We’ve mentioned previously how convenient the new custom dashboard widget creation feature in Safari is but have a few additional tips on ways that you can get more out of using the browser.

One Click - Tabbed Browsing

One of the greatest things about Safari is how easy it is to open multiple tabs of websites you’re interested in visiting. I personally will open links from articles I’m reading in new tabs so that I’m not pulled away from the article until I finished reading it. After finishing, I then can click through the open tabs and review the links that the article references.

Safari makes this quick and easy. With a mighty mouse, or any mouse with a scroll wheel button, you can open links in new tabs by clicking them with the center scroll wheel. This can also be accomplished by cmd+click any link. A new tab will open and load the link but the focus of the browser stays on the article you’re currently reading.

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS - OPEN BOOKMARKS

Safari also provides a great and easy way to open your bookmarks. To open the any of the bookmarks on your bookmark bar press cmd+ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. Command+1 will open the bookmark furthest to the left and so on moving along the number lines.

If you want to open these in new tabs, be sure to press cmd+t to open a new tab and then cmd+1 to open the first bookmark in the new tab.

Be sure to check back for more hints and tips in Safari Hints and Tips Part 2

KEYBOARD SHORTCUT SUMMARY:

• command+click = Open link in new tab
• command+t and command +1 = Open Bookmark 1 in New Tab
  
• command+1 = bookmark 1
• command+2 = bookmark 2
• command+3 = bookmark 3
• command+4 = bookmark 4
  
• command+5 = bookmark 5
  
• command+6 = bookmark 6
  
• command+7 = bookmark 7
  
• command+8 = bookmark 8
  
• command+9 = bookmark 9
• command+0 = bookmark 10

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A few days ago my brother-in-law asked me if there was a keyboard shortcut for fast user switching. He and his wife share their iMac and he wondered if there is a way to do it without the extra mouse clicks. Being ever the optimist, I told him I was sure there was and I would look into it.

If that was all there was to it, it wouldn’t be worth blogging about. Turns out, there isn’t a built in keyboard shortcut for Fast User Switching (FUS). Keyboard shortcuts are generally available for accessing menu items of the current window. In addition, there are keyboard shortcuts for Spotlight, Exposé, Dashboard, and other Operating System-ish commands. Although I think there could be room in the OS shortcuts for FUS, it’s not and that’s not as much fun. A little Google-ing brought me to a macoshints.com article where they wrote a little applescript app to do FUS from the Terminal application. Now my brother-in-law is an OK Mac user, but asking him to open Terminal and type in commands would be a big step backwards (not to mention take longer). So I borrowed the code from macosxhints.com site and produced my own User Switcher app.

The app is pretty simple, it opens a small window and prompts you to type in the account name you want to switch to. If you type in a recognized account name, then the login window appears, you type in the password and presto, you’re FUS’d. If the account can’t be found, the app quits. So instead of a keyboard shortcut for FUS, all you need is a keyboard shortcut for the User Switcher app.

Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut for launching applications, at least not one for that specific purpose. But Apple does have Spotlight, which is a generic keyboard shortcut that can launch any application. All you have to do is drop the User Switcher app into your Applications (or Documents) folder and Spotlight will do the rest. Once Spotlight “learns” where it is, FUS can be as easy as cmd + space + u. Enjoy (User Switcher is provided as is; enjoy at your own risk). User Switcher.app

Thanks to the follows over at lifehacker.com for pointing out how simple it is to customize your own keyboard shortcuts for the various applications you work with in Mac OS X.

1. Navigate to System Preferences for Keyboard and Mouse

2. Select the Keyboard shortcuts tab

3. Click the (+) and then add the application, the menu bar item, and then assign the keyboard shortcut you’d like to apply to that command.

Its that simple! You can head over to lifehacker.com to view additional comments on the process of creating a keyboard shortcut for any menu action in any program.