Safari UI Annoyances, Part 1: Huge Waste of Pixels
Note: This article is part one of a series I’m starting about various UI annoyances in Safari, OS X’s default browser. Don’t feel ripped off if this series isn’t too long — Safari is a pretty great browser.
Safari has been frustrating me recently. I use it because it’s a better browser than anything else out there, at least for me, but I have some gripes.
I really like how the Safari designers eliminated a need for a progress / loading bar at the bottom of the window. To replace this, they simply merged the Address Bar and the Loading Bar. But there’s another area that hasn’t been eliminated – the Status Bar. It’s necessary if you want to know where a link is going to take you, which I definitely do, so I have to leave the Status Bar on at all times.
But have a solution for this. When I hover over a link, just show me its destination in the Address bar.
I’ll show you what I mean.
When I’m just looking at a page, this is what I see in the address bar:
When I hover over a link, this is what I want to see:
Or, better yet, this:
This is what the whole process would look like:
Chris Williams on March 22nd, 2007 at 7:26 am
Ack, nice thought, but… no. Too much overload of the address bar. It’s hard enough for new people to figure it out without using the same space for multiple purposes.
And it doesn’t fit. For example the permalink to this page is something like 80 characters long and fills 3/4s of the address bar — add on a pointer and a URI of a page of similar length, and … where does it all go? Do you scroll the address bar (uck)?
Paul on March 22nd, 2007 at 7:26 am
If you turn on the bottom gray bar on Safari (Apple + /), in the lower left corner, you will see where the links were take you.
While I like your idea, and it does make sense to me, there is a way to see status built into Safari.
Paul on March 22nd, 2007 at 7:29 am
Nevermind. I misread your last sentence of your one statement. You already know about the bottom status bar.
Ed on March 22nd, 2007 at 7:38 am
I like the idea, although i would rather see the whole of address bar showing the destination address with a different colour when u mouse over it ( like you did show in the video ) rather then a arrow pointing to the destination address. Reason as someone has mention it wont work with ultra super duber long address.
Sarah on March 22nd, 2007 at 8:03 am
Can I just say I completely agree with this.
I have a 12″ iBook G4, and the amount of real-estate that a browser takes up is crucial (I also have a 17″ lampshade iMac, where this is less of a concern, but still annoying), and I would wager such concerns are also pertinent for the 13″ Macbooks (and also, if Apple is designing a subnotebook for the MacbookPro line, like the rumours suggest, it’s even more so).
However, I too do NOT like surfing without having the feature of seeing what the url is behind a link … hell, I consider it basic security, not to mention simply making my online experience actually easier. Hence, I have to have the status-bar running at the bottom, despite the space it takes away from the window.
I would prefer the linked-to address was in a different colour (say Aqua blue, like the scroll-bars, etc) than grey, but that’s more of a personal thing. As another option, it could be organised so that while you rest the cursor over a link, the link replaces the title at the top of the browser window, that way it stops the address window from getting too crowded. But either/or works for me.
If they’re going to do the excellent thing and partially take away the necessity for the status bar, Apple should really go all the way and do it correctly.
DNM on March 22nd, 2007 at 8:08 am
or better yet:
“http://apple.com” in black then “/iphone/features.htm” right next to it as normal but in light grey!
Willem van Duijn on March 22nd, 2007 at 8:10 am
This isn’t going to work for long URL’s containing many GET-parameters. Moreover, your animation excludes the fact that the address-bar is overloaded as a progress bar when a new page is fetched. You’re idea is to show both URL’s, but together with the progress-background this will be way too cluthered.
Furthermore, the statusbar tells me if the link is going to open in a new window, I miss this in your idea. Also, having a nice tall metal row at the bottom makes the desktop less cluthered: it serves as a separator between a large Safari-window and the dock.
The only annoying thing about Safari is that the tabs aren’t managable: I want to rearrange them, and something even better: group them together menu-style (for example, per site – or custom). This will eliminate my need to open multiple windows.
And I sort-of miss the ‘Page Info’ window in my contect-menu, which I used a lot (Firefox).
vanni on March 22nd, 2007 at 8:40 am
all i really want from Safari is a BIG warning when i inadvertently close the app with 4 tabs open: al la firefox. period
Steven Jobs on March 22nd, 2007 at 8:44 am
I wish i could push a button for a new tab and do the smae things like in safari for a new tab( double click right of a tab) apple t isnt always faster so
VL-Tone on March 22nd, 2007 at 8:49 am
Oh please… the status bar is 16 pixels high. Even if you only have a 640×480 monitor, it’s 3% of your vertical screen estate. On a 800×600 it’s 2.6%, on a 1024×768 it’s 2%.
