I spent a while today in another tweakfest on my Firefox UI, and I'm simply in love with Addons. They give me special feelings. In this latest run,
I've finally duplicated everything I liked about every other browser. So, I thought I'd share the Addons that I enjoy the most with reasons why I like
them, and you all can chip in. Hopefully we can all find something new to install.
UI Tweaking:
Fission: Uses the address bar as a progress bar. Activate the option to show the URL of hovered links in the address bar, and I've got no reason to use the Status Bar ever again. Gone it is!
No Go Buttons: Removes the Go Buttons from the Address and Search bars, making them slightly smaller. This plays into...
Tiny Menu: Collapses all my File/Edit/etc things into a single button. This is an enormous savings in real estate, which allows me to easily fit everything I need onto a single bar (rearrange by right-clicking on a button and selecting Customize, then dragging them around). With everything on the Menubar now, I can use...
Hide Menubar: Hides your menubar, allowing you to bring it back by pressing Alt. This is identical to the IE7 functionality, and lets me reclaim the screen realestate when I'm not using the bar. The only thing left on my screen now are my tabs - the entire rest of the FF functionality is tucked away on a single hidden bar. It's really astounding just how much more screen you have to play with when you use this.
[Edit]
Hide Tab Bar: And now my tabs are hidden. I have it autohide with a 250 ms delay. If I'm in fullscreen, all that's left are my scrollbars...
Custom CSS: Not an extension, but some custom stuff that changes how Firefox displays. You just need to go to C:/Documents and Settings/**Your username**/Application Data (hidden folder)/Mozilla/profiles/chrome. Once there, create a file named userContent.css and add the following line:
Obviously, this requires some other way to scroll (see Grab and Drag in the next section).
My screen is now a perfect unmarred window of web-browsing when I fullscreen. I do not have a single pixel detracting from my browsing, but everything is summonable with only a button click or a keyboard press. It's... bliss. Nirvana. 100% screen utilization.
[/Edit]
Minifox: As a final touch, I use the Minifox theme. It shrinks everything by a little bit, including tabs and such, allowing you to fit that much more on your Menubar and freeing up a few more pixels from the tabbar. Not exactly necessary now that I've hidden everything, but I like keeping things small even when I have to look at them. It's very good if you *don't* want to hide everything like I have, but just want to free up some space.
Usability Tweaks:
Tab Clicking Options: Gives me a host of options for what to do when I double click, Ctrl+click, Shift+click, or Alt+click on a tab or the tabbar. This lets me, for example, kill the reload button as I can now get the functionality by Ctrl+clicking on a tab. It also allows me to enable the middle-click to paste the clipboard URL into the tab, which removes my number-one use for the address bar (I don't remove the address bar, but it saves me from pressing Alt to summon it).
Mouse Gestures: It was painful for me to switch away from Avant (my previous browser) because it meant losing the ability to go Back or Forward merely by clicking my mouse buttons in a particular order. This lets me get that functionality back. There are some other things it can do, but that's all I cared about.
Grab and Drag: I use a trackball to help with my wrist problems, and it doesn't have a mousewheel so I found myself constantly having to actually use the scroll bar to move around. Who wants to do that? This lets me just grab the page to scroll it around, like on a PDF. Very easy to use.
Download Statusbar: I always found the Downloads window ridiculous. Why do I need a separate window to track my downloads? This tracks your downloads in your Status Bar instead, and hides itself when not in use. You can even use it with the Status Bar hidden, as it pops itself up for the duration. Very nice.
Del.icio.us Bookmarks: I use Firefox on four separate computers over the course of my day (work, home, and both OSes on my laptop). Del.icio.us lets me use the same set of bookmarks on every one. Plus, it uses tags, which are intrinsically superior to folders (they can do everything that folders can, and so much more). I can even grab my bookmarks from public computers by just heading over to their site.
Miscellanous Tweaks:
Adblock Plus: I hope all of you use this, as it's wonderful. It blocks most ads automatically, and those it doesn't can be killed with a simple right-click. It also kills popups, and can block flash as well! Very easy to use.
Errorzilla Mod: Gives me a number of options whenever I hit a "Page Cannot Be Found" error. Not really a big deal, but it's quite nice.
FireFTP: A nice builtin FTP client, which is required since Firefox doesn't treat ftp sites correctly (like IE6 and Windows Explorer do).
Flashgot: When you need to download a lot of things, especially series with predictable URLs, Flashgot's the way to go. It's a wonderful interface to your download manager (this means that you do need a download manager of your own to use this).
Greasemonkey: Lets you define scripts that alter pages on the fly as you visit them. You can easily install other people's scripts as well. This thing is a godsend, and can add enormous amounts of functionality to your browsing. *Just* the Gmail pack from Lifehacker is enough to justify the download of this.
Development Tweaks:
I play with websites a lot, and like having development tools at my fingertips.
Web Developer: Gives you a ton of functionality messing with pages. It's simply wondrous, and I really can't describe all that it does. It has a menubar, but you can also just load it from a button (which I do).
Firebug: Fills a similar niche to Web Developer, but in a different way. I mainly use it to modify webpages on the fly when I'm experimenting with things. It's easily accessible from a simple right-click.
"In addition to writing fully 84% of the IH boards here, I also perform statistics calculations on another board and write essays because I can."
