Saft - Add very useful features to Safari
Nov 04, '04 09:31:00AM
Contributed by: robg
The macosxhints Rating:

[Score: 10 out of 10]
This week's Pick of the Week was based on several hint submissions over the last few months. Each of these read something like "Did you know you can scroll web pages in Safari by just holding down the Control key, and then moving the mouse up and down?" Every time I tried this, regardless of which machine or OS X version, it failed. After some exchanges with one of the hint authors, we figured it out -- it's the Saft extension that brings this useful feature to Safari. Saft is an extension that adds a whole slew of new features and new menu items to Safari. In addition to the above-mentioned scrolling feature, here are a few of Saft's other enhancements:
- Adds a "Add Bookmark Here" submenu to Safari's Bookmarks -> Bookmkark Folder Name menu; this lets you very easily file a new bookmark in the proper folder.
- Force all new windows to open in tabs instead -- even things like pop-up ads, etc.
- Save your opened tabs as a 'workspace' when you quit Safari, and reopen them on launch.
- Two new submenus in Edit -> Find let you search Bookmarks and History -- this is a very very cool feature!
- A new "Bookmark this group of tabs" menu item lets you create a tab group very easily.
- Use Control and 1 through 9 to pop-open bookmark folders on your shortcuts bar. Apple uses Command-1 through 9 to activate individual bookmarks, but this fails if you have a folder in one of those spots. Saft lets you use Control and 1 through 9 to pop open the bookmark folder and then select an individual site via the arrow keys or mouse.
- Adds a ton of other search engines (including macosxhints) to the Google search box.
- Change the default HTTPD timeout from 60 seconds to something longer. I've had to do this on a couple of very slow-loading sites. Before, the only option was to use another browser.
- Export any web page as a one-page PDF, instead of multiple pages.
- Create shortcuts to websites, search engines, etc. There are a bunch of pre-defined ones in Saft's prefernces. For example, typing osxh finder will search macosxhints.com for hints containing the word 'finder.'
- Type-ahead searching; type a few characters, and Safari will hilite matching words on the page.
These are just a few of the more interesting features; Saft does more. There's a free demo available; it will pop-up an annoying message until you register Saft. After having used it for only a few days now, though, my $10 is now headed in their direction. Saft really does make Safari more usable -- I still prefer Firefox, but Safari + Saft is now a stronger competitor for my browsing time.
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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20041104063129299