Safari: 100 steps forward and 1 backwards – Or how an overlooking can make you look like a dumbass
I’ll keep this post for your own amusement. It turns out that there actually is a preference in the Tabs pane to disable these warning. I still think this should be the default and is not too easy to spot (maybe a “never ask again checkbox” on the warning would suffice).
I’m excited by the new features of Safari (both those in the beta and the announced ones). But they did one major mistake.
Now when you have to close a multitab window it ask you if you are really sure of that. Does it do any good? How often do you mistakenly close a window you didn’t want to? And what’s the cost of closing a webpage by mistake? Usually not high. This is even more annoying that the same happens when you try to *quit* Safari. Now if you press cmd-Q or go to Safari->Quit chances are that you just want to quit, why do you have to click again?
Also, soon enough clicking OK will become automatic, that probably the one time out of a million that you actually didn’t want to close the window, you will click OK anyway and just after say “ouch!”.
Me and my girlfriend were extremely annoyed by this behaviour and her comment was “is this becoming Windows?”
If anybody is annoyed by this “feature” please send your feedback to Apple. I’m sure is very important to them especially in this stage.
PS: I’ve posted this on VersionTracker and MacUpdate as well because I’m *really* annoyed by this behaviour.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:47
Turn it off: in Preferences.Tabs, uncheck “Confirm when closing multiple pages”.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:54
yeah, that option really saves lives 😉
but apple should turn it of by default… it’s just way to annoying
June 12th, 2007 at 9:54
ROFL. I didn’t really notice it in the “Tabs” pane! Thank you!
Still this should be disabled by default 😀
June 12th, 2007 at 10:44
I’m not so sure about disabling it by default – one might argue that users new to the tab-concept might overlook that they close all of their tabs when clicking the tiny red button to close the window. I’d also vote for a checkbox, directly in the dialog, to turn it off. Of course, all of this is irrelevant when using Command+W and Command+Q shortcuts.
June 12th, 2007 at 11:20
It’s idiotic because they should know better.
I seem to remember that it says in the HIG that it’s better to allow the user to undo an action than to ask the user to confirm it. Or maybe I read it somewhere else. Either way, I’d prefer the ability to undo.
June 12th, 2007 at 14:42
I actually am one of those idiots who always closes the window (or Safari!) by accident. The thing is, the keyboard shortcuts for Close Window and Quit Safari are extremely close to Close Tab. One is command-shift-W (one extra key to the left of the correct one), one is command-Q (one key to the left of the correct one). Since closing a window is never undoable, it seems reasonable to me to ask, even if your fingers are more precise than mine.
June 12th, 2007 at 14:53
It is currently undoable, but there is nothing saying you cannot undo such actions as well.