MacMembraneThere are peels everywhere…

Right now I’m stranded in Firefox land and, although Firefox has a lot to offer, it’s made me conscious of all the little things I take for granted when browsing in Safari. These are a few of those ‘little things.’

Center All Open Windows

If you have a bunch of windows open all over your screen, go to the Window menu and hold down Option. ‘Bring All to Front’ will change to ‘Arrange In Front,’ which will center all your windows.

Command-1 or 2 or 3, etc. to Select Bookmark Bar Bookmarks

Press Command-1 to 9 to select bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar. Also works if you save JavaScripts to the Bookmarks Bar for extra functionality.

Close All But the Active Tab

Command-Option-W will close all tabs but the current one. Or Option click on a tabs closure X for the same effect. If multiple windows are open but have no tabs, Command-Option-W will close all of them.

Hide the Toolbars

Sometimes toolbars can get in the way. Look under the View menu to hide the Bookmarks Bar, Toolbar and Status Bar. Or better: try this near-full-screen Safari AppleScript.

Merge Your Open Windows

Again in the Window menu, Merge All Windows will collect all of your open windows into a single one. You can also drag tabs between windows for à la carte tab management.

Open Select Portions of a Page in Dashboard

Dashclip allows you to take any section of a webpage and make it into a Dashboard widget. Find it under Safari’s File menu.

Summarize Text in Web Pages

Highlight some text in a page and go to Summarize in the services menu. A popup window will open with your text compressed to the essential bits. It’s intelligent.

Define Any Word on the Fly

Hover over a word and invoke OS X’s system wide dictionary by pressing Command-Control-D. Look near the bottom of the pane to switch to Thesaurus.

Command-Option Click to Open a Link in a New Window

Hold down Command when you click a link in and it will open it in a new Tab. Hold down Comand-Option and it will open in a new Window.

Instantly Return to Any Page

Snapback is like a temporary bookmark. It’s a great way to return to a main article in Wikipedia or Google search results after you’ve inevitably followed too many disparate links. Mark your page and return to it via the History menu.

Find a Particular Tab’s Browsing History

Click and hold the Back button in any tab to see the history for that tab only.

Open All Links in a Bookmark Folder

Hold down Command to open all the links in a Bookmarks folder in the Bookmarks Bar. If you already have that folder set to open all contained links (you can set it so from the Show All Bookmarks panel), holding Command will let you view the contents of the folder instead.

Quickly Search Google

Right click on a word and select Google Search from the contextual menu. Hold down Command to have your search open in a new tab.

Use the Activity Window

Select Activity from the Window menu and a new window will open detailing everything that is happening behind the scenes on all your open web pages. From here you can open or download any page element (source code, style sheet, media) by double clicking. Read Secrets of Safari’s Activity Window for more details.

Launch Downloads from the Download Window

Safari’s Download manager may be sparsely featured, but you can open any file in the list directly by double clicking on its icon.

Open an Address in a New Tab

Hold down Command when opening a url from the location field and it will open in a new tab.

Force Stubborn Site Links to Open in New Tabs

Command clicking on a link will open it in a new tab most of the time. However, some sites are able to override Safari’s commands and have links open in the same window. Enter this command in Terminal to regain control:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

Via MacTips.

Reopen All Windows After a Crash

Unfortunately, Safari doesn’t yet support reopening tabs from a previous session. If Safari crashes, however, you can quickly restore your windows from the History menu.

Hold Option When Entering Private Browsing

Private Browsing mode in Safari temporarily disables history and cookies and so your browsing history is kept secret. Hold down Option in the application menu when selecting it to kill the redundant explanatory dialog box.

Drag Files from Finder onto Choose File Dialogs

Sometimes you need to upload something and it’s a pain to navigate your HD when the file you need is sitting right in front of you in finder. Drag it onto the choose file link instead to save some time and hassle.

That’s it for now, but if these aren’t enough check out Tips, Tricks and Add-ons to Maximize Safari’s Potential and It’s a Drag: the Power of Drag and Drop in Safari.