In This Chapter
Introducing the Safari window and controls
Visiting Web sites with Safari
Moving between sites
Creating and using bookmarks
Receiving files with Safari
Surfing with your tabs showing
Saving Web pages to disk
Protecting your privacy on the Web
Blocking those irritating pop-ups
When I was designing the Table of Contents for this book, I seriously considered leaving this chapter out. After all, more people use a Web browser now than any other software application. Who really needs a guide to mowing a lawn?
But then again, I suddenly thought of all the hidden features that folks don't know about Apple's Safari browser — for example, the tips and tricks that can help you organize your online visits. It's a little like finding out more about the lawn mower itself: Even though you might not need tips on mowing, many people don't know how to remove the spark plug in the winter or how to sharpen the blade so that you can handle taller grass. To put it another way, magic is nothing more than technology that someone understands.
In this chapter, I show you how to use those other controls and toolbar buttons in Safari — you know, the ones in addition to the Forward and Back buttons — and you discover how to keep track of where you've been and where you'd like to go. (Oh, and did I mention that you need an Internet connection?)
One note: Many authors have written entire books on Web browsing. As you might guess, this chapter is far narrower in scope than those books — I have more ground to cover before dinner — and it doesn't include every one of Safari's features. However, I think the coverage that you find here explains all that you're likely to need for most surfing sessions.
Figure 5-1 illustrates the Safari window. You can launch Safari directly from the Dock or you can click the Safari icon within your Applications folder.
Major sections of the Safari window include
The toolbar: You'll find the most often used commands on this toolbar — for tasks such as navigation, adding bookmarks, and searching Google. Plus, here you can type or paste the address for Web sites that you'd like to visit. The toolbar can be hidden to provide you with more real estate in your browser window for Web content. To toggle hidden mode, press
The Bookmarks bar: Consider this a toolbar that allows you to jump directly to your favorite Web sites with a single click or two. I show you later, in the section "Adding and Using Bookmarks," how to add and remove sites from your Bookmarks bar. For now, remember that you can toggle the display of the Bookmarks bar by choosing View
The Content window: Congratulations! At last, you've waded through all the pregame show and you've reached the area where Web pages are actually displayed. As can any other window, the Content window can be scrolled; when you minimize Safari to the Dock, you get a thumbnail (minimized) image of the Content window.
Tip
The Content window often contains underlined text and graphical icons that transport you to other pages when you click them. These underlined words and icons are links, and they make it easy to move from one area of a site to another or to a completely different site.
The status bar: The status bar displays information about what the cursor is currently resting upon, such as the address for a link or the name of an image; it also updates you on what's happening while a page is loading. To hide or display the status bar, press
Here's the stuff that virtually everyone over the age of five knows how to do ...but I get paid by the word, and some folks might not be aware of the myriad ways of visiting a site. You can load a Web page using any of the following methods:
Type (or paste) a Web site address into the Address box on the toolbar and then press Return.
If you're typing in an address and Safari recognizes the site as one that you've visited in the past, it helps by completing the address for you. Press Return if you want to accept the suggested site. If this is a new site, just keep typing.
The latest version of Safari includes a Smart Address field that displays a new pop-up menu of sites that match the text you've entered. Safari does this by using sites taken from your History file and your bookmarks. If the site you want to visit appears in the list, click it to jump there immediately.
Click a Bookmarks entry within Safari.
Click the Home button, which takes you to the home page that you specify.
More on this in the section "Setting Up Your Home Page," later in this chapter.
Click the Show Top Sites button on the toolbar.
Safari displays a wall of preview thumbnail pages from your most frequently visited sites, and you can jump to a site just by clicking on the preview. Click the Edit button on the Top Sites screen to delete a preview thumbnail — click the X — or you can "anchor" a thumbnail to keep it on the screen permanently by clicking the pin icon next to the desired thumbnail. You can also choose the size of the preview thumbnails in Edit mode.
Tip
Because each thumbnail is updated with the most current content, the Top Sites wall makes a great time-saver — you can quickly make a visual check of all your favorite haunts from one screen!
Click a page link in Apple Mail or another Internet-savvy application.
Some Mac applications require you to hold down
Click a page link within another Web page.
Use the Google box in the toolbar.
Click in the Google box, type the contents that you want to find, and then press Return. Safari presents you with the search results page on Google for the text that you entered. (In case you've been living under the Internet equivalent of a rock for the last couple of years,
Google.comis the preeminent search site on the Web — people use Google to find everything from used auto parts to ex-spouses.)Click a Safari page icon in the Dock or a Finder window.
For example, Mac OS X already has an icon in the Dock that takes you to the Mac OS X page on the Apple Web site. Drag a site from your Bookmarks bar and drop it on the right side of the Dock. Clicking the icon that you add launches Safari and automatically loads that site.
