Update to Safari 3.1.1. Now

Apple have released an update to Safari 3.1 which patches a security hole.

If you’re using Safari on Windows you can get the latest update by going to Start > All Programs > Apple Software Update.

You’ll be required to reboot your machine.

Filed under: Apple, Free Software, Safari, Support Articles, Web Browsers , safari 3.1.1

Safari 3 And WYSIWYG Rich Text Editors

Safari 3 has recently become a first class citizen in the world of WYSIWYG Rich Text Editors. Until recently, the majority of Rich Text Editors didn’t support Safari so if you were using a content management system or blogging software to edit your content online then Safari would usually default to a plain old text area.

But in the past few months a couple of most popular Rich Text Editors have begun to support Safari.

As of version 2.5, FCKEditor now supports Safari 3. Their free editor can be integrated into most development environments and has plug-ins for dealing with file browsing and photo management.

TinyMCE (the editor used on WordPress) also supports Safari, but with the caveat that it’s still experimental.

CuteEditor is a paid for product and has supported Safari for some time now.

Now all that we need is for site owners and CMS developers to replace the older versions of these editors to the newer versions which support Safari.

Filed under: Apple, Free Software, How To Manage A Website, Safari, Web Browsers, Web Standards, Accessibility and Best Practice , rich text editors, rte, Safari, safari 3, WYSIWYG

How To Change Safari 3 Text Display Settings

I’ve written a few posts about various problems with the Windows version of Safari 3. As a result, a surprisingly large number of the search engine generated visits to this site come from people using terms like “text seems bold in safari” or “safari text problem“.

All Browsers Are Not Created Equally

There seems to be some confusion over the fact that Safari renders fonts differently on screen to other Windows browsers. The appearance of text is different in all browsers and on all platforms, but Safari’s method seems to be so noticeably different that people see it as a problem.

Personally, I like the richer rounder feel that Safari gives to fonts, but if you don’t, here’s how to change it to someting a little more to your taste.

1. Open Safari (if you can’t do that because it crashes as soon as you open it, see the list of articles below)
2. Choose the Edit menu
3. Select Preferences
4. When the dialogue window appears, choose the Appearance tab

The drop-down menu for Font smoothing, indicated by the red arrow in my screenshot will let you set the font smoothing to light, medium or heavy.

The nice thing about it is the changes to the font weight happen as soon as you select an option making it easier to choose which setting you prefer.

Other Safari 3 Related Articles

• Safari 3 Crashes on Launch
• Safari 3 Text Display Problems

Filed under: Apple, Free Software, Safari, Support Articles, Web Browsers , font weights, Safari, safari 3, Safari For Windows

Safari 3 Crashes On Launch

**** UPDATE Update: 19 March 08 Safari 3.1 for Windows is out of Beta and available from www.apple.com/safari ****

If you’re using Safari 3 Beta on Windows XP it may develop a nasty habit of crashing as soon as it launches. This is certainly something that a lot of people experienced as soon as the Beta was released in June, but it seems to have resurfaced in later versions in December.

I experienced this with version 3.0.4. (3.523.12.9) just before going away for the holidays. I hadn’t installed a new version of the browser, it just stopped working one day. So now I’m back from holidays I’ve had a chance to sort the problem out and noticed that other people seemed to be having the same problems around mid December.

The short answer is that you need to install Safari 3.0.5, but that’s not available at the usual address of apple.com/safari which is still carrying version 3.0.4.

You can download it from the Apple developer website (registration required, but free).

You login, choose downloads and then in the menu on the right, choose Safari.There’s been a lot of interest in this post so it seems that quite a few people are experiencing this problem. Let me know how you get on in the comments sections and if this new download has cleared up your problems. Also see the comments below about uninstalling and removing old content first.

Filed under: Apple, Free Software, Safari, Support Articles, Web Browsers , Safari, safari 3, safari 3.0.5, safari 3.1, safari crashes, safari problems

A Week Is A Long Time In Browser Wars

For those of use that watch browsers, and that should be every web developer and designer, it’s been quite a week.

The Microsoft IE team today announced that their work in progress, IE8, passed the ACID2 test last week. Not only that, it’ll be out in Beta in the first half of 2008.

So let’s have a look at what the events were in context and see if they might have been related. It’s Christmas so I’ve put together the “12 Points of Browser Wars”

1. December 12 – IE8 passes ACID2 (but Microsoft doesn’t tell anyone)
2. December 13 – Opera files antitrust complaint with the EU against Microsoft
3. December 14 – Web standards community goes nuts
4. ….. still going nuts
5. December 17 – Those dodgy mock up photos (or were they?) of IE8 from June appear on the blogosphere as news.
6. December 18 – Dimitri Glazkov predicts that IE8 will implement CSS3 Grid Positioning
7. December 19 – Firefox 3 Beta 2 is released 2 days earlier than expected
8. December 19 – Opera new version of their browser 9.25
9. December 19 – Microsoft announce to the world that they have a standards compliant browser in the house.
10. December 19 – Those inclined to do so say, “w00t”
11. See 3.
12. Go back to 1.

As well as looking like very good news for the future of standards compliance in web browsers it also meant that Ajaxian got to publish the headline “IE 8 now doesn’t trip on Acid”.

Now somewhere in there, my Windows install of Safari 3 decided to give up all hope and now crashes on launch. Now that’s a real Beta. Shame really, we’d been getting along so well.

Filed under: Free Software, Safari, Web Browsers, Web Standards, Accessibility and Best Practice , acid2, Competition, css, firefox 3, ie8, internet explorer, opera, safari 3, standards, w3c, web standards

Safari 3.0.4 Now Available As Public Beta

**** UPDATE Update: 19 March 08 Safari 3.1 for Windows is out of Beta and available from www.apple.com/safari ****

Today, as part of a series of software updates available for OS X Tiger and Leopard, Apple has released Safari 3.0.4 to the public. It’s significant as this means Safari 3 is now Apple’s official browser event though it’s still classified as a Beta release. Apple users can update in the normal way, using Software Update. Safari is bundled with the rest of the 130Mb+ download (for Tiger).

Windows users with Safari already installed, can download the update via their Apple Software Update or just download it direct from www.apple.com/safari/download

This release (Build 523.12.9) has been available from developer.apple.com for over a week now so if you use Windows and you did update it from there last week you’re already up to date.

 

Image courtesy of Apple.

Filed under: Apple, Free Software, Safari, Web Browsers , Apple software update, OS X 10.4.11, OS X 10.5.1, safari 3 beta, Safari 3.0.4, Safari For Windows, safari3