So, first impressions: feels pretty snappy; tab placement was confusing for 2 minutes but now I really like it, though I agree it doesn’t make sense for the bookmarks bar to be within a tab; Top Sites is completely useless to me, but CoverFlow for history might come in handy once in a blue moon. Overall it seems like Google Chrome has made quite an impression.
Only one thing REALLY bugging me: keyboard shortcuts for the bookmarks bar is broken for popup bookmarklets.
Ideal behaviour: you hit Cmd-1, and your first (non-folder) item on the bookmarks bar loads in the current window. If it is a JavaScript bookmarklet, it behaves exactly as it would if you’d clicked it, e.g. popup in a new, typically small window. This is not affected by Safari’s Block Pop-up Windows feature.
Safari 3 did exactly that.
Safari 4: you hit Cmd-1, and because Cmd is the modifier for “new tab”, your small bookmarklet opens in a new tab in your large window.
Cmd- for a regular URL bookmark obviously doesn’t open it in a new tab, because the Cmd is part of the shortcut and not the new tab modifier.
I guess nobody on the Safari team uses both popup bookmarklets and shortcut keys for the bookmarks bar.
Update: I think Manton Reece is spot on, regardless of Apple’s intentions (emphasis mine):
In the last 4 years the problem has only gotten worse. Developers are rolling their own tab solutions and there is no consistent behavior or keyboard shortcuts that I have seen. Worse, coding fully-featured tabs with the ability to drag windows in and out of a tab group is very difficult, and most apps don’t go that far.
The Safari 4 tabs are conceptually the right way to go. It’s not “tabs” at all. Instead, think of it as an efficient way to dock multiple windows together.
