I concur. Saft is great, and the author is always coming out with updates. Especially right after a new version of Safari is released -- his update comes out a few hours later. He is very responsive to feedback as well.

The 'workspace' saving of your open tabs now works when Safari has crashed, which is a great safety-net. How many times have you had 14 tabs open for a few hours, only to have Safari crash and you lose them all? (BTW, usually when this happens, your History list gets truncated.)
Now with Saft, when you restart Safari, it reminds you that the app had crashed, and it recovers your opened tabs. NICE.

The iTunes-like searching through bookmarks and history is wonderful and should be a feature Apple includes in Safari proper.

The best thing about Saft is that it elegantly integrates with Safari. No ugly menu add-ons or extra apps to run. It just makes Safari better. You forget that it's there. You just miss it when it's gone.

I was toying with the idea of making Firefox (and all of it's great extensions) my main browser. Even OmniWeb, since it's workspaces looked intriguing. But Saft kept me firmly in the Safari camp. The developer has pretty much filled in all the Safari gaps that I could think of.

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Yes saft is great, but it should be pointed out that it breaks with nearly os and safari update to the point where you often cannot run your browser until an update to saft is released.

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-d

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He points this out right on the site itself -- given how well it integrates with Safari, this isn't surprising. The installer includes an uninstaller, so getting it working again is relatively trivial. And as noted in another comment, he's very quick with the updates...

-rob.

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Umm, it should be pointed out that when Saft detects it's incompatible with Safari a dialog offers to let you try running it anyway or disable it. Actually it's the SaftLoader bundle doing that checking before the Saft bundle is loaded into Safari.

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closing the stupid download window after d/l is complete. worth the price of admission just for that IMO.

my 12" pb doesnt have the screen real estate to afford an empty window 95% of the time.

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if it aint broke, break it!

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Leave it covered up by the primary Safari window. When you start a new download, it stays hidden. If you want to see it, let just a little of it peek out from behind and then you can click on it anytime you like - or use Expose.

No special hacks needed.

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Or type command-option-L to bring it up if you need it. Leaving it behind safari's main browser window is the best way to don't have it popping up in sites with several download links.

Eduo

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Eduo

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I have used Saft when Panther wasnt out yet and it was mainly a plugin for Fullscreen browsing, it was also still free at that moment.
Then Panther came out, and it wasnt free anymore, but i just bought it the same day I got Panther, and it was well worth it :)

Alot of nice features were added after I bought it, one feature i really like are the url shortcuts, for instance you can type in as url: "imdb finding nemo " and have it automatically go to imdb with "finding nemo" as parameter :)
You can create your own shortcuts, which saves you alot of typing/clicking.

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There <em>is</em> a way to scroll Safari by dragging the mouse, and it doesn't require Saft: Simply hold down command and drag up or down near the top or bottom (or sides, for pages that scroll sideways) edges of the browser.

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http://ben.kazez.com/

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That doesn't work for me; I can scroll Finder windows with command-drag, but not Safari windows. The advantage of the Saft method is that the mouse can be anywhere within the window; just hold control and start moving it...

-rob.

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hmm, it works here -10.3.5. No saft. You have to drag at the very edge (bottom or top) of the safari window. Although I prefer to use the scrollwheel (isn't that what it's for?;)

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This does work for me. I tried it with success on the powerbook and the iBook. Perhaps a more detailed explanation will help.

Hold down the command key. Click and hold inside the webpage window and then drag over the edge of the window, all the way to the edge of your screen if you like. Works like a charm.

That said, I'm going to try Saft as the command-click-drag to scroll feature was one of the best things about IE5.

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Ah, yes, that works -- I think it was even a hint here once :).

Scroll wheel is certainly easy, but the Saft method has an advantage -- it's a variable-speed scrollwheel. Move the mouse quickly, scroll quickly; move it slowly, scroll very slowly. There's a limit to how quickly you can spin the scrollwheel -- and on my Microsoft mouse, it's not really fast at all.

-rob.

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I use the scrollwheel emulation in uControl, which is essential anyway to me because of its handling of the CapsLock key. Anyway, uControl allows easy vertical & horizontal scrollwheel emulation in Safari and just about everywhere else. But it might not be as useful with a regular mouse, I use it with a trackpad on my Powerbook.

Greg Shenaut

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The 'click and hold' method works (sort of) without pressing command, but obviously it highlights any text. For whatever reason it appears that pressing any modifier in Safari prevents the text from highlighting.

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Saft Rules!..

I really love it for the RSS feature in the sidebar (yes i know the new safari and firefox include this as well).. full screen is also very nice but be weary of running Kiosk mode. If you're like me you'll just turn things on in the prefs just to see what they do.. Kiosk mode isn't one of those that you want to turn on unless you know what it's about to do.. I had to boot off a seperate drive to remove the saft plug-in then reinstall it just to get that thing to turn off. :) Regardless I've started making my own plug-ins for RSS feeds. It's well worth the 10 bucks. I can't remember if MacOSX Hints had a plug-in included or it was one that I built.. but so far I've got news feeds from MacFixit, MacNN, MacOSX Hints, Slashdot, and Apple Slashdot.. it's just too easy to get all your news these days! :) if anyone wants these plug-ins feel free to ask.. I'll post them somewhere for download.

