Safari 15.1 has 2 major downgrades

[Rydawg96]

So I upgraded from Big Sur to Monterey 2 days ago, and as a result, Safari automatically upgraded from 15.0 to 15.1, however, despite now taking advantage of features exclusive in Monterey I find the non-monkery exclusive changes a downgrade. One important one and one not-so-important. Starting with the not so important.

Unfortunately, in 15.1, theres no longer a separate toggle for colour in the tab bar. You can now only show colour in the tab bar when in compact layout and can no longer show colour when in separate layout, where as before you could toggle colour on and off regardless of which layout you had. This is disappointing to me as I actually liked having the webpage color in the tab bar but prefer the separate layout. Definitely not as much user choice as before. Here it is in 15.0

And now here it is in 15.1

But the more important change is how audio in tabs is now handled. In 15.0, the audio playing symbol would show up in collapsed tabs. Now however in 15.1, they reverted back to only showing the icon in non-collapsed tabs. Here it is in 15.0

And now here in 15.1, note that both YouTube tabs are playing audio

Honestly, this feels annoying. All because a few people complained about the way tabs were spaced out in 15.0, Apple in 15.1 decided to completely revert to the previous separate tab design in Safari 14 and abandoned 2 great new features in the process, forcing users to now use the compact tab design to use these new features. Of course, if you are upgrading to Monterey, you have no choice but to upgrade, but if you are sticking with Big Sur for a while, I recommend sticking with 15.0 in the meantime until Apple fixes the separate tab bar design again. That is, unless you really prefer the Safari 14 separate layout over the 15.0 separate layout. As for Catalina users, I installed 15.0 on my 2012 MacBook Pro which cant get Big Sur or Catalina, and even on 15.0 that version of macOS never got the redesigned tab layouts, not even the controversial compact layout. Safari 15.0 on Catalina looks exactly the way it did in Safari 14 and 13 did on that OS, so if you are running Safari 15.0 on Catalina, theres nothing to lose upgrading to 15.1. As for me who upgraded to Monterey, thankfully I also have Safari Tech Preview which I currently have Release 133 of that, which basically has the same separate layout as 15.0 (to the point where I used screenshots of that for comparison to 15.1). Apple has just released Tech Preview Release 134, and I will not be upgrading to that version any future versions of Tech Preview until Apple brings back the two features it removed from separate layout in 15.1, so if there are any Tech Preview users here, let me know so I know when its the right time to start updating Tech Preview again.

 

[Arctic Moose]

What's worse, tabs no longer load in the background.

 

[Rydawg96]

What's worse, tabs no longer load in the background.

Weird, I just tested both 15.1 and Tech Preview 133 and both loaded tabs in the background.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Weird, I just tested both 15.1 and Tech Preview 133 and both loaded tabs in the background.

I first noticed on 15.0 on Big Sur. After update to 15.1 tabs are still not loading until activated. (I.e. after right-clicking a bookmark folder and choosing "open in new tabs".)

This is on an iMac, so it should not have anything to do with power saving.

 

[Super Spartan]

since Safari 15 both on Big Sur and Monterey tabs don't load in the background, when I open a large bookmarks folder, every time I would click on a tab it would then start loading. That is a show stopper for me so I am using Firefox or Chrome until this is sorted.

 

[petekjohnson]

I figured that Safari had to still have the CAPABILITY for doing this, and it was simply switched off with something simple like a .plist file. So, I started poking around, and I found the exact file that registers this setting and how to modify it to bring this feature back.

You have to look in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences. Here you will find a com.apple.Safari.plist file you can edit.

You will search for "NSToolbar Configuration NSPreferences", and there should only be one instance of it. It's a grouping of four different settings. The option "Display Mode" is set to 0, it needs to be changed to 1. That is literally all you have to do. (NOTE: You'll have to save as… a new copy somewhere and then manually move it back into the proper folder, so that the Finder can ask you for your password or Touch ID and elevate privileges so it can write in that location).

Here is a picture of what that part of the plist looks like.

The jury is still out and whether I like the compact tab bar configuration. I appreciate the compactness, on the one hand, but also find the lack of space for buttons for extensions, navigation, and so on, a bit limiting. So I dont know if I will keep using it this way. But I do enjoy the added colors.

Pete

 

[Rydawg96]

I figured that Safari had to still have the CAPABILITY for doing this, and it was simply switched off with something simple like a .plist file. So, I started poking around, and I found the exact file that registers this setting and how to modify it to bring this feature back.

You have to look in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/Preferences. Here you will find a com.apple.Safari.plist file you can edit.

You will search for "NSToolbar Configuration NSPreferences", and there should only be one instance of it. It's a grouping of four different settings. The option "Display Mode" is set to 0, it needs to be changed to 1. That is literally all you have to do. (NOTE: You'll have to save as… a new copy somewhere and then manually move it back into the proper folder, so that the Finder can ask you for your password or Touch ID and elevate privileges so it can write in that location).

Here is a picture of what that part of the plist looks like.

View attachment 1881511

The jury is still out and whether I like the compact tab bar configuration. I appreciate the compactness, on the one hand, but also find the lack of space for buttons for extensions, navigation, and so on, a bit limiting. So I dont know if I will keep using it this way. But I do enjoy the added colors.


View attachment 1881510


Pete

What app can I use to edit that?

 

[petekjohnson]

What app can I use to edit that?

Well, Xcode includes a "Property List Editor" and it's free, but that is probably overkill to go to the trouble of downloading and installing just for that. You could also just open it in TextEdit, which, considering in this scenario all we care about changing is ONE CHARACTER - it shouldn't be that difficult to wade through. All you would really need to do is find "Display Mode" and change the very next 0 to a 1. This is the block of text you would be looking for.

I use an app called "PlistEdit Pro" which you can check out at https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/plisteditpro/ It's apparently $29.99, but I bought my license for it eons ago and don't really remember what I paid.

<key>NSToolbar Configuration NSPreferences</key>​

<dict>​

<key>TB Display Mode</key>​

<string>1</string>​

Just remember that whatever you use probably will not be elevated to root, so it won't be able to save directly in place. You'll have to save it on, say, your desktop, and then drag it to the actual folder and the Finder will prompt you for permission.

--Pete

 

[WeatherWeasel]

Got a message on the active relay sometime in the night. I have it on my phone but didn't activate it on my mac. Says that it can prevent some higher speeds, so I gave it a shot and couldn't get on a site that normally comes up faster. So I shut it off. Also internet is faster. I saw that Centurylink was having problems again last night. I guess it doesn't matter with them when the ISP isn't behaving, if you are DSL or fiber.