Firefox Tips

Contents

• Tabbed Browsing
  • Get ultimate control over tabs
  • Enable scrolling between tabs with mouse wheel
  • Make new tabs open next to current one
  • Add new tab button to tab bar and have more control over tabs
  • Easily re-open closed tabs
  • Make the tab bar show up with only one tab open
  • Duplicate Tabs
• My Favorite Greasemonkey UserScripts
• Add New Features to Firefox
  • Install Spell Checker for Firefox
  • Add ability to resize textareas
• Website Display
  • Improve readability of Fonts on Linux in Firefox 2
  • Disable IntelliTXT Ads
• Webmaster Tools
  • Web Developer
  • View Source Chart and Html Validator
  • Live HTTP Headers
  • Edit Blogger Comments
• My Favorite Firefox Extensions
• Firefox Tips
• Accessibility
• Cool Firefox Features
• Website Display
  • Disable Flash with Flashblock
  • Force a form to remember passwords
  • Open URL in sidebar
• Get rid of the Gnome File Chooser in Firefox
  • Reopen an accidentally closed tab - No extensions needed!

Tabbed Browsing

My Favorite Firefox Extensions

My Favorite Firefox Extensions (outdated)

Tabbed Browsing

• miniT

  miniT - This extension includes the following features:
  • Tabs can be switched by scrolling the mouse wheel over the tab bar.
  • Tabs can be re-ordered by drag and drop.

  This extension is really helpful if you switch between tabs a lot. It makes having multiple tabs open much easier to manage.

• Tab Browser Preferences

  Tabbrowser Preferences - Tabbrowser Preferences gives you more control over how tabs are handled. For example I have used it make searches from the search bar open in a new tab. One of the most important things it does - in my opinion - is add a new tab button on the tab bar like Mozilla has. It is definitely an extension you should try out.

• Undo Close Tab

  undoclosetab - Do you ever accidentally close a tab? If so then here's an extension that you're sure to like. Just click "Undo Close Tab" on the right-click menu and the last tab that you closed is restored.

• Submit To Tab

  SubmitToTab - I have wanted the ability to submit a form to a new tab for a long time now. I've finally found an extension that allows me to do just that.

• Duplicate Tab

  Duplicate Tab - This nifty extension allows you to easily load up a new tab with the same page you are on. You can configure it to show "Duplicate Tab" on the tab context menu, page context menu, or both! You can also just press "Ctrl+Shift+T" on the keyboard. This extension is very useful when creating web pages and comparing two versions side by side after making a change.

• Unread Tabs

  Unread Tabs - This nifty little extension makes unread tabs italic which allows you to easily see which ones you have read and which ones you have not.

Images

• ImgLikeOpera

  ImgLikeOpera - ImgLikeOpera gives you complete control over the loading of images. You can configure it to load only images that have already been cached by the browser. It allows you to load any image by right-clicking on it and selecting "Load Image". You can also set filters to allow loading of all images on certain sites or pages. This extension is very helpful for those of us on slow dial-up connections.

• Show Image

  Show Image - This is a really nice extension which allows you to right click on an broken image and click "Show Image" and it will attempt to load the image. This is really helpful since I have dial-up and when an image does not load on a page with many images I don't have to reload the entire page anymore. I no longer use this extension, instead I'm using ImgLikeOpera.

• Image Show Hide

  Image-Show-Hide - This extension allows you to easily switch between surfing with images turned off and with images enabled. This is especially useful for dial-up users who have slow Internet connections. Using this extension to disable images is one way to speed up your web surfing. I no longer use this extension, instead I'm using ImgLikeOpera.

Webmaster Tools

• Live HTTP Headers

  LiveHTTPHeaders - LiveHTTPHeaders allows you to view the both the request and response HTTP headers of a web page.

• Web Developer

  Web Developer - The Web Developer extension adds a toolbar to Firefox which has many very useful tools for those who develop web sites. If you are a webmaster, I would highly recommend that you check out this extension.

• fireFTP

  fireFTP - A full-featured FTP client that runs in a tab of Firefox! FireFTP makes Firefox an even better tool for those of us who are webmasters.

• ColorZilla

  ColorZilla - This amazing extension adds a color picker to the bottom left of the status bar. It features the ability to pick any color off anything in the browser window. It even lets you zoom the page. This nifty extension makes getting the color code for any part of a web page a snap!

Page Loading

• Extended Status Bar

  Extended Statusbar - This is a very nice extension which gives you much more information when a page is loading. It makes your status bar very similar to the status bar on Opera.

• Reload Every

  Reload Every - Reload Every allows you to set a page to reload automatically at any interval. For example, you could set it to reload a every minute, five seconds, or fifteen minutes.

Page Display

• Nuke Anything

  Nuke Anything - This has got to be one of the coolest extensions! You can remove any object from any page! Just select what you want to remove and click "Remove selection" on the right-click menu. Nuke Anything is very useful for preparing pages to be printed. Note: I recommend that you use Nuke Anything 0.5 instead of Nuke Anything 0.2 because Nuke Anything 0.2 seems to have stopped working with recent versions of Firefox.

• Flash Block

  FlashBlock - Want to get rid of annoying flash ads, but still be able to view the flash movies that you want to see? If so, then FlashBlock is the extension for you! Install FlashBlock and all flash movies are replaced with an icon that you can click on if you want to see it. This extension is great for those of use with dial-up because flash files are sometimes quite large.

Bookmarks

• Open Book

  OpenBook - This small, simple extension saves you time when you bookmark a page. When you click "Bookmark This Page" the folder list is automatically expanded allowing you to easily categorize your new bookmark.

