When Mac OS X Leopard finally arrived on the scene, the inline-display of PDFs without the need to install Adobe’s ghastly Acrobat Reader was one of my instant-favourite features. However, it’s not perfect.
At the day-job we provide all our documentation in PDF form right now (debate away: we’re always listening) and it never ceases to amaze me, when talking to customers, that this Safari feature actually confuses and misleads them. You’re probably chortling away at how silly that may sound, but think, for a second, of what you’re presented with: a large grey area where nothing happens for a few moments (or minutes if you’re on a highly-contended broadband connection). It’s not as if there’s no feedback given: there’s the address bar’s progress bar, and perhaps the status bar below the Safari window if you’ve enabled it, that show exactly what’s going on. But I couldn’t help finding it curious that users’ attention is so vividly drawn by the main browser view, and the fact that it’s quite common for people to miss the fact that PDFs are, in fact, loading.
It’s worth pointing out that Acrobat Reader - for all its many sins - at least provides an indeterminate spinner to show that something is going on. I can’t help but feel that Apple could at least match that.
Posted on Tuesday January 27th, 2009
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