Some really, really nice additions and changes to both the functionality and design of my favorite browser debugging tool. Visit site »
Safari is probably the most reliable browser out there when it comes to rendering things as a standards-aware developer would expect, but there are those rare times when you need to target it specifically with some unique rules. For those cases, this article will point you in the right direction. Visit site »
Talk about scratching your own itch… Visit site »
Oh man, this looks sweet. I’ll say it again: the WebKit team is totally doing the right thing here by continuing to innovate with these new features. Dear WebKit: web designers everywhere thank you! Visit site »
WebKit now includes support for gradients specified in CSS. The syntax looks a bit confusing for us designerly types, but massive kudos to the WebKit team for continuing to embrace the “browser wars” mentality, offering exciting new toys for designers and developers to play with, while at the same time maintaing interoperability with other browsers. Now, if we could just get Opera, Mozilla, and Microsoft on board, we’d probably see some fast and furious innovation in the CSS arena. Visit site »
The new Safari build includes several items of interest to cutting-edge web designers and developers: CSS animations, HTML 5 audio and video elements, and downloadable fonts. Visit site »
Here’s to innovation among browser makers! Nice work, WebKit. Mozilla and Opera, where you at? Visit site »
I continue to loves me some WebKit. These guys are the designer’s best friend — they are really focusing on implementing the parts of CSS that really matter to designers, which is awesome (unless, of course, you’re a JavaScript programmer). :) Visit site »
Keith Robinson writes about why we made the decisions we did, how it fits (or doesn’t) into the “one web” strategy, and why we built Leaflets with web standards — even though some of those standards are only surrently supported by one browser. Visit site »
Gruber has basically the same take as me on this year’s WWDC: meh. Leopard looks neat enough and I certainly do want it, but there’s nothing I’ve seen that really feels revolutionary. Everything is just nice incremental changes. The one exception — maybe — is Time Machine, but we saw that a year ago, so it didn’t feel that exciting this time around, either.
The iPhone-doesn’t-require-an-SDK thing was pretty lame. We’ve all known that you could — and that people will — build web apps targeted at the iPhone for six months now. That’s neat, but it’d definitely not the same as writing apps for the iPhone. The lack of real third-party development on the iPhone isn’t a deal-breaker for me, but it’s certainly a bummer. And it just doesn’t make very much sense. Every other mobile phone on the market today has downloadable third-party apps. Every single one. Steve’s lines about it reducing stability or security are bullshit. It’s god dammed Mac OS X, right? If so, then it has memory protection. If allowing third-party development for the iPhone is unreliable and insecure, then so is allowing third-party development for Macs. And yet, Apple allows that.
Apple should just say what it means: It is going to ride out the iPhone as a closed platform for as long as it can. Eventually, they’ll probably let some choice companies in on development for it. This is exactly the plan Apple has used with the iPod, and it’s worked beautifully. I don’t blame them for wanting to repeat it with the iPhone. But why can’t they just say it?
Safari on Windows was a nice surprise. Doesn’t affect me a lot personally, but I’m glad to see it happen.
And finally: does anyone else think that Steve Jobs is personally obsessed with Cover Flow? In reading the MacRumorsLive coverage of the Keynote today, almost every line ended with “Cover Flow.” Pretty much every app on Leopard and the iPhone now include some for of Cover Flow. Hell, even the Apple website now includes Cover Flow as a means of navigation. It’s just starting to feel like Steve’s pet gadget and I just have this impression of the designers at Apple rolling their eyes every time Steve asks for it again. “Well, guys, Steve pretty much liked the new version of iCal. However, he wants you to be able to browser your to-dos using Cover Flow. Yeah, I know. But, Steve said. Sorry, guys.” Visit site »
Dave Hyatt, the main man behind Safari, notes (as others have) that the iPhone could signal the end of the “mobile web” as a separate concept from the “regular old web.” Visit site »
Just recently Jeffrey Zeldman has been bemoaning the sub-standard state of text rendering in Firefox on a Mac. And the sad truth is he only skimmed the surface; Firefox, Safari, Opera and Camino may render even the same font differently. Visit site »
Jon Hicks points out that new versions of Firefox and Camino will use Cairo, a improved graphics library that makes text rendering far, far better than the current Gecko engine — and maybe even better than WebKit. This may just be the thing that finally convinces me to switch to Firefox or Camino full time. Visit site »
I’ve been saying for years that Safari is a better day-today browser for the typical Mac user than Firefox — largely because of it’s glorious text rendering. Nice to see the Z agrees. That having been said, there’s no doubt that Firefox has some available development tools (Firebug, in particular), that makes it a must-have for the web developer. Also, Safari still sucks at Javascript, compared to FF. Visit site »
Safari still display a Flash of Unstyled Content on a fairly regular basis, and David explains why. Frankly, the FOUC doesn’t bug me much. It seems as though most web designers consider this a massive problem, but it just doesn’t really bother me. Visit site »
WebKit’s inspector now supports a sweet box model visual representation and some other goodies. It looks like us web developers who prefer Safari may not have to keep Firefox and Firebug around for debugging all that much longer… Visit site »
I’m surprised it too this long, but there’s finally a WebKit-based browser project for Windows. Awesome. Visit site »
I don’t expect Shiira to ever become a major player in the browser space, but damn I sure won’t complain if Apple incorporates a few of these UI enhancements into Safari. Very sexy-looking indeed. Visit site »