Safari Makeover > Alter the Browser.nib
by Scott Chitwood, 5th January 2006


Ready to have a little fun and get away from Safari's brushed metal interface at the same time? All you need is a little time and some messing around in Interface Builder to get it done. We'll take a look at some easy mods to the Browser.nib which can in turn, be applied to Safari's other .nib files.



This mod was created and tested on Safari 2.0.2 under Mac OS X 10.4.3 with Interface Builder 2.5.3. Our standard credo applies... "If you're going to hack it up, back it up." Enough said.

Using the Go to folder... command in the Finder's Go menu, navigate to the directory noted below.

/Applications/Safari/Contents/Resources/

Then open the language project folder (.lproj) for your install. In our mod we'll open the Browser.nib located in the English.lproj directory. Once the .nib is open in Interface Builder open the Inspector from the Tools menu and set to the Attributes pane.

Deselect the Has Texture option and enable the Unified title/toolbar look option.



The content area of the Browser.nib can also be modded. The default is Tabless with the Style pictured on the left. Choosing the option on the right creates a recessed well with radius corners which makes for a nice little border effect. Resize the well using its drag points to make the border fit your preference.



Choosing the Has Tabs option creates Aqua jellybean tabs that look at home on both the unified and brushed metal windows. Jellybeans can be configured in three sizes; Mini, Small and Regular. Small seems to be the best option, Regular (as shown below) is a bit overpowering when compared to other elements.



If you decide to use jelly beans tabs you'll need to disable the default tabs (TabBarView) by choosing selecting Hidden in the Attributes pane of the Inspector. Deleting TabBarView from the nib will break Safari.



A couple of caveats on using jellybean tabs; the close button won't be available and tabs can get really long depending on the name of the loaded page. Otherwise, they work very well and a quick Command-W will close the tabs fast enough.

If Safari's default toolbar icons don't look quite right a new group can be crafted from standard icons or you might find a compatible set in our Safari Stuff section. I used Adrian Anhorn's SafariWeb to complete my makeover. Here's a full screenshot of the final results. For those who'd like a copy, feel free to download my modified Browser.nib and unified Downloads.nib.