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Try to write a non-trivial web app using vanilla JS/HTML/CSS. Then test with the major browsers. You'll find that Safari is always the one where things break an

by CrLf 4y ago

Try to write a non-trivial web app using vanilla JS/HTML/CSS. Then test with the major browsers. You'll find that Safari is always the one where things break and that forces you to go back and rewrite stuff due to (for the most part) bugs and lack of features. Safari is the modern IE in this respect.

BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
I’ve done this but I haven’t encountered issues so far. What’s an example of some vanilla js/html/css that breaks under safari?
- lucsky 4y ago
  Two examples I have encountered in the past month alone that work just fine on any other browser but Safari: - CSS outline not being affected by the border-radius property. - Drag images being completely screwed up if the dragged element, or any of its ancestor, has a CSS transform. Both of these problems have workarounds (insanely ugly hacks would be a better term), but they shouldn't have.
  - mtomweb 4y ago
    Oh that second one is a nightmare. Our solution for it was to copy the element and create a new one that was absolutely positioned for the draggable element. The issue is syncing elements can be quite tricky.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-2022/issues/84 https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-2022/issues/84 << this issue we’ve had for at least 7 years. It’s never worked and to solve all the edge cases the workarounds are insane.
- SCLeo 4y ago
  From my memory: - Regular expression lookbehind - overscroll-behavior - Web push - SVG favicon - Web Bluetooth (haven't run into this personally, but someone complained about this)
  - halostatue 4y ago
    From a developer user's perspective: - Nice to have - Problem - Don’t want it, will never allow it - Nice to have - Don’t want it, will never allow it Of the five items you list, I only see one as a real problem. Two of them are privacy misfeatures that have no business being on the web platform. The other two are annoying and would be better to have than not.
    - blinzy 4y ago
      It's not about whether you like it, or they like it, or I like it; it's about being able to provide certain features that a subset (of which you may or may not be a member) desire or require. For example, taking web push notifications, you and many others may not want it, but someone else and many others too may want it for whatever reason: - maybe from a developer perspective because they're a hobbyist and don't want to create an app instead of a website just to get notifications, but would be happy if they had the option. And before you say you don't need them, you DON'T know their use case, e.g., if it's a chat web-app it's going to be pretty damn useless without notifications. - maybe from a user's perspective because they're not happy granting additional permissions (or making it harder to use an ad-blocker) that could be required by an app from the store, they just need the push notification to get some alert, but don't want to give up access to their photos, files, or contacts too. In any case, it's about having empathy towards allowing others to have wants/needs different from yours, and if you do that and put yourself in other people's shoes, you should be able to see that Safari is clearly lacking in implementing a bunch of features (or delivering them several years after every other browser). Finally, all that doesn't take away the fact that Safari does some things better than others, and that other browsers do things worse or push features that are in line with their own agenda or monetisation strategy.
eknkc 4y ago
I work on non trivial web applications for a living. This is not true.
- agust 4y ago
  If you actually wrote a complex web application and didn't encounter significant bugs in Safari, you either didn't test very well, or your app, although "complex", doesn't try to do much.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  I have not talked to a single team developing mobile apps for Safari that hasn’t run into significant problems. If you’re just building a standard body scroll website with a simple ui/ux you’ll likely be ok. As soon as you start doing complex stuff with pinned panels, or gestures, animations, drag and drop then you’ll hit the bugs. Some of the bugs developers have been complaining about for 7 years. Every browser we develop has bugs, Safari just has 10x as many.
- naet 4y ago
  I've been a web developer for about 3 years and in my anecdotal experience of the modern browsers I have had the most trouble with Safari. Multiple times I've hit issues with things that I would have expected to be 100% complete, like SVGs not being able to properly transition animations in certain cases.
floydnoel 4y ago
Check out my side project in my profile. It’s written in plain JS/HTML. I did have to work around some Chrome issues, but didn’t have any problems with Safari at all!
- agust 4y ago
  I am sorry but a two-pages app with a text input and two buttons does not qualify as a "non-trivial" app.
- ask_b123 4y ago
  Perhaps off-topic (to the related browsers topic) but that's a pretty useful website!
asddubs 4y ago
that kind of test is always biased in favor of the browser you develop the app in though. If you conservatively use caniuse during development usually there's not so much in the way of problems. Nevertheless I don't entirely disagree, Safari's not perfect and definitely is more sluggish to support APIs. But in terms of bugginess/odd behaviours I would say I actually run into the most issues with chrome (I develop in FF and then test safari and chrome after)

by CrLf 4y ago

BaculumMeumEst 4y ago

I’ve done this but I haven’t encountered issues so far. What’s an example of some vanilla js/html/css that breaks under safari?

