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I want to use Safari 3, but...

D

dranakin

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 6, 2005
457
55
there are just some major things I need in a browser, which Firefox provides. Are there any fixes to Safari that'll let me:

1. Find as I type? I like the new search feature in Safari, but is there a find-as-you-type option?

2. Google search through the address bar? If you type in a word, say "cheese" Safari will just add the beginning and ending parts to an address. In Firefox, it'll usually do a "I'm Feeling Lucky" or a standard search. Is there a way to do a Google search through the address bar in Safari? I know you can use the search box on the top right, but CMD+K doesn't work in Safari.

3. Restore all of my tabs if the program crashes/I quit it? I usually have at least five different tabs open.

4. Auto copy what I'm highlighting?
 
dranakin said:
there are just some major things I need in a browser, which Firefox provides. Are there any fixes to Safari that'll let me:

1. Find as I type? I like the new search feature in Safari, but is there a find-as-you-type option?

2. Google search through the address bar? If you type in a word, say "cheese" Safari will just add the beginning and ending parts to an address. In Firefox, it'll usually do a "I'm Feeling Lucky" or a standard search. Is there a way to do a Google search through the address bar in Safari? I know you can use the search box on the top right, but CMD+K doesn't work in Safari.

3. Restore all of my tabs if the program crashes/I quit it? I usually have at least five different tabs open.

4. Auto copy what I'm highlighting?
Click to expand...

1. Safari has find as you type, and it's more obvious than in Firefox where the words actually are. Use Ctrl+F.

2. What exactly is wrong with the Google search bar at the top right?

3. Not sure about this, but I always hated the way Firefox asked if I wanted to keep my tabs when I quit.

4. No idea, may need an extension for this.
 
tibi08 said:
1. Safari has find as you type, and it's more obvious than in Firefox where the words actually are. Use Ctrl+F.

2. What exactly is wrong with the Google search bar at the top right?

3. Not sure about this, but I always hated the way Firefox asked if I wanted to keep my tabs when I quit.

4. No idea, may need an extension for this.
Click to expand...

1. No, that's using the search feature (that's available in both browsers). I meant Find-As-You-Type, as in just typing words without having to enter (and exit) the search feature.

2. No "I'm Feeling Lucky" searches. You always have to go to the Google search results to find what you want. Also, is there a command similar to CMD+K in Safari?

3. Well, actually Safari does that too now, but that's not what I was asking. I was wondering if there was a way for Safari to save tabs after I quit.

4. Are there extensions for Safari? Does someone have a link?


I guess I'm stuck with Firefox if I can't find these solutions.
 
dranakin said:
2. No "I'm Feeling Lucky" searches. You always have to go to the Google search results to find what you want. Also, is there a command similar to CMD+K in Safari?

4. Are there extensions for Safari? Does someone have a link?
Click to expand...
2. Inquisitor is compatible with Safari 3/Leopard and offers an option like that, IIRC. Command-option-f will select the google search field.

4. Pimpmysafari.com. Most Safari "plugins" are InputManagers which were severely nerfed in Leopard but still work if you install them properly.
 
dranakin said:
1. No, that's using the search feature (that's available in both browsers). I meant Find-As-You-Type, as in just typing words without having to enter (and exit) the search feature.

2. No "I'm Feeling Lucky" searches. You always have to go to the Google search results to find what you want. Also, is there a command similar to CMD+K in Safari?

3. Well, actually Safari does that too now, but that's not what I was asking. I was wondering if there was a way for Safari to save tabs after I quit.

4. Are there extensions for Safari? Does someone have a link?


I guess I'm stuck with Firefox if I can't find these solutions.
Click to expand...

1. No. And it would be annoying if you accidently hit a key.

2. What's wrong with Cmd+L and then Tab? Why do you need feeling lucky so badly? How many times has that ever been useful? If the thing you're searching for is big enough to be the first result, it's probably just whatever you typed .com.

3. Use Bookmarks > Add Bookmark For These x Tabs... save it to the Bookmarks bar, and click on it to restore the tabs.

4. Nope, unfortunately.
 
zync said:
1. No. And it would be annoying if you accidently hit a key.

2. What's wrong with Cmd+L and then Tab? Why do you need feeling lucky so badly? How many times has that ever been useful? If the thing you're searching for is big enough to be the first result, it's probably just whatever you typed .com.

