Mastering Safari’s General Preferences
Written by: Scott Haneda on Tuesday February 12th 2008, 4:39 am
Filed under: Applications, OS X 10.5, Safari
Our past post ‘Safari or Firefox on OS X, which should you be using?‘, drew quite a bit of discussion. It is good to know the next feature tutorial will be one that is of interest to all our users. Given that Safari is probably the one application most new users spend the most time in, it seems important to try to make that time as comfortable as possible.
Safari is a great browser, even with its default settings. With a few small changes to the settings and preferences, you can custom tailor it to be even better.
New windows open with:
The first time you launch Safari, it will set itself up with some very basic default settings. You will also notice that a page automatically loads. In the case of OS X 10.5 Leopard it is going to load Apples website.
While this is nice, it is important to know you can change this behavior. You have a couple options. You can load a custom web address, or a blank page. This behavior is controlled in your preferences, which you access from the Safari menu item
As you can see, I have set mine to an empty page. While an empty page may seem dull and boring, it does serve a purpose. If you are so inclined, you can set it to whatever you want.
For example, you may like to check your email first thing when you start your browser. In that case, set it to the web address of your web-based email. The only caveat is that every new page window you create in Safari will always open to that page. I tend to find this slows me down.
If I open a new page, I have to wait for my favorite page to load. This then slows down my ability to go to a new page. If a new window starts out blank, it is ready for me immediately.
There are four options to how new windows open:
1) Home Page, which you specify in the Home Page field.
2) Empty Page, which will simply show you a blank white page.
3) Same Page, which will open a new window identical to your current one.
4) Bookmarks, which will let you see all your bookmarks in your browser.
Remove history items:
Also in the General Preferences is “Remove History Items”. This defines how long it will take before past sites you have visited are expired. Safari has a menu item called “History” which keeps track of every single page you have visited.
Your history is a handy tool. Who can really remember the web address of every site they visit? I certainly cannot. As long as you can remember a fragment of the address, you should be able to locate it in your history.
Set the timing of history removal to whatever suits your needs. I find that after about a week, I no longer would ever need to go back to a site I was at sometime earlier. If I do need to do so, I will usually bookmark it, which will be remembered forever.
Some experience Safari getting sluggish over time, and have linked that behavior to excessive history items. One week sounds like a sane amount of time. Visited sites are also “recycled”, so as long as you keep visiting a site, it will be moved back to the top of your history, thereby starting your expire time over again.
Set downloaded files to:
Prior to OS X 10.5 Leopard, your system was not set up with a special folder called “Downloads”. Since most of you readers are on Leopard, Safari should be defaulting to saving your downloads into your downloads folder.
I find this a perfect place to store your downloaded files. About the only other place I ever see people set this to is their Desktop. The idea being that you can see the file immediately as it is being downloaded, and do not have to navigate to a special folder.
Download file location is entirely up to you. Whatever works best for how you use your computer is where you should set it to. I just happen to think the default setting is well thought out.
Remove download list items:
If you go to the Window menu in Safari, and select “Downloads” it will show you a small floating window called “Downloads”.
The download manager window has some very useful functions. For the time being, just be aware that it lists the files you have downloaded.
The preferences for this floating window allow you to define how often that download window is cleared of listings. I have mine set to clear it when I quit Safari. If you do frequent downloading, you may want to set this to clear as soon as the file has finished downloading.
Open “safe” files after downloading:
In the past, Safari would open nearly every file you downloaded, automatically. Recently, some people with ill intentions have found you can exploit this and automatically run malicious software, or even a virus.
While I am entirely unaware of any wide scale situation in which this has been exploited, it is safer to simply leave this setting checked. Safari knows which files are safe, like images and movies, and which could be dangerous. In the case of a potentially dangerous file, you will have to manually open the file.
Open links from applications:
Since we have not covered tabs, and what they are, I only want you to be aware of this setting. When you click on a link, it usually replaces the current site you are looking at, and shows you the new page. Not all links come from Safari. Word files, applications, and a few other non-web browser files can at times have links to websites in them. This setting defines what happens when you click on those links.
Our next post is going to jump from defining what the preferences do, to setting a few options to tweak Safari into telling you a little more about what is going on.
I anticipate this being greater than ten posts in total, with the idea of breaking them up into small sections that are easier to digest and remember. Stay tuned, I have a feeling the next post will reveal some interesting settings.
I found this very interesting and learned some new things. Thanks.
Comment by Pat 02.12.08 @ 10:47 amI’m new to Mac, these newsletters are just great. Even an old retired guy can learn with this. Thanks a bunch and keep them coming.
Comment by Gary 02.12.08 @ 2:23 pm@maure, @Julius Hjulian, @Pat, @Gary
Thanks so much for the support, keep reading, we have a ton more content coming your way very soon.
I’m a bit confused on the New Windows section. I’m not sure what is meant by new window vs new page window. Does this mean not a new tab?
My preference is to have one browser window open and multiple tabs open. In preferences I always choose the open link in new tab. When I’m reading an article and it has a link to another. I would normally right-click and choose to open that link in a new tab. How would I do this in Safari?
Comment by Donna 02.13.08 @ 7:59 am@Donna, “New Window” is just a new Safari browser instance. So while you are used to using tabs, and only have one Safari window open at a time, it is in fact possible to have another. You can also have multiple tabs in that window as well.
