warning before quit

Adam,

In order to prevent multiple windows/tabs from being closed when ( + Q) is depressed, I changed the Safari keyboard command in System Preferences...>Keyboard & Mouse>Keyboard Shortcuts>Application Keyboard Shortcuts>Safari Quit to (Control +  + Q)

;~)

Today I decided i would have to quit using Safari because of pressing cmd+Q and forgetting yet again that I had other important tabs open. Drat!! I appreciate your tip but I cannot get it to work! In my Keyboard shortcuts there is no option for Safari of any kind. I tried adding it with the little plus sign but don't see how to choose what action the shortcut has upon the program i.e. to quit it. Am I missing something?
Thanks, LJ

In my Keyboard shortcuts there is no option for Safari of any kind. I tried adding it with the little plus sign but don't see how to choose what action the shortcut has upon the program i.e. to quit it. Am I missing something?

First use the "plus" button and choose Safari in the Application dropdown menu, as you thought. Then type in the "Menu Title" that you want the new keyboard shortcut to control. In this case, that's "Quit Safari". (You can check that by going to Safari, clicking on the Safari menu in the menubar, and checking how the "quit" command is worded.)

Click in the Keyboard Shortcut field and type the key combination that you want to use for the Quit Safari command.

Works like a dream! My problem is that I regularly use the Command-W command to close a single tab, and if I slip I can easily hit Command-Q and lose everything I'm doing in Safari. I never thought of changing the Quit Safari keyboard shortcut. Thanks, Ferd. 🙂

Hi Adam

As an alternative to the useful keyboard commands, 3rd party SAFT also offers this safety feature, and many other useful Safari features too. Additionally, if Safari unexpectedly quits, the next time you open Safari, a prompt panel appears prior to opening the browser window, listing the various tabs opened at the time of the crash. There, you can select which tabs to open, or not open. before going on to the browser window.

I must be really dumb. I already did what you say, did it again now and there is no action to choose to be executed upon pressing my new key combo. so I closed down prefs and tried it anyway and nothing happens (except the error beep.) I mean, the shortcut I choose must somehow be assigned to an action.... At the bottom of Safari's menu it says cmd+Q for Quit SAfari like it always did.

I will stand in the corner with a D hat on when the DOS for dummies version puts me right 😟

LJ

I will stand in the corner with a D hat on...

No need. 😉 This is a little confusing, I agree.

...and there is no action to choose to be executed upon pressing my new key combo.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean by this, but let's go back to the beginning.

1) Open System Preferences, click on the Keyboard and Mouse icon, and click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.

2) Scroll down to the bottom of the list and click on the disclosure arrow next to Application Keyboard Shortcuts to show what that section contains.

3) Click on the disclosure arrow next to All Applications. Is there a Safari item under it? If there is, it should look like this:

If you didn't actually add a keyboard shortcut for Safari, the Safari item won't be there, of course. And if you didn't get the key combination entered, you won't see it as it's entered in the screenshot.

If there is no Safari entry there at all, click the "plus" button again. This is what it should look like after you fill out the fields for this keyboard shortcut:

Note that you have to click right in the field next to "Keyboard Shortcut" and press the keys that you want, as you would press them when entering that to quit. In other words, if you want to use Command-Control-Q, click in that text-entry box and then hold down all three keys at once.

If there is a Safari entry there, but the entry in the Shortcut column doesn't look like my first screenshot or the keyboard shortcut is missing in that column because it didn't get entered, you can just click once right in that section (the spot under the Shortcut column) to edit the key combination. Click the spot circled in the screenshot below, and it will highlight a text-entry box there, and then enter the key combination you want.

My keyboard shortcut is just as you have shown me. Except that it says Safari.app which hardly matters. But it does nothing. But how could it? We have chosen the executable safari.app, asociated it with a mere label saying "quit safari," and typed in a keyboard shortcut. How is tiger meant to know whether to hide the program or minimize the window or whatever? It is all very simple but lacks this essential element of telling safari what to do when the keyboard shortcut is pressed. But if I can create a keyboard short cut in any program to do just what I want it would be wonderful. But only Harry Potter with his wand could make it work without instructions! There exists somewhere a recorded command to close every program with cmd Q and I should be accessing this and changing the key sequence. Dut then, wouldn't that change the sequence for closing all programs? I better go back to Windows! Thanks for your patience. LJ

But it does nothing. But how could it? We have chosen the executable safari.app, asociated it with a mere label saying "quit safari," and typed in a keyboard shortcut. How is tiger meant to know whether to hide the program or minimize the window or whatever?

Did you type it just that way: " quit safari" with no capitals? If so, that's the problem. I just tried it that way, and it doesn't work. The label is not any arbitrary label you want - it needs to exactly match the command as seen in Safari's menu, which should be " Quit Safari" with capitals.

One other note, something I hadn't realized until now: You need to quit Safari before the change takes effect. (I apparently did that for one reason or another without remembering that I did.)

Go to Safari and click on the Safari menu in the menubar. Look at the "Quit Safari" item in the menu. Note how it's typed, capitalization and all, and type it exactly the same way in the Keyboard Shortcuts preferences. This is why the Keyboard Shortcuts preferences pane specifically calls the item "Menu Title" and also notes "Enter the exact name of the menu command you want to add." This is how Tiger identifies the item and knows what you're referring to.

Your objections aside, this does work, and Tiger does understand it. 😉 It does so by being very specific: You enter in Keyboard Shortcuts that you want Safari's "Quit Safari" command to use a different shortcut, and Tiger will take care of the details, only doing so for this app and this command.

Rachel,

I got that sorted in my own 'try everything possilble' attempts after your second last post. I noticed that it states. "exact name" and indeed there was a missing capital but only after re-booting did it appear changed on Safari's menu. I didn't think of merely re-starting Safari.

Now that is very clever indeed, that without a complicate MS Windows-type dialog, merely typing the exact title of the respective command invokes it. I didn;t know Tiger was that smart! I mean, way too smart for me 🙂 Thank you

;~)

Rachel,

Glad to help.

Thanks for expanding my cryptic instructions for the benefit of LJ.

;~)