It seems that every day we discover how complete Safari's support of tabs really is. Looking for another way to open tabs? If you have a three-button mouse or two-button with scroll wheel button (like mine, a Logitech WheelMouse), the scroll wheel works but the button has typically been useless. Not anymore. Click the scroll wheel button over a link and the link opens in a new tab. Excellent.
[robg adds: To make this work with my Microsoft Intellipoint mouse, I had to disable Intellipoint in Safari, in which case I lost all mouse features but the middle button works as described. A better option was to add a custom setup for Safari, and just set the middle button to send a Command-click event. My middle button is set to "Autoscroll" as a global preference; I don't recall if that's the global default or not.]
While using Safari Beta 2, do you find yourself saying "Why do I have to press the Command key every time I click a link? I want every link in a new tab, not a new window."
I came across this solution by accident; it's simple, but you may not have thought about it, and your finger (thumb?) will thank you! Turn on the "Sticky Keys" feature of Universal Access System Preference panel; it's on the "Keyboard" tab. You can also activate this feature on-the-fly (if you have "Allow Universal Access Shortcuts" checked) by pressing the Shift key five times to toggle it on or off.
Then, when you are ready for your link-clicking, tab-adding, extravaganza, just press the Command key twice (which locks it on) and away you go. You may want to deselect the Command key when you do things other than clicking links, as it is used to modify other key and mouse sequesnces!
Perfect for loading shareware lists into Tabs to review and download.
[robg adds: While you have Sticky Keys activated, you'll see a nice semi-translucent Command key graphic onscreen (at least, I do!) while you have the Command key locked on, which makes it much easier to remember that you should disable it before doing any other clicking!]
Safari Beta 2 adds a new do JavaScript command that enables AppleScript to communicate with the browser via JavaScript! See Apple's Do JavaScript Command page (note that there's a second page with more examples, as well as links to more extensive documentation).
Not terribly hinty, but worth a look if you'd like to use AppleScript to work with JavaScript on Safari pages.
With Safari Beta 2, Apple tells us how to open links in new tabs by command-clicking on them, but the only documented method for opening a typed URL in a new tab is to open a new tab (command-T) and then type the URL in the new address bar.
However, you can simply type the URL in the address bar and hit command-return to open the typed URL in a new tab. This trick also works from the Google search box -- enter your search terms, command-return, and the results open in a new tab.
[robg adds: And it also works for links on the bookmark bar, though this may very well have been mentioned in the comments already to some of the other Safari Beta 2 hints...]
As many Mac users probably know by now, Apple released Safari Beta 2 this week, and with it came tabbed browsing. One of the nice things about tabbed browsing is that it allows you to circumvent Safari's annoying "feature" of stopping the loading of pages if you open the bookmarks manager. If you simply open a new, blank tab before you open the bookmarks manager, the loading of all other pages (each in their own tab) will be left alone -- it's not great, but it's better than having to open a new window.
Similarly, if you open the bookmarks manager from within an already loaded tab, other still-loading tabs will be unaffected. A simple, but effective, workaround for now.
I wrote this script to allow the opening of multiple pages in tabs as the startup homepage. It may not be pretty, but it works.
tell application "Safari"
activate
set the URL of document 1 to "http://www.XXXXXXX.com"
my new_tab()
set the URL of document 1 to "http://www.XXXXXX.com"
end tell
on new_tab()
tell application "Safari" to activate
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Safari"
«event prcsclic» «class menI» "New Tab" of «class menE» "File" of «class mbar» 1
end tell
end tell
end new_tab
Replace the X's with whatever sites you want and keep repeating the code (my new_tab() and set the URL... lines) for each page you'd like to have open. I am sure that there is a much better way to do it, but I have no clue what I am doing and it only took me five minutes to write. The "new_tab" code was "borrowed" from Apples "Combine Windows" script. Sorry if it offends anybody and please don't sue me.Mine opens up 10 pages and works great.
Also this requires that you have installed the UI Scripting Beta. Finally, you need to be sure that the "Enable access for assistive devices" option is checked in the Universal Access System Pref Panel.
[robg adds: The script works as expected (quite cool, actually!), though I haven't used it as an app yet (just ran it from ScriptEditor).]
By default (with no way to change it, apparently), Safari will open a new window when opening external application links (like from Mail or TextEdit), instead of reusing the same window or opening a tab. However, if the current tab is blank -- i.e., you've just opened it with no web page displayed -- Safari will use that tab instead of opening a new window. A little bit of a time saver, as opposed to consolidating windows by shuffling around the URLs.
You know how Command-Click opens a link in a new tab in Safari Beta 2? Well, I just stumbled on this: If you have a folder full of links in your Bookmarks Bar, Command-Clicking on the folder will immediatley open all the links in the folder in their own tabs within one window. I just opened 20 sites in one click! Now to create a quick-access folder to make good use of this feature.
I accidentally found out how to switch between open tabs in Safari Beta 2 without reaching for the mouse. You just have to press Command-Shift and at the same time, use the left and right arrow keys to move to the left or to the right through your opened tabs.
