Sunday, April 4, 2010

Top 15 Tips-n-Tricks for Mozilla Firefox

Following are 15 selected tips for Mozilla Firefox which are very useful. These tips have been collected from Mozilla website:

1. Use Windows Classic (9x/Me/2000) styled menus

If you want the menus to appear native to the Windows Classic appearance, add the following code to your userChrome.css file:

/* Windows Classic (9x/Me/2000) style Menus */
menupopup, popup {
border: 2px solid !important;
-moz-border-top-colors: ThreeDLightShadow ThreeDHighlight;
-moz-border-right-colors: ThreeDDarkShadow ThreeDShadow;
-moz-border-bottom-colors: ThreeDDarkShadow ThreeDShadow;
-moz-border-left-colors: ThreeDLightShadow ThreeDHighlight;
padding: 1px !important;
}
menubar > menu[disabled="true"] {
border: 1px solid transparent !important;
}
menubar > menu[_moz-menuactive="true"] {
border-top: 1px solid ThreeDHighlight !important;
border-right: 1px solid ThreeDShadow !important;
border-bottom: 1px solid ThreeDShadow !important;
border-left: 1px solid ThreeDHighlight !important;
background-color: transparent !important;
color: MenuText !important;
}
menubar > menu[_moz-menuactive="true"][open="true"] {
border-top: 1px solid ThreeDShadow !important;
border-right: 1px solid ThreeDHighlight !important;
border-bottom: 1px solid ThreeDHighlight !important;
border-left: 1px solid ThreeDShadow !important;
}

2. Use your own background image for the toolbars

In addition to changing themes, you can personalize Firefox even more by using your own toolbar background image. Add the following code to your userChrome.css file:

/* Use a background image for the toolbars:
(Substitute your image file for background.gif) */

menubar, toolbox, toolbar, .tabbrowser-tabs {
background-image: url("background.gif") !important;
background-color: none !important;
}

It's easiest to place the image file in the same location as the userChrome.css file. The image can be of any image format supported by Firefox.

3. Don't use bold text on the active tab

If you don't want the title of the active tab to be bold, add the following code to your userChrome.css file:

/* Make the active tab not bold */
tab[selected="true"] {
font-weight: normal !important;
}

4. Customize the display and location of the close tab button in the tab bar

You can customize the display and location of the close tab button in the tab bar by using about:config to edit the preference browser.tabs.closeButtons. Values:

0 - Display a close button on the active tab only
1 - (Default) Display close buttons on all tabs
2 - Don't display any close buttons
3 - Display a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x behavior)

5. Remove items from the main menu

Some people like to place all their toolbar items on the same row as the menu. In order to save horizontal space, you can remove top menu items that you don't use. Add the following code to your userChrome.css file:

/* Remove the Go and Help menus
Id's for all toplevel menus:
file-menu, edit-menu, view-menu, go-menu, bookmarks-menu, tools-menu, helpMenu */
#go-menu, #helpMenu {
display: none !important;
}

6. Display Sidebar on the right

To display the Sidebar on the right side of the window instead of the left, add the following code to your userChrome.css file:

/* Place the sidebar on the right edge of the window */
hbox#browser { direction: rtl; }
hbox#browser > vbox { direction: ltr; }

7. Change the width of the Search Bar

By default, the Search bar on the toolbar is relatively small. To specify your own width in pixels, add the following code to your userChrome.css file:

/* Make the Search box flex wider
(in this case 400 pixels wide) */
#search-container, #searchbar {
max-width: 400px !important;
width: 400px !important;
}

8. Change the cursor for links that open in new window

This neat trick will change the mouse pointer when you hover it over links that will open a new window. Add the following code to your userContent.css file:

/* Change cursor for links that open in new window */
:link[target="_blank"], :visited[target="_blank"],
:link[target="_new"], :visited[target="_new"] {
cursor: crosshair;
}

9. Change the cursor for JavaScript links

This tip will change the mouse pointer when you hover it over links that will perform a JavaScript command. Add the following code to your userContent.css file:

/* Change cursor for JavaScript links */
a[href^="javascript:"] {
cursor: move;
}

10. Run Firefox from removable media

This advanced tip makes it possible to run Firefox from removable media, such as a USB memory stick. This will allow you to run Firefox with your personal settings from any computer, even those that don't have Firefox installed. It has only been tested on Windows XP/2000. The basic instructions are as follows:

A. Copy the Firefox application folder and your profile folder to the removable medium. In this example we will use R:\Firefox for the application folder and R:\FFProfile as the profile folder, assuming the drive letter for the removable media is R:.

B. Create a simple batch file called R:\Firefox.bat with the following line:

start \Firefox\firefox.exe -profile \FFProfile

C. Optionally, disable the disk cache to reduce the amounts of file writes to the removable storage by using about:config to set browser.cache.disk.enable to false.

The reason why a batch file is needed instead of a simple shortcut is that a shortcut uses absolute paths, and since the actual drive letter for the removable media may change depending on which computer it is plugged into, the relative path used in the batch file is guaranteed to work anywhere.

11. Speed up page rendering

By default, Firefox doesn't try to render a web page for 250 milliseconds while it's waiting for data. If you use about:config to add the Integer preference nglayout.initialpaint.delay, and set the value to 0, Firefox immediately starts to display the page, even without complete data. The drawback, especially on slower machines, is that the total time to display the page will be longer.

12. Enable Pipelining

Pipelining is an experimental feature, designed to improve page-load performance, that is unfortunately not well supported by some web servers and proxies. To try it out, by using about:config to set the following preferences:

network.http.pipelining
(Set this to true, to enable pipelining.)

network.http.proxy.pipelining
(Set this to true, to enable pipelining to the proxy server.)

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
(Set this to 8, to have a maximum of 8 pipelining requests at once. Possible values are from 1 to 8.)

13. Specify where to store the cache

To specify in which folder the cache is stored, use about:config to add the String preference browser.cache.disk.parent_directory, and set the value to C:\Path To Cache. Replace Path To Cache with the actual path to your cache folder.

14. Specify the memory cache usage

Normally, Firefox determines the memory cache usage dynamically based on the amount of available memory. To specify a specific amount of memory cache, use about:config to add the Intefer preference browser.cache.memory.capacity, and set the value:

-1 - (default) Determine the amount of memory cache dynamically.
0 - None.
n - Memory capacity in kilobytes. For example: 4096.

To disable the memory cache completely, use about:config to set the preference browser.cache.memory.enable to false.

15. View page source using an external program

If you want to view the HTML source of a web page using an external text editor instead of the built-in source viewer in Firefox, use about:config to set view_source.editor.external to true, and then set view_source.editor.path to e.g. C:\Windows\Notepad.exe or whatever is your preferred text editor.

NOTE: Both files "userChrome.css" and "userContent.css" are found in Firefox Profile folder. To know more about please visit following link:

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