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Firefox Search Box Hacks, Tips and Tweaks

Dec/05 in Settings

Firefox Search Box Guide The search box in Firefox as totally revolutionized the way we deal with search engines on a day to day basis. I don’t go to Google.com to do my searching anymore – I do it from there. There are many more tips, tweaks and tools you can use to get the most out of this built in browser innovation.

Get More Firefox Search Plugins

The first place to check out would be Mozilla’s own search engine page. From here you can add many of the top search engines from around the Web. From Live.com to Wikipedia to even Flickr – the best of the best are all listed.

To remove one, click on your search box and select “Manage Search Engines…”. On that new options window you can sort your search engines and remove the ones you don’t want. Continue Reading →

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Tweak Your Autocomplete in Firefox

Dec/03 in Usability

Ever found yourself thinking that the autocomplete feature of Firefox could use some tweaking? If your wanting to dive deeper into the advanced settings of how it works I might have an extension for you to drop into your own Firefox install.

Autocomplete Manager Options

Autocomplete Manager offers the options you never thought you would ever need to have with the autocomplete feature of Firefox. After installing here are a few of the new perks you will get:

  • matching against bookmark addresses
  • matching against page titles and bookmark names
  • matching anywhere in the address, not just the beginning
  • completing the best match inline
  • temporarily or permanently disabling the suggestion popup
  • excluding local pages and pages containing search results

Want to grab a few more details? Go check out this thread about it over at the Mozillazine.org site for more information.

Now the good? This extension gives you tons of new ways to tweak your autocompleting ways. The bad side of things though, and it has to be said these days – some have said this is a big resource hog. So you might weigh the bad with the good and make the best selection for you.

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2 Tab About:Config Tips

Nov/14 in Hacks and Tweaks

About:Config TipsDo you like it or hate it when Firefox decides to give you the left and right scroll buttons up on your tab bar to navigate through a long list of tabs?

Minimum Tab Width

One way of fixing this would be going into your about:config file and bumping down the minimum tab width so that more tabs fit in the bar before the scroll scroll feature starts. Your default limit is 100 pixels but you can set it to what you need.

Open up about:config (by typing the phrase into your address bar) and search for this string in the search box provided at the top:

browser.tabs.tabMinWidth

Change the default to whatever you might want it to be. If you set it to 0, it will disable tab scrolling.

Delete the “Close” Button on the Tabs

Now while we are saving space, why not get rid of the close buttons that appear on each tab? To get this done search the about:config page for:

browser.tabs.closeButtons

Set the value to “2″ and ditch the close button all together. A value of “0″ only displays the close button on the active tab, “1″ (the default) shows it on all tabs. Now you have a little more power over your Firefox tabs.

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Accessibar – Make the Web Usable

Aug/02 in Add-ons Reviews, Usability

AccessibarAt no fault of the user, the designer doesn’t always think of usability when designing a web site. Sometimes fonts can be to small, web pages can be the wrong color – and text can be seven different shades of wonky. The Accessibar extension for Firefox looks to change all of that for you.

This toolbar provides the following features:

+ Web page fonts, links and background colors can be changed from a selection of 70 colors on current session

+ Icons with configurable shortcut keys to increase and decrease Font size

+ Line spacing can be increased or decreased to five different spacing settings incrementally

+ All images (including Flash) displayed on a web page can be selected as being hidden or shown

As you can see for such a tiny footprint in your Firefox’s browsing space, Accessibar does a lot of work. Does this toolbar do the job for you?

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What is the Firefox Search Box?

May/30 in Firefox Support

The search box in Firefox is that box for searching (boy, definitions don’t get any better than that) usually located in the upper right of your browser window. By default you see it set to Google, but did you know you can use others that are listed there or install more of your own?

To use the search box, all you need to do is type in a phrase you’d like to search for into the box, and then hit the “Enter” key on your keyboard. From there you’ll be taken to a Web page with search results as you would see by going to the search engine’s Web site and doing it directly.