3. Use Bookmarks > Add Bookmark For These x Tabs... save it to the Bookmarks bar, and click on it to restore the tabs.

4. Nope, unfortunately.
Click to expand...

1. Well, I don't and even if I did, a single click cancels the quick find anyway.

2. Thank you, I was looking for that command. And yes, Feeling Lucky always helps. Try typing in "Mac Rumors" in Safari. Then in Firefox. See what I mean? Mac Rumors is title of the website, not 'mac rumors.com'.

3. No, because then I'll have to save and restore each tab every time. For example, right now I have two Wikipedia pages, a Ticketmaster page, NY Times frontpage, and this tab. When I close Firefox, they'll be back up. But tomorrow, I'll be on five different pages and will need them restored. Get what I mean?

From the looks of it, I guess I'll just keep using Firefox, but will use Safari to handle Flash objects.
 
dranakin said:
1. Well, I don't and even if I did, a single click cancels the quick find anyway.

2. Thank you, I was looking for that command. And yes, Feeling Lucky always helps. Try typing in "Mac Rumors" in Safari. Then in Firefox. See what I mean? Mac Rumors is title of the website, not 'mac rumors.com'.

3. No, because then I'll have to save and restore each tab every time. For example, right now I have two Wikipedia pages, a Ticketmaster page, NY Times frontpage, and this tab. When I close Firefox, they'll be back up. But tomorrow, I'll be on five different pages and will need them restored. Get what I mean?

From the looks of it, I guess I'll just keep using Firefox, but will use Safari to handle Flash objects.
Click to expand...

1. Fair enough. I've never used that feature in Firefox. If it was able to be cancelled with a click but still jumped me to a different spot I'd be annoyed. Otherwise it's ok. Though if it doesn't jump to your searches, I don't see how it can be too useful in long documents. In Firefox I always use Cmd+F.

2. Glad to be of help. I see what you're getting at, but I still don't see the utility in it. If you just type macrumors in most browsers' address bars you end up right here without even having to type that extra space :) I respect that you like it and have a need for it. It is useless for my needs.

3. x was the amount of tabs you had open. It saves all open tabs to wherever you would like. The only downside to Safari's implementation is that if you want them to go away you have to delete them. The plus side to Safari's implementation is that if you want them a week later for some reason and you didn't delete them, you still can open them. And it opens them with one click—if I remember correctly, it sets the folder it put them in to automatically open everything inside into tabs.

It's fine to use Firefox over Safari. It's a great browser with extra features. But if you really want to use Safari, I just wanted to give you some help finding the features you'd miss. I do like the ability to add different searches to the browser, but I hate having to change it back when I need google. I could really just write myself a start page that would search for whatever I needed correctly anyway. Actually, I might just do that. It'd be cool to just have one bar, type 'g mac rumors,' and have it automatically know that I want to search google. 'f sunset' would find pictures of sunsets on flickr or something. Hmmm, I'm going to run with this, lol. So thanks for getting me a good idea.

Honestly, the only real benefit that I have seen in Firefox is extensions. Everything else between the two browsers, to me at least, is on par.
 
I am shocked I guess to see safari not have extensions like firefox does, or at least in the same volume. The extensions for firefox is what makes me use firefox period.

Is there a reason why safari never had people do what people do with firefox?
 
tibi08 said:
2. What exactly is wrong with the Google search bar at the top right?
Click to expand...

It's slow. For example: Of Firefox I could go to a website by simply typing few keywords to the addressbar. On Safari, I would have to use the Google searchbar, and then click the topmost hit to go to where I wanted.

If I type "bbc news" (without quotes) to Firefox-addressbar, it takes me to news.bbc.co.uk. If I type the same in Safari, it just complains "can't connect to server".

It's a question of convenience. Using full-blown google search is good when you don't know exactly where you want to go. But when I type in bbc news I know EXACTLY where I want to go. and typing "bbc news" is faster than typing news.bbc.co.uk.
 
SafariStand (mentioned previously) will also prompt you to recover all tabs that were open when Safari died/crashed/quit. Pretty handy. :)
 
1: No idea about the search as you type... you are on your own there. Others have mentioned SafariStand

2: Google searching from the address bar. You really are that bothered by pressing Tab huh? Well, can't help you there either

3: If Safari crashes (or doesn't) when you restart it, History -> Reopen all windows from last session will do what you want. (They will all be in tabs)

4: Not sure why it is so hard to press Command+C...
 
clevin said:
because apple likes to control, while firefox provides an open platform. thats the difference.
Click to expand...

