There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that tabs are a big part of the success of Firefox. So to pay homage to that trait that we all know and love I pulled out some of the most popular tab tips to date that I have posted here on Firefox Facts. Some of them you remember, and some you may have missed.
Here we have 40 A+ tips though that will make your tabs even more terrific!
The best way I can describe Hyperwords is a way to super charge your searching via your right-click menu in Firefox. Think of being able to select any word on a page and being able to search for images of that word. You could be looking at this article here, select the word “Mozilla” and go to their Wikipedia entry.
There are so many different word interactions and lookups you can do (plus you can add your own) this is really a power tool that ads much to the Firefox experience. Here is a video demo of some of the features that the Hyperwords extension adds:
To learn more, be sure to check out their handy user guide they have posted, as it covers many of the basic questions you might have about it. Hyperwords is quickly becoming one of my favorite Firefox additions.
Want to separate the Firefox sidebar window that comes up when you browse your bookmarks or history into it’s own separate window? We all have plenty of desktop space right? Why not spread things out a little? If your desktop space is just itching for another window then you too might want to pick up the Ez Sidebar add-on.
Once installed, you can easily undock and unlock the sidebar in Firefox from the Firefox browser window. You can then move it around the the position where it might be best for you. The undocked sidebar can raise on top always, and collapse or expand itself automatically by mousing over it.
Here is a little more about the extension from the developer:
This provides the “Sidebar” toggle button to the toolbar. It shows/hides the Sidebar on click. And, you can switch the sidebar panels from the dropdown list of the button directly. This allows to take web pages into sidebar panels directly like Mozilla Seamonkey. They will be listed in the “Sidebar” menu and the list of the “Sidebar” button, same as built-in panels, Bookmarks, History, or others. (Firefox can load bookmarks into the Sidebar, so this feature will be no use for some people.)
If you have been searching for a way to separate your sidebar from your browser, Ez Sidebar will do the trick.
I got a surprise in the mail yesterday, there was a large Publishers Clearing House sized check laying by my mail box from our friends at Microsoft. Seems like they think they can buy me off and have me sell Internet Explorer to the masses.
You know what, if you saw all the zeros that came after the one on this check you would do the same thing I am about to do. Who needs Firefox and Mozilla? Here are your Internet Explorer Facts!
Who Wants to Customize the Look and Feel?
Internet Explorer doesn’t bother me with the ability of being able to decide what the browser looks like. That damn Firefox keeps tossing themes and customizations I can make to the browser interface. Who needs it? I just want a browser with an address bar and those wonderful Internet Explorer icons.
Add-ons? Extensions? Who Needs Them?
Oh please Mozilla. Are you doing to tell me that your users know best when it comes to picking additional features to add via extensions or addons to the browser? Sure if somebody wanted to download a web developer toolbar and the next guy didn’t, is that really a good thing to do?
I know with Internet Explorer I don’t have to worry about getting to customize too much.
Standard are for Sissies!
Come on, Microsoft doesn’t have to live up to standards. IE7 only supports 54% of the CSS 2.1 standard, as compared to 52% in IE6 and 93% in Firefox 1.5 and 96% in Opera 9. Internet Explorer went up two percent, is that not good enough for you? I guess next you are going to say you want the menu bar back on the top of your Windows.
Microsoft has done what is best for you hidden it because you don’t need it. If you do need it, well – we can toss it in the middle somewhere because the day we were working on that was also “cake” day at Redmond.
On an additional note I wanted to let the Opera guys know I got their buyout offer too for my soul. Unfortunately, the bank said they couldn’t cash the “I OWE U” note you left, sorry!
*cough* April Fools! */cough*
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:
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.
Watching the Mozilla Labs discussion on Personas is really exciting. It looks like they have more than a handful of great designers and there are so many different ways this Mozilla project could go in development.
If your interested in getting involved, here are a few links to get you started:
You can also browse through some of the designs people have submitted too. In a future version it has been said that you’ll be able to flick a switch for an advanced setting to allow you to install your own designs but till then here is the work-around they published:
1) In the URL bar of your browser type “about:config” and hit enter.