If you have your preferences set to open all links in a new tab, I do not think you need to bother with with the right-click and clicking to open that link in a new tab. Assuming I understand you correct, that should happen with a normal click.
We will talk in great detail about tabs tomorrow, the post goes live at 12:01 AM PST. However, in the meantime, you could also hold the command key down, and issue a single left-click with the mouse, and that will open a link in a new tab as well.
I hope this helps clarify the matter, thanks for commenting.
Comment by Scott Haneda 02.13.08 @ 8:16 amGreat tips!
Now if only I could figure out how to get Google to open links in a “new” window, it would be awesome.
Google has a preference to open links in a new window, and it works on Windows IE.
On the Mac, it uses one window, and if you happen to click on a series of links they use the same window and navigates you away from the link you clicked on previously.
Personally, I think it’s a bug, but I am not sure if it is a Safari bug or a Google bug.
Comment by Ron 02.13.08 @ 2:15 pm@Ron, I just set my google prefs to open all links in a new window, and it does just that. In the html of the search result page, I see ‘target=_blank’ which is the code that tells any browser to open links in a new window.
I would try a few things, go into your prefs and into the security section, click on show cookies, and search in there for ‘google’, you should see some with a name of PREF. Delete those, quit safari, and set your prefs again in google, that may fix it.
With the new preference set, when you hover over a search result, what does the status bar say? Does it make note that it will be trying to open in a new window?
Our Amazon ads off to the right are set to open in a new window, can you click once on any of those, and tell me if that works?
I am sure with a little more data we can get you through this.
Comment by Scott Haneda 02.13.08 @ 8:22 pmThanks for the suggestions… I seem to have fixed my Google! I can’t believe I’ve been putting up with that for two years now…
Your ads don’t open in a new window, though.
In the status bar, it says at the end “in a new frame”, but it opens in the same window as your website (not in a frame).
Comment by Ron 02.13.08 @ 11:42 pm@Ron, how did you fix the google issue? The Amazon ads are the only ones that open in a new window, the others generally do not.
Comment by Scott Haneda 02.14.08 @ 1:36 amTo fix the issue with Google, I deleted all of my Google cookies.
When I roll over your Google ads on the right, it says “Go to “http;//xxx…” in another frame”, but when I click on them they take over the current window.
Thanks for your assistance!
Comment by Ron 02.14.08 @ 9:27 am@ Donna:
When you want to click on a link and have it open in a separate tab, you can hit Command (Apple key) while clicking the link. You can enable this feature by going to Safari>Preferences>Tabs.
Enjoy!
When I open dukebasketballreport.com a sound bite (first available on the site last November) automatically plays. I can turn it off by going to Safara Preferences, clicking on the security tab and then unchecking “enable plug-ins.” The sound then stops. When I check “enable plug-ins” again the sound bite does not replay and everything is fine until the web site is opened again. Can you suggest a fix to this weirdness?
Current Mac OS and Safari on new iMac G5.
Tom
@Tom, I would be hesitant to toggle the plug-in on and off like that. It is a Gloabl setting to Safari, and will stop plug-ins for all sites you visit while it is off.
What are you trying to accomplish? You want no sound byte on that one website, but audio to work on all others?
Comment by Scott Haneda 02.19.08 @ 8:27 amScott, thanks for the prompt response.
What I would like to have happen is to stop the one sound bite from loading. I want audio to work whenever I load it, not for an audio file to open automatically.
I have contacted the web site about the problem but have not had a response.
Tom
@Tom, welcome to the world of web publishers who do not care about what their users want. They will force their agenda on you no matter how annoying it is. MySapce is a good example with their auto-play feature of users audio.
About the only thing you can do is to tell the site you will not visit it until they change their policy. If Enough people do this, they may change.
In a more advanced post, we are going to talk about ways to block certain things in Safari, with a 3rd party tool. You may be able to block that audio file.
As it stands now, audio and video can both be set to auto-play on any website, and there is little you can do about it.
Comment by Scott Haneda 02.19.08 @ 9:18 amThanks Scott. Really appreciate your help. I love the site and will just have to put up with the inconvenience.
It’s strange that the audio only loads on my iMac and not my wife’s.Evidently the problem is with my setup only.
Will using the toggle switch in Safari/preferences to turn the sound off and then immediately toggling back on harm Safari?
Thanks again for your help.
Tom
@Tom, Toggling your Safari plug in prefs will have no harm on Safari, though some sites may behave incorrectly.
Comment by Scott Haneda 02.19.08 @ 9:54 amHere’s something I’d really like some help with. Recently Safari will only play the audio on Quicktime files–no video at all. Firefox, however, plays all Quicktime files perfectly. I have a PowerMac G4 running 10.4.11. Anybody have any thoughts on what’s happening?
Thanks in advance.
Bert
I recently updated to Safari 3.1(5525.13) and now have a problem with the Finder when I first turn on my computer. I am unable to use any of the drop down menus in the Finder, but after a while I have access to the menus. Is there a fix for this problem?
Thanks
Ron M
@Ron, I am just about to run the update myself, and use it as a way to write a post about Software Update.
How long does it take to give yourself access to the menus? If you look in your Utilities folder, there is an application called “Activity Monitor.app”, open that, and you can tell it to list running processes. You can also sort them by the ones using the most CPU time. This may provide a clue as to what is stalling out your computer.
If that does not work, come back and let us know and I will see what else I can come up with.
Comment by Scott Haneda 03.19.08 @ 7:39 pm
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