~Eldric IV (not Lord Nightbringer), wearing the CJM mask
UI Tweaking:
Fission: Uses the address bar as a progress bar. Activate the option to show the URL of hovered links in the address bar, and I've got no reason to use the Status Bar ever again. Gone it is!
No Go Buttons: Removes the Go Buttons from the Address and Search bars, making them slightly smaller. This plays into...
Tiny Menu: Collapses all my File/Edit/etc things into a single button. This is an enormous savings in real estate, which allows me to easily fit everything I need onto a single bar (rearrange by right-clicking on a button and selecting Customize, then dragging them around). With everything on the Menubar now, I can use...
Hide Menubar: Hides your menubar, allowing you to bring it back by pressing Alt. This is identical to the IE7 functionality, and lets me reclaim the screen realestate when I'm not using the bar. The only thing left on my screen now are my tabs - the entire rest of the FF functionality is tucked away on a single hidden bar. It's really astounding just how much more screen you have to play with when you use this.
[Edit]
Hide Tab Bar: And now my tabs are hidden. I have it autohide with a 250 ms delay. If I'm in fullscreen, all that's left are my scrollbars...
Custom CSS: Not an extension, but some custom stuff that changes how Firefox displays. You just need to go to C:/Documents and Settings/**Your username**/Application Data (hidden folder)/Mozilla/profiles/chrome. Once there, create a file named userContent.css and add the following line:
scrollbar * {display: none !important;}
Obviously, this requires some other way to scroll (see Grab and Drag in the next section).
My screen is now a perfect unmarred window of web-browsing when I fullscreen. I do not have a single pixel detracting from my browsing, but everything is summonable with only a button click or a keyboard press. It's... bliss. Nirvana. 100% screen utilization.
[/Edit]
Minifox: As a final touch, I use the Minifox theme. It shrinks everything by a little bit, including tabs and such, allowing you to fit that much more on your Menubar and freeing up a few more pixels from the tabbar. Not exactly necessary now that I've hidden everything, but I like keeping things small even when I have to look at them. It's very good if you *don't* want to hide everything like I have, but just want to free up some space.
Usability Tweaks:
Tab Clicking Options: Gives me a host of options for what to do when I double click, Ctrl+click, Shift+click, or Alt+click on a tab or the tabbar. This lets me, for example, kill the reload button as I can now get the functionality by Ctrl+clicking on a tab. It also allows me to enable the middle-click to paste the clipboard URL into the tab, which removes my number-one use for the address bar (I don't remove the address bar, but it saves me from pressing Alt to summon it).
Mouse Gestures: It was painful for me to switch away from Avant (my previous browser) because it meant losing the ability to go Back or Forward merely by clicking my mouse buttons in a particular order. This lets me get that functionality back. There are some other things it can do, but that's all I cared about.
Grab and Drag: I use a trackball to help with my wrist problems, and it doesn't have a mousewheel so I found myself constantly having to actually use the scroll bar to move around. Who wants to do that? This lets me just grab the page to scroll it around, like on a PDF. Very easy to use.
Download Statusbar: I always found the Downloads window ridiculous. Why do I need a separate window to track my downloads? This tracks your downloads in your Status Bar instead, and hides itself when not in use. You can even use it with the Status Bar hidden, as it pops itself up for the duration. Very nice.
Del.icio.us Bookmarks: I use Firefox on four separate computers over the course of my day (work, home, and both OSes on my laptop). Del.icio.us lets me use the same set of bookmarks on every one. Plus, it uses tags, which are intrinsically superior to folders (they can do everything that folders can, and so much more). I can even grab my bookmarks from public computers by just heading over to their site.
Miscellanous Tweaks:
Adblock Plus: I hope all of you use this, as it's wonderful. It blocks most ads automatically, and those it doesn't can be killed with a simple right-click. It also kills popups, and can block flash as well! Very easy to use.
Errorzilla Mod: Gives me a number of options whenever I hit a "Page Cannot Be Found" error. Not really a big deal, but it's quite nice.
FireFTP: A nice builtin FTP client, which is required since Firefox doesn't treat ftp sites correctly (like IE6 and Windows Explorer do).
Flashgot: When you need to download a lot of things, especially series with predictable URLs, Flashgot's the way to go. It's a wonderful interface to your download manager (this means that you do need a download manager of your own to use this).
Greasemonkey: Lets you define scripts that alter pages on the fly as you visit them. You can easily install other people's scripts as well. This thing is a godsend, and can add enormous amounts of functionality to your browsing. *Just* the Gmail pack from Lifehacker is enough to justify the download of this.
Development Tweaks:
I play with websites a lot, and like having development tools at my fingertips.
Web Developer: Gives you a ton of functionality messing with pages. It's simply wondrous, and I really can't describe all that it does. It has a menubar, but you can also just load it from a button (which I do).
Firebug: Fills a similar niche to Web Developer, but in a different way. I mainly use it to modify webpages on the fly when I'm experimenting with things. It's easily accessible from a simple right-click.
"In addition to writing fully 84% of the IH boards here, I also perform statistics calculations on another board and write essays because I can."
~Eldric IV (not Lord Nightbringer), wearing the CJM mask
Took me 10 minutes of intensive surfing to find out where I activated it myself. I had it toggled, but couldn't believe it wasn't
under "Tabs". Seems illogically placed.
