- Document Status
- Firefox Extension Recommendations
- Firefox Customization Recommendations
- How to Acquire and Install Firefox Extensions<
Document Status
Tab Clicking Options by Twanno
Double-clicking any blank area of Firefox's tab bar opens a new tab browser. But by default, double-clicking any existing tab has no effect. Tab Clicking Options let's you configure functionality for keyboard and mouse-click combinations related to Firefox's tabs. For example, you can configure it to close any open tab by double-clicking the tab label. Ctrl-double-click on any tab might duplicate the tab and its contents. Other options include resurrect a closed tab and view tab in IE. The program is easy to install and configure, stable, and well worth a couple of minutes to get it going. Best of all, it doesn't try to do too much. It would be nice if it would append its functions on the context menus for tabs and the tab bar.
Viamatic foXpose by Vivek Jishtu
Viamatic foxPose supports Firefox 1.5 and later and it delivers a tab-window thumbnailing feature available under other browsers, including the forthcoming Internet Explorer 7. Very well implemented with a simple but effective user interface.
SessionSaver by Rue
SessionSaver is a useful extension that saves all open browser tabs in the event of a crash. It also lets you save and name sets of tabs, and recall them at will, and has other functions as well. The extennsion was significantly updated late in 2005. The user interface is a bit weak. Some functions are hard to find.
Notes: Another program, Tab Mix Plus (listed later in this document), offers many of the features of Tab Clicking Options and SessionSaver. It may be worth your consideration instead. Also, to truly fix all aspects of Firefox's tab-browsing functionality, I strongly recommend the customizations under the Tab-Browsing Tweaks heading in Best Firefox Customizations section below.
MUST-HAVE UI-IMPROVING FIREFOX EXTENSIONS
DeskCut by Evan Eveland
Lets you right-click anywhere on an open Web page and choose Create deskCut from the pop-up menu to place a Firefox bookmark on your desktop.
IE View by Paul Roub
IE View adds a context-menu item that lets you open in Internet Explorer any Web page currently displayed in Firefox. Works best in conjunction with the next extension the list, FirefoxView.
FirefoxView by Alex Sirota
This unique Firefox extension is in essence the reverse of IE View. It installs in Firefox, and from there, offers the ability install and uninstall a modification to Internet Explorer that lets you right-click any open Web page in IE and choose the option "View this Page in Firefox." Extremely handy, especially when used in tandem with IE View.
Feedview by Tom Germeau
Shows RSS and XML feeds in scannable, clickable plain English. Gives you controls to change article lengths. Very simple utility that lets you *see* any RSS feed's current contents before you subscribe to it. Once you try it, you'll never go back. Author reports that Feedview will be included in Firefox 2.0.
Resize Search Box by Nathar Leichoz, Awan Afuqya
Creates a drag-and-drop resizable version of the Google (or other search engine) search box on your Firefox toolbar. Very well designed, although it may be difficult to figure out how to use it.
Image Zoom by Jason Adams
Ever wish you could get a closer look at an image? About half the time, the quality of the image is good enough that zooming in is a major advantage. Image Zoom is invaluable for this, and it has an excellent set of mouse-based and context-menu based controls and options. You definitely want this one..
Disable Targets For Downloads by Ben Basson
As described by its program author, this extension "eliminates a common error [caused] by many webmasters, which ultimately causes blank windows to be opened when you try to download a binary file." Anyone who downloads frequently with Firefox will come across this problem — before installing this extension.
Ext2Abc by Eric Hamiter
Alphabetically sorts the list of extensions shown in the Extension manager window.
Word Count by Eric Hamiter
While it might only have strong interest for writers and editors, Word Count emulates Microsoft Word's Word Count feature for use on Web pages, and does its job well. It counts the number of words in a highlighted body of text displayed in Firefox.
MUST-HAVE FIREFOX-EXTENSION APPLETS
Sage RSS/Atom Reader by Peter Andrews
Very nice light-weight RSS Reader that I find myself using more and more.
ForecastFox by Richard Klein, Jon Stritar
ForecastFox is a weather display program powered by AccuWeather.com. It displays current and forecast temperatures at a glance in the Firefox status bar. It's highly configurable and gives you quick access to detailed weather information localized to your zip code.
