Safari

Did you know that in Apple Safari you can combine windows into Tabs, move Tabs around, break them out into separate windows?

I subscribe to the Apple Quick Tip of the Week podcast. These are short, focussed Tips presented by Apple employees, with very professional production qualities.

The Tips are often interesting and useful, but Tip 50: Managing Browser Tabs is one that everyone should view, whether beginner or advanced.

Find out in 1 minute (10 Mb) how to work with Safari’s Tabs.

Popularity: 79% [?]

I’ve been using Mars Edit since it was part of NetNewsWire. It’s an excellent, stand-alone editor for blog posts, with all kinds of cool features. So I wasn’t aware of the problems Safari users are having with WordPress.

While I sometimes use the web editor for my WordPress blogs, especially when I need to include an image from my online photo albums (MacTips screenshots, personal photos), I’ll always use Mars Edit when I can.

What’s more, I seldom use Safari; OmniWeb is my main browser of choice, though I also use Flock quite often for browsing.

WordPress and the web editor

If you do decide to write WordPress posts in your web browser, the first thing to do is turn off the stupid Visual Rich Editor, or you’re likely to go postal. Maria and I wrote about how to do this in our book WordPress 2 Visual Quickstart Guide. Look at pages 26 and 27 to get started.

I also avoid using Flock for writing posts as it seems to just mess up what I write, whatever I do. OmniWeb works nicely though. But the best choice of all is separate software, such as Mars Edit or Ecto. Daniel Jalkut, author of Mars Edit, explains more of the web editor problem, in The Broken Web Editor:

Recently there has been an increase of new MarsEdit buyers who cite as their motivation a frustration with the WordPress web editor. I respect and admire the WordPress team. In fact, their web interface is among the best out there. But even in the best of circumstances, it’s hard to compete with the usability of a desktop app. And when something goes bad, it becomes downright impossible.

Currently the situation is especially bad for people who use WordPress with Safari. For whatever reason these two pieces of software have fallen slightly out of accord. It’s common to hear tale of people who use Safari for “everything but WordPress.” In short, WordPress has a reputation for messing up or even eliminating parts of your post when using the web-based editor in Safari. I know, because I see the comments of my customers and would-be customers on the web. There is a chorus of confirmation for this problem.

I look forward to WordPress and Safari to ironing out their differences.

[Via Red Sweater Blog: The Broken Web Editor.]

Ways to solve the web editor problem

So, if you’re working with WordPress, which is, after all, about the best blogging platform, here are some steps to take to make the experience even better:

• if writing posts via the web interface, turn off the Visual Rich Editor, and use OmniWeb rather than Flock or Safari
• use Mars Edit instead of the web interface
• use some other stand-alone editor.

Popularity: 14% [?]

In this Power Up, Miraz Jordan keeps track of all her favourite web pages. [First published April 2006. Some details may be a bit dated. Update February 2008: hmmm, Google's so efficient I seldom bother bookmarking anything any more. When I do use bookmarks, I generally do it via Delicious.]

Locating good websites can easily fill many hours. If you’ve invested precious time into finding the best camera review website or that crucial manual for your classic motorcycle then the last thing you want is the intense frustration of looking for it again next week or next month.

Are you still using Internet Explorer for web browsing? It was pretty good in its day, but that day was about 5 years ago and it can’t keep up with modern web pages. It’s time to use a modern browser such as Safari, Firefox, Opera or OmniWeb.

Advice columns will cheerfully tell you to Bookmark a web page, and of course you should, but with dozens or hundreds of bookmarks the list is unwieldy and hard to use. Banish frustration and temper tantrums with some organisation. This article shows you how to manage Safari’s bookmarks, but it’s pretty much the same even if you’re using a different web browser.

Tip: Visit Safari’s File Menu and choose Export Bookmarks … before you start messing about with your Bookmarks. Save the html file in a safe place. If you mess everything up you can import this file again. This is also a good way to back up your Bookmarks.

Show all Bookmarks

Screenshot 1: I’m looking at the bookmarks in my digicam folder.

First make sure the Bookmarks Bar is visible by visiting the View menu and checking it. You can Show all Bookmarks from the Bookmarks menu, or by clicking the open book icon at the left end of the Bookmarks Bar. Once the Bookmarks window is open select any folder in the Collections list on the left to see all the individual Bookmarks it contains.

Delete and re-order Bookmarks

Screenshot 2: I drag the most important bookmark for my camera to the top of the list.

Delete a bookmark by selecting it and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. Be careful with this as the bookmark is simply deleted with no additional warnings. If you accidentally delete a bookmark you intended to keep immediately choose Command Z to restore it. You could also choose Undo from the Edit menu.

Change the order of bookmarks by dragging them around in the list. A bookmark appears to stay where it is until you finish the move by dropping it in its new location. A black line with a circle at the left end shows where the bookmark will go when you drop it.

Tip: you can duplicate a bookmark by holding down a modifier key while dragging. The Option key is the normal choice for this, but the Command key seems to work too.

Work with collections

Screenshot 3: I created a Personal collection, move it near the top of the list and drag bookmarks into it.

The Collections list may already have some default folders of bookmarks. If you don’t want the bookmarks Safari came with you can delete a folder by selecting it and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. The folder (and its contents) is simply deleted with no additional warnings. You can Undo this (see above) if you don’t do anything else in the meantime.

Add a new Collection by pressing the + icon below the Collection list. It will appear as an Untitled Folder. Type a suitable name and press the Return key to complete the action.

Drag the new folder within the list to change the sequence of Collection folders. Drag a bookmark from one Collection folder to another to move it.

Find a bookmark

Screenshot 4: I find the Macguide bookmark by using the Search box at the bottom of the Bookmarks window.

Macguide — now where was that bookmark? In the latest version of Safari (and possibly earlier versions) there’s a search box at the bottom of the Bookmarks window. Click the icon of the magnifying glass to choose whether to search in the currently selected Collection or all Collections. Then type your search term.

It’s a Live Search so each letter you type filters out bookmarks, leaving only possible matches. The column called Parent tells you which Collection contains the bookmark.

Use the Bookmarks Bar

Screenshot 5: Create a folder whose contents will open with one click.

I keep a handful of my most commonly used bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar. Group related bookmarks into a folder. You’ll see the Bookmarks Bar collection at the top of the Collections list. Seleect the Bookmarks Bar collection and click on the + icon below the Bookmarks list to create a new folder.

I check the box in the Autoclick column for my new Astronomy folder so I can call up several pages showing me the night sky with just one click.

Screenshot 6: The folder whose contents will open with one click is marked with a small square on the Bookmarks Bar.

Backing up and organising your Bookmarks can save a lot of hair-pulling. Try it and see.

First published in Macguide magazine Issue #26 March / April 2006 and republished with permission. This article may have been modified from the original.

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