Safari 7.1

[Stephen Hart]

If you signed up for the Yosemite consume beta test, apparently you got the first installment today, Safari 7.1 beta.
I see nothing changed, but I guess there's stuff under the hood.

Safari 7.1 just loaded for me automatically.

[Stephen Hart]

Here's a glitch:

I just got a Safari 7.0.5 update. You'd think there'd be a way for the App Store to say that your current version is later, and set the update aside.

[brianyoung]

I upgraded to Yosemite, like probably most mac users. I am not very "techy," and I can only see that the appearance of the desktop has changed slightly. One thing that does bother me, which there might be a fix for, is the appearance of the little icons in Safari. For example, under the Favorites column on the left side of the screen in Safari, each URL that can be clicked on, used to have a colorful and distinct icon beside it. These were very easy to recognize, and it was generally not even necessary to read the text.
Now, all of the distinct lille icons have been changed to one little icon, the little open book. This makes searching through the various folders much slower.
Is there any way to restore this so that distinct icons again appear, as they used to do?
Brian

[Stephen Hart]

I didn't use the sidebar in previous versions of Safari much, so I didn't notice this. What's missing are the "favicons" that you see on the left end of a full URL in the location field. (You may have to click in the field to see the full URL.)

You're not alone in wishing to get the favicon back in the sidebar. I recommend posting official feedback to Apple here:
https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html

By the way, if you've updated to Yosemite, you should have Safari 8.

[Jay Cline]

Apple redesigned Safari 8 and stopped using "Favicons" (bookmark favorite Icons) in the sidebar to give Yosemite a similar look to the "flat/colorless/iOS 8". Until Apple changes its mind again about design over usability your option is to use another web browser such as Chrome or Firefox.

[Richard Serkes]

if you use the drop down folders in the Favorites Bar you still have the favicons. I prefer the drop down folders to the sidebar because the sidebar uses a lot of screen space whereas the drop down folders fold back up after you've made a selection.

[Stephen Hart]

Apple redesigned Safari 8 and stopped using "Favicons" (bookmark favorite Icons) to give Yosemite a similar look to the "flat/colorless/iOS 8". Until Apple changes its mind again about design over usability your option is to use another web browser such as Chrome or Firefox.

In Mavericks, Safari highlights the domain name you're on so that part of the full URL is emphasized.
In Yosemite, by default only the domain name is shown in the location field.
Both are safety features. If you accidentally click on a link to a bogus site with a very long URL, you may not notice that you're at a .ru website when you meant to be at a .com web site. It's common for bogus URLs to include words that you'd expect to see in the domain name. When the domain is all you see, it's much easier to know where you really are.

In Yosemite Safari (8), you can click in the smart search field to see the full URL. This also reveals the favicon, which you can drag anywhere to make a webloc file containing the full URL. The favicon is just a tiny image anyone can place in a web site.
If you want to always see the full URL, set that as a preference: Safari > Preferences > Advanced > Show full website address.

[brianyoung]

Thanks for all the help. Thanks Richard for the tip about using the drop down folders. That never occurred to me. And yes, the "Favicons" do appear there. It still does not make sense to me that this has changed. But I will try using the drop downs.
Brian