Skip to Content

Beta Beat: More great Safari 3 features

Thank you to all our readers who have been writing in and leaving comments about more great features in the new Safari 3 beta. Here is a quick roundup of our second batch of new Safari capabilities, including window jockeying, tab management, and a nifty desktop picture tool.

Merging Windows. Earlier, we posted about how you can drag tabs off a Safari tab bar and open them up in their own window. What we didn't catch until some readers pointed this out to us is that you can also do the opposite in Safari 3. To join all open windows and tabs into a single Safari window, choose Window -> Merge All Windows.

Opening a tab into a window from the menu. If you don't like dragging off your tabs and just want to use a menu item, Window -> Move Tab to New Window does the job just as well.

Reopening the most recently closed window. Here's another great Safari 3 feature. Have you ever accidentally closed a window when you thought the focus was on another window instead? Safari now lets you reopen the last closed window. No more searching through your history, trying to figure out which window you just closed by accident! And when Safari crashes? (Shall we not pretend that it doesn't?) Use Reopen All Windows From Last Session to pick up where you left off. (Firefox 2 users are familiar with the power of this handy feature.)

Set any Safari as your Desktop background. I don't remember ever seeing this one before so please let me know if it's not actually new to Safari 3--but it was new to me. Right-click any image in a Safari window and choose Use Image as Desktop Picture. Booya!

Accessing the Inspector. After a bunch of readers commented about us not covering the Webkit inspector, I finally broke down and installed Webkit SVN using the instructions I found here. Once installed and with the proper defaults set, the Webkit inspector allows you to investigate the contents of your Safari Webpages. You can access the inspector from the context pop-up. (Right-click or control-click anywhere on a Safari webpage to open the context menu.)



Categories

Software Beta Beat

Thank you to all our readers who have been writing in and leaving comments about more great features in the new Safari 3 beta. Here is a...
 

Add a Comment

*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

42 Comments

Filter by:
mrgomeg

I'm with Gianni (#4). I really like Safari 3 but the feature I'm missing from Firefox is the open new window in new tab option. When a link is designed to open a new window, it opens a new tab instead. I can just merge them after its opened, but its one more step.

June 21 2007 at 8:56 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Richard

Yup, this update is wicked!
I'm loving the ability to drag tabs along the tab bar & out into new windows, this is a very welcome feature.
Snapback is cool, as is the 'reopen last closed window' function, this will definitely be used!
Has anyone else noticed a faster scroll time? I'm sure mines faster than before!
Add image to desktop? Mmmmm? Cool, but not really what I would call a feature! I think apple probably did it to please you wintel users! I'll never use it purely because 90% of images on the net are low res and would look s**t on your desktop!

Peace!

June 18 2007 at 4:47 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ecobore

very nice, had to uninstall because of my online banks not recognising the browser. But dissapointed that we STILL can't organise bookmarks alphabetically, nor create nested bookmark folders, nor create a new bookmark folder directly from the browser. To me these things are essential! - I use bookdog for sorting, but WHY?!

June 15 2007 at 12:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jbelkin

Good additions - here's a post on missing features ...

http://2aday.wordpress.com/2007/06/12/safari-30-still-missing-features/

June 14 2007 at 1:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gareth Burleigh

digitalintrigue my mistake I actually meant to say Command (Apple key) and click, but yes it can also be brought up with a right click although I prefer my way. Each to there own though

Gareth

June 14 2007 at 12:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rickr

has anyone noticed how safari 3 on mac still has the 'brushed metal' interface for the window (title, nav and bookmark bar at the top of the window), yet the safari 3 version for windows is the updated itunes-like solid dark gray color?

it seems like all of leopard will be like this (finder, safari, etc in addition to the already updated itunes and iphoto) but it hasn't shown up yet in this beta for mac.

does anyone else find it slightly annoying that windows can have one of multiple interfaces, going all the way back to the classic 'pinstripes' look from early mac os x in some finder windows?

June 14 2007 at 10:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dov

Doesn't anyone use scroll-wheel/middle button clicking? I do that all the time (though, admittedly, I don't have a Mighty Mouse - you can't click down on the scroll ball if I remember right). That works in Safari and Firefox for opening links in new tabs. There are two middle-click things Firefox does, however, that I wish Safari did - opening a bookmark from the toolbar in a new tab, and closing the current tab, by middle clicking on them.

June 14 2007 at 9:57 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mac Season

Google Docs & Spreadsheets seems to be working (still get a warning though on the Spreadsheets - but it seems to be getting close)

June 14 2007 at 9:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Lee

What's pissing me off with it on Windows is that on my ThinkPad the trackpoint middle scroll does not work! It works in every other applications but Safari. The scroll on a physical mouse works fine just not the one on my keyboard which is super handy and making me not want to use it at all :( I also hate how backspace doesn't go back a page, I'm so used to doing that!

June 14 2007 at 9:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Daan

Great, visual html editor TinyMCE now works with safari 3

June 14 2007 at 8:48 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.