Safari Tips and Useful Applications
Morning Surf made easy
If you tend to visit the same collection of Web sites each morning, the following technique will save you multiple trips to Safari's Bookmarks menu. Launch Safari and make sure the Enable Tabbed Browsing option is selected in the Tabs section of Safari's preferences.
Click on the Bookmarks button and create a new folder (Command-Shift-N). Give the folder a descriptive name (eg Mornings), and copy the bookmarks of your favourite Web sites into it (you can copy a bookmark by clicking on it, typing Command-C and then clicking on the new folder and typing Command-V).
Click on the Bookmarks Bar entry in the Collections column of the Bookmarks window, and drag your new folder into Safari's main window.
Check the Auto-Tab option next to the folder in this window.
When you next sit down at your Mac, click on this folder (which now appears in the Bookmarks Bar) and leap for joy as each site within the folder opens in a separate tab.
Safari Trick
If you put a folder full of bookmarks in your bookmark bar, clicking on this folder name drops down the enclosed bookmarks There is more: command-click on the folder's name (in the bookmark bar) does this as well.
Navigating a Site via the Title Bar
As you dig your way down into a web site, it can sometimes be a little tricky to get back to the original page. You can use the Back button, of course, but you either have to press and hold it to see the list of prior pages, or click it repeatedly to go back one page at a time. Luckily, Safari offers another method for backtracking.
If you command-click the title bar (centred just above the address bar), Safari displays a list of each page you've visited in the current site. To navigate back, just click the page that you'd like to see.
This works even if you didn't actually burrow here step by step -- that is, if you jumped here directly by typing this page's address in its entirety.
Safari and Bookmarks
When you use Safari for the first time it grabs your bookmarks from Internet Explorer and stores them in its folder in a XML PLIST file format.
Safari stores the bookmarks.plist in the Safari folder in the Users Library Folder. It would look like this ...
HD/Users/User Name/Library/Safari/
In that folder is the bookmarks.plist file. This is where ALL your bookmarks are stored.
You need to copy this file every so often and save it somewhere else. If something goes wrong you will be hosed and all your bookmarks will be gone. Back it up now !!
Back to the Boookmark file ...
They are all stored in the XML language format.
You can go here to learn more about xml ... http://www.xml.com/
This is what a single URL bookmark looks like.
<dict>
<key>URIDictionary</key>
<dict>
<key></key>
<string>http://www.osxfaq.com/index.ws</string>
<key>lastVisitedDate</key>
<string>64227724.740871</string>
<key>title</key>
<string>OSXFAQ</string>
</dict>
<key>URLString</key>
<string>http://www.osxfaq.com/index.ws</string>
<key>WebBookmarkType</key>
<string>WebBookmarkTypeLeaf</string>
<key>WebBookmarkUUID</key>
<string>3A0547D3-3F35-11D7-8C9F-0003931D95A2</string>
</dict>
As you can see the URL and name is stored in this code. Also some other cool stuff like the last time you visited that site and what kind of bookmark in it. This bookmark is from the Bookmarks Bar. This code will change based on where the bookmark is stored. There is also some UUID information stored there.
Here is some more information on UUID (Universal Unique Identifier)... Just some fun reading :-)
http://www.opennc.org/onlinepubs/9629399/apdxa.htm
Cool software for dealing with bookmarks in Safari.
JeepSafari
Just organize your bookmarks on one of your Macs. Then run JeepSafari. When you start working on another Mac, just run JeepSafari again. All your bookmarks now show up on the other Mac as well. Everytime you add/change bookmarks on any of your Macs, just run JeepSafari. Your bookmarks will stay in sync. Another situation in which you'll be able to use JeepSafari is when you want to give a presentation on a Mac that isn't yours. Just download JeepSafari to the new Mac and you have got all your bookmarks with you.
What do you need?
* a .Mac account
* Macs running Safari
It's free :-) http://homepage.mac.com/sweetcocoa/jeepsafari.html
Safari Menu
Safari Menu lets you view all your bookmarks from the Safari web browser system wide. This means that you can go to any site you've got in your bookmarks with just one click. Additionally, you can directly go to any URL or search in the Google search engine.
http://users.pandora.be/jdma/edotsoftware/index2.html
Safari XTra
Safari XTra lets you view all your bookmarks (Bookmarks Menu, Address Book, Rendezvous, History and all other custom folders) from the system menubar. This means that you can go to any site you've got in your bookmarks (and history! - see below) with a simple click on it.
Safari Xtra allows you to search with Google for sites, images, and groups. To search or load a custom URL click "Load or Search". Safari XTra loads your history cache so when you type a visited URL, the application completes it for you. If you choose an URL from the history list, Safari Xtra will show to you the page title. To search something just type the string and click of the buttons ("Images"/"News"/"Sites").
http://www.macupdate.com/download.php/safarixtra30.sit?id=10949
