Re: Maybe Safari 4 actually is for Windows

Dan Johnson stated in post frudnezIftRXETnUnZ2dnUVZ_tmWnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on
2/24/09 5:11 PM:

There's not a whole lot to note about the just-announced Safari 4, but there
is one thing that may prove very significant. Safari 4 is to have a native
UI on Windows. Aero Glass, Windows' controls, ClearType text rendering- the
lot.

I noticed this, too. Excellent that Apple is being a better Windows citizen.

I think so, too.

Here is another detail I notice: Safari 4 on Windows has no menu bar. It has
very Chrome-like menu buttons to the right of the address bar. These are not
present in the Mac version, which just uses the same menu bar it always did.

On this point Safari 4 is clearly adhering to the New Aero Style, which
avoids menu bars in favor of anything that has pretty pictures in it. At
least this one detail that is apparently not coming to the Mac.

They are designing the app to fit in with each OS... though the top tabs on
OS X is an odd choice, I think.

Hitherto, Apple has been pretty strict in their policy of bringing OS X UI
to Windows, no matter how much it hurts. That may be changing, and if this
happens to iTunes as well, it could be very good news for the iPod and
iPhone.

And a sign that Apple is sticking to UI consistency principles.

Is it? One can argue that Safari 4 is in some sense consistent with Vista
(sort of), but what about Safari 4 on OS X? Is that consistency? What other OS
X app does anything similar?

Safari has always been a pretty good OS X program, in terms of UI. On
Windows is was not a good Windows program... it plopped a "foreign" UI onto
Windows. I did not approve. Glad Steve listened to me. :)

Even on Vista, it's being consistent with chaos. Nobody knows quite what to do
with the glass, and everyone is experimented. The result is just not very
consistent, and probably won't become so until a consensus developers about
what is good to do with the glass.

I do not have Vista... but downloading for XP now.

But of course, this means that instead of OS X's UI being foisted on Windows
users, we are now seeing the reverse. OK, it's not like Safari 4 has Aero
Glass when run on OS X. But it *does* indulge in a striking Vista-ism:
stuffing its own controls into the title bar. Of course, the title bar in
Safari 4 resembles nothing so much as Google Chrome, but remember that
Office 2007 did this sort of thing earlier.

I do find the tabs to be odd. Maybe I will get used to them. The idea, of
course, is to save space... but I use the tabs more than the bookmarks ...
seems odd to have them further away.

It's very Chrome-like to do this.

Yes. Do not really like it on Chrome, either... but I do not use Chrome as
much. And at least on Chrome the colors stand out more. On Safari (Mac)
they fade away...

Though Opera is similar, too. It does have
the advantage of grouping the address bar and such with the content that it
controls; the style of tabs seen in Firefox and IE switch content both above
and below the tab.

OTOH, every other example I can think of does preserve a significant amount
of 'normal title bar' for you to use to move the window or whatever. Chrome
has a bit of this above the tabs; Office has it to the right of the
quick-access toolbar. Opera has a normal title bar above the tabs.

You can use the tabs as a "normal" title bar on Safari Mac. You now have
little drag handles to move the tabs.

Safari 4 has a tiny, tiny bit of it between the 'new tab' button and the
minimize button on Windows. On the Mac, it seems like the space around the
close/minimize/zoom buttons acts as a normal title bar, but it's oddly
shaped and hard to hit.

Just use the tabs. But, hey, testing now: you cannot move "up" by right
clicking on the names any more. This is a loss of functionality. I and the
3 other people who used that are not going to be happy! Seriously, I find
it a shame that they removed that feature.

I don't think anyone is quite sure what to do with the Glass; but where
Microsoft has been very conservative about it, Apple has been very radical
in a way. But not innovative; it's the same stuff Chrome was doing.

They tightened it up so it *looks* better; Chrome (and, for that matter,
Windows Explorer) have Vast Tracts of Glass with nothing on it, and that
just looks untidy compared to Safari 4.

Well, I think Glass is a mess anyway.

If you think of it that way, it's Apple to do that. And it's surprising that
they haven't done something of this kind on Windows before. The OS X
hand-me-down interfaces Apple's software got on Windows were just tacky, and
since when is Apple tacky?

Well, the transparent menu was certainly in poor taste I think. :)

And the actual design of these particular tabs favors Windows, too! On the
Mac, the close, minimize, and zoom buttons are visually part of the first
tab. They even get 'pushed into the background' with that tab, should any
other tab be active. It's a weird effect, and it doesn't exactly make sense.

I noticed that as well... not a huge deal, but odd. It is, however, still a
beta.

It is, and maybe changes are in store. But the beta is a snapshot of a moment
in the history of the product. It tells us which OS the UI was originally for,
if you will.

It will be interesting to see if Safari 4 gets some love on OS X. I wouldn't
care to place a bet on that just yet.

It works well on OS X... though, as I said, I do not like the moved tabs.

[snip]
It seems clear that the UI here was designed for Windows first, and
retrofitted to the Mac without even bothering to, say, flip the 'new tab'
button over to the left side.

Not sure your evidence supports your conclusion.

Then I'm doing well! Usually, you are sure my evidence does not support
anything! :D

[snip]





--
[INSERT .SIG HERE]


.