“Pimped up” Safari Plugins

So if you’re on a PC, FireFox is definitely the newness in regard to browsers. Without wanting to get into a religious discussion about IE vs Firefox, I just prefer — and suggest — Firefox to my PC peeps.

But on a Mac, you actually have a choice! You can use Firefox or Safari — both of which are actually pretty good. I have both installed and use both for testing and development. If you’ve been using Firefox then you are very aware of all the extensions and themes (or should be!!!) available. But if you’re using Safari here are a few of the best plugins (think Firefox extensions) I’m using … and loving a lot!

• First, you should be aware of PimpMySafari. It’s a really good site that lists many of the available plugins out there for the app. (I’m sure there are other sites, I’m just liking this one.)
• Safari Saft – (Essential # 1) The features of this one are so numerous it’s tough to pick and choose:
  • Most beneficial – Saves the session state of Safari between restarts .. ok, so in English, it saves the open windows, the tabs, the positions, etc. so that if Safari shuts down, or even crashes, they will open up exactly the same way it was before closing
  • Max Screen, and Full screen options, Kiosk mode, Ad/banner blocking with simple URL pattern matching, Add bookmark folder here and add bookmark here in every bookmark menu,
    Always open new browser window in tab,
    Auto hide Downloads window,and much, much more
  • The free version occasionally pops up a Safari Saft window, or you can pay the $12 fee to remove it!

    

• SafariStand – (Essential # 2) By far the best feature is that you can view open tabs by "screen shot" in a small side panel. But you also have ‘Stand Bar’ (Bookmark, History, Side Bar compatible, Simple RSS Reader), ‘Quick Search’, Spotlight support, ‘Action Menu’, ‘Arrange Tabs’, ‘Site Alteration’, intelligent Plug-in blocking, and more.
• SafariSource – You would think it’ a feature but it’s not. This plugin allows you to see the source in nicely color coded format. I can’t tell you the times I’ve "viewed source" and started to get Binary Fever, looking at all that black and white. (OK, so Saft and Stand do this, too, but hey …)
• Safari WebDevAdditions – The so many times I’ve wanted to view the CSS layout of a site I’ve developed only to find out that I can’t see them outlined in the browser – enter the WebDevAddtions (like the similarly named extension for Firefox). Outline, Divs, classes, tables; turn off images, links, styles, objects; and much more.

Coolness, indeed!