I’ve been playing with iPhoto 6, and really like it’s full screen mode.  I kinda would prefer if it stayed in full screen mode when switching applications, anyway.

I was thinking how this mode may cross over to Safari. I think it would work quite well, maybe.  I’ve probably not thought it through and it might be a crap idea, but.. you could have forward back buttons, url bit etc. They could appear when you go near the top, or be static.

I know Saft can do a full screen mode, but it’s not the same.

Anyone else think it a good idea?  I wonder what else could benefit from a similar full screen mode? hmmm

I like that idea. But as you pointed out, Saft can do it for you, which validates the benefits of extensibility - just ask the Firefox crowd.

Just Saft doesn’t look ‘cool’ (I know, it’s lame) but yes, it does prove the function is desired (by some).

I’ve knocked up a mock-up of how I think it might look:

[url=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stuartea/graphics/iPhotoSafari.jpg] 
[/url]

(click to zoom)

The bottom and top menus wouldn’t appear at the same time in reality, it’s just for show.  I thought keeping the navigation buttons at the bottom to keep it in sink with iPhoto 6 (buttons could be moved).  The top, could be last visited pages (and show names on mouse over?)  I wasn’t sure what to do with the bookmark bar, but thought having a Bookmark floating menu, might take care of that.

By no means am I a graphic artist, or an interface designer, and yes, I know the URL doesn’t match the page being viewed.  : )

I like the idea of history thumbnails along the top bar. If Firefox does this, I’m migrating! Anyone know?

OmniWeb does do something similar at the moment along the side (instead of tabs.)

I don’t suppose you’d need tabs in my version. You could drag the thumbs out from the top list to remove them (Poof, dock like).

Funny thing…

I donwloaded Omniweb for a look at the latest version. I used to champion this browser back in the day as the poster child for choice on this new thing called OS X.

Anyway, it’s well-featured and all and I can imagine a lot of those features appealing a lot to many people. However, I was reminded why I stick with Safari, which has practically exactly as many features in a browser as I need.

But there is room for a radical re-think on browser design. I’d love to see a full-screen browser that loads my favourite pages automatically on launch, and then lets me switch between them Exposй style, without revealing the desktop, menu bar or dock. Or a browser that’s kind of autonomous. It launches, loads a specified range of bookmarks, and then checks each of my favourite sites every 15 minutes. Whenever the site has updated, it brings the page forward from a column of live bookmark thumbnails, tiling each newly refreshed page until I read them, after which they retreat to the bookmark column thingy. Are you getting this picture?

A Google search input field could be summoned by a mousewheel click, and when it was called, all other pages retreat, again in Exposй style.

Have you ever used Bryce? I love that interface. Put that interface into a web browser, add the features I’ve suggested here, and I might just pay for it.