Update on Browser Testing: Safari 3.0.4 for Windows

January 4, 2008

OK, first of all, I’ve decided that I need more than a week of testing to really get a feel for a particular browser. How about a month? Well, maybe two weeks….I’ll wait and see how next week works out.So, for my first report on Safari, I’ll start with things I LIKE:

• It looks cool (love those little windows that sorta roll down from the top of the browser to ask me if I want to save a password)
• It loads fast
• Expandable text boxes (this is for you, Allison). Actually, the place I noticed it after you mentioned it was in Gmail (my default e-mail program). Now that I’m in Wordpress, I see the same 3 slashes in the bottom left-hand corner of this text box I’m typing in that I can drag with my mouse to expand the box. Cool! I haven’t tried another browser yet to see if any others have the same capability. I’ll report back on that on the next browser test.
• Like the ease of reporting bugs (and the little bug on the taskbar is cute, too)

That pretty much ends my list of likes for the week. Let me issue a caveat here, though. I’m using a browser I’m not used to so the things I’m most conscious of are things that DON’T work the way I expect them to. I’m sure there are some other cool features of Safari that I will discover while I’m using it. I have to say that I have used it almost exclusively this past week. There have been a couple of times that I had to use IE or FF to perform tasks that I just couldn’t do with Safari. That brings me to the things I DISLIKE:

• Disfunctional tabs – Even if I have “open links in a new tab” checked in Preferences…they don’t. Sometimes, they open in the same window and sometimes they open in another smaller window on top of the one where I clicked the link. Yes, Allison, I sent a bug report from the cute little ant on the taskbar at the top of the screen. I also “googled it” and found out that it is a problem that hasn’t been fixed YET (and that means it will be, I’m assuming).
• Autocomplete doesn’t work with Gmail – I never remember anybody’s entire e-mail address and even if I did, I don’t want to have to type it in everytime I send them an e-mail. I noticed in Gmail that an address would show up sporadically when I started typing during Compose Message, but even if it did, I couldn’t select it. Once again, I did a search to see if this was a known issue and once again, it is. The issue is with the newer version of Gmail. That means that as a workaround, all I need to do is click on Older Version at the top of the Gmail window and switch to the older version when I want to use autocomplete, then switch back when I’m finished. That’s not a bad workaround…doesn’t take a lot of additional time…but it’s a workaround.
• Gmail locks up – Sometime, when I click on Reply or Send, Gmail just stops responding. I refresh the page and it starts working again. I haven’t looked to see if this is a known issue or not.
• Doesn’t work consistently with Flash – In this case, what I mean is with a Flash based interface I use to maintain one of my client websites. I can perform most of the tasks I need to perform but when it comes to editing a page, I don’t get the graphic representation of the page….just HTML. That’s OK sometimes when all I need to do is change a few lines of code and actually, there has been a time or two when it was easier to do it that way than to have to open the WYSIWYG page and switch to viewing the source. I also noticed that sometimes the Flash features for loading database info just didn’t work. The info just never came up (I work with inventory for an auto dealer’s site).

OK, that’s enough for this week. Despite the little niggling problems I’ve encountered, my first week’s experience with using Safari has been a good one. Probably the feature I’ve missed most is the extension in Firefox that allows me to switch back and forth between FF and IE. I find myself wanting to right click in Safari and click “View in IE” or “View in Firefox” when I find a page that just doesn’t work. You can really help me during the Safari testing phase if you send me your input. Tell me about cool Safari features I can try. Tell me about your own experiences. This sure ain’t a scientific test, but I do think it’s worthwhile and hope that the information I uncover during the Browser Test will be beneficial to lots of folks!

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