lucsky 4y ago
Two examples I have encountered in the past month alone that work just fine on any other browser but Safari: - CSS outline not being affected by the border-radius property. - Drag images being completely screwed up if the dragged element, or any of its ancestor, has a CSS transform. Both of these problems have workarounds (insanely ugly hacks would be a better term), but they shouldn't have.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  Oh that second one is a nightmare. Our solution for it was to copy the element and create a new one that was absolutely positioned for the draggable element. The issue is syncing elements can be quite tricky.
mtomweb 4y ago
https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-2022/issues/84 https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop-2022/issues/84 << this issue we’ve had for at least 7 years. It’s never worked and to solve all the edge cases the workarounds are insane.
SCLeo 4y ago
From my memory: - Regular expression lookbehind - overscroll-behavior - Web push - SVG favicon - Web Bluetooth (haven't run into this personally, but someone complained about this)
- halostatue 4y ago
  From a developer user's perspective: - Nice to have - Problem - Don’t want it, will never allow it - Nice to have - Don’t want it, will never allow it Of the five items you list, I only see one as a real problem. Two of them are privacy misfeatures that have no business being on the web platform. The other two are annoying and would be better to have than not.
  - blinzy 4y ago
    It's not about whether you like it, or they like it, or I like it; it's about being able to provide certain features that a subset (of which you may or may not be a member) desire or require. For example, taking web push notifications, you and many others may not want it, but someone else and many others too may want it for whatever reason: - maybe from a developer perspective because they're a hobbyist and don't want to create an app instead of a website just to get notifications, but would be happy if they had the option. And before you say you don't need them, you DON'T know their use case, e.g., if it's a chat web-app it's going to be pretty damn useless without notifications. - maybe from a user's perspective because they're not happy granting additional permissions (or making it harder to use an ad-blocker) that could be required by an app from the store, they just need the push notification to get some alert, but don't want to give up access to their photos, files, or contacts too. In any case, it's about having empathy towards allowing others to have wants/needs different from yours, and if you do that and put yourself in other people's shoes, you should be able to see that Safari is clearly lacking in implementing a bunch of features (or delivering them several years after every other browser). Finally, all that doesn't take away the fact that Safari does some things better than others, and that other browsers do things worse or push features that are in line with their own agenda or monetisation strategy.

eknkc 4y ago

I work on non trivial web applications for a living. This is not true.

agust 4y ago
If you actually wrote a complex web application and didn't encounter significant bugs in Safari, you either didn't test very well, or your app, although "complex", doesn't try to do much.
mtomweb 4y ago
I have not talked to a single team developing mobile apps for Safari that hasn’t run into significant problems. If you’re just building a standard body scroll website with a simple ui/ux you’ll likely be ok. As soon as you start doing complex stuff with pinned panels, or gestures, animations, drag and drop then you’ll hit the bugs. Some of the bugs developers have been complaining about for 7 years. Every browser we develop has bugs, Safari just has 10x as many.
naet 4y ago
I've been a web developer for about 3 years and in my anecdotal experience of the modern browsers I have had the most trouble with Safari. Multiple times I've hit issues with things that I would have expected to be 100% complete, like SVGs not being able to properly transition animations in certain cases.

floydnoel 4y ago

Check out my side project in my profile. It’s written in plain JS/HTML. I did have to work around some Chrome issues, but didn’t have any problems with Safari at all!

agust 4y ago
I am sorry but a two-pages app with a text input and two buttons does not qualify as a "non-trivial" app.
ask_b123 4y ago
Perhaps off-topic (to the related browsers topic) but that's a pretty useful website!

asddubs 4y ago

that kind of test is always biased in favor of the browser you develop the app in though. If you conservatively use caniuse during development usually there's not so much in the way of problems. Nevertheless I don't entirely disagree, Safari's not perfect and definitely is more sluggish to support APIs. But in terms of bugginess/odd behaviours I would say I actually run into the most issues with chrome (I develop in FF and then test safari and chrome after)