04]

QuickTime in Window

Has anyone had issues with QT playing in the browser window? I could find no way/setting that allows it to play in a normal detached mode.

-gary