There are plenty of plugins available for safari, maybe not as many as there are for Firefox, but honestly, how many extensions do you use on Firefox, and what do they do?

I have 2 plug ins for safari
Safari-AdBlock (never realized how much i wanted this until i had it)
Inquisitor (king of search bars!)
 
TheStu said:
There are plenty of plugins available for safari, maybe not as many as there are for Firefox, but honestly, how many extensions do you use on Firefox, and what do they do?

I have 2 plug ins for safari
Safari-AdBlock (never realized how much i wanted this until i had it)
Inquisitor (king of search bars!)
Click to expand...

its called flexibility and options, head over to firefox's addon site and look for yourself.

we don't live in a world that everybody just "need" what you "need". ( apple may tell you that every mac users only need this and that) but unfortunately, millions of people just can be fitted into a narrow world of apple appointed way of doing thing.

some ppl like those extensions that maximize the google maps, check weather in status bar, check nfl scores on status bar, others like easy way to disable scripts in page, or like to turn browser into a photo manager, or save webpage as a png image, use mouse movement to operate the browser,,, etc, etc

honestly, no one lives on "need",.

and open platform attract developers is such a simple logic, i hope you are not disputing that.
 
TheStu said:
There are plenty of plugins available for safari, maybe not as many as there are for Firefox, but honestly, how many extensions do you use on Firefox, and what do they do?

I have 2 plug ins for safari
Safari-AdBlock (never realized how much i wanted this until i had it)
Inquisitor (king of search bars!)
Click to expand...

where do you get Safari-adblock?

Is Adblock only in Leopard?
 
History -> Reopen all windows from last session.

if you are always going to bbc news, then bookmark it, then when you go to the address bar, type "new" then hit enter as it autocompletes from your bookmarks.
 
apfhex said:
SafariBlock works just fine in Leopard, as will probably most InputManagers compatible with Safari 3.
Click to expand...

I tried SafariBlock, couldn't get it to work. Then, I found out that PlugSuit, which I was using rather successfully to load the old Tiger plugins in Leopard, caused Safari to not launch. So, that was the end of that experiment.
 
boast said:
so nobody knows of a way to have "I'm feeling lucky" on the address bar? :confused::(
Click to expand...

Well, you can do something like I've done for my computers. Make your own start page, have a form with a text field get focus when the page loads and set it up to where the text that is input functions like the "I'm feeling lucky" button on Google's site—mine defaults to google searching. That might be hard to get as it might not be code that can be easily viewed, but you might be able to screenshot the link before redirect.

It'd be easier to just do the following though. If it's javascript you can find it in the code. If the redirect is server side, you can load Google up, unplug from the net and then click the button. Then copy the address bar, format your text field to send the same code with whatever search term you enter and you're golden. Google probably has an API out there to explain their searching system a little bit. I only use Google's main searching and image searching in my little application.

Here, I decided to do that part for you:
Code: 
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hello&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky

So you'd do something like this:
Code: 
query = document.search.searchbox.value;
re = /(\s+)+/g;
query = query.replace(re,'+');
location.href = "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=" + query + "&btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky";

The re part is a regular expression that looks for one or more whitespace characters—the \s+—in case you have spaces and looks for it globally—the g—instead of just finding the first. Then it's replaced with a plus sign as Google likes it that way. I think it still works otherwise, but as we're bypassing some of Google's system it's nice to be nice to their admins. If you want to know more about regular expressions you'll need a tutorial as it's a complex and powerful subject. This will do for your current needs.

I don't know why Google uses "I'm Feeling Lucky" in the URL because it has to be parsed, but there you have it. I have my form set up with a name of "search" and the text field set up with a name of "searchbox." Of course, mine is rather complicated as it offers multiple searching possibilities and quick lookups of frequent sites, but this should do for what you need. Then if you want to directly type in a link hit Cmd+L. And if you want regular Google searching hit Cmd+L then Tab. There's an actual shortcut for the Google box, but that one's easier to remember and is faster than hitting three or four keys at the same time instead.
 
thanks for your efforts zync.

I just ended up:

Downloading SafariSIA

Set g to
Code: 
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%@&btnI=I%2527m+Feeling+Lucky

And set it as the default search (read manual). then just use the address bar like firefox
 
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