If you want to choose one of the other search engines you have installed, just click on the little square logo next to the search engine icon and you should get a drop down box with all the search engines you have installed. Pick the one you want to use, and then its icons should be shown beside the search box. To switch back, follow the same steps.

If there is a search engine that you need that doesn’t come with Firefox by default you can install it yourself to use. You can find a list of popular search plugins here. For even more choices, check out the Mycroft Project. If you want to make your own – this Web page is a good place to start learning how to do just that.

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How Can I Manage My Firefox Bookmarks?

May/28 in Bookmark Help, Firefox Support

After you have been on the Web for a while, you collect a ton of bookmarks from Web sites you have visited and want to visit again. Now organizing these and putting them in places where it is easier for you to find them is another task that some might hate to do. So how do you manage your Firefox bookmarks?

To get to the Bookmarks manager click on “Bookmarks” in the menu bar and then click on “Manage Bookmarks…”. A new window should come up with your Bookmarks Manager loaded inside.

Now this is where all the magic happens as far as bookmarks go. You can add new bookmarks from here. You can organize them into new folders. You can drag and drop them around to where you need them to be.

In the Bookmarks Manager, if you click File and then “Import” you can import your bookmarks from another browser or from a file. If you want to export your bookmarks to back them up or take them to another browser, all you need to do is go to File and then hit “Export”. You can then save them anywhere you wish as a “.html” file.

One more neat feature that people don’t pay much attention to is the “View” option in the Bookmark Manager’s menu bar. Clicking on that will allow you to sort your bookmarks in any number of ways. If you are looking for a specific one – this would be the way to find it.

How do you add things to the Bookmarks Toolbar? All you need to do is drag and drop bookmarks or folders into the folder called “Bookmarks Toolbar Folder”. If this name is a little too long for you – you can also rename it and you shouldn’t be hurting anything. I renamed mine to “Links”.

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View Javascript Via Firefox

Jan/24 in Settings

Need a quick and painless way to view javascript in Firefox? Check out JSView!

Well now there’s a much easier way. You can use the JSView extension to solve the problem. You can access it from the context menu, from the toolbar, from the view menu, or from the status bar. If the website you are viewing contains any external js/css files, an icon will appear that says “CSS”, “JS”, or both. Each individual file can then be viewed by clicking on the filename. The file will be opened in a new window. You can also choose to open all external files by clicking on “View All”.

+ Download and Install the JSView Extension for Firefox!

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Edit Your Cookies

Jan/16 in Settings

Don’t toss your cookies – edit them!

This is a neat extension for Firefox. It allows you to edit your cookies that are stored in your Web browser to allow you to add or delete information from them. Cookie setting set in preferences/options take priority over the changes applied by this cookie editor.

For example, if you set an option to have your cookies to expire at the end of session, you won’t be able to change the expiration date on cookies using the editor. Feed your cookie editing needs!

+ Download and Install the Add N Edit Cookies Extension for Firefox!

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Organize Your Tools Menu

Nov/29 in Usability

After installing a dozen or so extensions, you menus inside of Firefox might start to look a little cluttered. How can you fix this problem? You can either start getting rid of extensions, or you can add one more. Personally I love all my extensions equally – so I am going to pick the second choice and get the Tools Menu Organizer. This will at least help you get the tools menu under control.

+ Learn More About the Tools Menu Organizer!

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Stop Automatic Image Resizing

Nov/21 in Hacks and Tweaks

Alright, so it is not the biggest Firefox annoyance, I will give you that. Sometimes though I don’t want to have my photos resized to fit inside of the browser window. Call me crazy, but I think it distorts the picture in most cases and I still have to end up resizing it to full view to fully enjoy it. Well here is how you can get rid of that auto resizing “feature” in Firefox.

First thing you need to do is type in about:config inside of your address bar. Once you have made it there, you need to look for:

browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing

If you can’t find it, just enter that into your filter box and you should be good to go. Now here is where the magic happens! Double click that entry in about:config to set it to false. Now every time you see a picture on the Web you will be enjoying it in full view. No more resizing for you!

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