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It has, through the years I have used your product, come to my attention that Safari is quite stupid in two areas. Now, this is not bad at all. Some products are relentlessly stupid, (WinIE), so in comparison, you're not doing bad at all.

However, these are two areas that I use a lot, and I'm kind of tired of it. I can't quantify them as bugs, because I think that in your eyes, you do things the right way. But sometimes, there are multiple right ways, and some are stupider than others, and you have a couple of really stupid things, namely URL autocomplete and the concept of safe files.

1. URL Autocomplete

   I know I'm not the first to bring this up, but please, fix this, it currently sucks. Let's say that in my bookmarks, I have a site that's "blah.foo.com". If I start typing "foo.com" because I can't remember the full URL, but I know that it was in foo.com, I get...nothing. The only time Safari includes anything before what you are typing is if it's www, or ftp, etc. Basically, there's no intelligence whatsoever in this. Even worse, if there's a dozen URLs with long strings after, the first hit is NEVER the smallest or simplest one. It's something else based on some bizarre algorithm that I'm sure sounds nice, but is annoying as hell, so I don't really care about it. However, what you get is something where the stuff you've typed isn't highlighted, but the stuff you DO type is. So, what happens when you hit enter? You don't get just what you've typed. You get the whole thing. This means that you have to double save things. Once with the whole specific link, and then once with just the main domain name. For example, I have one link for Dell saved in my bookmarks. It's a dead link. But if I type "www.dell.com" and hit enter, do I go to www.dell.com?

   No

   Technorati Tags: Apple, Safari, Tech Support, Technology

   I go to the dead link. To just go to what I typed, I have to type www.dell.com and hit backspace to erase the autofill crap. Thanks for making things easier. Oh wait, you didn't. Along with that, you know how in the bookmarks, you have a field for the name of the bookmark and another field for the address? What if, and I know this is crazy, but, what if someone got all NUTZY COOKOO and let you type the NAME of the bookmark in, or, even KOOKIER, if you could just type a word and if it showed up in ANY part of the bookmark, name or not, that would be presented as an option? I know, I know, you're saying JOHN! THAT'S CRAZY TALK! YOU CAN'T HAVE AN OPEN ENDED SEARCH LIKE THAT! IT WOULD BE THE END OF THE INTARWEB!. Well, that's how it worked in IE:Mac. You'd just start typing anything you could remember about that URL, and if you matched any word at all, you'd get a hit. Kind of like, oh....Spotlight.

   Oh yeah, God help you if you have a feed:// URL, because then that will show up in the autocomplete too, and helpfully become the default URL for what you're typing. <sigh>

   That was the last time I had a truly useful URL autocomplete on the Mac. IE 5 Mac. You know, that product that was discontinued? Yeah, it did that, and it ruled. Does Firefox do this? No. Does Camino do this? No. Do Opera or Omniweb do this? Don't know, don't care, don't use either. Even better, they would allow you to use a key combo, (ctrl-arrow IIRC) to select or deselect parts of the URL, so if what you wanted was only part of the autocompleted URL, you could get to it pretty easily.

   So, could we maybe have URL autocomplete, oh, I don't know, work like Spotlight? Only you know, actually find URLs. Which Spotlight doesn't do for crap on my system.

   So how's about it? Let's make URL autocomplete not suck?



2. "Safe" files

   I do not understand, nor shall I ever understand why this great whopping stupid idea stays in Safari day after week after month after year. Let me say this right now:

   The myth of the "safe" file needs to be shot in the skull

   It is not only a myth, it is a dangerous myth, because there is no file that is inherently safe. There is no file that is un-pervertable. Text? Lord, that's what a shell script is, text. PDF? Bzzt, embedded javascript, try again. You can list files all the live long day, they all can be perverted in a way that will cause harm.

   And what does this even get us? Auto-opening is a pain in the ass. Period. When I'm downloading files, the last thing I want them to do is auto-friggin'-open. If I want them to open, I will open them. When I download things, (again, being kooky here), I just want them to sit there when they are finished. Don't open. Don't make the Safari icon dance. Just sit there until I take action, or, at most, put a badge on the Safari Dock icon to let me know that my downloads are done. This auto - open idiocy is almost Windows-ish in that over-eager boy scout kind of way. Don't do that. Okay? Just...stop it.

   Auto-opening "safe" files is, has always been, and always shall be a dangerous concept unto the end of time and the next morning. Personally, I think that anyone advocating this should not only have their head stuck in the ground so they grow upside - down like a turnip, but they should be chased by the Ghost of Molly Malone and her nine blind orphan children so far over the ends of the Earth that even the Almighty Himself couldn't find them with a radio telescope!

   There are not enough letters in the words "bad" and "stupid" to properly convey the bad-ness and stupidity of this idea. Pull out that code, take that code out back, burn the media it's on, pour acid on the ashes, bury what's left, and sow salt on the burial site.

See...two simple requests that will make things MUCH better.

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