Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Browser Tips, Browsers
How to minimize Safari's UI to the bare essentials - Browser Tip
by Jason Clarke Sep 24th 2009 at 11:00AM
When it comes to paring a browser's UI down to the smallest possible size, the discussion always seems to focus on Firefox. Granted, Firefox is a very customizable browser, and with the right extensions cleverly applied, you can minimize its UI. But as John Holdun notes, often overlooked in this regard is the fact that Safari is very capable of being pared down to almost nothing, and you don't need any add-ons to do it.
In fact, if you're comfortable with keyboard shortcuts, all you need to do is learn a few key ones and you'll be able to minimize Safari to a Title bar and tab bar. One warning - I've only tried this using Safari 4.0 on a Mac; I don't have easy access to Safari running on Windows, but I imagine that there are equivalents for the keyboard shortcuts I'm about to discuss.
Firstly, let's get rid of the Toolbar -- that is, the bar with the back and forward buttons, address bar, and search field. To hide the toolbar, click View > Hide Toolbar from the menu, or simply press the Command-| shortcut key. Don't worry, if you need to enter a web address quickly, you can either show it again using the same shortcut key combination, or better yet press Command-l to have the cursor automatically placed in the address bar. Type something and press enter, or tab to the search field and type something and press enter, and your page will open, and the Toolbar will immediately hide again. Slick.
The other desktop real-estate offender is the status bar at the bottom. Hiding it is just as easy - the shortcut key combination is Command-/. Like John, I tend to like to use the status bar to snoop on the destination address of links by hovering over them. This takes an extra step now, but the extra room gained by not constantly showing the status bar is worth the occasional inconvenience for me.
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The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
skurvvy said 12:51PM on 9-24-2009
command -l doesnt work for hiding the address bar for me. I can hide it in "view" and unhide it with command -l . Anyone have any ideas why it only works one way for me? (safari 4.0.3; leopard)
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licmycow said 12:00AM on 10-31-2009
Its not the "L" key for hiding the menu bar, but the "|" key, which is "shift"+"\" (typically above the return key on a mac keyboard layout)
RogueJedi86 said 1:49PM on 9-24-2009
What about commands for Windows users of Safari?
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knarfytrebil said 7:07PM on 9-24-2009
all you need is the 4.0 Beta UI
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