2) Search for “extensions.personas.editor” by typing it into the Filter box that appears at the top of the page.
3) Double click on the line for “extensions.personas.editor”.
4) In the dialog box that appears prompting you to enter a string value, enter “manual” and click on OK.
5) You should now be in manual mode.
6) Click on the little Fox mask icon in the lower-left corner of your browser, and you should see a “Use Local Header…” option.
7) Click on the “Use Local Header…” option, and it should open up a file selector. Select the header file for your design.
8) You should now see your design in your browser.
As you can see it is not for the weak of heart, so if messing around in about:config gives you the willies, better wait for the update to the extension. All in all though, Personas seems to be moving along beautifully and I can’t wait to see how this project turns out in the long run.
There really are not that many resources for Firefox themes out there. I figured by now there would be more, but a search here and a search there only show a select few. Here are some of the best resources (excluding Mozilla’s because everybody knows about that one) for finding new Firefox themes I have stumbled upon.
Firefox Themes at Learn Firefox – Run by the CyberNet News crew it is one of the few unique resources out there. Browse by screenshot and find your favorite.
Customize.org – Firefox Themes – Customize.org has a nice navigational system, but not as many themes as I expected to see them have. Hopefully it will grow more over time, because with more selection it might become a regular stop for me. Just need more selection, don’t think that is asking too much.
DeviantArt’s Firefox Themes – One of my old favorite sites on the web didn’t let me down. There are tons of themes on DeviantArt, and I bet some of them you have not even seen before. Browse through them thumbnail by thumbnail. Yet another good resource to bookmark.
Have anymore? Drop in a comment and share with the group.
Sick with that default way your icons look and you want to change things around a ‘bit? It is easy enough to do if you know where to look. Heck you could pretty much remove everything above your tab bar if you wanted to. The easiest way to customize your toolbar space would be to right-click on it and then click on the “Customize…” menu option.
From there everything is pretty easy to figure out. You can drag things into the box that pops up to remove them, and then click an drag things out of the box and into the menu to add them to the toolbar. On the bottom of that popup box you see a few other options as well.
The drop down box gives you the option to show just the icons, icons and text descriptions or just the text. If you don’t like the pretty icons, go hardcore and use the text only options. Personally I am an “icons only” kind of guy.
I don’t use the space and flexable space very much. They will help you push some of your icons around to the far left or far right if you need them to be there. The seperator will help you put little bars between your icons and toolbar spaces so things look nice and neat.
All the other icons you see there should be fairly familiar. If you have installed a few extensions, you might also see buttons for them there that you can drag over to your toolbar space.
Next thing you see if a check box option for using small icons. I have this one checked as well, because by doing so it shrinks my buttons down and gives me more toolbar space to work with. That’s more room for adding other neat buttons and options up there. It also helps to give you a little more viewing space where your Web sites are displayed too.
There is a button to add a new toolbar too. Use this if you need a new spot to expand all your buttons and options to. The last option you see here is for the folks that try to customize but end up messing things up and they don’t know how to go back.
Just hit the “Restore Default” button and everything will go back to the way it looked when you first installed Firefox (well, toolbar and icon positions anyways).
Want to add Google Notebook to your Firefox sidebar?
Well after looking at how others did the trick with adding Google Talk to your sidebar, I figured I would try it with Google Notebook. The good news is that it does work. I have posted a simple three step tutorial over at Mitchelaneous.com to help you get through it step by step.
Let me know if you find this useful and I might have to give it a shot with a few other widget services out there on the Web.
+ Check Out How to Add Google Notebook to Firefox’s Sidebar!
The folks the brought you the CustomizeGoogle extension for Firefox are working on something else that might help you get more out of Google and push forward a new and innovative idea for Online searching.
This CustomizeGoogle feature saves you from the hassle of paging through Google web search results. Whenever you navigate to the end of the page, you dont have to hit the next button. CustomizeGoogle automatically fetches next set of results and appends them to the bottom of the page.
Here is a move that explains a little more about what is going on:
I like having the streaming results as I skim through Google Reader, so if you can give me functionality like that on the regular Google searches – well, then consider me sold.
