macosxhints.com web browser tips

Set Firefox profile directly within the application bundle

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:30:01 -0800

I share a computer with my wife (using one account), and we both use Firefox and many of the same services (Gmail, Facebook, etc.). As such, it can be quite a hassle to keep track of who logged in last and who added what bookmarks.

Fortunately, Firefox provides the capability to have separate profiles for just such a situation. Unfortunately, it is not very simple to set up an easy and consistent way to launch those profiles. So, here are some of the options I tried before arriving at what I think is a pretty good solution. Option 1: Use the profile manager. In this mode, the profile manager will pop up every time Firefox is launched and you can choose your profile. This is nice and all, but what if my wife wants to launch Firefox while I already have it open? If she clicks the Firefox icon in the Dock, it just brings the app to the front and does not give the profile manager dialog.

Option...

Zoom Firefox windows via scroll wheel

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:30:00 -0800
Firefox (versions 3.5 and up, at least) has the ability to zoom in and out of a web page, adjusting both text and graphics, without affecting the rest of the screen. You can access this feature via the menus (View » Zoom In or Zoom Out), and via the noted keyboard shortcuts (Command-equals to zoom in; Command-minus to zoom out; Command-0 to reset).

What you may not know is that you can also zoom via your mouse's scroll wheel. Press Control-Command (Control-Option also works) and move the scroll wheel up or down. The browser window will zoom in or out while maintaining, for the most part, the clarity of the text and images. The rest of the screen does not change.

10.6: An AppleScript to check complete page loading in Safari

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:30:00 -0800
This code will basically run until the currently-loading page is done loading in Safari. This code is working in Safari 4.0.3 running on OS X 10.6; I haven't tested in other versions of Safari or the OS.
repeat delay 0.5 tell application "System Events" to � tell application process "Safari" set a to get properties of button 1 of text field 1 of splitter group 1 of group 2 of tool bar 1 of window 1 set b to accessibility description of a if b contains "stop" then ---say "loading" else say "loaded" exit repeat end if end tell...

Set default zoom level in Safari using a CSS file

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:30:05 -0800
In this post on Apple's discussion site, user dearlt posted a great tip on how to get Safari to use a default zoom level of your own choosing (instead of the standard 100%). I've edited the post a bit to make it clearer, but the basic instructions are unchanged.

Create a file (using a pure text editor) named defaultzoom.css, or any name you like -- just make sure it has a .css extension.

Copy and paste the following code into the file:
body { zoom: 130%; }
Change 130 to whatever number suits you. Anything greater than 100 means zoom in; less than 100 means zoom out. Don't forget the % percent sign!

If you're using TextEdit on a Mac, be sure to have it create .txt documents by default (not .rft) before copying and pasting the above text. You c...

10.6: Create an RTF-formatted link to current Safari page

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:30:04 -0700
To copy a clickable hyperlink of the currently shown website from Safari (with the website title and its URL embedded in it) to the clipboard, in order to paste it somewhere else, you would have to: Open a rich text editor, drag the link from the Safari URL bar to the text editor, Control-click on the created hyperlink, and finally, click on Copy Link. This is tedious work. Safari should have a "copy hyperlink to clipboard" button.

Because it didn't, I wrote my own Service in 10.6 to get the job done. Here's how:

Open Automator and create a new Service. In the Service Receives section, set the two drop-down menus to No Input and Any Application.

Find and drag the Run AppleScript action into the work area.

Paste the following AppleScript into the code box in the action item:
...

Delete Safari cookies so they stay deleted

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:30:04 -0700
This is a very simple hint, but I haven't found the information anywhere else.

When you delete cookies in Safari 4, whether from within its Preferences dialog or in some other way, they will all mysteriously reappear anywhere from a few minutes to perhaps an hour later. I've seen several accounts of why this happens and how to prevent it, but none of them worked for me.

What did work is this: after deleting the cookies, quit Safari immediately, before it has time to restore them. When you relaunch Safari, the cookies will be gone for good. Apparently they're being cached in memory and written back to the Cookies.plist file periodically.

10.6: Run Safari 4 Beta in Snow Leopard

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:30:02 -0700
I, like many others, really liked the tabs-on-top look the Safari 4 Beta had, and felt cheated when it was removed from the final version. It's not really devastating to be missing this, but as a laptop user, I want to have every centimeter of screen for something meaningful.

I forgot to back up the Beta application, but I did keep the installer. Using Pacifist, I unpacked the application, and tried to run it. However, at least as of 10.6, the Safari 4 beta won't launch.

Luckily, all you need to do is replace the Beta's info.plist and version.plist files with those from Safari 4 Final. These are found in the application bundle (Control-click and pick Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu). You might also want to replace useragents.plist from within Resources. For safety, back up your preferences be...