Willem van Duijn:
Leopard’s Safari has moveable tabs.
Michael Long on March 22nd, 2007 at 9:00 am
vanni,
Safari 3 has this (in Leopard)
Neven Mrgan on March 22nd, 2007 at 9:14 am
Creative thinking, but unfortunately this would be confusing and cluttering. What about *horizontal* screen space? Imagine an address bar with a favicon, an url (like the one to this page!), another url, and the RSS icon, all with a progress bar in the back. Yowza! You couldn’t read anything, and the average user would go, what the…?
Safari has the smallest UI footprint of any browser; in fact, it’s pretty high in the running for smallest UI for all popular apps. Try this: turn off the address bar and bookmark bar. If you’re going to be spending most of your time clicking from some web portal, you may not need those. In any case, the toolbars are back in a hit of a keyboard shortcut.
(Of course, *I* don’t use Safari this way, but then again I’m not bothered by its status bar in the least.)
Sambot on March 22nd, 2007 at 9:37 am
Hey there… this might defeat the whole purpose, but I thought that I’d mention it anyway. With the help of the Fission add-on, you can do this exact thing (and do the progress bar/address bar thing)… in Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1951/
Just check the box in the Fission preferences that reads:
Active link/mouseover link in the address bar
As far as getting this done in Safari… yeah, that’d be great!
Jason Terhorst on March 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 am
The problem with this idea over using the status bar is that it doesn’t tell you whether that link will open in the current frame, a new frame, or a new tab. The status bar tells me these things. Also, as you start to use sites with really long URLs, what do you suppose it will do then? This is all completely unnecessary, when we know that Safari still makes better use of space than Firefox. Maybe tooltips for links would be a better idea?
Ken on March 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm
You concern about vertical space is justified, especially in 16:9 screens.
As other have pointed out though, the solution of placing link addresses in the address bar can’t work due to horizontal space limitation, and URL sizes.
My suggestion:
Whenever your mouse pointer is over a link, a tooltip could show its address.
Because tooltips are needed for other reasons throughout a page, we could differentiate it by placing it constantly at the bottom of the page (where the status bar would normally be).
So, it would always be in a familiar place, it would be visible only when needed, and it would go away as soon as it’s not needed.
Julian Bennett Holmes on March 22nd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Chris: Maybe this could be an optional feature. I’ve got a 20″ screen, so this URL is about a third of my address bar.
Ed, Sarah: Maybe having it in a different color would be a good idea, but I don’t know, I’m not a UI designer. The point of this article wasn’t to show Apple exactly how it should be done, but just to show that it could be done better than it is now.
Sarah: I agree, I absolutely need to know where a link it going. I feel blind without it.
DNM: That’s a pretty great idea, but it might get confusing. It would be strange to use a totally different notation when it’s an external link as opposed to an internal link.
Willem van Duijn: I disagree. I see no need for a grey bar at the bottom of the screen. Mail, for example, doesn’t have one, but I’m never confused as to where that window ends. Maybe it’s because I have my dock automatically hide.
Neven Mrgan: You might be right, it could get pretty cluttered. I currently do hide my bookmarks bar, and I might try hiding the address bar until I need it. I always use command-L to switch to the address bar anyway, and if the address bar is hidden, command-L brings it back. Hiding it, however, takes command-shift-backslash (or, as apple says, command-|).
Sambot: That looks cool, but I don’t use Firefox, except for testing.
Jason Terhorst, Ken: Tooltips would be great. I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard yet. However, I see no need to put the tooltips at the bottom of the page. Why not just have it under the cursor, but have the background white or light grey instead of that ugly yellow color that’s currently used for tooltips.
DNM on March 22nd, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Julian, I think you misunderstood my idea.
Normally the address bar would read:
http://apple.com
when rolling over a link it would read:
http://apple.com/iphone/index.htm
but “iphone/index.htm” would be in light grey and “http://apple.com/” in black
Willem van Duijn on March 22nd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Tooltips on each link will cluther everything, and moreover: it will destroy most of the browsing-experience as suddenly tooltips appear everywhere. Imagine a clean nice website, and suddenly a tooltip is there in a completely different style.
Even worse: a page with many links will result in a stroboscopic mousecursor, with tooltips popping up and disapearing. This can be leveraged by building in a delay, but then I also have to wait if I /do/ want to see the URL to be followed.
