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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4 Web Browsers
So robg and I were discussing another hint submission of mine, one that robg couldn't understand because it referred to a menu he didn't have. After some back and forth, it turned out that the core of the suggestion for this new hint was actually on the site for a year, but buried at the bottom of a lengthy comment string.

The original hint covered how to enable the Debug menu in Safari, and dates back to 2003. With the advent of Safari 4, this command no longer worked. But somehow, I had a Debug menu and robg did not. The key is in a comment made by chleuasme, posted at the tail end of the comment thread on the original Enable the Safari debug menu hint. In the latest versions of Safari, the Debug menu is activated with a slightly different Terminal command:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1
As chleuasme also noted in their comment, this is publicly posted on the WebKit site.

[robg adds: I hadn't ever noticed the comment about how to enable the Debug menu in newer versions of Safari, and it's definitely worth sharing as a full hint. So thanks to chleuasme for finding it originally, and to Frederico for figuring out why I couldn't get the Debug menu to show up.]
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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4 | 16 comments | Create New Account
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The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: dksp on Thu, Jul 2 2009 at 7:50AM PDT
Since the official Safari 4 I have an entry in Safari's preferences to enable the debug menu. It's in the "Advanced" tab.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: agraboso on Thu, Jul 2 2009 at 8:00AM PDT
No: what you have in the "Advanced" tab is an option to show the *Develop* menu, not the Debug one.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: mesa on Thu, Jul 2 2009 at 8:42AM PDT
In Safari 4 there is a debug menu and a develop menu, the develop menu is enabled using the advanced preferences but the debug menu is enabled using the defaults command or secrets.

The 2 together are roughly the same as the debug menu in Safari 3.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: tyip on Thu, Jul 2 2009 at 1:50PM PDT
How do you do the same thing to Safari for Windows? Thanks.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: las_vegas on Fri, Jul 3 2009 at 9:21PM PDT
Yes. It can be enabled in Windows, but requires editing the file: c:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Apple Computer\Preferences\com.apple.safari.plist

Unfortunately, the file is encoded and needs to be edited on a Mac using the Developers Tool "Property List Editor". If you send the file to a Mac user and have them add the boolean item "IncludeInternalDebugMenu" set to "True" and replace it in the above location the debug menu will be enabled.

LasVegas

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: micmoo on Thu, Jul 2 2009 at 9:25AM PDT
The advance tab only has "Enable Develop", debug is different.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: dksp on Thu, Jul 2 2009 at 11:50AM PDT
OK, you're right ;)

I'm using french OS X, so I thought the Debug menu had been translated.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: frank_martin on Thu, Jul 2 2009 at 9:41PM PDT
SafariStand has an option in the GUI to toggle the Debug menu. It is a free InputManager.

http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: CyberSkull on Fri, Jul 3 2009 at 2:59AM PDT
Looking thru Safari 4's .plist, it looks like the property is IncludeDebugMenu, a number set at -1. So the code would be: defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: CyberSkull on Wed, Jul 8 2009 at 2:34AM PDT
Bah, this is what I get for posting half-asleep!

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: mshmgi on Fri, Jul 3 2009 at 5:10AM PDT
Check the "Advanced" tab of the preferences menu. The very last item is conspicuously labeled "Show Develop Menu In Menu Bar".

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: robg on Fri, Jul 3 2009 at 5:19AM PDT
See the above comments. As of Safari 4, the two are distinct.

-rob.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: mshmgi on Fri, Jul 3 2009 at 7:28AM PDT
Woops! My bad ... Develop != Debug. Sorry for the confusion.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari 4
Authored by: blatherskite on Fri, Jul 3 2009 at 9:52AM PDT
you know if you get webkit, which is the same as safari - there is a checkbox in the "advanced" preference to turn on the debug menu. Plus with webkit, you'll get nighly builds of safari.

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari
Authored by: chleuasme on Fri, Jul 3 2009 at 11:36PM PDT
Hey, that's my hint! ;-)))

Note this default preference modification dates back to Safari 3, not 4 ;-)

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Enable the Debug menu in Safari
Authored by: Frederico on Sat, Jul 4 2009 at 10:50PM PDT
Yes, you are correct; I failed to make that clear when robg and I were going back and forth on this; I did not have to reenable the debug menu when upgrading from 3 to 4; it respected my existing prefs from 3.

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