Compose a New Gmail Message in Firefox Sidebar

Comments (3) · May 4, 2008 at 5:20 am · Firefox Hacks

You should know I love the “Open a Tool in Firefox’s Sidebar” tips by now. 

This one crossed my feed reader, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to send it to all of you.  With a ‘bit of a work around you can now open your “compose a new e-mail” link from Gmail in as a Firefox sidebar.  Here is how to get it done:

You’ll want to login to Gmail, and then click on the “Compose Mail” link.  When the new message page comes up, you want to click on the popout icon in the upper right corner.  When the popup comes at you, go to the address bar of the new window and copy the URL for it. 

If you can’t see the address bar then just right click on the page, and select “Bookmark this Page”.  Add the bookmark to a location you can remember and hit the “OK” button.  Then you need to right-click the bookmark, select Properties and then hit the check mark to “Load this bookmark in the sidebar”. 

There you have it, now you can compose Gmail messages right from your Firefox sidebar.  Thanks goes out to Digital Streets for pointing this neat sidebar hack out.  Does this work better for you, or would you rather have the popup?

Tags: compose, firefox, Gmail, hack, new message, sidebar

Download MP3s from MuxTape

Comments (1) · May 2, 2008 at 6:48 am · Firefox Hacks, Greasemonkey

I figured this hack was in the works for some time now, just happened to run across it this morning.  Thanks to Firefox, Greasemonkey and a little creativity from a scripter out there you can download music from the MuxTape web site.  Here are the words of wisdom from the script creator…

This downloads muxtape songs. Just click the “Download me!” link, change the file-name to your liking and append .mp3 to it.

There you go!  Pick up the Greasemonkey script in question here:

  http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24382

Now of course I am not encouraging you to go out there and be a pirate, but for those tunes up there that you can not find anywhere else or may be original works from an independent artist you would like to enjoy - the option to download is now there.  I have a feeling though they will more than likely get this fixed soon on the MuxTape side of things.

Tags: download, firefox, MP3, music, muxtape, popular, user-scripts

Here Come the Firefox 3 Chrome Hacks

Comments · March 26, 2008 at 6:54 am · Firefox Hacks

Well it was just a matter of time before a few of these started to roll out. While checking out a post over at Foxiewire, I found at least my first page of them. Eric Wendelin has posted a few chrome tweaks you can make to the browser. Just edit your UserChrome.css and insert his code inside for these awesome effects:

• Specify the max height for the Auto-complete list
• Remove splitter between the URL and Search bars to save space
• Changed from #bookmarks-menu in FF2
• Remove the Bookmark star, I use Ctrl-D instead
• Remove the URL bar Go button
• Style the new auto-complete list
• Make the active tab wider (when you have a few tabs open)

Grab them all on his blog post, and be sure to tell him thanks too. For more Firefox 3 chrome hacking fun, if you have the Stylish extension you might grab a few of these tweaks and changes.

+ Check Out FirefoxFacts.com’s Firefox 3 Section for More!

Tags: chrome, customize, edit, edits, Firefox News, Firefox-3

Super Config for Firefox

Comments (2) · March 17, 2008 at 6:17 am · Firefox Hacks

Looking for a tool that will help you find and edit all the little hidden Firefox advanced configurations?  Configuration Mania is a powerful addon for both Firefox 2 and the Firefox 3 Beta 4 that does a lot for being such a little addition to the browser.  I am really impressed by this little jewel of an extension because it has just about every hidden away and forgotten about edit and modification you an make the browsing experience all in one place.

Want the super tweaker that does a bit of everything?  Configuration Mania is the extension for the job.

Tags: addons, config, firefox, hidden, preferences, tools

Remove the Toolbar Clutter

Comments (3) · January 18, 2008 at 7:40 am · Firefox Hacks

By design, Firefox is pretty easy to customize as far as the toolbars on the top go. You just have to right click on some empty space up there, then choose “Customize”. From there you can drag things off the Firefox toolbars or add them. Two options are not so easily edited though. That would be the “Go” button and the magnifying glass.

To remove these two, you will need to edit your UserChrome.css file and add these entries to the bottom.

Remove the Go Button:

#go-button-stack, .search-go-button-stack {
display: none !important;
}

Remove the “Search” Button:

/*Remove magnifying glass button from search box*/
.search-go-button-stack { display: none !important; }

Now when your done, restart Firefox and you now have a little more room freed up where those buttons used to be.

This is a classic Firefox 2 tip that makes me wonder if it will still exist with Firefox 3 looming around the corner?

Tags: clutter, edit, firefox, Go, magnifying glass, search, toolbars

Move Firefox Tabs to the Bottom

Comments (4) · January 15, 2008 at 7:10 am · Firefox Hacks, Tabbed Browsing

Want to change up how you use Firefox? Some other browsers did the whole “tabs on the bottom” thing - and yes, Firefox can even pull off this trick with a little hacking around with the UserChrome.css file.

Here is what you need to add to your UserChrome.css file to get this to work:

/* Display the tabbar at the bottom */
#content > tabbox { -moz-box-direction: reverse; }

You can also move the tab bar to your left or right too, just in case you want to really try something different.

Tags: firefox, hacks, move, tabbar, Tabbed Browsing, userChrome.css

Change Default Search in Firefox

Comments (3) · January 13, 2008 at 5:00 am · Firefox Hacks

Tired of having Google as the default search engine in Firefox? Maybe it is another search engine’s turn to be on top?! If you feel the urge to dethrone Google as the default search engine for your Firefox search box - this is how you can get it done:

In your address bar, type in: “about:config”

Inside of the filter search box, type in:

browser.search.defaultenginename

Double click that entry (or right click and choose “Modify”) and then type in the name of the search engine you wish to have as the default search engine. It must be one that you already have installed and also make sure you type in the name correctly.

Now if you type in “Yahoo”, restart Firefox and when your browser comes back up you will see the red Yahoo “Y” and Yahoo as your default search engine.

Tags: about:config, change, firefox, search, tips, Tweaks