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Eek! What about force quitting? There's a keyboard command that might be able to force quit full-screen apps: command-shift-option-escape. See http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031028194206991 for info. Apparently it's not 100 percent reliable, but if it works for the Saft kiosk mode....?

zach

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the thing with kiosk mode is you have the ability to set safari to launch in kiosk mode on start. so everytime you launch safari, there you are.. in kiosk. no way to turn that off even if you were able to force quit (which you can't.. system key commands are disable for security) also, you can set it so that safari starts on boot in kiosk mode. you can't force quit because it disables the quit command.. the force quit command.. and various other keyboard shortcuts. basically it takes over the machine. that's fine if you're going to be using it for, well, kiosks.. but there's no need to turn it on for your personal computer use. :)

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This I found on Saft's FAQ page (I did not verify its functionality, haven't downloaded Saft yet):

Q: I Cannot Quit Safari

A: You have just enabled kiosk mode!!!
To turn it off, use the shortcut cmd-"," to open the preferences, and give your password when it asks you for it. Then you get the access to preference panels, there you can just turn off kisok mode in Saft panel. Restart Safari to go back to normal mode.

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the great-sounding crash protection (totally worth $10) (apple should buy it!) is Saft v7.2.0 "New feature: Crash protection that restores browser windows to the state before crash"

but that didn't tell me til download/install _and_ inputting of my password that it only works on the latest osx/safari (10.3.5 & safari1.2.3/v125.9)

So I guess I have to wait til I research if 10.3.5 is safe... I forget the places I usually look for that info. Hints? :)

Separately, being security conscious of inputting my admin password, this program does ask for it.

So I clicked on the info for why it wanted password, and it still didn't make sense. It said just something like need admin. But the library directory it claimed it would create is under a writeable area... so I don't get it??

p.s. happy birthday osxhints!

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If an OSX version hasn't received bad press in a week then it's probably a safe version to include.

Remember that you won't see if an update is safe to use in the same way you don't see a report of houses that have NOT caught on fire when you're investigating how flammable a specific neighbour is..;-)

10.3.5 hasn't received any security complaints and it's been out for some time already, so you can assume it's safe. You won't receive a confirmation that it's safe because it can't be done.

Eduo

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Eduo

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You can search bookmarks and history without Saft, simply open the bookmarks by clicking on the bookmarks icon in your favorites bar and command-F. It will search bookmarks as wel as history in one go. Command -G will repeat the search operation.
For scrolling I use the scroll-wheel or the spacebar and shift-spacebar.

Other than that, the options of Saft look very primising, but the Kiosk mode looks scary, will have a look at it shortly.

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Your comment on search history via command + F and command + G alone is worthy of being called a tip! Thanks for sharing!!

I never thought of searching Safari history or it's favorites that way, since I've been so spoiled with Omniweb's own history search.

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"Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film The NeverEnding Story." -Lionel Hutz (of Simpsons fame)

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Control-drag is great when using a mouse, but not when using the
a pen tablet...
It kinda works, but it stops scrolling the moment I put my pen on the wacom surface (the pentip-to-surface invokes a 'select' action and thus the scrolling stops).
The way IE did this (command-click-hold-drag-page) was working perfectly.
Anyone knows how to accomplish this?

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Has anyone gotten this option to work? Or am I misunderstanding what it does: I always work with tabs enabled, and when I click on a URL I'd like it to default to creating a new tab rather than replacing the current one (i.e. to behave as if I control-clicked Open Link in New Tab). With this option enabled in Saft, it still replaces the current tab.

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It probably doesn't work because those links aren't supposed to open new windows.

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<groan> Of course. Thanks. I was reading what I wanted to read ;-)

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i.e. to behave as if I control-clicked Open Link in New Tab

You do know about command/option/shift-click shortcut combinations for opening links in new tabs/windows? The Tabs panel of Safari Preferences gives some control over that behavior.

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You can also click links with your middle button if you have a multi-button mouse. They'll open in a new tab (unless your prefs are reversed).

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To no one's suprise, OS X 10.3.6 breaks some features of the latest Saft - i.e. Safari throws a warning when starting and the download window no longer 'hides' after something is downloaded. My Safari is the following version: 1.2.4 (v125.11).

Tim

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I just dl'd Saft after reading this hint, and a box informs that Saft only works with 1.2.3(v124.9), so I will just have to wait for the upgrade.

Can't wait, sounds really good.

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The usual software update sites are showing Saft as having been updated. A typically professional response from the author of this wonderful little app.

<http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12402>

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