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Aug19

Safari’s lack of view background image and other infuriating developer restrictions.

In the Beginning

When I first started using Mac OS X in college I fell in love with the Safari web browser. It was light weight, sexy, and fast. Unfortunately, the more I ramped into complex web development the more I realized Safari’s severe developer limitations. Back then developers had to enter terminal commands to even gain access to Safari’s developer menu. And, once turned on, the developer menu lacked the oomph of Firefox’s flourishing Firebug and Web Developer Toolbar extensions.

Since that day I’ve been using Firefox heavily for development and only occasionally jumping into Safari to test site feel and functionality.

Then, about a year ago, Safari started making real steps to support web developers. The release of Safari 4 earlier this year capitalized a nice upswing in Safari developer improvements. But, unfortunately, Safari still lacks some of the most basic development capability.

In my opinion, if Safari doesn’t address the following three issues, it will never become a viable competitor to Firefox for developers.

Source View Made for the 80’s

Any time your browser’s source code view renders like Internet Explorer’s you really need to sit down think things over. Is this acceptable, am I being an asshole? The answer, obviously, is yes.
A comparison of Firefox and Safari source code.

Let Me View Background Images!

Firefox and IE background image optionsThe web is no longer a mass of tables and img tags. Thanks to CSS we’ve started abstracting background effects from real content. Knowing this, there is absolutely no reason why Safari shouldn’t have a view background image option. Safari, do you really expect me to right click, inspect element, and then track down the CSS that links to that background image? Give me a break.

Target HTML Elements Faster

The best thing about the Web Developer Toolbar extension for Firefox is that you can hit cmd-shift-y and instantly view HTML elements. This is perfect if you’re trying to track down a styling issue or remember an ID name. It’s fast, easy, and accurate. Safari’s right click > inspect element isn’t even in the same ballpark as this. And, as hard as I’ve tried, there’s no way to reassign the Inspect Element shortcut in OS X.
screencast

Conclusion

Safari, you’re a great consumer browser. And yes, WebKit is a phenomenal web rendering engine. Hell, even Google loves you. Please, just fix these small problems and I’ll switch to you full-time, I promise! Until then, I’m going to continue buying FireFox t-shirts.

posted in: CSS, browsers, data visualization, usability, web design

This post was published on Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 5:17 pm

Leave a comment


Comments

1

Esben Thomsen

August 20, 2009 at 5:57 am

I use it rather seriously and perhaps I can help you with some of the above issues.

You can customize the toolbar if you want a quicker inspector. Can’t see what customisation of the shortcut is safari related problem. That is a OS X issue as far as I can tell.

If you install Safari Stand then you can get coloured source view, yes that is a plugin and I too would like it to be default. But at least it is possible.

Background images? Seriously..

back to work :)

2

x5315

August 20, 2009 at 6:54 am

Hi,

Have you tried using the inspector in Safari? It’ll show you a lot of information.

3

Alex F

August 20, 2009 at 7:24 am

Option – Command – C: how does that not work for you to bring up the element inspector?

I switched to Safari 4 as my dev browser and I’m quite satisfied. Source code is quickly copy/pasted to Coda if I really need to step through it and I can get by without View Background Image.

4

Bruce

August 20, 2009 at 8:02 am

Great input on all sides.

First, aparently I’m in the minority for view background image capability, still it really is a big deal in my book. Disecting other developers designs and making quick image update is easier with the option to view background. Especially when items have specific bullet or icon associated images.

Additionally, AlexF, the inspector can be opened via
cmd-option-c but the ability to inspect a specific element still requires a right click or a hide-and-seek method in the inspector. This, IMHO is too slow. DOM tree review should be quick.

Let me clarify — It’s not that I think Safari isn’t doing some thing right, the web inspector is awesome (particularly for loading time tracking). It’s just that a few seemingly easy things seem to have been left out.

Also, Esben, I’ll check into the source highlighting extension you mentioned. When I last checked a lot of the extensions were outdated.

5

Bruce

August 20, 2009 at 8:07 am

Ps. Sorry for the typos. I’m typing these responses from an iPhone on my bus commute. :-)

6

Jamie

August 25, 2009 at 3:35 pm

There really isn’t a good delicious plug-in for Safari either. That’s the biggest reason I don’t use it as my daily browser.

7

Jamie

August 25, 2009 at 3:46 pm

That said, Safari is still the only Mac browser that will print flash content! Still blows my mind Mozilla hasn’t grasped that yet.

8

CB

September 2, 2009 at 7:45 am

Amen. View Background image is the number one reason why Safari isnt a viable option for me. And selecting elements in Firebug is far better than Safari’s/Google’s even though Webkits look more shiny.

9

Brendan O'Brien

September 13, 2009 at 10:45 am

I am in exactly the same position. I would love to make the final switch to Safari but these few issues always pull me back to Firefox.

10

Bruce

September 17, 2009 at 2:12 am

Glad to hear I’m not alone.