John Gruber of Daring Fireball writes up some issues with the Safari User Interface. I have a couple of counterpoints to some of his points:
I like the way Safari?s bookmark system works. I like the iTunes-like interface, and I really like the way that you don?t have to display all your bookmarks in the bookmarks menu. Nice.
But I don?t like that the Bookmarks window isn?t it?s own separate window ? like Downloads and Activity are. Instead, the Bookmarks window is displayed inline within any regular browser window. I?ve tried to like this, I?ve really tried, but I don?t. Plus, it?s somewhat confusing. When you?re displaying Bookmarks, the window title and Address Bar still display the name and URL of the web page behind the Bookmarks. But they?re not visible. [Gruber, John "When in Rome" Daring Fireball 07 Feb 2003]
Personally, I really really like Safari's bookmark handling. I like that they open in the same window. The screen in question not only manages bookmarks, but is used to open bookmarks in the same window. I use it frequently when dealing with the new army of bookmarks that I'm building that I don't want populating the quick-link bookmarks bar, or the bookmarks menu. I especially like the existence of the History item included in the list of bookmark items. The bookmarks view pops in and out so quickly that it's a joy that it's there. I don't want another window floating around that I have to pop to just to get to this list - I find this annoying about most other browser bookmark management systems, which is why I think most people's bookmarks in these systems are such a rats nest of links. People just hit "add to bookmarks", but never want to deal with managing them. Safari puts a nice UI on bookmark management (which Mr Gruber does like). It just also happens to combine bookmark management with actual bookmark usage.
What would happen if I had many windows open, one of them being the bookmarks window, and I'm cycling through them to find said window to navigate to a site that's not on my bookmarks menu? Which window would it open up on? The first window I was on when I started hitting the window-cycle key chord, or the last window viewed prior to finding the bookmarks window? I'm happy with this feature as it is. The one thing that I wouldn't mind is if you could toggle the "open bookmarks in new window" feature by holding down the command key when clicking (the general Mac browser key/mouse combo for "open link/bookmark in new window").
Mr Gruber also begs for abandoning the brushed metal skin. Personally, I like it. This one's a matter of taste though. I hope it stays, though. Some of the widgets (particularly the "search google" widget's resizing capability) don't quite match up to general Aqua toolbar expectations, but is a very handy thing to have in its own right.
I find Safari to be beautifully simple and fast. I want it to keep both qualities, particularly the simplicity. I'd rather time be spent addressing the remaining HTML rendering issues (ie - Plone sites have rendering issues, mostly dealing with CSS padding it seems; Safari also seems pretty random about how well it handles THEAD/TBODY/TFOOT table parts) than on weighing down the interface and preferences system with unneccesary components.