Apple recently released Safari 3 Beta for Windows and the Mac. For most of us Mac users the interface and functionality is largely the same as it was in Safari 2, one major point notwithstanding: Rich Text Editor Support.

What this means for the throngs of Mac loyalists who have long-since drudged having to leave their favorite browser simply to write a post on their blog or reply to an email from gmail, is that they may now emphatically chose not to do so. :)

Written below are four easy steps to get RTE functionality built into sites where it’s not already there.

STEP 1:  Download and install Safari Stand. 

STEP 2:  From the new “Stand” menu in your menubar, select Safari Stand Settings:

STEP 3:  Within Safari Stand Settings select “Include Debug Menu”

STEP 4:  Relaunch Safari. From the new debug menu select “User Agent” and then “Firefox 2.0.0.2″

The page will reload and if you’re on a page with a rich text editor then you should get those shiny icons you’re so familiar with from FireFox.

So what works and what doesn’t? Well from my Wordpress blog I was unable to hyperlink a bit of text without going to the html editor. And although I was able to upload and send images to the editor without any difficulty, I didn’t get the usual anchors over the images to manipulate their size, and left/right alignment. I hear Matt, the developer of Wordpress, mentioned the next iteration would include a hook so you wouldn’t have to do the above spoof to get it to work. Perhaps some of these bugs will be ironed out with the update. 

But it’s rich text editing in Safari. Something me and a few Mac fans have been waiting on for a very long time. So I’m definitely not going to gripe about it being in its infancy right now :) 

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