Filed under: Mac 101
Mac 101: Safari tab tricks
I've found myself using Firefox 3 more and more as of late, though there is one feature of Safari that I miss dearly. Picture it: you have a bunch of tabs loaded up in one window of your browser. For some reason you decide that you would really like to see one tab in its very own window. In Safari all you have to do is click on that tab and drag. As you can see to the right, a little picture of the website you're viewing appears and you can drop that picture anywhere on your screen. Once you drop it, the picture expands into a Safari window displaying that website.This cool feature is a little tough to explain in words, so read on for a brief video demonstration.
Please note that I'm using Leopard and Safari 3.
As you can see, this is a nice piece of eye candy, and a useful little feature.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nicholas Moline said 6:58PM on 7-25-2008
I've loved this feature in Safari for some time, and while I find myself using Firefox 3 more and more, this is one feature, that, while simple, I still miss on a day to day basis. Right now for instance I wish I could drag this particular tab to one of my other browser windows...
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idl3mind said 6:54PM on 7-25-2008
check out Tab To Window https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2062
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Nicholas Moline said 7:05PM on 7-25-2008
Tab to Window is not a good enough equivalent, in Safari when you drag out a tab it's current STATE is kept intact, the Tab-To-Window firefox extension just opens the same url in a new window (or in an existing window), if you were working on a form and you wanted to move it to another window (for example to compare what you are doing with information in another tab on the same screen at the same time), using Tab-To-Window just reopens the url, blanking out any work you have done in that tab, USELESS GARBAGE!
Pretty much the only time I want to move a tab to a new window is when I'm working on something either with AJAX or a Form inside that tab and want to keep it's current state intact.
sergio.delagarza said 6:54PM on 7-25-2008
That works on Terminal.app too in leopard.
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Nicholas Moline said 7:09PM on 7-25-2008
Yeah, I use this feature in terminal all the time, it is so incredibly useful.
Tom said 6:58PM on 7-25-2008
Remember that must drag the tab up or down until it is "free" of the tab bar. If you drag left or right you simply re-order the tabs.
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WetcoastBob said 10:48PM on 7-25-2008
Works in Tiger as well
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TEG said 7:12PM on 7-25-2008
This also works in Safari 3 in Tiger 11
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Rich said 7:22PM on 7-25-2008
the one thing I hate about this feature is that you can't put stand alone windows back into the tabs bar. Sure there's Window>Merge All Windows, but that is not a solution to grouped window tidyness.
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Brent said 9:04PM on 7-25-2008
One way to accomplish putting a window "back" into another window as a tab, open another tab, then drag the original tab across into the tab bar of the first window.
grey said 8:40PM on 7-25-2008
Rich - you can move 'em back piecemeal. Just grab the tab of the separate window, and drag it back to the tabs of the old window - tada, one at a time remerging.
GG said 8:45PM on 7-25-2008
Rich,
You CAN do that! Just grab the tab of your stand alone window (as long as you aren't hiding the tab bar), and drag it over to the tab bar of the window you want to merge with. Works like a charm.
Rich said 8:52PM on 7-25-2008
After all this time, I was hiding the tab bar, and could never put tabs back together. Wow I feel like an idiot. Thanks for the tip.
geochick said 7:32PM on 7-25-2008
Thanks !
never knew that you could do that in Safari :-)
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Bassir said 8:01PM on 7-25-2008
Find yourself using Firefox more than good ol' Safari? Have you gone mad?
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Vince said 6:47PM on 7-30-2008
Firefox 3 is a better browser. Safari 3 over Firefox 2, Firefox 3 over Safari 3.
sonicwind said 8:10PM on 7-25-2008
This is a cool feature. Now can we please have resizing windows from any area of a window, not just the bottom right corner. Thanks.
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Shahryar said 6:46PM on 7-27-2008
I would love this also.
idl3mind said 8:05PM on 7-25-2008
oops, I missed the current state part
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Theiof said 8:16PM on 7-25-2008
@Rich yes you can, you only have to check show tabbar always in preferences. This way you see the tabbar even when you have only one tab in you windows. Then you can drag that same tab into another window...
try it out, Cyou
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