os x Apple Seeds Safari 5.2 for OS X Lion to Developers

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Apple Seeds Safari 5.2 for OS X Lion to Developers

Alongside the OS X Mountain Lion developer preview released today, Apple has also pushed out Safari 5.2 for Lion to developers. The update brings a number of new features that will be included with Safari in OS X Mountain Lion later this year.

Among the new additions are a unified address/search bar, new persistent Reader icon that is blue when available and grey when inactive, and new URL styling to highlight the domain the page is on while deemphasizing other aspects of the URL.

Apple has not said when it plans to release Safari 5.2 for OS X Lion to the public, but it will presumably do so alongside OS X Mountain Lion in "late summer". Apple just recently began seeding Safari 5.1.4 to developers, and the company will likely continue with the 5.1.x line on Lion until the Mountain Lion launch.

Source: Mac Rumors

Screenshot featuring the new URL bar:

[Quillz]

Some of the hi-res cursors that were introduced in OS X 10.7.3 are gone in Safari 5.2, such as the hi-res magnifying glass. I'm hoping this is just a bug.

Also, you can no longer set your own webpage fonts, or always have the tab bar shown:

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

RSS support is also gone.

[Quillz]

Okay, seems the hi-res magnifying glass cursor is still in the Mountain Lion build, although the low-res grabby hand cursor remains on both Lion and ML.

[bbfc_uk]

Unified search/address bar and domain name highlighting are welcome features, if not a bit late!

[.Neo]

RSS support is also gone.

You know I actually forgot it's there. :/ I never saw much point in it within a browser, nor in Mail.

Loving Safari 5.2 btw.

[Quillz]

I would like it if Apple would bring back the ability to always have the tab bar shown, though. As well as still being able to set your own fonts in the rare instance one isn't defined within the HTML/CSS.

Hell, I still think the Safari 4 Beta that had the tabs on top was a great idea, shame it doesn't appear to be coming back. I like the much wider tabs in 5.2, and that coupled with the ability to have them atop the browser window would have been great.

[Pink Floyd Veteran]

damn I am tempted to download the dev preview hehe

I wanna try the iCloud feature built in and the new safari

[Elliott]

I would like it if Apple would bring back the ability to always have the tab bar shown, though. As well as still being able to set your own fonts in the rare instance one isn't defined within the HTML/CSS.

I always thought the "Always show tab bar" option was redundant. If you do View > Show Tab Bar on a window with no tabs, it practically does the same thing. Like Show Status Bar, it's a sticky option.

Hell, I still think the Safari 4 Beta that had the tabs on top was a great idea, shame it doesn't appear to be coming back. I like the much wider tabs in 5.2, and that coupled with the ability to have them atop the browser window would have been great.

Having compared both Chrome and Safari in Full Screen Mode, I can see one of the reasons Apple is keeping the tab bar on the bottom. With Chrome, I usually end up accidentally popping out the menu bar because my cursor gets too close to the top of the screen. I don't ever have the same problem with Safari.

[.Neo]

Tabs on top was cool for the sake of it looking different than before. That's it.

[.Neo]

Safari 5.2 seems to have nuked auto-correct... :(

[PyX]

There?s something wrong about the interface of that thing ?

[Quillz]

There?s something wrong about the interface of that thing ?

What? It doesn't seem too bad to me. I don't like that some features were taken out, but the UI is otherwise laid out well.

[.Neo]

Can someone else confirm auto-correct isn't working in 5.2?

There?s something wrong about the interface of that thing ?

I have the same feeling. It's the Reader button that makes the address bar look unbalanced. As if it could tip over at any moment and crash down into the Dock.

[PyX]

What? It doesn't seem too bad to me. I don't like that some features were taken out, but the UI is otherwise laid out well.

I can?t put my finger on what it is?

The Reader button ?

The tabs taking up all the width of the screen ?

The greyed out part of the URL that looks way too pale ?

The Address Bar being so large that it looks like a blank field ?

Can someone else confirm auto-correct isn't working in 5.2?

It works.

[Quillz]

I like the wider tabs. On previous releases of Safari, they were fixed to a certain size no matter how much or little of the tab bar was used. So, if you only had a few tabs open, it was hard to read the text. But now, they are as wide as necessary, making it far easier to see, and get smaller the more tabs you open. I think it's a good decision, because it takes advantage of the otherwise wasted space.

And the grayed out URL is a feature that is also in, I think, IE and Chrome. It's designed to make it very obvious at a glance what TLD you're on, to ensure you're not on a phishing or fake site. I don't see this being changed.

[PyX]

I like the wider tabs. On previous releases of Safari, they were fixed to a certain size no matter how much or little of the tab bar was used. So, if you only had a few tabs open, it was hard to read the text. But now, they are as wide as necessary, making it far easier to see, and get smaller the more tabs you open. I think it's a good decision, because it takes advantage of the otherwise wasted space.

I?m not criticizing the idea. In fact, I like it. But it just doesn?t look right.

And the grayed out URL is a feature that is also in, I think, IE and Chrome. It's designed to make it very obvious at a glance what TLD you're on, to ensure you're not on a phishing or fake site. I don't see this being changed.

It?s just that it?s too pale. I can barely even see it.

[.Neo]

It works.

Hm... Damn. :/ Any ideas if there's a preferences file I can trash to see if it fixes it?

[Quillz]

I'm not really sure how they can fix it without just going back to the small fixed-size tabs, though. I think it just looks weird because it's not what we're used to. I think after a while, it will look just fine.

I've also found most Safari extensions are working in 5.2, so there might not have been a lot of major underlying changes between .1 and .2.

[.Neo]

I don't get it. Certain words that are wrongly spelled in Mail get corrected, but those same mistakes aren't corrected in Safari. Auto-correct does work, just half of the time. Example: When I write down "dont" in Mail it auto-corrects. It won't in Safari. :/

[Jebadiah]

Apple Seeds Safari 5.2 for OS X Lion to Developers

Alongside the OS X Mountain Lion developer preview released today, Apple has also pushed out Safari 5.2 for Lion to developers. The update brings a number of new features that will be included with Safari in OS X Mountain Lion later this year.

Among the new additions are a unified address/search bar, new persistent Reader icon that is blue when available and grey when inactive, and new URL styling to highlight the domain the page is on while deemphasizing other aspects of the URL.

Apple has not said when it plans to release Safari 5.2 for OS X Lion to the public, but it will presumably do so alongside OS X Mountain Lion in "late summer". Apple just recently began seeding Safari 5.1.4 to developers, and the company will likely continue with the 5.1.x line on Lion until the Mountain Lion launch.

Source: Mac Rumors

Screenshot featuring the new URL bar:

With performance still in the crapper.

[Quillz]

The performance seems as good as Safari 5.1.x. But it's also a beta, so there may yet to be any true underlying performance improvements.

[.Neo]

For whatever reason Substitutions > Text Replacement was turned off. Auto-correct works as usual again.

[Quillz]

Safari 5.2 has a new "Passwords" tab, presumably there so you don't have to dig around in the Keychain as often.

[.Neo]

I just noticed that. Pretty convenient. (Y)

I like the wider tabs. On previous releases of Safari, they were fixed to a certain size no matter how much or little of the tab bar was used.

About that: I could swear a previous Safari version did that before too. It definitely isn't the first time Apple introduced this.