Browsing

Address bar

Press ⌘L (or click the address bar), type, and press Enter. Esc puts the current address back and returns to the page.

What you type is read like this:

When a page can't be opened at all (no site by that name, no internet, a certificate that isn't valid), the tab says so, with Try Again and Search for the site. The address stays, so you can correct it. If you bookmarked or highlighted the page, there's also Read Saved Copy; see Reader mode.

The default search engine is DuckDuckGo. You can choose Google, Kagi or Bing in settings.

The address bar supports the usual text editing: ⌘A, ⌘C, ⌘V, ⌘X, ←/→, ⇧←/⇧→, ⌘←/⌘→ (start and end), and input methods for accented and non-Latin text.

Back, forward and reload

• Back ⌘[ and forward ⌘], or ‹ › in the toolbar. You can also swipe with two fingers.
• Reload ⌘R, or ↻.

A thin blue bar under the toolbar shows loading progress.

History

Every page you visit is saved in your history on this Mac. Reloads and restored tabs don't count as new visits.

Open it with ⌘Y (History → Show All History).

• Search as you type. Every word must appear in the title or the address.
• Results are grouped by site, with the most recent site first.
• Click an entry to open it in the current tab, or ⌘-click to open it in a new tab. Enter opens the first result.
• Hover an entry and click × to delete it. Clear History deletes it all.

The command palette also searches your history.

Find in page

Press ⌘F. A find bar appears under the toolbar.

• Matches are found as you type.
• Enter or ⌘G goes to the next match. ⇧Enter or ⇧⌘G goes back.
• "No matches" appears when there are none.
• Esc or Done closes the bar.

Search is case-insensitive and wraps around the page.

Zoom

⌘+ zooms in, ⌘− zooms out and ⌘0 returns to actual size. Litr remembers the zoom for each site (host), so a site you zoomed opens that way again in any tab, including after a tab is unloaded or restored; see Settings for a site. The steps are 50%, 67%, 75%, 80%, 90%, 100%, 110%, 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%, 250% and 300%.

Uploading files

When a page asks for a file (a photo for a post, an attachment, a document to sign), the Open panel slides down over the window. Pick one file, or several when the page takes more; Cancel leaves the page as it was. You can also drag files from Finder onto the page.

Links for other apps

Some links aren't web pages: a phone number (tel:), an e-mail address (mailto:), a text message (sms:), a FaceTime call, a Zoom or Teams meeting. Click one and Litr hands it to the app macOS uses for it: Phone (which can call through your iPhone), Mail, Messages, Zoom. The page stays where it was.

Litr only does this when you click. A page can't open an app by itself. When no app on your Mac takes such links, Litr says so.

JSON

A page that is JSON, such as an API response or a .json file, is shown as a tree with colours:

• Click ▸ or ▾ to fold and unfold an object or array. Its size shows next to it ("3 keys", "120 items"). Deeper levels start folded.
• Raw shows the text exactly as it came, to select and copy. Formatted goes back.
• Expand All and Collapse All open or fold everything.

Files over 5 MB stay as text. The view works on sites with a strict Content-Security-Policy too, such as GitHub's API.

Downloads

Files the browser can't show, and links marked as downloads, are saved to ~/Downloads. If a file with that name exists, Litr adds a number: report (2).pdf.

Downloads appear at the bottom of the sidebar:

• A bar shows progress while a file downloads.
• Click a finished download to show it in Finder.
• Hover and click × to cancel a download, or to remove a finished one from the list. The file stays on disk.

Downloaded files carry macOS's quarantine flag, so Gatekeeper checks downloaded apps before they first open.

Copy as Markdown

Select part of a page and press ⇧⌘C (Edit → Copy as Markdown) to copy it as Markdown, for an issue, a note or a prompt: headings, bold and italics, links (as full addresses), lists, code and code blocks, quotes, tables and images.

Copy text from an image or video

Code on a slide in a recorded talk, a screenshot in an issue, a diagram's labels: point at it and press ⌥⇧⌘C (Edit → Copy Text from Image or Video, or the command palette). Litr reads the text and copies it.

• It reads the image or video under the pointer, even under a video's controls. With the pointer elsewhere, it reads the largest video on screen, or else the part of the page you see.
• A paused video gives the cleanest text.
• Code keeps its line breaks and indentation. Lines with a lone bracket (}) are often missed, and some characters can be misread, so check what you paste.
• It runs on your Mac with macOS's text recognition; nothing is sent anywhere. The first time can take half a minute while macOS prepares it; after that it's a fraction of a second.
• Protected videos (Netflix and the like) show as black to Litr, so there's no text to read.

Copy, paste and editing on pages

The Edit menu (⌘C, ⌘V, ⌘X, ⌘A, ⌘Z, ⇧⌘Z) works in pages and in Litr's own text fields.