Navigation

• Plain Text Links

  Plain Text Links - This extension saves time by eliminating the need to copy and paste a plain text link into the address bar and hit enter. Instead you can just select the plain text URL and click "Open selected url in new tab" or "Open selected url" from the right-click menu.

• Link Toolbar

  Link Toolbar - The Link Toolbar extension adds small site navigation buttons to the status bar. This allows you to easily to up one level or go the the home page of a website. It also shows Previous and Next link buttons if the webpage has supplied them through link tags or if it is able to figure them out by scanning the page for words like "back" or "forward".

• Document Map

  Document Map - The Document Map extension adds a sidebar which will display a page structure navigation menu based on the page's heading tags. I was going to try to add a page content menu to the top of each of the pages on this site, but with this extension I no longer see the need. This extension is very nice!

User Interface

• Cute Menus

  CuteMenus - CuteMenus adds icons to most of Firefox's menus which makes them easier to use. The menus look much nicer with CuteMenus installed.

Firefox Tips

Multimedia

• Enable MMS Protocol Support in Firefox

  Follow the instructions in the MMS Protocal Support in Firefox 1.0 :+) thread in the mozillaZine forums.

Tabbed Browsing

• Close tab on middle click

  Ever wish that you could close tabs just by middle clicking on them? Well you can!

  Here's how:

  1. Type "about:config" in the Location Bar.
  2. Set "middlemouse.contentLoadURL" to "false" by double clicking on it.

  That's all! Now you can easily close tabs using the middle mouse button.

• Make the tab bar show up with only one tab open

  I like having the tab bar visible at all times, even when only one tab is open.

  To make the tab bar visible when only tab bar is open:

  1. Go to the preferences by clicking "Edit" -> "Preferences.
  2. Click on "Advanced".
  3. Uncheck "Hide the tab bar when only one web site is open".

  After you do that, you will have to open and close a tab or restart Firefox to make the tab bar be open with only one tab.

• Make new tabs open next to current one

  It's annoying when you open a new tab in the background and it opens on the far right of the tab you are currently one. But I've found a solution!

  Here's how to fix it:

  1. Install the MiniT extension.
  2. Type "about:config" in the Location Bar.
  3. Set "minit.open_tabs_relative" to "true" by double clicking on it.

  Now tabs will open relative to the current tab, a much nicer behavior.

Accessibility

• Set the minimum font size

  Do you find that most websites seem to use fonts that are too small? If so then you need to set the minimum font size.

  Here's how:

  1. Go to the preferences by clicking "Edit" -> "Preferences.
  2. Click the "Fonts & Colors..." button.
  3. Change the "Minimun font size" to something confortable. I find size 15 to be just about right for me.

  Now you can surf without straining your eyes to read small fonts!

• Wrapping page bookmarklet

  Wrapping Page Bookmark - Have you ever come across a page - especially on a forum - where you have to scroll horizontally? Normally this happens because someone posts a long URL or line of code. A nice workaround has been created in the form of a bookmarklet. This Javascript bookmark will wrap the long lines in a page so that you won't have to scroll from side to side.

• Tab through only form elements

  By default, Firefox will cycle focus through both links and form elements when pressing the Tab button. I find it much more useful to have it only move focus between form elements.

  Here's how set the change the Tab focus:

  1. Type "about:config" in the Location Bar.
  2. Set "accessibility.tabfocus" to "3" by double clicking on it and typing "3" in the blank.

  Now pressing the Tab button will only tab through form elements.

Downloads

• Choose where to save downloads

  Instead of having all downloads saved to the desktop, choose where to save downloads.

  Here's how:

  1. Go to the preferences by clicking "Edit" -> "Preferences.
  2. Click "Downloads".
  3. Select "Ask me where to save every file".

  Now your desktop will be less cluttered and you can organize your downloads by choosing where to save every file.

Navigation

• Scroll using autoscrolling

  Scrolling long pages is much easier using autoscrolling. If you haven't tried it I encourage you to do so.

  To enable autoscrolling:

  1. Go to the preferences by clicking "Edit" -> "Preferences.
  2. Click on "Advanced".
  3. Check "Use autoscrolling".

  Now you can just middle click anywhere on the page and move your mouse in the direction that you want the page to scroll. The farther you move your mouse, the faster the page will autoscroll.

• Easily switch between tabs using the keyboard

  I just learned two very useful shortcuts for Firefox:

  • Press "Ctrl+Page Down" to switch to the next tab on the right.
  • Press "Ctrl+Page Up" to switch to the tab to the left of your current tab.

Cool Firefox Features

Bookmarks

• Live Bookmarks

  Live Bookmarks - Live Bookmarks are amazingly cool. You can get the latest updates from any RSS enables site without even going to it! The headlines just automatically appear in a folder of your bookmakrs!

Website Display

• GMailSecure - force GMail to use secure connection - Added: 2007-04-22 14:41:58
  http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/1404

• The reason that Route Lines Don't Print on Google Maps: Bug 282434 – fails to correctly print route maps in Google Maps beta - Added: 2007-05-10 16:20:17
  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=282434

Get rid of the Gnome File Chooser in Firefox

1. Type about:config in the location bar.
2. Set "ui.allow_platform_file_picker" to "false".
3. Enjoy not using the Gnome File Chooser.

Comments

Pages

• Firefox Tips
  A list of Firefox tips and useful extensions that can be installed to make Firefox easier to use and have more features.
  • My Favorite Firefox Extensions
    A list of the Firefox Extensions that I really like.
  • Firefox Tips
    
  • Cool Firefox Features
    Some Firefox features that I think are really cool.

Last Modified: July 1, 2008 09:58 PM

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