Tip
This trick works only on the side of the Dock to the right of the vertical line.
If you minimize Safari to the Dock, you'll see a thumbnail of the page with the Safari logo superimposed on it. Click this thumbnail in the Dock to restore the page to its full glory.
A typical Web surfing session is a linear experience — you bop from one page to the next, absorbing the information that you want and discarding the rest. However, after you visit a few sites, you might find that you need to return to where you've been or head to the familiar ground of your home page. Safari offers these default navigational controls on the toolbar:
Back: Click the Back button (the left-facing arrow) on the toolbar to return to the last page you visited. Additional clicks take you to previous pages, in reverse order. The Back button is disabled if you haven't visited at least two sites.
Forward: If you've clicked the Back button at least once, clicking the Forward button (the right-facing arrow) takes you to the next page (or through the pages) where you originally were, in forward order. The Forward button is disabled if you haven't used the Back button.
Home: Click this button (look for the little house) to return to your home page.
Note
Not all these buttons and controls must appear on your toolbar. To display or hide toolbar controls, choose View
AutoFill: If you fill out a lot of forms online — when you're shopping at Web sites, for example — you can click the AutoFill button (which looks like a little text box and a pen) to complete these forms for you. You can set what information is used for AutoFill by choosing Safari
Warning
To be honest, I'm not a big fan of releasing any of my personal information to any Web site, so I don't use AutoFill often. If you do decide to use this feature, make sure that the connection is secure (look for the padlock icon in the upper-right corner of the Safari window) and read the site's Privacy Agreement page first to see how your identity data will be treated.
Zoom: Shrinks or expands the size of text on the page, offering smaller, space-saving characters (for the shrinking crowd) or larger, easier-to-read text (for the expanding crowd). Hence the button, which is labeled with a small and large letter A.
Stop/Reload: Click Reload at the right side of the Address box (look for the circular arrow) to refresh (reload) the contents of the current page. Although most pages remain static, some pages change their content at regular intervals or after you fill out a form or click a button. By clicking Reload, you can see what's changed on these pages. (I use Reload every hour or so with
CNN.com, for example.) While a page is loading, the Reload button turns into the Stop button — with a little X mark — and you can click it to stop the loading of the content from the current page. This is a real boon when a download takes foorrevverr, which can happen when you're trying to visit a very popular or very slow Web site (especially if you're using a dial-up modem connection to the Internet). Using Stop is also handy if a page has a number of very large graphics that are likely to take a long time to load.Open in Dashboard: Click this button to create a Dashboard widget using the contents of the currently displayed Web page. Safari prompts you to choose which clickable section of the page to be included within the widget's borders (such as the local radar map on your favorite weather Web site). Click Add, and Dashboard loads automatically with your new widget. (More on widgets in Book III, Chapter 2.)
Add Bookmark: Click this toolbar button (which carries a plus sign) to add a page to your Bookmarks bar or Bookmarks menu. (More on this in a tad.)
Google Search: As I mention earlier, you can click in this box and type text that you want to find on the Web via the Google search engine; press Return to display the results. To repeat a recent search, click the down arrow in the Google Search box and select it from the pop-up menu.
Print: Click this convenient button to print the contents of the Safari window. (Dig that crazy printer icon!)
Report Bug: A rather strange creature, the Safari Bug button makes it easy to alert Apple when you encounter a page that doesn't display properly in Safari. (Software developers call such glitches bugs — hence the name.) When you click the Bug button, you'll see a sheet with the settings shown in Figure 5-2; take time to enter a short description of the problem that you're having. (I also click More Options to enable the Send Screen Shot of Current Page and the Send Source of Current Page check boxes, giving the Apple folks more to work with while they're debugging Safari.) Then click the Submit button to send the bug report to Apple.
Choosing a home page is one of the easiest methods of speeding up your Web surfing, especially if you're using a dial-up modem connection. However, a large percentage of the Mac owners whom I've talked with have never set their own home page; instead, they simply use the default home page provided by their browser! With Safari running, take a moment to follow these steps to declare your own freedom to choose your own home page:
If you want to use a specific Web page as your new home page, display it in Safari.
Tip
I recommend selecting a page with few graphics or a fast-loading popular site.
Choose Safari
Click the General button.
You see the settings shown in Figure 5-3.
Click the Set to Current Page button.