Create a floating Pandora Radio widget-app

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:30:01 -0700
After reading in MacWorld about creating a standalone video playback widget, I thought I could apply the same technique to create a Pandora radio widget that stays open all the time.

I created a web clip in Safari, selecting the relevant portion of the Pandora site. Then I followed the directions in the MacWorld article (also in this hint) to enable the removal of widgets from Dashboard. I then opened Dashboard and started dragging my Pandora widget around, and pressed F12 to close the Dashboard, which transferred the widget to the Desktop. The widget will now stay open whether Dashboard is running or not, and whether Safari is running or not.

[robg adds: Safari's Web Clip feature is quite useful for things such as this, though it suffers one near-fatal flaw: you canno...

Recreate 'Page Snapback' feature in Safari 4

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:30:05 -0700
I was unhappy when Safari lost the Page Snapback command from the History menu. This command would take Safari back to the very first History page for that window/tab. Well, here's a little javascript bookmarklet that does the same job.
javascript:history.go(1-history.length);
Create a new bookmark, and enter that into the Address field. I keep mine on the bookmark bar, and it works fine for my needs. I wish I had thought of this sooner!

Change the size of Safari's QuickTime controls

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:30:02 -0700
In the past, in-browser QuickTime controls were extremely awkward. Loading an MP3 track in Safari, for instance, would yield controls that were incredibly tiny. Things have gotten a little bit better with the latest Safari release.

You can now use the zoom feature, via the View » Zoom In (or Out) menu items (and their keyboard shortcuts), or by using "pinch-to-zoom" if you're on a laptop.

The controls can now be much larger, although the scrobbling icon is at a fairly poor resolution.

[robg adds: As submitted, this hint discussed QuickTime X as the source of zoomable controller, but it seems to be based on Safari's page zoom feature. Although Firefox also has a page zoom feature, it won't zoom the QuickTime controller. This hint should work in both 10.5 and 10.6.]

Zoom out to see more of a Google Docs spreadsheet

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:30:02 -0700
One of the features of version 4 of Safari is that it preserves the layout of a webpage when you zoom in or out (Command-Plus and Command-Minus, or use the View menu bar item). This is because, unlike previous versions, any element on the webpage is also zoomed, not just the text.

One pleasant side effect of this is that you can emulate Excel's Zoom Out/In feature on Google Doc's spreadsheets with version 4 of Safari. This allows you to see more of your spreadsheet when required.

[robg adds: This also works in Firefox, and probably any other browser that supports full-page zoom.]

Search Gmail with keyboard shortcut in Safari with Glims

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:30:01 -0700
With Glims for Safari it is possible, among other things, to add custom search engines to Safari. You can also search within your Gmail inbox this way. With a keyboard shortcut assigned, it proves a quick way to search and acces your inbox.

Add this query URL for the custom search engine:
http://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&tab=wm#search/,#query#
[robg adds: I haven't tested this one. If you're using Snow Leopard, you'll either have to run Safari in 32bit mode, or wait for an updated version of Glims (which is apparently in the works, based on comments the Glims developers have made).]

Modify the Safari Top Hit result with Caps Lock

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:30:01 -0700
It's possible to change the Top Hit result in Safari 4's location bar by using the Caps Lock key before typing a URL.

For example, I have http://www.ingdirect.ca/fr/ bookmarked, and http://www.ingdirect.ca/ in my history. If Caps Lock is off, Safari lists http://www.ingdirect.ca/ (from History) as the Top Hit. With Caps Lock, the bookmark (http://www.ingdirect.ca/fr/) is the Top Hit.

However, this doesn't work consistently. I think the bookmarked URL needs to be accessed more often than the root URL to be moved to the Top Hit position.

[robg adds: I don't use Safari enough to test this to figure out what/why things change; if you do and can figure anything out, please post -- this seems like a possible bug more than a feature.]

A workaround for PDFs not downloading in Firefox 3.5.2

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:30:01 -0700
I have gotten used to downloading certain PDF files and then viewing them in a Preview session started by Firefox. When I upgraded Firefox to 3.5.2, this stopped working. What I got instead was a tab with a blank screen and the name of the file in the tab header. Where was my dialog box? How do I get the document?

Well, it turns out that selecting File » Save Page As will open a dialog box allowing me to save the PDF file. Then going to Finder and opening the file with Preview gets me to the place I was before. I suspect that this drop in functionality is simply a temporary bug -- but if it's bit you, too, this is how I worked around the problem.

