It’s a little thing but I do it all the time in Mozilla. In Safari, I can’t load a URL by dragging it onto a tab. In Safari I have to either right-click then choose New Tab from the menu or command-click the link, which requires two hands. Then I still have to click on the tab to bring it to the front (there are keyboard commands for tab switching but they’re also two-handers - shift-command-right arrow and left arrow). When I’m done with the page, I have to close the tab because it’s not much good for anything else.
In Mozilla, I can drag a URL onto an existing tab or even drag to a blank part of the tab bar to create a new tab. Since I’m using the mouse for the action, the cursor is already in position to bring the tab to the front, if that's what I want. I don’t need to close the tab again because I can re-use it for a different URL.
Another important factor is I use Windows at work but OS X at home and having the same browser on both is helpful.
In general, Safari is a nice browser. It's fast, seems to render pages well, and I like the Bookmarks interface. I like the "Block pop-up windows" option is right in the Safari menu and has a keyboard command. I always leave mine on but I can imagine people making use of that, possibly on a public computer. I also like being able to access the browser history from a menu in Safari. Mozilla makes you open a History window. Of course Mozilla lets you access your bookmarks from a menu while Safari make you open a window so they're reversed on that point. I've never used SnapBack so I guess it doesn't mean much to me. The Aqua styled web form elements are nice but you still can't use the keyboard to operate them.
Comments (1)
Woo hoo! Safari 1.1, included in OS X 10.3, adds the ability to load a URL by dragging it onto a tab.
The truth is I started using Safari at home pretty consistently in September because I was sick of the rendering & stability problems I was having with Mozilla 1.4 for OS X on Slashdot. I spend a lot of time on Slashdot so my main browser needs to freakin' work on that site.
Posted by extra88 | October 29, 2003 12:19 AM
Posted on October 29, 2003 00:19