Lean, fast, and mean — that's RSS
Well, maybe not mean — after all, I don't want you to be afraid of RSS (RDF Site Summary) pages! RSS Web sites display updated information using a shortened list format, rather like a newspaper headline, without unnecessary graphics or silly advertisements. You can tell when a Web site has RSS pages available because Safari displays an RSS icon at the right side of the Address box on the toolbar. (When you click the RSS icon, the Web address switches to a
feed://prefix — another indication that you're not in Kansas reading HTML pages anymore.)To display more information about a news item on an RSS page, click the item headline. Safari opens the corresponding Web page — yep, once again you're back in the world of HTML — and you can read the full story. To return to the RSS feed, click the Back button on the toolbar. Naturally, RSS feed pages can be bookmarked. In fact, Apple gives you a number of RSS sites that you can explore immediately.
To customize your RSS display, choose Safari
Alternatively, click the New Windows Open With pop-up menu and choose Empty Page if you want Safari to open a new window with a blank page.
This is the fastest choice of all for a home page.
Tip
Choose Top Sites from the New Windows Open With pop-up menu to display the Top Sites screen I described earlier each time you open a new window.
Click the Close button to exit the Preferences dialog.
Tip
Visit your home page at any time by pressing the Home button on the toolbar.
No doubt about it: Bookmarks make the Web a friendly place. As you collect bookmarks in Safari, you're able to immediately jump from one site to another with a single click of the Bookmarks menu or the buttons on the Bookmarks bar.
To add a bookmark, first navigate to the desired page and then do any of the following:
Choose Bookmarks
Press the
Safari displays a sheet where you can enter the name for the bookmark and also select where it appears (on the Bookmarks bar or the Bookmarks menu).
Drag the icon next to the Web address from the Address field to the Bookmarks bar.
Tip
You can also drag a link on the current page to the Bookmarks bar, but note that doing this adds a bookmark only for the page corresponding to the link — not the current page.
To jump to a bookmark
Choose it from the Bookmarks menu.
If the bookmark is contained in a folder, which I discuss later in this section, move your pointer over the folder name to show its contents and then click the bookmark.
Click the bookmark on the Bookmarks bar.
Tip
If you've added a large number of items to the Bookmarks bar, click the More icon on the edge of the Bookmarks bar to display the rest of the buttons.
Click the Show All Bookmarks button (which looks like a small, opened book) on the Bookmarks bar and then click the desired bookmark.
The Bookmarks window that you see in Figure 5-4 appears — complete with swank Cover Flow display — where you can review each collection of bookmarks at leisure. As you might expect, Safari's Cover Flow works just as the Cover Flow view does in a Finder window.
The more bookmarks you add, the more unwieldy the Bookmarks menu and the Bookmarks window become. To keep things organized, choose Bookmarks
To delete a bookmark or a folder from the Bookmarks window, click it and then press Delete.
A huge chunk of the fun that you'll find on the Web is the ability to download images and files. If you've visited a site that offers files for downloading, typically you just click the Download button or the download file link, and Safari takes care of the rest. You'll see the Downloads status window, which keeps you updated as to the progress of the transfer. While the file is downloading, feel free to continue browsing or even download additional files; the status window helps you keep track of what's going on and when everything will be finished transferring. To display the Download status window from the keyboard, press
By default, Safari saves any downloaded files to the Downloads folder that appears in your Dock, which I like and use. To specify the location where downloaded files are stored — for example, if you'd like to save them directly to the desktop — follow these steps:
Choose Safari
Click the General tab and then click the Save Downloaded Files To pop-up menu.
Choose Other.
Navigate to the location where you want the files stored.
Click the Select button.
Click the Close button to exit Preferences.
To download a specific image that appears on a Web page, move your pointer over the image and right-click. Then choose Save Image As from the pop-up menu that appears. Safari prompts you for the location where you want to store the file.
You can choose to automatically open files that Safari considers safe — things like movies, text files, and PDF files that are very unlikely to store a virus or a damaging macro. By default, the Open "Safe" Files after Downloading check box is selected on the General pane. However, if you're interested in preventing anything you download from running until you've manually checked it with your antivirus application, you can deselect the check box and breathe easy.
Tip
Luckily, Safari has matured to the point that it can seamlessly handle virtually any multimedia file type that it encounters. However, if you've downloaded a multimedia file and Safari doesn't seem to be able to play or display it, try loading the file within QuickTime Player. As you can read in Book IV, Chapter 8, QuickTime Player is the Swiss Army knife of multimedia players, and it can recognize a huge number of audio, video, and image formats.
To keep track of where you've been, you can display the History list by clicking the History menu. To return to a page in the list, just choose it from the History menu. Note that Safari also arranges older history items by the date you visited the site, so you can easily jump back a couple of days to that page you forgot to bookmark!
In fact, Safari also searches the History list automatically, when it fills in an address that you're typing — that's the feature I mention in the earlier section "Visiting Web Sites."
To view your Top Sites thumbnail screen, press
If you're worried about security and would rather not keep track of where you've been online, I show you how to clear the contents of the History file in the "Handling ancient history" section, later in this chapter.
