Differences between Safari for Windows and Safari for Mac

Question

Hello,

What are the differences from a developer point of view between Safari for Mac and Safari for Windows?

I think it boils down to evaluate differences between (if I missed something, please correct):
- Layout rendering
- Javascript behavior

The final decision to be made being:
Can developers test only on Safari Windows (knowing that we can't afford to miss important bugs)?

Thanks, JB

Answer 1

As far as rendering and JavaScript are concerned, there is no difference. What is different is underlaying UI library used for browser itself, but page render is the same.

Answer 2

Font rendering can be different between Mac and Windows Safari as the systems typically have different fonts. As long as your page can gracefully handle missing fonts or different font sizes it should be fine.

Answer 3

A site I am working on now has a problem in safari for mac that isn't in safari 3 or 4 for windows. I cant figure it out for the life of me.

Answer 4

I have also seen problems in Safari for Windows that don't exist in Safari for Mac on CSS heavy websites. Can't remember the specifics, but they were there.

Answer 5

I am currently experiencing an issue where floating images in a blog with text wrapping around the image do not properly pad themselves in OS X; works fine in windows. Basically I've added padding to make the image align flush left or right such that the edge of the image is at the same offset as the edge of the text of the post; on OS X the image sticks out past the edge of the text.

Answer 6

A call to java from javascript throws:

java.net.MalformedURLException: no protocol: 
    at java.net.URL.(Unknown Source)
    at java.net.URL.(Unknown Source)
    at java.net.URL.(Unknown Source)
    at sun.plugin.liveconnect.SecureInvocation.checkLiveConnectCaller(Unknown Source)
    at sun.plugin.liveconnect.SecureInvocation.access$000(Unknown Source)
    at sun.plugin.liveconnect.SecureInvocation$2.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.plugin.liveconnect.SecureInvocation.CallMethod(Unknown Source) 

on Safari windows but not safari mac.

Answer 7

Here is a link to different javascript behavior.

Answer 8

I had an issue with the popup blocker in Safari in Windows XP. I guess the blocker didn't accept that the user clicked a link an Flash that then triggered a JavaScript that opened the Window. The did work in the other major browsers and Safari in OS X, though. Chrome also blocked my window in XP, but not in OS X or Ubuntu.

Answer 9

Style sheet rendering is significantly different between Safari and Windows. To see this, try creating a page that has an element with a z-index of -1. The windows version will function without issue, the Mac version will not allow you to select the elements. Trust me, I wasted about three hours trying to figure out by trial and error why a page would work in one system but not the other. The worst bit is that when Safari doesn't render something properly, it does so without any indication. You have to debug line for line, a dreadful experience.