At 12:42 PM -0600 2/24/2009, Kris Tilford wrote:
Safari 4 Public Beta is available today:
I'm a bit late jumping in. Was in the middle of some
production work - didn't want to risk applecramp until it was
done.
I did the normal flak-jacket install -- full backup, verify disk,
repair permissions, install, watch the reboot hang because Apple is
too stupid to get the timing right when clearing caches, enter
single-user mode, clear caches and vm with applejack, reboot, life is
good...
A word about that installation package: Wow. Check
your logs. This is NOT a "clean" beta test, like we've
come to know and love with other apps. It is *destructive*.
After making an archive of a few pieces, Apple replaces the webkit
framework installed in /Library with one that's newer than their norm
but still ancient (and buggy!) compared to WebKit Nightly. THEN
they fark with every other application on your system that uses WebKit
-- including Mail. Then they give you the new Safari.app.
IOW, this beta does not affect just Safari. It has the
potential to fark MANY other apps. So BE CAREFUL.
My first impressions are bad. As usual, new eye candy, a fancy "Top
Spots" page that curves a miniature wallpaper of your most visited
webpages across a window
On my Smurf, Safari 4 happily decides I'm too slow to see such.
LOL
On faster Macs, that eye-candy is all abysmally slow. Bad
implementation of unnecessary features, IMO.
At first, I found Safari 4 to be noticeably slower than Safari
3.2.1 with WebKit Nightly. Then I went poking around in the
preferences ... I had turned off the fraudulent site checking in
Safari 3, but it seems the install turned it back on. After
fixing that and other settings - Safari 4 got speedy.
Be careful with various plug-ins and inputmanagers -- some will
be incompatible with Safari 4. FWIW, I've found that SafariBlock
*is* compatible.
the elimination of the Stop/Reload button from the toolbar is crazy. You're stuck watching a spinning
thingy with no option except closing the tab.
Bad Apple. Bad bad bad design. WIthout that progress
bar, you're sitting there in the dark. Luckily most of the bad
design can be backed out...
Customize the toolbar to restore the top/reload button.
To move the tab bar back to the position in was in Safari
3:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop
-bool NO
To move the tab bar back to the top:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop
-bool YES
To bring back the inline progress loading indicator:
defaults write com.apple.Safari
DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
defaults write com.apple.Safari
DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO
(I know, those defaults commands have been published elsewhere; I
just want to repeat them for the folx that missed all the articles
etc. Simon! I liked your Safari 4 article!)
It did score 100 on Acid3, but initially stalled on several tests so that the progress was very uneven and REALLY slow. Upon subsequent tests it loaded almost instantly, as if it were using a cache rather than rerunning the test?
A symptom of using an out-of-date webkit build. Bad Apple. Bad bad bad.
At 7:41 PM -0500 2/24/2009, Wallace Adrian D'Alessio wrote:
Apple is saying it is the fastest browser ever?
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/02/24/tech-safari.html
I did my own subjective tests. Safari 4 as-distributed
seems a tad faster than Safari 3 with WebKit Nightly. But not
much faster. Safari 4 with WebKit Nightly is faster still.
<rant> Apple has spammed a lot of PR around taking credit
for Safari's speed. I guess that's their right, since the top of
Safari is their app, after all. But most of the speed ups are
coming from the open source folx that worked VERY hard on things like
WebKit. I haven't seen Apple giving them any credit for that.
Big Corp Mentality, I guess. sigh.
At 10:17 AM -0600 2/25/2009, George R. Hozendorf wrote:
And why move the tabs to the top of the screen?
On wide screens, it makes sense to try to squeeze all the
vertical space you can. IMO, it's bad design. Now you
cannot ever see the full page title, if you have lots of tabs open.
AND you have to mouse further. That seems trivial until you
consider how many times you have to that xtra inch. I guess
drumming up more business for carpel tunnel doctors is a Good
Thing. /me puts his Martha hat back on the shelf.
At 11:43 AM -0500 2/25/2009, Mark wrote:
wow
cmd + & - enlarges and reduces EVERYTHING - not just the type.
I have to admit... This particular change - seeing frames being
expanded so *quickly* - really caught my eye! Took me a while to
get used to it, but I'm thinking this is the best improvement in the
whole beta!!!!!
FWIW,
- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth
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