14 DAY TRIAL // Safari is a pretty mean and lean browser, and many Mac users use it and like it over other browsers. While one of Safari's strong point is the fact that it is not bloated and cluttered with useless features, every once in a while you find yourself wishing for an extra few options, which admittedly not everyone wants or needs. This is where the beauty of plugins comes in. You can add that extra functionality to the browser through a third party piece of software. Concierge is a perfect example of such a plugin that enhances the capabilities of Safari.
What it does Concierge does several things. The first and most obvious is that it ads a new drawer and menu item to Safari, from which you can access all of its functions. In more practical terms, Concierge makes on Safari's built in history and bookmarks to present you the information in a much more structured manner. In addition to this, it also lets you keep information and relevant notes to the sites you visit inside the browser for immediate storage and retrieval. This might sound a little complicated, but it really isn't.
And the rest is History All browsers keep a history of the sites recently visited. In Safari, it is usually a long list of sites, presented in the order that you visited them, with several submenus for each day. While this does indeed provide you with the information itself, it is by no means the best way of structuring it. Concierge has a slightly different approach.
With Concierge, the history can be found under a special tab, and contains a list of all the domains you visited. Then, each domain contains folders for the different days, while these hold the actual history items. This system lets you cut down on the clutter and go directly to the domain you are looking for. For each item, you can see the title of the page, as well as a small pop up window with the address details, and, as well, the time and date in which the page was visited.
In case you remember something of the page title, you can find it quicker by typing in the search box at the top of the drawer. The search is very fast and will display the result almost instantly, regardless of their domain or date. This search function alone is worth it.
Many Bookmarks One of the most annoying things about Safari is how the bookmark editing window takes up the entire screen. When dealing with bookmarks, you have two options: either place them in the right place with the right name from the very beginning, or regularly spend time cleaning out your bookmarks when they get out of hand. The problem is that, if you want to place the bookmark in a new folder that does not yet exist, you cannot do so directly, having to go into bookmarks edit more to add it, and thus interrupting what you were doing. There is no middle way to add the bookmark, and then move it about and edit it as you go along, because the full screen view takes up all you attention.
With Concierge this problem is removed and you can access and edit your bookmarks directly from the bookmarks tab in the drawer, while still using the browser and getting on with what you were doing. And for those who are fans of drag and drop it gets even better. You can just drag and drop any link directly to the location of your choice, and then, if you change your mind, you can drag it around some more until it is in the right spot? No more cluttering of the Bookmarks Bar, because you cannot be bothered to order it when you add the Bookmark.
A Scratchpad by any other name The Scratchpad is perhaps the most useful and admittedly complex part of Concierge. It is a special place in which you can store information, much like the bookmarks folder, the only difference being that here you can store pretty much anything.
Links, e-mails, folders with subfolders and notes can all be placed here, even links to files. Furthermore, everything except notes can have annotations, which are basically notes that you add to links and such. This is the ideal place to store bits of information you come across but don't have time to look into, and because everything is right inside the browser, it is very easy to get back to these and take a closer look.
The Good A good improvement on both the bookmark and history handling in Safari, adding some much needed and lacking functionality. The scratchpad is great for taking down quick notes and storing bits of information without actually stopping what you are doing.
The Bad While the drawer can be resized to be made bigger, it cannot be resized to be made smaller. If you try, the drawer simply closes. This is annoying to say the least, because at times it will cut into much needed screen real estate, but opening and closing it all the time is also a pain.
The Truth If you need a little more from the Bookmarks and History in Safari, then definitely give this plugin a look. The Scratchpad is icing on the cake, but well worth the download on its own.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
