Go beyond basic Web browsing in Safari 4 with this definitive guide from long-time Mac expert Sharon Zardetto! You’ll find detailed coverage of new Safari 4 features like Top Sites and searching the page content of your bookmarks and history, along with essential advice on smart ways to keep track of where you’ve been, load multiple Web pages at once, search both the Web and the content of pages you’re reading, fill out forms automatically, keep track of passwords, download files, use RSS to keep up with your favorite Web sites, and manage your Web-browsing history.
Safari 5? If you are running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, this Safari 4 ebook is the right one for you. Safari 5 runs on 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard, and you can read all about it in Take Control of Safari 5. Or, if you are running 10.7 Lion or 10.8 Mountain Lion, the ebook you want is Take Control of Safari 6.
Read this book to learn answers to questions like these:
- How do I load six Web pages at once?
- Now that I’ve loaded six pages, how do I best work with them?
- What are all the keyboard shortcuts for working with tabs?
- How do I bookmark a page I want to return to?
- How do I import Firefox bookmarks?
- I have 1,042 bookmarks. Is there a sensible way to search or organize them?
- What are the default keyboard shortcuts for the bookmarks bar?
- Can I search for text on the currently active Web page?
- How do I erase my history to prevent someone snooping through it?
- Where does Safari store Web site user names and passwords?
- Help! However Safari stored my password, it doesn’t work any more!
- How do I use Safari to read RSS headlines from different sites?
- How do I snip a Web page to make it into a Dashboard widget?
Safari 3? Though this book focuses on Safari 4, much of it applies to Safari 3 too.
What’s New in Safari 4
Many of Safari 4’s new features are background improvements—such as increased page-loading speed and support for the CSS Effects standard—that can enhance your browsing experience but don’t require any action (or learning) on your part.
From a user’s point of view, Safari 4 is so similar to its predecessor that you can transition to it with neither fuss nor muss. Yet it does offer new features that, if not revolutionary, are evolutionary in Safari’s development.
The new features:
- The flashiest new feature, Top Sites—which turns out to be some steak as well as sizzle—is covered in Manage Your Top Sites . On the opposite end of the flash spectrum is the extremely useful new full-page zoom described in Supersize Me .
- Smart...field is a Safari 4 buzz phrase. Use the Address Field covers the smart address field, while Use the Google Search Field describes the smart search field and The Search Snapback .
- Full...search is another buzz phrase. The Finder’s iTunes-inspired Cover Flow view has spread to Safari for reviewing your bookmarks and history (Figure 12, p. 36; Figure 18, p. 53). Both can now be searched not just by URLs or page titles, but also by the page content. Search Your History and Bookmarks covers this incredibly convenient improvement.
- Safari 4’s tab bar has a few subtle changes, covered in Take the Tab Tour .
Is this ebook helpful if I'm still using Safari 3?
Although it focuses on Safari 4, well over 80 percent of its information applies to Safari 3, too.
Does this ebook cover the Windows version of Safari?
Although we think that a lot of the info in this ebook will apply to the Windows version of Safari, we've not tested it under Windows, and some of the content is Mac specific. If you were hoping for Windows coverage, please write in and let us know so that we can consider bringing Windows into the picture for a future version.
What are the system and hardware requirements for running Safari 4?
In addition to Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger or Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard, Safari 4 requires:
-
Processor: Apple’s requirements state: Mac with an Intel processor or a PowerPC G5, G4, or G3 processor and built-in FireWire. This led to a spate of “But the 13-inch MacBook doesn’t have FireWire! How can a browser ‘need’ FireWire?” wails, but that’s due to a misreading (or Apple’s miswriting) of the text. Any Intel-based Mac is fine; the FireWire component modifies the list of PowerPC models. FireWire itself is not the issue; the phrase “built-in FireWire” is simply the way Apple describes its later G3 desktop and laptop models. Any G4 or G5 model will run Safari 4, and only the early non-FireWire G3 models cannot.
-
Memory: The minimum RAM requirement is 256 MB. These days, you can hardly work with less than a gigabyte of RAM (four times the 256 MB minimum), so the vast majority of users can meet this requirement; those who can’t will find that memory upgrades are exceedingly cheap. Find out how much memory your Mac has by choosing About This Mac from the Apple menu.
-
Video capability: If you’re using Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, you won’t be able to use Top Sites or Cover Flow views unless you have the proper video card. Check here for more information on compatible video cards, how to check which one you have, and how to, in some cases, update the video-card driver. (This link describes the beta release of Safari 4. If it doesn’t work, go to the Safari 4 download page and click the More Details link under the Macintosh Requirements list.)
The above entry was last updated on June 18, 2009
We do not plan to update this ebook with additional content about Safari 4. New editions about Safari 5 and Safari 6, however, are available.
