Update Your Safari Smarts
Of all Yosemite’s apps, Safari is perhaps the most changed. To widen your window on the Web, Apple has stripped away Safari’s title bar, turned off all toolbars by default, and even hidden your Web pages’ full URLs. The result is a Safari that looks a lot the one you have on your iPhone and iPad ①. But Apple has added key features, too, such as improved search options, new Favorites and Tab views, and beefed up Private Browsing.
① Safari’s new look is super streamlined. All toolbars (including Favorites) are off by default and the title bar is gone altogether.
Safari tucks away anything that might detract from your view. Familiar buttons and toolbars have vanished. Even the title bar is gone, which might make you wonder, um, what a Web page’s title is.
If you’re a laptop user, this space savings may be a boon. But, if you have room to spare on your 27-inch iMac’s screen, or miss your favorite tools, it’s not too difficult to put back the items that you use regularly:
- Page titles: Irked that you can’t see a Web page’s title? Turn on the Tab bar (View > Show Tab Bar or Command-Shift-T) to see it. If you have multiple tabs open, tabs are automatically labeled with the page names.
- URLs: The smart search field no longer displays the page’s full URL—you see the abbreviated name,
takecontrol.com, for example, instead of www.takecontrolbooks.com/yosemite-beta-testing. To reveal it, click in the field. Or, if you’d rather see the full URL all the time, go to Safari > Preferences, click Advanced and select the Show Full Website Address box.
- Toolbar: Just because Safari’s toolbars are off by default, doesn’t mean you can’t turn them back on. Like your favorites handy? Choose View > Show Favorites Bar or press Command-Shift-B (“B” for bookmarks).
- Status bar with link previews: Prefer to see where a link will send you before you click? Turn on the Status Bar by choosing View > Show Status Bar or pressing Command-/. Check out all your options in the View menu.
Smarter Searches
One thing you’ll notice right away is that Safari’s Smart Search field integrates Spotlight suggestions into its drop-down menu. This makes it easy to get information without even opening a Web page. Start typing Boyhood, for example, and your first hit may be labeled “Movie in Theaters” with a thumbnail of the Richard Linklater movie’s poster as well as its rating, Rotten Tomatoes score, and local show times ②.
② Start typing in the Smart Search bar and you’ll soon see quick entries powered by Spotlight appear in addition to regular search string suggestions.
This is a quick way to find a song, see movie times, check Maps, or get Wikipedia definitions, just as you can in Spotlight.
Another way Safari can save you steps is the Quick Website Search feature. Whenever you use a Web site’s search engine, it’s added to Safari’s Quick Website Search list behind the scenes.
Next time you need some information from that site, simply type its name and your search term into the Smart Search field. For example: commonsensemedia boyhood. The drop-down menu shows an option to search Common Sense Media directly. Select that, and you’re taken to the site’s search results instead of an intermediary list of Google results ③.
③ If you’ve used a Web site’s search feature before, Safari provides you with a shortcut for doing so again without going through Google.
To remove a site from your list, go to Safari > Preferences > Search and click the Manage Websites button. You see a list of the sites you’ve enabled for Quick Website Search and can delete sites as you please.
New Ways to View Favorites
Although Apple has turned off the Favorites Bar by default, it’s included new ways to access bookmarks as you need them. When you click the Smart Search field, a drop-down menu shows a grid view of your bookmarks and their icons ④. Look familiar? Your iPad and iPhone show this view when you click in Safari’s search field.
④ Although the Favorites bar is off by default, your Favorites appear whenever you click the Smart Search field, much like they do in iOS.
You’ll also see the Favorites view whenever you open a new window or tab. (Change this by going to Safari > Preferences > General and choosing a different option from the New Windows Open With and New Tabs Open With pop-up menus.)
New Ways to View Tabs
Safari’s new Tab view gives you a quick way to get back to a tab. This Mission Control–like overview shows thumbnails of all tabs you have open, grouped by Web site ⑤. Click a thumbnail to jump to that page.
⑤ Safari’s new Tab View gives a visual overview of open tabs and lists Web pages open on your other Apple devices via iCloud sync.
Conveniently, Tab view also lists what you have open on other Apple devices using iCloud sync. To see Tab view, click the Show All Tabs 
button in the toolbar, choose View > Show All Tabs, or press Command-Shift-.
If you like to open a lot of tabs at once, you’ll appreciate the new way Safari handles tab overload. Instead of the pulldown menu that appeared when Mavericks’ Safari ran out of room, now you can scroll through your scrunched tabs by swiping left or right, revealing tabs that are out of view.
Better Private Browsing
“Private” browsing comes in handy when you’re using a Mac that’s not yours (say at the library or a computer lab) or when you’d rather limit the data you leave behind when surfing.
Previously, invoking private browsing mode switched all your open windows and, in the process, signed you out of any services you were logged into. Now, private browsing is done on a window-by-window basis, which means you can have one private browsing window open for online banking, while browsing normally in another.
Choose File > New Private Window (Command-Shift-N) to open a private browsing window. A subtle warning—“Private Browsing Enable”—appears at the top of the page. But the only clear indication that you’re browsing incognito is that the search field turns black with white text ⑥.
⑥ The only indication that you’re in a private browsing window is that the Smart Search field turns black with white text.
New Ways to Share
For those times when you absolutely must share a cat video, Safari helps you skip a few steps. Choose File > Share or click the Share 
button in the toolbar to see a menu with options like Facebook and Email. Choose one to share.
So, what’s new? Choose More at the bottom of the Share menu and the Extensions system preference pane opens. This lets you add social media sites and services as the newest and hippest companies take advantage of Yosemite’s extensibility ⑦.
⑦ No need to settle for vanilla sharing options. Customize which social media sites appear in Safari’s Sharing menu here.
A Sharing Shortcut
You’ll find one more time-saving feature at the bottom of the Share menu. The new Recents list shows the names of people you’ve shared with recently ⑧. Choose a name to quickly share in the same way again.
⑧ The bottom of the Sharing menu holds a handy shortcut. Choose a name under Recents to share with that person in the same way again. (Here an icon indicates email sharing.)
Web Site Subscriptions
Safari now gives you the option to subscribe to Web sites in order to keep up with the newest articles. Yes, old-timers, this means RSS—gone from Safari since OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion—is back!
When you’re on a site’s RSS page (look for a link or a Feed 
icon), click Safari’s Share 
button and select Add Website to Shared Links.
Alternatively, click the Show/Hide Sidebar 
button in the toolbar, click the Shared Links 
button, and then click Subscriptions. Click Add Feed and a Subscribe To pane drops down. If the page has a feed, you’ll see it here. Click Add Feed. If not, click Cancel. Updates pop up in Shared Links view.
Copyright © 2014, Sawyer McFarland Editing. All rights reserved.
