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First quick impressions of Safari extensions:

1. Close enough to Chrome extensions that it won’t take much to port something over. (good)
2. Settings API is interesting. I missed the point originally, but apparently Safari will build you a settings page from these. Will probably work for simple settings, but not sure if it’ll scale.
3. Different API for buttons/context menus, but no real winner in terms of API design.
4. Really don’t like having to get a certificate from Apple to develop. Regardless of Apple’s policies, this is the first browser that you need central approval to deploy to (not IE, Firefox, Chrome or Opera needed it).
5. No solution provided to build from command-line (we had to hand-roll one for Chrome too). Browser vendors need to get their act together here.
6. The extension builder is a strange experience: you need to drop files in the directory, then head back to the builder to update things.

I can’t imagine it’ll take us longer than a few days to port the DotSpots extension from Chrome to Safari. It’ll take a while for us to integrate this into our automated build process though.