Leopard Hands-On: Safari 3.0 with screenshots
New Find functionality The "Find" functionality for intra-page searches has been dramatically enhanced. Similar to Firefox, Safari no longer requires a separate window for search terms, instead placing a small search bar in the upper-right portion of the screen.
Searching is also now live, meaning that Safari begins searching for terms as soon as you begin entering them.
A new graphic effect is also apparent, as Safari darkens the entire page except for instances of the specified search term (see screenshot below).
Batch bookmark adds If you have several tabs open in Safari, you can add them all as bookmarks via the Bookmark menu's new "Add these (number) tabs to Bookmarks"
"Merge all windows" You can now consolidate all open browser windows and tabs into a single browser window that contains all open pages. In other words, if you have pages open in two separate browser windows, they will be placed in a single browser window with two tabs.
"Undo" closure of tabs You can now "undo" closure of tabs in Safari. In other words, if you accidentally close a tab, you can press Command-Z (or select "Undo" from the Edit menu) to re-open it.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
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How is this new? I have this option using 10.4.5 and Safari 2.0.3?
Live searching is good? Why? I find it annoying and clunky.
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iMac G5, 17", 1.8 GHz, 1GB RAM
PowerBook G4, 12", 1.5 GHz, 768 MB RAM
Both OS 10.4.7
I too find live searching annoying - especially in Spotlight. I particularly resent
the enormous waste of resources that results from my computer searching for
all files containing instances of the letter 'e' (the most common letter in the
English alphabet), then the string 'en', then 'eng' and so on, when what I _want_
it to do is to look for all instances of the word 'english'. I shouldn't have to use
cut and paste to achieve this: I should be allowed to switch live searching OFF!
Oh yes, and I would like to be allowed to change the default search mode to be
'search by name' rather than 'search by content'.
I second that; there should be an option to choose between 'live' searching, and
being allowed to enter whole search terms before the search begins.
just my 2cents
Get yerself a decent machine and quit b***ing.
You just need to learn to type faster. There is a couple of second delay in
spotlight so that what you described doesn't happen. Type "English", and that
is the first and only search that spotlight does. It only searches "e", then "en",
then "eng" etc. if you type it in too slowly.
As with mouse clicks, we should be able to set the keystroke delay time,
including "off" (or "infinity :-)
This is a Dilbertian attitude. Consumer products are suppsed to conform to the
needs of the users, not vice versa.
Oh, and in response to your request that spotlight defaults to "find by name",
you should use Finder's search (which leverages Spotlight) instead, and follow
the instructions found here:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050621230020563 (make
sure you read all the comments)
I should learn to type more quickly? Surely you are not seriously suggesting
that Apple cannot build a tool that works well no matter how fast a user
types? What about someone who makes a typographical error? What about
someone who wants to type in (and double-check) a long search term (to
narrow down the search)? What about someone who is _physically_incapable_
of typing quickly?
I'm not asking for much: I just want the _option_ to switch live searching off.
Of course it would also be nice to have a bit more control over which folders
and file types are (and are not) indexed and searched by default, and a simple
means of forcing Spotlight to re-index part or all of a disk, but I would forego
all of those just to be allowed to switch the bloody thing off! Honestly, this is
the kind of thing we expect from Microsoft, not Apple.
I _do_ use Finder's search, and even that won't allow me to set 'search by
name' as my default. I don't see why I should have to go to the lengths of
setting up a smart folder just to get the basic functionality I would expect
from any search tool.
You make several good points about spotlight; I agree with you. I was just
pointing out that the situation isn't <i>quite</i> as bad as you made out. It
used to be that Spotlight started searching immediately, no matter how fast
you typed, but that changed around 10.4.2 or so.
Your second point about the Finder though, I do not understand. If you read
the hint (and comments) you will find that you <i>can</i> set the Finder to
search by name <i>by default</i> (i.e. pressing command-F brings up a
search window with a "name contains" box and nothing else). Again, it is
nowhere near as straightforward as it should be, but it is possible to do
<i>exactly</i> what you ultimately want.
I have set up the Finder's 'Find' command to provide a search window that
defaults to 'find by name' as explained in the MacOSHints article, and it works
... except that what _I_ meant by default behaviour was having the search box
at the top right of the window default to 'find by name'. That is impossible as
far as I can see. Never mind: thanks for the tip anyway.
Just for the record, this isn't my idea of a configuration option. Any
modification that involves editing and/or replacing a file that is part of the
Finder application package is a nerd's hack, plain and simple (I don't mind
admitting to being a nerd). It should not be necessary for a user to fiddle with
hidden system files in order to configure his/her system to behave in a
sensible manner.
My concern about the lack of configuration options in Spotlight and the
Finder's Find command is that they are examples of the kind of functionality
fascism that we are so used to seeing from Microsoft.
What's "private browsing?"
- by August 8, 2006 2:52 AM PDT
- Live searching is annoying, absolutely. One should be able to switch it off.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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