marks.dk
Safari 4's "Save as Web Application" just killed Fluid.app
(This feature does not exist anymore, and is thus mainly saved for historical purposes. Or because I hope it’ll arrive in a later version again.)
I’ve been a fan of Single Site Browsers (especially Fluid.app) for quite some time now, and with every reason to be happy about the best among the rest, Fluid.app, I now declare it dead (for me, at least).
Is it the endless number of updates?
Is it because it tends to open a new window when I want to force it to stay in one?
Is it really because they support tabbed browsing when they ought to “remove” features that are normal in regular browsers?
No. No. And no.
It’s because Apple just seeded a new version of Safari to their developers, and it includes a function dubbed “Save as Web Application”. And that’s clever!
First of all I like the Webkit-engine better than Gecko (found in Firefox and Camino), and it’s screaming fast, I tell you. Really really screaming fast. Scrmng fst, prhps. This is because of something called Squirrelfish which renders Javascript insanely fast, and it gets a perfect 100 in the Acid3 test (http://acid3.acidtests.org/).
Another great feature is that the icon of the app that Safari creates is automatically generated by taking a screendump of the site and create an icon from that. Clever thinking.
Screenshots:
Fluid.app:
1: Two instances of Fluid.app with no favicons = no icon (unless I assign them one).
2: marks.dk in a Fluid.app with the favicon assigned.
3: Stupid userscripts and Plug-ins. I want minimalism!
1: The icon that is created based on a screendump from marks.dk. Don’t know if it’s dynamic, though.
— Comments —
1
[...] just an application which loads the Facebook page via the Safari webkit engine, something we have seen happening in other applications in recent times. However, with badge notifications on the Dock icon and [...]
2
First and foremost, your wordpress installation or theme is likely insecure. Something is telling it to output errors and since the function aktt_latest_tweet() is not defined at the point that it’s called, you’re displaying all kinds of information that would be helful for a hacker.
Second, I use Fluid SSB’s *because* of the userscripts. I’ve got Growl installed, and since Fluid plays nicely, my Facebook and Gmail apps can notify me of changes without stealing focus. Since Fluid SSB’s also play nicely with badge icons, when I come back from being away I can see at a glance which of my apps have new content, so I don’t have to check them all individually.
I also have the ability to use custom stylesheets, which I use to assist in the interface. Since Facebook is more application than web page, I like having its menu at the top of my window regardless of scroll. Add in a little -webkit-box-shadow and it hovers above the rest of the surface, giving me more of an application-like experience.
A screen dump is helpful in the event of no icon, but it’s not necessarily iconic; I don’t want to have to look closely or have magnification turned on in order to see what I’m dealing with.
Yes, the new Safari is awesome and renders killer fast, but Fluid.app still has features that some of us are pretty excited about.
3
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for your comment. As you might have overlooked, this post is exactly one year old today, and much has changed; I’m using Fluid again, but still not completely content. GMail and Google Reader isn’t working perfect, but they get the job done and I still don’t use any userscripts (used Helvetireader for a bit, but went back to the default design again).
Thanks for the heads-up on the Twitter-plugin, btw. It was disabled and thus fucked up the theme.