Kon-founded Safari

One of the first things I installed when I got my PowerBook back in May of '04 was what used to be known as (and still is to those of us that love it) Konfabulator, or the now dumbed-down, "Yahoo! Widget Engine". There's one "widget" (i.e., Java applet), in particular worth the entire install process, iTunes Bar. I'm not a big fan of its album artwork feature, but the hot-keys function is killer. While I'm sure there is a script floating around out there that could do the same, this widget makes it ridiculously easy to customize hot-keys that let you control iTunes playback in front of any other program. The GUI's pretty slick, too. By the way, in his post comparing Konfabulator with Dashboard, John Gruber gives an excellent history of these little Java applets. Just in case you were wondering. But I'm writing to complain about the Safari Windows release. I'll get back to Konfabulator in a minute. My work-computer is a Dell running Windows XP. I decided to install Safari just to check it out. I was immediately disappointed. The window looks gross with weird edges -- the same way the corners of iTunes for Windows looks terrible. Why can't anyone figure out how to make rounded edges look good on a PC?! Anyway. I loaded up a slew of tabs the usual way -- Cntrl-T or Ctrl-clicking; the same as in Firefox; the compliment shortcut of Safari on my Mac. Great; that worked; easy enough. Then I tried moving through these tabs. Cntrl-Tab? Nothing. Ctrl-Shift-Tab? Nada. ::scratches-head:: I tried Cntrl/Alt/Shift/Windows-Key-ing all kinds of other, what I thought logical, combinations, like the left or right arrows. All unsuccessful. As it turns out, the correct combination is Cntrl-Shift-[ or ]. Cntrl-Shift-[ or ] !! That is unbelievable. We're talking about one of the most fundamental actions of a web browser: switching tabs. That should involve two keys, max. Grrrr. That's like when some bozo thought to change the shortcut for bringing up the iTunes window (Mac) from Cmd-1 to Cmd-Shift-1. D'oh! Thanks, buddy. Especially now that Cmd-1 doesn't do anything. I am just full of complaints. Back to Konfabulator. Thursday I installed Safari on my Windows box. Friday I decided it was time to give Konfabulator a shot on my PC. I downloaded it and began the install. I received this error message:

The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0150002). Click on OK to terminate the application.

Weird. So I did some investigating. Konfabulator forums to the rescue:

We've identified a reproducable issue in which installing the new Apple Safari 3 beta for Windows on an XP or Vista machine that has Yahoo! Widgets already installed causes the Yahoo! Widgets application to be unable to start. There is currently no known fix for this issue (meaning you may not be able to run Yahoo! Widgets again, even if you uninstall Safari and/or reinstall Yahoo! Widgets). So, we *highly* recommend that you do not install Safari 3 for Windows at this time.

I uninstalled Safari and Konfabulator worked just fine, so that last part about not being able to run Konfabulator even if you uninstall Safari might not be true, but it's still to early to tell. Yes, yes: this is a beta release, but I still find this comment compelling in terms of fleshing-out the difference between a typical beta release and this super-hyped Safari release [via Slashdot]:

When Apple posts a direct link to one of its flagship applications on the main page of its website (http://www.apple.com), do you really expect people to understand what a beta is? It's called a beta, but it's not being treated as a beta. With normal betas, a small subset of the userbase will install, test, and use the app. Betas aren't supposed to be marketed with such fanfare. The entire point is to quietly release the beta to permit the beta testing to occur; it's not to push the app to the masses. Apple is advertising this "beta" to everyone and anyone: power user, casual user, grandma user, idiot user, manager user, etc (in order of decreasing acuity). You may know what "beta" means, but your uncle Vince who just completed a course at the public library titled "Learn the Internet 101" does not.

While I may be unjustifiably picky with all my GUI demands, and even I chalk all this up to a good ol' fashioned whine, I am also one of those "casual users". I don't think it's too much to ask that Apple spend a little more time at the drawing board before releasing products for Windows -- products they're pushing right alongside their pro-user line. I adore iTunes on my PowerBook, but I still think Winamp kicks iTunes' [and the lama's] ass when it comes to playing audio files on anything running Windows. And now I feel the same about basically every other browser (except IE) for Windows: I recognize apps will be buggy, it just feels a little too haphazard for me. I don't want to hate using the same programs on my Dell that I love using on my Powerbook.