View Source Code in Safari

Showing source code in Safari is easy:

Advantages of Viewing Source Code

Viewing the source to see how a web designer achieved a layout will help you learn and improve your work. Over the years, many web designers and developers have learned quite a lot of HTML by merely viewing the source of web pages they see. It’s an excellent way for beginners to learn HTML and for seasoned web professionals to see how others used new techniques. Remember that source files can be very complicated. Along with the HTML markup for a page, there will probably be significant CSS and script files used to create that site’s look and functionality, so don’t get frustrated if you can’t figure out what’s going on immediately. Viewing the HTML source is just the first step. After that, you can use tools like Chris Pederick’s Web Developer extension to look at the CSS and scripts as well as inspect specific elements of the HTML.

While copying a site’s code wholesale and passing it off as your own on a website is certainly not acceptable, using that code as a springboard to learn from is actually how many people make advancements in this industry. You would be hard-pressed to find a working web professional today who has not discovered something by viewing a site’s source! Web professionals learn from each other and often improve upon the work that they see and are inspired by, so don’t hesitate to view a site’s source code and use it as a learning tool.