I'm an outlier: I like compact mode in Safari

Bmosbacker · October 31, 2021, 5:18pm

I’ve gone back and forth to see how I like compact mode vs separate mode in Safari. I know a lot of people don’t like the compact mode but it is growing on me.

What is your reaction?

MitchWagner · October 31, 2021, 5:24pm

Same!

GraemeS · November 1, 2021, 12:44am

I totally agree.
Now that I can tell very, very easily which tab is the current one, I like it.
Earlier versions had me clicking around to figure out which tab I was on and it was very frustrating (ie. I think the earlier complaints were valid, but people need to forget about it and move on since the bad versions were all in betas/previews).

jcarucci · November 1, 2021, 1:53am

I just switched to give it a try. I don’t like it at first, but I plan to live with it a few days.

mina · November 1, 2021, 4:15am

Using it for the last couple of days; and I like it.

acertree · November 1, 2021, 7:11am

I didn’t know what “compact view” was, so I have just looked it up and made the change…I have Monterey.

My impression is not good at all. I am going to live with it for a few days…but…I think I will go back. What was wrong with it before…I suppose you get a little bit more real estate.

iPersuade · November 2, 2021, 2:39am

I really like compact mode. The only issue for me was the initial effort at figuring out where to click, drag, and select. Once I got that down, I really came to like the new design.

** Personal rant, you can feel free to skip over **
I was annoyed by the tech pundits being so critical about this change over the summer. The constant complaining seemed like it lacked a good deal of humility to me. Not saying people were altogether wrong, but it was so unpleasant to listen to and read. I massively unsubscribed to a bunch of podcasts and Youtube channels over it. It was my St. Valentine’s Day subscription massacre. I’m not even sure I disagreed with them at first, but it was draining.

memex · November 2, 2021, 1:24pm

I’m liking it quite a lot, especially on smaller screens (10.5 iPad and 13 MacBook Air).

Sometimes the color thingie is confusing or strange, but I left it on too

Denny · November 2, 2021, 2:43pm

I tried it again because of this thread. Nope, can’t do it more than 10 minutes. I tend to have a lot of tabs in a window and as a result I can’t get to the various tools that reside in the address field under the menu that is easily accessible by tapping “aA” on the left side. Is there some other way to access this when in the compact mode?

Bmosbacker · November 2, 2021, 3:04pm

If all of those open tabs are necessary for a given “session in Safari” probably not but if you have different tabs at different times for different work I find the new tab group feature to be perfect for this.

OogieM · November 2, 2021, 3:32pm

hmm, I suspect this is something I can’t see on my mac? I am running Safari 15 but I’m still onCatalina as that is the latest operating system my mac will support.

I tried the preferences/tab and I don’t have any thing about compact or standard there at all.