Posts Tagged ‘features’

Just like any other web browser, Safari for Windows also supports Auto-Fill options to assist the users in filling out web forms. Safari uses information from different sources to complete the forms. The personal information such as name, e-mail ID, address, contact etc. is picked from the Address Book card. The browser can also retrieve the username and passwords that are saved in the keychain and uses its cache to retrieve any other information.

You can configure the information that Safari can use to fill the web forms. Just go to the Edit in the menu bar and select preferences. A new window will pop out. Select the Auto Fill tab and there you will find three options that can be used to retrieve the information via address book card, keychain and cache while filling up the form. All of the options have an Edit button besides them which can be used to configure the information that the Safari uses for Auto-fill. The feature can be especially useful if you are online with something like the Apple iPod touch, and don’t feel like constantly retyping all your information with the cumbersome touch screen.

Using the Auto-fill is very simple. Just go to any web form and select the auto-fill form option under the Edit menu. Safari will fill all the information it matches with the saved information for the fields in the form. If no information is found then it will intimate about this in a new window. All the items that are filled by the auto-fill appear in yellow in the form. If Safari does not recognise the fields it leaves it blank and you have to fill it up manually.

Apart from a few unsubstantiated rumors about the recently “off-beta (ized)” function version of Safari V 3.1, there seems to be more euphoria about a host of snazzy functions Safari claims to have brought to the table. The bugs that have been reported were during the “beta’ time and it is still uncertain whether they have been rectified or not. However, there are reasons under the safari’s hood that might win every sane browser’s heart.

Apple’s Safari V3.1 does throw its weight around given that it is hefty 18.63 MB – almost like a sumo wrestler when compared to the “fire fox”. It has some intuitive properties like handling its own installation and can also use the plugins you’d have downloaded for fire fox obviating the need to have them downloaded all over again. It has to be admitted that the speed is indeed awesome and the page downloads happen like a breeze. Internet Explorer would be a joke compared to the speeds we are talking about here and it also leaves fire fox panting for breath.

Cool features like fluid-flow graphics instead the standard “download in progress” types found on the other browsers is indeed telling. I didn’t understand why the entire page has to dim out while simultaneously leaving the highlighted search keyword highlighted — I would have wanted to read the anchor text with which the keyword tags along. If I am searching for “Business Opportunities” I am not looking for this keyword per se, but everything else that might follow it or precede it. No comments on this search option on Safari, though!

Safari – a host of neat touches underneath the hood: Part 2