Safari 5.1.7 update: Cocoa apps built in Xcode3 against 10.5 SDK which link to WebKit show black text fields when rendering web content

black-textfields-safari-5.1.7-xcode3-10.5-SDK

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you on this. Three reasons for that:

1. I had not been able to reduce the problem fully, and I prefer to write "clean" Radars with easy steps to reproduce.
2. This issue is NOT actually affecting me in the current version of any of my shipping products, so it's not a high priority for me. In fact, it's not a priority for me at all (and honestly, I doubt it is for anyone else either).
3. I have RSI and typing all this up is a bit difficult.

So to be clear, this issue is not affecting me in any way currently, and I am writing this just to follow up and share info in case you are interested and/or need to track this down. I doubt this is a terribly important issue for you or the rest of the WebKit team/community. As far as I'm concerned you may ignore this issue completely.

So my <a href="https://twitter.com/itod/status/201434495365283840">original statement</a> of web rendering being "broken" was a bit hyperbolic. Also, I was wrong about the PPC connection. The culprit is actually the 10.5 SDK.

Here's what I originally noticed:

In the "Independently-sold" version 1.8.4 of my product, <a href="http://fakeapp.com">Fake</a>, many &lt;input type="text"> elements (but not all) were being rendered with a solid black background making text entry very difficult. This was a clear rendering glitch, and was visible on Google.com:

<p><img src="http://tod.nu/webkit/fake.png"></p>

What's interesting is that my "Mac App Store" build of the same app (Fake 1.8.4) did not exhibit the problem.

Both versions of the app were originally built in Xcode 3. I discovered the difference is that the Indie version was built agains the 10.5 SDK and the MAS version was built against the 10.6 SDK.

So, here's the bug:

SETUP: 
Mac OS X 10.7.4, Safari 5.1.7 installed

STEPS:
1. Build an app against the 10.5 SDK in Xcode 3 which links against WebKit and displays a WebView
2. load google.com in this app's WebView

EXPECTED:
Normal rendering of Google

ACTUAL:
Notice the text field on google.com has a solid black background

FIX:
Build the same app against the 10.6 SDK instead. Google renders correctly

NOTE:
This is not just affecting google.com, it affects text fields on many (but not all) websites. I'm not sure what CSS and/or HTML combination triggers the issue in some text fields, but not others.




I have noticed this issue in one other shipping product, which was probably aslo built against the 10.5 SDK : Adobe Photoshop CS3.

In the Registration window for that product, I see the same issue:

<p><img src="http://tod.nu/webkit/photoshop.png"></p>


So as I mentioned, this is totally not an issue for me at this point. The issue seems to be only related to apps built in Xcode3 or against the 10.5 SDK. Both of which are long out-dated.

Thanks for your time, and for all of your hard work on WebKit!