I've never previously had any problems with my site designs working in Safari. So, I was really stumped recently when a site I'm working on looked very wrong in Safari.

I'd got used to the power of Firebug and the web developer toolbar, and I was lost without them. Luckily it turns out there is a Safari equivalent, it's just not turned on as Standard.

The easy way to turn on the develop menu

My good friend David J pointed out a much easier way to do this, so here it is:

• Go to preferences
• Choose the Advanced tab
• Tick 'Show Develop menu in menu bar'

In case you like doing things the hard way, here is the way I was doing it before.

Another way to do it

To turn on the Develop menu in windows

Open the XML file:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari\Preferences.plist

Just add this line to it under the last <key> line:

<key>IncludeDebugMenu</key>

You'll need to restart Safari and you should now notice an Extra Develop menu item on the top menu bar.

To turn on the Develop menu on a Mac

Open a terminal window and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

You'll need to restart Safari and you should now notice an Extra Develop menu item on the top menu bar.

It's not quite as good as Firebug, but it was a life saver for me.