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Improving Safari 4's Tab User Interface
Like many people I downloaded Safari 4 Beta with some excitement (is that sad?) as soon as it was released a couple of days ago. My first thought upon opening the shiny new browser was that the user interface was a bit crazy (are Apple going cover flow crazy?) but there was something else that felt really wrong.. what was it? Then it hit me.. it was the new tabs UI where Apple have now positioned tabs at the top of the window, in fact they’re located so close to the top of the window that they have entered the sacred area of the window title and become one with it, eugh.
As far as I know this is the first time this has happened in OS X and I think it is a really bad idea. I know its takes up less space, I know its more compact than Camino, but I don’t care. I think it is at best, an ugly solution, and at worst, a confusing interface implementation for users. It goes against every other window seen in OS X (yes, even those sexy transparent black HUD windows) and after a little digging in Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines on Window Elements I found the following:
The only controls that belong in a title bar are the close, minimize, and zoom buttons. If a title bar is combined with a toolbar, the unified area can contain the toolbar control and the toolbar customization contextual menu (these controls are described in “Title Bar Buttons”). Do not place other controls in a title bar.
There you go Apple. You’re violating your own guidelines by putting other controls, i.e tabs, into the window title. I pray that Apple will rethink this interface design. Anyway, I present (da da daa!) my idea for the tab interface implementation. It’s no more compact that Safari 3’s tab UI but it does have the correct hierarchy of Window Title, Tab with Page Title, Address, Content and it doesn’t violate the Human Interface Guidelines.
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Gotcha when setting expires on cookies in Merb
I’ve just finished implementing ‘remember me’ functionality in a Merb app I’m working on and I came across a gotcha when setting cookies that I thought I’d post up for anyone coming across the same thing.
You can set a cookie with and expiry date in Merb using something like:
cookies.set_cookie(:foo, 'true', :secure => true, :expires => 3.days.from_now)I was setting a cookie using the value of a DateTime property on my model, something like this:
cookies.set_cookie(:auth_token, session.user.remember_token, :expires => session.user.remember_token_expires_at)Unfortunately the above code didn’t work. I eventually found out that it was down to the DateTime property on the model that I was using for the :expires option. The #set_cookie method expects :expires to be supplied with a Time object, not a DateTime object. If it isn’t given a Time object then it will not convert the value to the correct format required for a cookie. Thus you end up with a cookie that will expire at the end of the browser session instead.
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Merry Christmas!
Simon and I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas!
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Merb and Rails evolve into Rails 3
Wow. This is exciting. Rails and Merb have got it on and are carrying a love child, its called Rails 3. Merb has been a great thing for the Rails world helping to push Rails in a better direction. Many ideas from Merb are already appearing in Rails edge but from now on they’ll be combining the great minds of both frameworks to create a killer ruby web framework. More information can be found at the official rails blog announcement. Exciting times ahead!
Rails 3 is going to kick ass.
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Working with Wireframes for the Web
Having recently discovered the joy of using wireframes for web development I thought it would be nice to write a little post about them and how you can make use of them in your development process.
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Brighton Ahoy!
We’re on the roll again, heading back to Brighton for a few days later this week. Next year Alistair and I will be moving to Brighton so that we can work on our devious plans more efficiently and set up Makito Labs HQ, so we’re taking this trip to check out more of what Brighton has to offer and figure out boring things like how much moolah we’re going to be taxed for renting office space.
We’ll be in Brighton from Thursday 30th October until Saturday 1st November, so if you’re a Brighton local and fancy joining us for a pint or two then please give one of us a shout or drop us a direct message on Twitter. We’ll be heading out on Thursday evening for drinks, so if you’re able to drop by and fill us in on the best and worst that Brighton has to offer, you’re more than welcome to a pint on us!
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Installing beanstalkd on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
We recently had to install beanstalkd the messaging queue system from Philotic, Inc on our development machines. MacPorts didn’t work so we decided to build it ourselves but any guides for installing on OS X are pretty thin on the ground so I thought I’d share what we had to do.
Continue reading Installing beanstalkd on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)...
