I created a web clip in Safari, selecting the relevant portion of the Pandora site. Then I followed the directions in the MacWorld article (also in this hint) to enable the removal of widgets from Dashboard. I then opened Dashboard and started dragging my Pandora widget around, and pressed F12 to close the Dashboard, which transferred the widget to the Desktop. The widget will now stay open whether Dashboard is running or not, and whether Safari is running or not.
[robg adds: Safari's Web Clip feature is quite useful for things such as this, though it suffers one near-fatal flaw: you cannot save widgets that you create with Web Clip. If you click the widget's close button, it's gone for good.]
I was unhappy when Safari lost the Page Snapback command from the History menu. This command would take Safari back to the very first History page for that window/tab. Well, here's a little javascript bookmarklet that does the same job.
javascript:history.go(1-history.length);
Create a new bookmark, and enter that into the Address field. I keep mine on the bookmark bar, and it works fine for my needs. I wish I had thought of this sooner!
In the past, in-browser QuickTime controls were extremely awkward. Loading an MP3 track in Safari, for instance, would yield controls that were incredibly tiny. Things have gotten a little bit better with the latest Safari release.
You can now use the zoom feature, via the View » Zoom In (or Out) menu items (and their keyboard shortcuts), or by using "pinch-to-zoom" if you're on a laptop.
The controls can now be much larger, although the scrobbling icon is at a fairly poor resolution.
[robg adds: As submitted, this hint discussed QuickTime X as the source of zoomable controller, but it seems to be based on Safari's page zoom feature. Although Firefox also has a page zoom feature, it won't zoom the QuickTime controller. This hint should work in both 10.5 and 10.6.]
One of the features of version 4 of Safari is that it preserves the layout of a webpage when you zoom in or out (Command-Plus and Command-Minus, or use the View menu bar item). This is because, unlike previous versions, any element on the webpage is also zoomed, not just the text.
One pleasant side effect of this is that you can emulate Excel's Zoom Out/In feature on Google Doc's spreadsheets with version 4 of Safari. This allows you to see more of your spreadsheet when required.
[robg adds: This also works in Firefox, and probably any other browser that supports full-page zoom.]
With Glims for Safari it is possible, among other things, to add custom search engines to Safari. You can also search within your Gmail inbox this way. With a keyboard shortcut assigned, it proves a quick way to search and acces your inbox.
[robg adds: I haven't tested this one. If you're using Snow Leopard, you'll either have to run Safari in 32bit mode, or wait for an updated version of Glims (which is apparently in the works, based on comments the Glims developers have made).]
It's possible to change the Top Hit result in Safari 4's location bar by using the Caps Lock key before typing a URL.
For example, I have http://www.ingdirect.ca/fr/ bookmarked, and http://www.ingdirect.ca/ in my history. If Caps Lock is off, Safari lists http://www.ingdirect.ca/ (from History) as the Top Hit. With Caps Lock, the bookmark (http://www.ingdirect.ca/fr/) is the Top Hit.
However, this doesn't work consistently. I think the bookmarked URL needs to be accessed more often than the root URL to be moved to the Top Hit position.
[robg adds: I don't use Safari enough to test this to figure out what/why things change; if you do and can figure anything out, please post -- this seems like a possible bug more than a feature.]
I have gotten used to downloading certain PDF files and then viewing them in a Preview session started by Firefox. When I upgraded Firefox to 3.5.2, this stopped working. What I got instead was a tab with a blank screen and the name of the file in the tab header. Where was my dialog box? How do I get the document?
Well, it turns out that selecting File » Save Page As will open a dialog box allowing me to save the PDF file. Then going to Finder and opening the file with Preview gets me to the place I was before. I suspect that this drop in functionality is simply a temporary bug -- but if it's bit you, too, this is how I worked around the problem.
But the good news is that my PDF issue pointed me to another hint here about viewing PDFs directly in Firefox via a plug-in. So for the cases where I don't want an archived copy of the PDF (like the monthly schedule for my local ice rink), I'll use the plug-in.
I just discovered (by accident) what the VerifiedDownloadPlugin is. My Safari app was completely broken, as I couldn't always download. This had become quite annoying, so I started looking around. I then found the /Library » Internet Plug-Ins folder, and within that, an old Speed Download plugin which was causing my Safari issues.
However, I also found something else called VerifiedDownloadPlugin.plugin. I took both of them out, and my Safari worked quite well again. The bonus from this change is that I actually got rid of all those dialogs that tell me that the files I downloaded came from the internet -- well, I know they came from the internet; I just downloaded them! Even plain HTML files can't be opened without clicking that stupid OK button.
But now I'm feeling so much better. It's much easier to use my Mac. Of course, there's some reason for Apple to put the safety warning there, but ... if you know downloaded the files, because you wanted to open them, why not just get rid of that dialog box once and for all?
[robg adds: I've confirmed that removing the plug-in removes the warning dialog. However, I don't know if there are any other side effects, so proceed with caution. Personally, I put up with the annoying dialog, though I wish there were some user control over when it would appear (for instance, opening said HTML files shouldn't evoke a warning dialog). I've marked this hint 10.5 Only, as I think that's when this plug-in was added; please correct me if I'm wrong.]
Strong warning: Based on some comments below and feedback via email, note that disabling this plug-in exposes you to potentially all sorts of nastiness. Keep in mind that the purpose of macosxhints is to share knowledge, and some of that knowledge is potentially dangerous. It's up to each person to make the go/no-go determination themselves for any given hint, though I try (as I thought I did above) to note which hints seem particularly dangerous.
I'm often annoyed by the confirmation dialog that pops up in Safari 4 when I try to close a window with multiple tabs open. ("Are you sure you want to close this window?") But I don't want to turn off that message altogether (by checking its "Do not warn when closing multiple pages" box). Too often, I hit the close button by mistake when minimizing windows, so that warning is sometimes nice to have. Instead, I've discovered I can bypass that warning by holding down the Option key when clicking on the close button.
As a (primarily) Firefox user, I read of the recent release of Firefox 3.6a1 (known as Namoroka), and downloaded the alpha for testing. Note that this release isn't targeted for typical users, as it's far from feature complete and may crash. For instance, the Advanced and Privacy prefs don't seem to work at all on my Mac Pro.
One feature in 3.6a1 (which was originally slated for 3.5, I believe) is a visual tab switcher. Much as you can use Command-Tab to switch applications via an onscreen palette in OS X, you can use Control-Tab to switch tabs visually in Firefox 3.6a1. (This same shortcut works in Firefox 3.5, but without any visual aids.)
As shipped, Firefox 3.6a1 ships with the tab preview feature disabled. To enable it, type about:config and agree to be careful to get past the warning screen. In the search box on the config page, type tab.previ; this should then display only one matching preference, browser.ctrlTab.previews. Double-click that preference entry to change its value from false to true, then close the config page.
From now on, Namoroka will show you the tab preview panel when you press Control-Tab. I'd guess this will be enabled by default in the final version of Firefox 3.6, but for now, you'll have to manually activate the feature to get it to work. I've been using the previews for a couple days now, and haven't had any issues with them (though I think the default sizing is too large, but the design isn't yet finalized). Please keep in mind that Namoroka is only an alpha at this stage, so you may run into other bugs, glitches, and crashes. If you do see such things, make sure you send feedback to the Mozilla team, so they're aware of the issue(s) you had.
