In a day where we have fantastic website designs, terrific layouts and tons of stuff to check out on the web – we sometimes forget that some people have more readability problems than most.  The Readability add-on for Firefox looks to change that.  It strips all the fluff from the webpage you are looking at – and delivers pure content.

This extension to the Firefox browsing experience makes reading webpages much more simple.  Once installed, all you need to do to activate it is click the "R" icon in the Firefox status toolbar.  The add-on will also auto-scroll for you too – to make reading any article a hands free experience.  All you need to do is press Ctrl + Shift + A to start the auto-scrolling experience.

Here are a few more tips to help you get more out of the auto-scrolling feature:

0-9 : Set scroll speed, 0 being stand-still and 9 being skim-speed
– : Decrease speed
= : Increase speed
shift + – : Decrease speed quickly
shift + = : Increase speed quickly
ESC or q : Quit

For people out there who want this nifty tool, but do not want to install another add-on into Firefox, you are in luck.  They do have a bookmarklet option available too at Arc90.com.  All you need to do is drag their bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar – and you can make any webpage article more readable.

For those who want the Firefox add-on experience, you can pick up Readability from the Firefox Add-ons website.

Page zooming is a Firefox feature that is often overlooked.  It was a new feature added to Firefox 3, which in turn allowed you to increase or decrease the size of a web page to help improve the readability. So, how can you take advantage of this magnificent feature inside of Firefox?

The most common way would be to hold down the Ctrl key and then scroll up on your mouse wheel to zoom in, and scroll down on the mouse wheel to zoom out.

You can also get the same effect with just the keyboard too.  To zoom in, press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and then press the + key. To zoom out, press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard, then press the – key.  To reset the view back to normal, all you need to do is press and hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard and then press the 0 key.

The last way you can zoom in and out via Firefox is through the menu.  You will want to go to View > Zoom.  You can select “Zoom In”, “Zoom Out”, or “Reset” from there.  If you choose “Zoom Text Only” then only the text will change size, and the rest of the web page elements will stay the same.

It should also be said that most of these shortcuts will work on a Mac too. Just substitute the Ctrl key for the Cmd key instead. I hope this refresher in Firefox’s awesome zoom feature comes in handy then next time you find a website with tiny print.

Many web designers and search engine optimizers will tell you that it is important to keep a high text to code ratio when developing a web site.  I have just stumbled upon an add-on that will help you do that very task.  The Text to Code Ratio add-on will provide you a simple percentage based score at the bottom of your Firefox browsing window to tell you what your text to code ratio is.

Here is a little more about this Firefox add-on from the developer:

This add-on can be used to determine the text to code ratio of any given page. It will automatically fire when you select a new tab, although this option can be disabled and will also run when clicked. On hovering of the status bar text for the add-on it will bring up further information about the text to code ratio on the page as well as specific error information if a page cannot be checked for whatever reason.

As mentioned before, this will help you determine when or if you need to increase the ammount of text on a page, or maybe cut back on some of the web site code you have been using.

You can pick up the Text to Code Ratio add-on for free on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Once you have this add-on installed, you can save frequently entered text for later really easily.  All it takes is two mouse clicks and your text is there.  Just right-click in the textarea, select clippings and then select the name for the text you wish to paste in.

Some of the features also include:

• Create clippings from selected text in a form field or Web page body (Firefox), or from selected text in an email or newsgroup message (Thunderbird)
• Create clippings by dragging and dropping text into the Clippings icon on the status bar
• Paste clippings into form fields (Firefox) or new email or newsgroup messages (Thunderbird) from the Clippings context menu. Individual clippings can be pasted as rich text if they contain HTML tags.
• Assign shortcut keys to clippings for quicker pasting
• Define placeholders inside a clipping that you will be prompted to fill in when you paste the clipping. Built-in placeholders for the date, time, clipping name, user agent, etc. are also available.
• Organize your collection of clippings into folders using Clippings Manager
• Import and export clippings to or from datasource files to share with other users

This is a great extension for Firefox if you find yourself typing the same things in over and over again.  It can really help save a lot of time.  You can pick Clippings up at the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Filed under, “not sure if I need it – but thanks, just in case” we have Texto.  This add-on for Firefox will allow you to launch an external text editor to edit text forms in Firefox. 

Here is a little more about the add-on from the Texto developer:

This add-on strips out much of the Mozex functionality to focus on launching external text editors. Features the ability to customize editor behavior for different websites, and uses the asynchronous process support in Firefox 3.6 to update textareas automatically when the external editor is finished, without polling.

Troubleshooting Tips for Windows Users

Seems as if version 3.0.1 of this add-on has some problems with Windows 7 and Windows Vista (possibly) so there is your official word of warning.  If you have any trouble, try the beta release of the newest version here (scroll down for the “Install beta version” link).

Overall though, I have to say this is a pretty neat function for those who might need it.  You can pick up the Texto add-on for Firefox on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Ever lost something you just typed into a web form, and wanted to get it back? Lazarus: Form Recovery, a security related add-on for Firefox, will auto-save anything you type into forms as you type. 

Have a server crash?

Did the page timeout?

Did Firefox go down an a blaze of glory? 

No matter what the problem, you can go back to the form, right-click your mouse, choose “recover form” and get your information back.

Here is a little more information about Lazarus: Form Recovery from the add-on developer:

Lazarus works on web forms, WYSIWYG editors and AJAXified forms and will save you from almost any given server, browser, or connection problems that might otherwise cause you to lose your work.  Lazarus now comes with 2048-bit RSA and 256-bit AES hybrid encryption so your data is more secure than ever! Lazarus 2.0 also includes search functionality so you can recover text even if you can no longer find the original form you entered it into.

If you often run into the situation where you just lost what you typed, this add-on for Firefox is your perfect proverbial right-hand man.  You can pickup the Lazarus: Form Recovery add-on for Firefox from the Firefox Add-ons site.

Here is what QuickDrag looks like in action, as well as more details on how you can use this great extension for Firefox to speed up your browsing.

Now, some might look at this add-on and say that is not much, however after you start using it, you really start to realize how much more functionality this adds – just be adding a few tweaks to the browser.  For more help, you might also check out the author’s FAQ.

You can pick up the QuickDrag add-on via the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Want to remove all the clutter from your favorite site to read, and get right to the text?  TidyRead, an extension for Firefox, removes all the extra stuff from a web page or article that can make reading on the Web difficult at times.

This browser add-on does a simple, yet effective, job of stripping away the extra content from news or blog article pages, leaving you with nicely formatted text to enjoy.  Since the new version is overlaid on top of the old version, switch between the two is very easy.  You also have the options to customize it to suit your own reading style too (white on black, black on white, white on green, ect).

Well worth trying out, if you find some of the content on the Web a little hard on your eyes.  You can pick up TidyRead on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Here is one more tip from the Smart Productivity blog:

One other great use of this tip is that if you right-click any of the items at the top of the Bookmarks folder, such as Organize Bookmarks and select Copy, your complete library of bookmark URLs will be placed on the clipboard as well as the folder names.

Very neat discovery, I must say.  Check out more Smart Productivity here:

http://www.smartproductivity.com/firefox-tip-easily-copy-your-bookmarks

There are eight add-ons for Firefox that do this job very well.  The only problem is that there is not that much difference between them.

• Text Link
• Right-Click-Link
• Plain Text Links
• Direct Link
• Plain Text to Link
• CoLT
• URL Link
• Text2Link

Know of a number nine I might have missed?  I wouldn’t be surprised.  This seems like a very popular idea to do for a Firefox extension for some reason.  Since today is my birthday, just consider these eight gems your present from me.