John Gruber linked to an article about the text-rendering:optimizeLegibility CSS property today and as he said, news to me. I’ve built a quick Safari extension to enable it by default in Safari (Firefox already does this). So, without further ado:

Optimize Legibility is a simple Safari extension that injects a single CSS attribute (text-rendering:optimizeLegibility) into every page. This will improve kerning and ligatures in text.

Download it or view the (trivial) source at Github.

Update: 1.0.2 adds an icon and reverts the CSS to matching body rather than wildcard. Should improve performance (although it won’t be noticeably faster on any modern machine).

New Features:

• WP 3.0 compatibility¹
• Changed method of storing info about sideloaded files to be far more robust.
• Use directory structure on Cloud Files (uses just one container now)
• Now CDNifies post thumbnails as well (WP 2.9+ feature)
• Fix for blogs using SSL
• Caches credentials for more rapid initial loads/multiple media attach uploads.
• You can now define constants in wp-config for plugin configuration. This allows to configure settings that will be active on all end-user sites without allowing them to see/edit the config. If you define constants the CDN Tools admin page will not register a configuration page.

Head over to my CDN Tools page to learn more or go to wordpress.org to download it now.

I’ve gotten a great deal of requests to localize my Safari extensions into various languages. Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t released any documentation on whether or not the Info.plist data can be localized.

In normal Mac OS X applications you can define key/value pairs using a Language.lproj directory with an InfoPlist.strings file. OS X then automatically uses the translated strings based on the primary language. As this seemed a likely candidate for i18n support, I’ve been experimenting with this for the past day or two…without success. So now I’m pleading with you, the internet! Is there a way to do i18n in extensions? Or will we need to wait for Safari 5.x to add this (critical) feature?

Updraft is a backup and restore plugin for WordPress. It can do scheduled or one time backups of your plugins, themes, uploads, and DB itself. These backups can be kept locally, emailed, sent to an FTP server, uploaded to Rackspace Cloud Files, or transferred to Amazon S3.¹

Additionally, you can pick the number of backups to retain and restore from a backup of your choice either by using a local backup, uploading copies yourself, or pulling them down from your cloud service.²

Visit the Updraft homepage to learn more, see a screencast, and give feedback on bugs or features you’d like to see. I look forward to hearing from you!

Easy Fix

Download a pre-patched GrowlMail.bundle and drop it in your ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/ directory¹. If you want it available to multiple users on your system, use /Library/Mail/Bundles/.

Download patched bundle

If you use this method you’re all set; no need to use the command line solution below.

Add New UUIDs to SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs

If you have already had your plugins disabled by opening Mail.app you’ll need to look in ~/Library/Mail (or /Library/Mail if you installed globally) and move the files back to the active bundles directory. They’ll typically be in Bundles (Disabled), so quit Mail, find them, and move them back into the proper directory.

If you have a local installation:

defaults write ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "E71BD599-351A-42C5-9B63-EA5C47F7CE8E"
defaults write ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "B842F7D0-4D81-4DDF-A672-129CA5B32D57"

Global installation:

defaults write /Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "E71BD599-351A-42C5-9B63-EA5C47F7CE8E"
defaults write /Library/Mail/Bundles/GrowlMail.mailbundle/Contents/Info SupportedPluginCompatibilityUUIDs -array-add "B842F7D0-4D81-4DDF-A672-129CA5B32D57"

Tab Duplicator adds a contextual menu item as well as a toolbar icon¹ that will duplicate your active tab. By default it creates a new tab in the background, but it can be configured to make them foreground as well. You can also select tab positioning (first, last, before active tab, after active tab).

To install:

• Download the signed extension and double click to install²
• Right click and choose “Duplicate Tab”.

You can view the source on GitHub as well! If you have suggestions for improvements let me know! Bug reports should be directed to the issues page.

Changes in 1.2

• Added toolbar icon in addition to contextual menu. If you don’t want it you can hold command and click and drag it off to remove.
• You can now choose where to position your duplicated tabs. Choices are after current tab (default), before current tab, beginning, or end.
• Optimized code. No more injected script.
• Validation of events (disables button/contextual menu item if no URL is loaded)

Thanks to Brian Kim for the icon!

People keep asking me how to install extensions in Safari 5, so here’s a quick visual primer.

Open Safari’s preferences, click the advanced tab at the top, and check “Show Develop menu in menu bar”.

Now click the Develop menu in the menu bar and select “Enable Extensions”.

Extensions are now enabled! Double click your extension to add it, and then you can control them in the Safari prefs under the Extensions tab.

View All My Safari Extensions

Google Lightboxer¹ is a Safari 5 extension that creates a Lightbox² slideshow on Google Images. Click any image and a slideshow will appear loading the full resolution images. If you don’t want to have the lightbox appear, hold command and it will be disabled temporarily.

To install:

• Download the signed extension and double click to install³
• Load Google Images and do a search.

Latest Release – v1.3

• Pulls the Google Images metadata into the colorbox so you can see it while you’re browsing more easily.

Known issues:

• Some JS errors in console. Will be resolved in future release, but they are cosmetic only.

You can view the source on GitHub as well! If you have suggestions for improvements let me know! Bug reports should be directed to the issues page.

On the Ars Technica forums someone mentioned that they’d like to be able to switch between tabs using command + numbers to choose tabs. I took a look at the Safari extension system, and while you can’t override the shortcuts bound to cmd 1-9¹ due to security restrictions, control is available. An hour or so later and ctrlSwitcher was born.

To use:

• Download the signed extension and double click to install²
• Pick if you want to use ctrl, opt, or ctrl+opt as your meta keys (default ctrl) in the prefs
• Either close all tabs or restart your browser. ctrlSwitcher has to load a small script in each loaded tab (empty tabs cannot be switched to/from due to limitations on extensions)

v1.4:

• ctrlSwitcher now allows you to switch tabs 10 through 19. Zero is for tab 10 and Q through P (on a QWERTY layout) is 11-19.³ Thanks to Zaudragon for the patch!

You can view the source on GitHub as well! If you have suggestions for improvements let me know! Bug reports should be directed to the issues page.