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Safari Technology Preview 36 for Mac Release Offers Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements

Apple on Wednesday released Safari Technology Preview 36, a new version of their experimental web browser, first released in March 2016. The browser allows developers and other interested parties to test features that may debut in future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview 36 Release Notes:

JavaScript

  • Implemented Object Spread

CSS

  • Changed to not resolve auto values of align-self and justify-self matching specification changes
  • Fixed line-height:<number> to not be visually applied twice when text autosizing is in effect

WebRTC

  • Fixed incorrect sdpMLineIndex for video to fix interoperability with Firefox
  • Fixed sending silence data for a disabled audio track
  • Increased the render audio buffer sizes for WebRTC

Web Driver

  • Fixed link and partial link queries when the link contains formatting tags

Rendering

  • Disabled asynchronous image decoding for large images by default
  • Enabled the Viewport Fit experimental feature by default
  • Fixed an element not getting repainted when its background image finishes decoding
  • Fixed an issue to avoid unnecessary copying of the frame buffer into a WebGL Layer
  • Corrected the radix used in Unicode Escape in invalid character error message
  • Fixed the low memory notification to prevent causing style recalculation
  • Fixed GIFs with infinite animation often only playing once

Media

  • Fixed removing user gesture restrictions when adding the autoplay attribute to a media element during a user gesture
  • Fixed reflecting “video” and “audio” when they are not a supported as attribute value
  • Fixed bad behavior caused by removing samples when the presentation order does not match decode order
  • Fixed media controls drawing behind the captions
  • Fixed clicking the edges of media control buttons to execute the action, not just change the visual state of the button

Web Inspector

  • Changed to group Inspector Style Sheets as part of the Stylesheets folder
  • Improved wording for Potential Custom Element that lacks a Custom definition
  • Fixed resources that are sometimes missing from the tree outline right before grouping into folders
  • Fixed WebSocket resource tree elements to show the connection status

WebAssembly

  • Implemented name section’s module name, and skipped unknown sections

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed the “Show My Relationship” link in familysearch.org
  • Fixed an issue where font loads can cause Chinese characters to draw as .notdef
  • Changed AppCache to ignore fallback entries whose namespace is not prefixed with the manifest path

Users can either download the update from the Safari Technology Preview website, or if they already have the browser installed, they can download it via the Mac App Store. Full release notes for the update are available on the same website.

While the preview is intended for use by developers and advanced users, in order to provide Apple with feedback on the development of the Safari browser, it can be run side-by-side with the release version of Safari. The app doesn’t require a developer account to download and install. For more information, visit the Safari Tech Preview website.

Chris Hauk

Chris is a Senior Editor at Mactrast. He lives somewhere in the deep Southern part of America, and yes, he has to pump in both sunshine and the Internet.