But the good news is that my PDF issue pointed me to another hint here about viewing PDFs directly in Firefox via a plug-in. So for the cases where I don't want an archived copy of the PDF (like the monthly schedule for my local ice rink), ...

10.5: Disable the 'downloaded from internet' file warning

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:30:00 -0700
I just discovered (by accident) what the VerifiedDownloadPlugin is. My Safari app was completely broken, as I couldn't always download. This had become quite annoying, so I started looking around. I then found the /Library » Internet Plug-Ins folder, and within that, an old Speed Download plugin which was causing my Safari issues.

However, I also found something else called VerifiedDownloadPlugin.plugin. I took both of them out, and my Safari worked quite well again. The bonus from this change is that I actually got rid of all those dialogs that tell me that the files I downloaded came from the internet -- well, I know they came from the internet; I just downloaded them! Even plain HTML files can't be opened without clicking that stupid OK button.

But now I'm feeling so much better. It's much easier to use my Mac. Of course, there's some reason for Apple to put the safety warning there, but ... if you know downloaded the files, because you wanted to ...

Close Safari window without confirmation

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:30:31 -0700
I'm often annoyed by the confirmation dialog that pops up in Safari 4 when I try to close a window with multiple tabs open. ("Are you sure you want to close this window?") But I don't want to turn off that message altogether (by checking its "Do not warn when closing multiple pages" box). Too often, I hit the close button by mistake when minimizing windows, so that warning is sometimes nice to have. Instead, I've discovered I can bypass that warning by holding down the Option key when clicking on the close button.

Enable visual tab switcher in Firefox 3.6a1

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:30:02 -0700
As a (primarily) Firefox user, I read of the recent release of Firefox 3.6a1 (known as Namoroka), and downloaded the alpha for testing. Note that this release isn't targeted for typical users, as it's far from feature complete and may crash. For instance, the Advanced and Privacy prefs don't seem to work at all on my Mac Pro.

One feature in 3.6a1 (which was originally slated for 3.5, I believe) is a visual tab switcher. Much as you can use Command-Tab to switch applications via an onscreen palette in OS X, you can use Control-Tab to switch tabs visually in Firefox 3.6a1. (This same shortcut works in Firefox 3.5, but without any visual aids.)

As shipped, Firefox 3.6a1 ships with the tab preview feature disabled. To enable it, type about:config and agree to be caref...

Create images of full web pages in Firefox with Paparazzi

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:30:03 -0700
I use Paparazzi a lot to take screenshots of full web pages. I was copying the URL from the browser and pasting into Paparazzi then grabbing screenshot, but I discovered today that I could create a Javascript bookmarklet and assign it a keyword in Firefox to quickly grab the current web page. The magic works because Paparazzi injects the paparazzi: URL type into the system. As a result, anything you enter into a web browser like paparazzi:http://google.com will grab the listed URL.

To take advantage of this behavior, I created a Javascript bookmarklet in Firefox then assigned it the keyword pz. Now every time I want to grab a web page in Paparazzi, I just load that page and then enter pz in the URL address bar. When I press Return, the page open in Paparazzi. Here's the Javascript; copy and paste it into a new Firefox bookmark and assign it a keyword of your choice:
javascript:location....
Access a Finder folder's contents from Safari Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:30:00 -0700 This is a fairly simple hint, and a variation on this previous hint, that gives you quick access to the contents of a Finder's folder (eg: Downloads) from Safari via a bookmark. Simply add a new Bookmark entry (Bar or Menu, your choice), with the desired file:///-type folder path as described in the prior hint, but then append .DS_Store to the path like so: file:///Users/your_username/Downloads/.DS_Store Clicking this bookmark will open the linked folder in Finder, displaying its contents. The reason we've linked to .DS_Store file here and not the folder itself is to force Safari to open the destination folder. Without the hidden invisible file at the end, Safari will reveal the location of the specified folder within its containing folder. When you link to a file within the folder, Safari will actually open the folder. The adv... Customize Safari's RSS feed with CSS Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:30:00 -0700 This follows up on an older hint about changing Safari's RSS appearance. If you find it hard to distinguish between unread and read articles in Safari's RSS feeds, or if you're just tired of looking at pastel shades of blue, you can change the appearance of RSS pages fairly easily. All you need to know is a little CSS. For example, if you want unread articles to be highlighted in an easy-to-spot sage green color, make a plain text file with the following text and save it with a .css extension: @media screen { div.apple-rss-unread { background-color: rgb(202, 255, 157) !important; } } Save that file somewhere convenient, open Safari preferences, choose the Advanced tab, and use the "Style Sheet" pull-down menu to select the new file as your style sheet. After you restart Safari you'll see the new colors. There's a lot more you can do, if you want to experiment a bit. For...