FoxyTunes by Alex Sirota
FoxyTunes is like the steering-wheel mounted controls that newer luxury autos offer for their audio systems. This well-done Firefox extension provides status-bar-mounted controls and read-outs for your favorite media player. It supports a wide range of software players for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, including Winamp, iTunes, Windows Media Player, Musicmatch, RealPlayer — about 30 players in all. FoxyTunes isn't actually a media player itself; it remotely controls the media player you select from its settings. If you select a media player that isn't installed on your computer, it just doesn't work. It's a bit more ambitious and complex than most Firefox extensions, but it's also clearly one of the very best ones I've tried. (Note: This paragraph is an excerpt from the Scot's Take column in the March 2005 issue of PC Today magazine.)
EXTENSIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN OFF THE MUST-HAVE LISTS
TRIED 'EM, DO NOT LIKE 'EM
| /* Remove tabs close button */ #content .tabs-closebutton {display: none ! important;} | ||
about:config
A word of warning. There's a lot going on in about:config, and it would be a mistake to make random changes to this page. Educate yourself first. Mozilla.org offers a help page that explains How To Modify Hidden Preferences Using about:config. Even more importantly, these additional documents explain individual about:config settings:
The second one is an older document that's really aimed at earlier Mozilla browsers, but it offers slightly more detailed information. There is not a perfect 100% overlap between previous Mozilla browsers and Firefox on the about:config page. But the majority of the options are the same. One way to handle this is to use the first link as your reference, and use the second link to check for any additional information about a specific setting.
There's only one about:config-based tweak that I'm currently recommending (although I expect to add others in the near future). This recommendation really only applies to people who have fast Internet connections or those who are Webmasters, news junkies, possibly online gaming, anything where it's mandatory that clicking the Refresh button always shows you the very latest information on that Web page. If that describes the way you need or want to work, you can configure Firefox to work the same way Internet Explorer's check for website updates on "Every visit to the page."
To make this change, find this entry in about:config:
browser.cache.check_doc_frequency
The default setting is represented by the numeral 3, and corresponds to "when appropriate/automatically." To change it, simply double-click the browser.cache.check_doc_frequency entry. A small dialog box will open. Type the numeral 1 to change it to "Each Time" and press OK. Here's a description of the available options for this particular setting:
0 = Once per session
1 = Each time
2 = Never
3 = When appropriate/automatically
Some other about: screens that you might want to explore include:
about:cache
about:plugins
There are others too, but several of them aren't very useful. About:config is the one to master.
How to Acquire and Install Firefox Extensions
You'll find that in some cases this document links directly to the extension author's home page. That's a conscious choice I've made because I've found that in several cases the author's page does a better job than the hosting sites.
The first time you install an extension from any given domain or subdomain plus domain, Firefox will block the download and installation until you specifically add that domain to your approved list. When this happpens, a yellow bar appears just above the Web page window and below the tab bar. Firefox displays a warning in the yellow bar that reads: "To protect your computer, Firefox prevented this site (specfic domain name shown) from installing software on your comptuer." On the right side of the yellow bar you'll find a gray button labeled "Edit Options." When you click the button, the "Allowed Sites - Software Installation" dialog box opens. To allow software to install from this site, you must click the Allow button to add the new domain to your list of allowed sites and then click the Close button.
What should happen next is that Firefox should automatically resume the process of downloading the extension. Because it's not smart enough to do that, you must reinitiate the process by clicking the "Install" link or button a second time. The good news is that you only have to go through these steps once for each subdomain plus domain you install from. Subsequent upgrades of your extensions, or other extensions on that specific subdomain and domain, go off without a hitch. They can even be run as an automatic process from Firefox's Extensions dialog, which you'll find as a menu item on Firefox's Tools menu.
Newly installed Firefox extensions are not activated until after you exit all instances of the Firefox browser window and restart the program. So that's the last step in the installation process. Some extensions require the setting of options after they're installed. Usually you can get to the options for any extension in the Firefox Extensions dialog.