Lion: Restoring Safari's download list keyboard shortcut

Oh, those poor Mac OS X Lion developers. They work their tails off to get a new version of OS X out to us, and then people immediately find things that they liked better in the old version.

Red Sweater Software founder and über-geek Daniel Jalkut found that the loss of a keyboard shortcut to display or hide the active downloads list in Safari (Command-Option-L) was driving him bonkers -- he wasn't alone, as Erica pointed out the same annoyance. Like a good developer, he figured out a way to bring back the shortcut.

The solution was to use his FastScripts application (Free for up to 10 shortcuts, US$14.95 for unlimited shortcuts) and then develop a "simple UI Scripting script." The script, available here, is placed into the [Home] -> Library -> Scripts -> Applications -> Safari folder, and it appears in FastScripts only when Safari is active.

Now you can toggle the downloads list as much as you want with Command-Option-L. Be sure to send Daniel a thank-you tweet -- he's @danielpunkass on Twitter.

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Source: http://www.red-sweater.com/blog/1949/restore-safaris-downloa…

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Safari OS X

Oh, those poor Mac OS X Lion developers. They work their tails off to get a new version of OS X out to us, and then people immediately...

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davidzuercher

@Michael
when in the activity window, you just simply Alt-doubleclick on any item listed and it immediately starts downloading. so it does the same for ya, but no annyoing dragging, dropping, missing, etc..

July 26 2011 at 7:47 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

thefferon

The folder mentioned ([Home]/Library/Scripts/Applications/Safari) doesn't exist on my retail installation of Lion. In my home directory, Library is as deep as this path goes (and Library itself is hidden). I've installed Fast Scripts and it's active, but I don't know how to make theDownloads shortcut work.

Please help.

Thanks

July 24 2011 at 9:27 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to thefferon's comment

thefferon

Never mind - I see the menubar icon has a Create Safari Scripts Folder option. That did it.

Thanks anyway :)

July 24 2011 at 9:31 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Michael

But will it restore access to my downloads 'popover' when nothing is in it? That's all I really care about. And I don't think it does, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

July 23 2011 at 5:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Michael's comment

Mike Barriault

I've seen several people complain about this, but it seems like the silliest thing to complain about ever. If it's empty, the window literally has no use, other than to tell you it's empty.

July 23 2011 at 5:28 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Mike Barriault's comment

Michael

Not at all. The empty downloads window was an excellent place to drag or past links into. Then they would download automatically. This was particularly useful when used in combination with the activity window to download a specific item from a page that couldn't be downloaded with a contextual menu.

I used it a lot.

July 23 2011 at 6:25 PM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down

Mike Barriault

You don't need FastScripts. Just use Automator, make it a Service exclusive to Safari, then add a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences. Works perfectly.

July 23 2011 at 5:22 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Mike Barriault's comment

Any chance you could explain how to do this? One look at automator and I'm not so sure...

July 24 2011 at 9:42 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to NF's comment

solowalker27

So, my previous comment on this about using System Preferences to do this instead looks like it was deleted. Yay. I was going to come back and post just this same solution since it appears I was wrong and they have removed all of the various menu items that existed in the different DPs.

Anyway, open Automator and choose Service. Change the options at the top to receive no input and be in Safari. Then click the Record button, click the Downloads button in Safari, then stop the recording. Save the service. Now in the Keyboard Shortcuts section you can put in the shortcut. Voila. Keyboard shortcut to open the Downloads without paying a cent.

July 24 2011 at 8:31 PM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate down