It’s been a busy few days at the Software Update corral. First Mac OS X 10.2.5, then Safari Beta 2. There’s lots of discussion about the former, so I want to give you a brief overview of my three favorite features in the latest version of Safari.
What you’ll hear the most about in this beta are tabbed browsing, AutoFill forms, and Privacy Reset. Even though tabbed browsing is helpful, especially for those with 12″ screen laptops, I really have been waiting for AutoFill, and the Privacy Reset is a pleasant surprise.
After you download the new beta via Software Update or from the Safari page, go directly to Safari’s preferences. You have a few new items to adjust.
First stop is Tabs. Check the enable box and decide on which options you want. One cool thing Apple does here is give you the keyboard commands for controlling Tabs right there in the preference window. Basically, the tabbing works as you’d expect. One clever touch that tickles me is the little spinning “loading wheel” that occupies the right side of the tab telling you that the page is still rendering. Cute.
Next, go to AutoFill (Yaay!). Gosh I’ve missed AutoFill. Safari uses your “Me” card in Address Book for its AutoFill. So I recommend that you click the Edit button and make sure your info is the way you want it. Generally speaking Safari uses the top entry in any given category to complete the form. So, arrange your various email addresses accordingly. Then when you encounter a form, the command to fill it is under the Edit menu. There’s also a new button on your menu bar, as well as a new keyboard shortcut if you want to use that: SHIFT/CMD/A
But wait, there’s more. You can also have your web accounts and passwords available (stored securely in your Keychain). What a terrific way to help manage all those secure sites that have become a big part of our online life.
But I wouldn’t be quite as pleased about the password feature had Privacy Reset not been added too. The feature is included under the Safari menu as “Reset Safari…”. When you choose it, everything gets wiped: history, cache, downloads, Google search entries, cookies, saved names, passwords, and AutoFill text.
Now that’s thinking. So even though I welcome tabbed browsing with open screen real estate, AutoFill and Privacy Reset are my personal favorites here.
link location in window?
i can't find info on this anywhere, so thought i would try here: is there any way to have the destination of a link appear in the bottom of the safari browser, as it does on IE? i like to mouse over links to see where they will lead before clicking on them!
thank you for any help.
link location in window?
View->Status Bar, or type cmd-\
Autofill, Reset Safari Missing
Odd thing. Although the Autofill tab is there in the Preferences pane, there is no autofill button in the Address Bar, nor is there an Autofill under the Edit menu(per Derrick Story) nor under the View menu (per Safari Help). Neither do I find the Reset Safari entry under the Safari menu.
jldera in comment below suggested deleting prior version of Safari from Applications folder, then re-installing, which solved the problem.
Thanks jldera!
Re: Autofill, Reset Safari Missing
That is strange. Perhaps:
1) Remove Safari.app from your /Application folder
2) Reinstall Safari from newly downloaded disk image
That might work for you.
Two killer features - user stylesheets and js-as gate
Those features are nice, but what really got me excited was the user stylesheets feature where you can point the browser to a stylesheet that the "user" defines and is in the flow of all pages loaded after that - so you could choose to make all links have red boxes around them or all images of 100x100 size be display:none or other great things. This is huge!
Then the applescript- javascript gateway where you can get properties of the dom via as... very cool!
Autofill, Reset Safari Missing
Try going to "View>>AutoFill" for tghe autofill button.
Autofill multiple email addresses
I haven't tried this myself yet but I gather that if you have multiple email addresses, Safari will autofill the first one then allow you to select others by tabbing to the field and hitting the down arrow.
I would assume, if it actually works, that it will work this way for other AddressBook entries as well.
Two killer features - user stylesheets and js-as gate
Yes, yes, yes, indeed these two features are wonderful surprises. I think the thing that impresses me about this version of Safari is that Apple has continued to fix the things that needed fixing, but have also kept innovating at the same time. This is a terrific browser.
Autofill, Reset Safari Missing
Yes, there is an Autofill button. Its under the view menu. you might have a corrupt file. Try d/l ing another copy from apple