Comments on: Why Safari Sucks: 2. The URL Bar http://blog.firetree.net/2006/04/04/why-safari-sucks-2-the-url-bar/ Sharing useful things with the world. Fri, 21 Jan 2011 09:51:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Emery http://blog.firetree.net/2006/04/04/why-safari-sucks-2-the-url-bar/comment-page-1/#comment-25244 Emery Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:45:10 +0000 http://blog.firetree.net/?p=38#comment-25244 <p>Often UI comes down to tradeoffs, and the decision has to be made based on the most frequent use case, and in perfect land, an override configuration.</p> <p>In this case it seems that the tradeoff is between the chance of the suggestion being incorrect, and the likelyhood of the user mistyping. Firefox takes the former, requiring two keypresses to engage the suggestions, and one to revert a character, Safari takes the latter, requiring one keypress to engage, and two in order to revert a character correcting a mistake.</p> <p>When you identify the tradeoff Safari's behavior is probably the best default, assuming that people are more likely to use a suggestion than they are to mistype in the long run.</p> <p>There is however another factor that I find is constantly overlooked by UI designers, and that is the inherent dichotomy between intelligence and consistency. And it seems that is where your gripe tends to lie, as it often does with me. You have trouble changing your muscle memory's understanding of what a backspace keystroke does, and it trips you up causing a mistype's productivity impact to feedback into itself and ultimately waste more time in the long run than the UI assertion Safari made initially accounted for.</p> <p>....</p> <p>Anyway, while we're on the topic, I find the URL suggestions to have one huge problem in my usage, which is that the suggestions are not sorted chronologically, and all of my developing websites are stored at offset port addresses on a local apache server. So often I'll be switching between http://localhost:8003 and http://localhost:8004, but even though I have been vising 8004 all day, every time 8003 is the same suggestion. I believe this is just an Apple oversight.</p> <p>Anyway my solution is that I have to make the virtual hosts match unique local domains that I just add to my etc/hosts file.</p> Often UI comes down to tradeoffs, and the decision has to be made based on the most frequent use case, and in perfect land, an override configuration.

In this case it seems that the tradeoff is between the chance of the suggestion being incorrect, and the likelyhood of the user mistyping. Firefox takes the former, requiring two keypresses to engage the suggestions, and one to revert a character, Safari takes the latter, requiring one keypress to engage, and two in order to revert a character correcting a mistake.

When you identify the tradeoff Safari’s behavior is probably the best default, assuming that people are more likely to use a suggestion than they are to mistype in the long run.

There is however another factor that I find is constantly overlooked by UI designers, and that is the inherent dichotomy between intelligence and consistency. And it seems that is where your gripe tends to lie, as it often does with me. You have trouble changing your muscle memory’s understanding of what a backspace keystroke does, and it trips you up causing a mistype’s productivity impact to feedback into itself and ultimately waste more time in the long run than the UI assertion Safari made initially accounted for.

….

Anyway, while we’re on the topic, I find the URL suggestions to have one huge problem in my usage, which is that the suggestions are not sorted chronologically, and all of my developing websites are stored at offset port addresses on a local apache server. So often I’ll be switching between http://localhost:8003 and http://localhost:8004, but even though I have been vising 8004 all day, every time 8003 is the same suggestion. I believe this is just an Apple oversight.

Anyway my solution is that I have to make the virtual hosts match unique local domains that I just add to my etc/hosts file.

]]> By: abiye http://blog.firetree.net/2006/04/04/why-safari-sucks-2-the-url-bar/comment-page-1/#comment-24952 abiye Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:37:42 +0000 http://blog.firetree.net/?p=38#comment-24952 <p>maxthon is the best browser i think. drag and drop is very good</p> maxthon is the best browser i think. drag and drop is very good

]]> By: marcelo http://blog.firetree.net/2006/04/04/why-safari-sucks-2-the-url-bar/comment-page-1/#comment-24800 marcelo Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:42:15 +0000 http://blog.firetree.net/?p=38#comment-24800 <p>You're just a boring fella</p> You’re just a boring fella

]]> By: Tomis http://blog.firetree.net/2006/04/04/why-safari-sucks-2-the-url-bar/comment-page-1/#comment-7356 Tomis Tue, 13 Feb 2007 06:03:03 +0000 http://blog.firetree.net/?p=38#comment-7356 <p>I agree that safari's auto-complete can be a pain. Especially if you want to go to the root domain, sometimes it auto-completes to a sub-directory.</p> <p>This means that to go to Amazon.com for example I have to type "Ama" then left arrow, then option-right arrow two times to get the cursor to just after the ".com", then shift-down arrow to select all the text to the right, then delete, and finally return. </p> <p>It's almost more worthwhile just to type Amazon.com, hit delete and then return!</p> I agree that safari’s auto-complete can be a pain. Especially if you want to go to the root domain, sometimes it auto-completes to a sub-directory.

This means that to go to Amazon.com for example I have to type “Ama” then left arrow, then option-right arrow two times to get the cursor to just after the “.com”, then shift-down arrow to select all the text to the right, then delete, and finally return.

It’s almost more worthwhile just to type Amazon.com, hit delete and then return!

]]> By: Michael http://blog.firetree.net/2006/04/04/why-safari-sucks-2-the-url-bar/comment-page-1/#comment-5490 Michael Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:07:39 +0000 http://blog.firetree.net/?p=38#comment-5490 <p>You need to look at it a bit more for the Apple reason behind this. Say you go to a site fairly often, www.somedomain.com. While typing, there may be numerous links that start with the domain in there from previous sessions. If Safari worked the way you'd like it to, then when you finished typing www.sounddomain.com (and it auto-completed something like www.somedomain.com/media/something.html) and hit the backspace, the m in com would be deleted. That would force you to retype the m again, and cause a loop of the same issue to occur. </p> <p>Simple fix: just remember to hit backspace twice if you mistype.</p> You need to look at it a bit more for the Apple reason behind this. Say you go to a site fairly often, http://www.somedomain.com. While typing, there may be numerous links that start with the domain in there from previous sessions. If Safari worked the way you’d like it to, then when you finished typing http://www.sounddomain.com (and it auto-completed something like http://www.somedomain.com/media/something.html) and hit the backspace, the m in com would be deleted. That would force you to retype the m again, and cause a loop of the same issue to occur.

Simple fix: just remember to hit backspace twice if you mistype.

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