But it can be implemented parallel to the statusbar, and optional offcourse :) But that will make things too difficult for novice :)
Better is to introduce a right-mouseclick. When a user hovers above a link, and presses its right mouse button the contectmenu appears displaying the full url. But this can make the contextmenu too cluthered.
Anyway, quite difficult to come up with something useful. But I still don’t see what is wrong with a 13px high statusbar :)
B deR West on March 22nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I don’t know which of the many Safari-customizing applets it is, but one of the allows link addresses to be displayed as tooltips. While I agree, it clutter the experience, the fact that when I’m just reading a Web page there isn’t a huge grey bar at the bottom of the window makes up for that little bit of clutter.
I have AcidSearch and SafariStand, but when I poked around in them, I couldn’t find the preference for this feature. I also have ForGetMeNot, but also couldn’t find it in there.
B deR West on March 22nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
A further search reveals it to be SafariEnhancer, found here: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17776
Tim on March 22nd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
awesome idea, i just turned the status bar on for that reason
Steve Simitzis on March 22nd, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Two problems here:
(1) Long URLs (already discussed).
(2) Javascript onclicks. Links that catch onclick events often link to “#”. As more and more sites go Ajax, seeing “#” flash up in the address bar all the time will become a nuisance.
Dan on March 22nd, 2007 at 6:57 pm
When I hover over a link in Safari I get a tooltip after a couple seconds. I feel like an idiot because I have no idea how I activated this. But it can definitely be done, and with the delay it is not obtrusive. I also have the status bar switched off because with this feature I don’t need it. I did a Google search and it looks like Safari Enhancer (mentioned by #20 above) is the big one people are using for this functionality.
eikonos on March 22nd, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I only have the status bar visible because I want to know where links will go, so this would allow me to turn it off and save space. Do the Safari/Webkit developers read this site, and can they add this feature — even as an option for users who want it?
Sebhelyesfarku on March 22nd, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Opera shows a tooltip over links. Safari is a p.o.s. anyways.
Frode Hegland on March 23rd, 2007 at 3:29 am
Very, very, very very nice!!
Willem van Duijn on March 23rd, 2007 at 4:05 am
On http://5thirtyone.com/archives/489 there are some nifty plugins:
= Inquisitor:
Directly show search results as you tipe beneath the search-field. Very nice!
= Saft:
All kinds of extra’s, but I think Apple should make this default in their browsers:
– type ahead find, like in Firefox: just press / and type the phrase you’re searching. No need to do Command+F to open a searchbox that is displayed over the website you’re searching (annoying)
– dragging of tabs
– restore browsing session / tabs
– sidebar with tabs’ content thumbnail
Enzo90910 on March 23rd, 2007 at 4:46 am
I would suggest having a status bar smoothly appearing only when hovering over a link and disappearing at all other times. This should take care of all cases and give you maximal pixel space when you are just reading the page.
vanni on March 23rd, 2007 at 12:25 pm
@Michael
>Safari 3 has this (in Leopard)
Horray!! Yet another reason to look forward to Leopard .. hope the rumours about a new release date of Nov is wrong!!!
Steve on March 23rd, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Right, you won’t see nearly as much of long url’s, especially if the current page’s url is already taking up the entire field. Plus, the address field uses a larger font than the status bar, so you’d be missing even more of the url.
url’s popup in a tooltip window when you hover long enough. What would help is if you could tap the shift key or escape or something to make them appear right away. Couldn’t use the command key because that’s reserved for showing a longer description in the tooltip.
Julian Bennett Holmes on March 23rd, 2007 at 9:58 pm
DNM: No, I think I got it. What I mean is, what would happen then if you’re on apple.com, and you see a link to times.co.uk, for example?
Rich on May 4th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I know this is a little off topic, but firefox has an extension that does EXACTLY what you suggested. It’s called fission and I use it constantly. So, if anything persuades you to change to Firefox in the future, make sure you download fission.
Will on February 18th, 2008 at 8:06 am
safari sucks – apple tends to hide many features in order to make it “easier to use”. However, this is just plain stupid, annoying, and pointless. You don’t need to hide things – make them where they should be – if the average user doesn’t need them / know about them, they won’t go looking. For anyone else that’s familiar with any other computer os out there (other unix based, whichever gnome / kde linux version you choose, even windows) I feel it I feel that their native browsers have a better ORGANIZATION of tools – yes, *cough* even IE – now, that’s my opinion, and I’m not arguing that IE performs better (or well overall), just arguing that the I feel it’s much intuitive there…
so, basically, it’s either all or nothing – either you don’t know anything and using safari is very easy, or you know EVERYTHING and you can control visual safari from the terminal – anywhere in the middle and you’re screwed…