Safari also offers tabbed browsing, which many folks use to display (and organize) multiple Web pages at one time. For example, if you're doing a bit of comparison shopping for a new piece of hardware between different online stores, tabs are ideal.
When you hold down the
You can also open a new tab by clicking the plus sign that appears at the upper-right corner of the Safari window.
To fine-tune your tabbed browsing experience, choose Safari
Tip
Done with a page? You can remove a tabbed page by clicking the X button next to the tab's title.
If you've encountered a page that you'd like to load later, you can save it to disk in its entirety. (Just the text, mind you, not the images.) Follow these steps:
Display the desired page.
Choose File
In the Save As text field, type a name for the saved page.
From the Where pop-up menu, navigate to the location where you want to store the file on your system.
To expand the sheet to allow navigation to any location on your system, click the button with the downward arrow.
Click the Format pop-up menu to choose the format for the saved page.
Usually, you'll want to choose a Web Archive, which saves the entire page and can be displayed just as you see it. However, if you want to save just the HTML source code, choose Page Source.
Click Save to begin the download process.
After the Save file has been created, double-click it to load it in Safari.
Tip
A quick word about printing a page within Safari: Some combinations of background and text colors might conspire together to render your printed copy practically worthless. In a case like that, use your printer's grayscale setting (if it has one) or deselect the Print Backgrounds check box in the Print dialog. Alternatively, you can simply click and drag to select the text on the page, press
Tip
If you'd rather mail the contents of a Web page to a friend — or just a link to the page, which is faster to send over a dial-up Internet connection — choose either File
No chapter on Safari would be complete without a discussion of security, against both outside intrusion from the Internet and prying eyes around your MacBook. Hence this last section, which covers protecting your privacy.
Tip
Although diminutive, the padlock icon that appears at the top of the Safari window when you're connected to a secure Web site means a great deal! A secure site encrypts the information that you send and receive, making it much harder for those of unscrupulous ideals to obtain things such as credit card numbers and personal information. You can click the padlock icon (next to the site name) to display the security certificate in use on that particular site.
First, a definition of this ridiculous term: A cookie, a small file that a Web site automatically saves on your hard drive, contains information that the site will use on your future visits. For example, a site might save a cookie to preserve your site preferences for the next time or — in the case of a site such as Amazon.com — to identify you automatically and help customize the offerings that you see.
In and of themselves, cookies aren't bad things. Unlike a virus, a cookie file isn't going to replicate itself or wreak havoc on your system, and only the original site can read the cookie that it creates. However, many folks don't appreciate acting as a gracious host for a slew of little snippets of personal information. (Not to mention that some cookies have highly suggestive names, which could lead to all sorts of conclusions. End of story.)
You can choose to accept all cookies — the default — or you can opt to disable cookies altogether. You can also set Safari to accept cookies only from the sites you choose to visit. To change your Cookie Acceptance Plan (or CAP, for those who absolutely crave acronyms), follow these steps:
Choose Safari
Click the Security toolbar button.
Safari displays the preference settings shown in Figure 5-6.
Choose how to accept cookies via these radio button choices:
- Never:
Block cookies entirely.
- Always:
Accept all cookies.
- Only from Sites You Navigate To:
Personally, I use this option, which allows sites like
Amazon.comto work correctly without allowing a barrage of illicit cookies.
To view the cookies currently on your system, click the Show Cookies button.
Note
If a site's cookies are blocked, you might have to take care of things manually, such as by providing a password on the site that used to be read automatically from the cookie.
Click the Close button to save your changes.
Safari speeds up the loading of Web sites by storing often-used images and multimedia files in a temporary storage, or cache, folder. Naturally, the files in your cache folder can be displayed (hint), which could lead to assumptions (hint, hint) about the sites you've been visiting (hint, hint, hint). (Tactful, ain't I?)
Luckily, Safari makes it easy to dump the contents of your cache file. Just choose Safari
As you might imagine, your History file leaves a very clear set of footprints indicating where you've been on the Web. To delete the contents of the History menu, choose History
Safari also allows you to specify an amount of time to retain entries in your History file. Open the Safari Preferences dialog, click the General tab, and then click the Remove History Items pop-up menu to specify the desired amount of time. Items can be rolled off daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, or yearly.
I hate pop-up ads, and I'm sure you do, too. To block most of those pop-up windows with advertisements for everything from low-rate mortgages to "sure-thing" Internet casinos, click the Safari menu and verify that Block Pop-Up Windows is selected. (If it's not selected, click the menu item to toggle the menu item on.)
Tip
From time to time, you might run across a Web site that actually does something constructive with pop-up windows, such as present a download or login prompt. If you need to temporarily deactivate pop-up blocking, press