You can also just use the popup menu to select the top sites page in the same 'Preferences > General' section.

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I have no doubts this works, but what is wrong with just opening Top Sites, opening preferences and than click the 'Set to current page' button?
Seems way easier to me...

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My "Set to Current Page" is always grayed out so this hint really helped me out.

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> My "Set to Current Page" is always grayed

Hmmm, makes me wonder if the options "New windows open with" and "New tabs open with" (right above that button) do give you the choice "Top Sites"?

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You can also go into preferences and set "New windows opens with:" to show "Top Sites"
No need to type anything in.
You can also use the menu right below that to set what new tabs will show.

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The real beauty of knowing about topsites:// is that it's applescriptable.

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Cool, now when I start Safari it goes straight to "Top Sites." Thanks

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Or, if you'd like the deluxe version of the top sites page as your home page with the animated intro, use:

http://www.apple.com/safari/welcome/

as your home page URL.

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The deluxe version is even better. I had it that way before but removed it because the animation wasn't showing at times. I like going straight into "Top Sites." I want more Safari hints! :)

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And while your cursor is in the location bar when seeing the Top Sites, hit Tab to get to the (Google) Search Bar (well, nothing new here; just like when hitting Cmd-L » Tab for any other page you're viewing). Next, hit Tab once more to get to the Cover Flow view of your history. Yet another Tab gets you the Top Sites again.

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Thanks! Safari lets you set new page/tab to Top Sites but there is such option for the Home page. This hint fixes that, thanks again.

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i too thought that 'topsites' was an option for the home page via a drop down box. unfortunately, i'm not at my mac right now, but the windows version of safari 4 lets you set topsites as your home page via a button called 'set to current page' which inserts topsites:///.

a question: i have a folder called 'startup' in my bookmark bar which i click to load a half-dozen sites. unlike firefox which has a 'use current pages' option, i can't figure out how to get safari to load all these sites at once upon startup.

/guy

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Watch out where the huskies go--don't you eat that yellow snow. F. Zappa

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> i can't figure out how to get safari to load all these sites at once upon startup.

I don't know the answer for startup, but for (each) new window one can select either "Tabs for Bookmarks Folder" or "Choose tabs folder...". But then those tabs would be loaded each time you hit Cmd-N. Maybe that helps you investigate more.

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It's not: topsites://

It's just: topsites:

You don't need the slashes, and in fact they are wrong, because 'topsites' isn't a protocol like http or ftp.

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@gteague: If I understand you correctly all you have to do is go to Preferences|General and select "New Windows Open With…" and click on the popup menu. In the popup menu select "Choose tabs folder…" and select your Startup folder (it is just a folder of bookmarks) and it will then open new windows with your startup stuff. If you only want it to happen when you start Safari then it should be easy to accomplish with a script to open that same folder when the app is launched instead of for every new window.

BTW: I am not sure if there is a protocol for questions but since this "sort-of" related I answered this "off topic" query.

jOhn

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