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Why I Use Safari on the PC - Flex Development

Posted At : June 25, 2008 1:00 PM | Posted By : TJ Downes
Related Categories: ActionScript,Adobe,Apple,Microsoft,AIR,Flash,Flex

So, as most of you know, I'm not an Apple fanboi or an iSheep. Heck, I just got my first iPod a few weeks ago, a Shuffle. I got it free, otherwise I would never have purchased it. Truth be told, it's actually a pretty sweet device and very well built. But not nice enough for me to fork out a couple hundred bucks for.

So, when I discovered Apple was releasing Safari to PC my response was pretty much "oh great, another browser on the PC". My first 3 months experience with Safari was less than pleasing, it would crash and never launched. However, recently Apple released an update and I've not had the problem since. Overall, its a good browser, fast, and doesn't require me to do any CSS tweaking to get things to display on my sites the way I want them. But I do hate that bushed aluminum look that's so prevelant with Apple's apps. I guess it's like one of the main reasons I am still using FF as my primary browser.

Anyway, I have recently started using Safari more and more. For what? Well, it is now my Flex application testing platform of choice. Why?

1. it doesnt interfere with my Firefox sessions
2. It doesnt cache as bad as IE
3. ServiceCapture works out of the box with Safari

So, if you are doing Flex development on a PC and are sick of your testing crashing your Firefox sessions, or hate the way IE constantly caches your SWF, give Safari a try.

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I also really like the Activity window. I use it all the time to see what network calls are being made.

# Posted By Dasa Paddock | 6/25/08 1:59 PM

Not to mention that if you do HTML/JS based AIR development, like I do, you can use Safari to rapidly prototype much of your app because it's based on WebKit.

# Posted By Andrew Matthews | 6/26/08 7:15 AM

Hey Andrew, would you care to expand on the comment you made? Are you saying just because it's based on WebKit its easier to develop for, or are you saying there's a built in tool to help you do this?

# Posted By TJ Downes | 6/26/08 10:18 AM

Well you can't of course test the whole thing because the browser doesn't have the necessary permissions. But during the layout and UI phase of the app dev, it's way quicker to simply reload the browser window than it is to build the whole app from within Aptana.

The beautiful thing about HTML/JS AIR apps is that they ONLY run for one browser, WebKit. That means you've got access to AMAZING CSS support ala built-in rounded corners, bordering, shadows, attribute selectors in CSS 3 and far more.

If I would have realized this before building my first HTML/JS app, I could have saved myself some graphic development and image size.

# Posted By Andy Matthews | 6/26/08 10:35 AM

Thanks Andrew, makes sense. I did not realize Safari had CSS 3 support. I was under the impression that the CSS 3 spec had not yet been finalized.

# Posted By TJ Downes | 6/26/08 10:37 AM

That's the beautiful thing about it being built upon WebKit. WK releases builds far more often than other browser manufacturers. So Safari can take advantage of rapid development.

# Posted By Andy Matthews | 6/26/08 10:40 AM

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