Firefox

Introduction

This page lists my Firefox configuration which might or might not be useful for your own configuration along with other resources.

Tips and Tricks

• Firefox 3 - Power User’s Guide.
• Firefox 3.6 - Tips and Tricks.
• Firefox 3.5 - Guide to speeding up Firefox.
• Tweek Guide - A document that describes all the various settings you can change to enhance your browsing experience.
• 15 Coolest Firefox Tricks Ever.
• Viewing Operating System Folders - You can view directories within Firefox by simply dragging and dropping a folder from the system to the menu bar of Firefox.
• COMMAND+SHIFT+T - Re-opens the last closed tab.
• COMMAND+T - Opens a new tab.
• COMMAND+Click - Opens a new tab with the URL of the selected hyperlink.
• COMMAND+L - Jump to the address bar.
• Keyboard Shortcuts - A handy guide to everything else you can do from the keyboard.
• Drag and Drop URL Text.
• Manage Multiple Profiles - Learn how to setup, configure, and manage multiple Firefox profiles as well as back them up.
• Consolidate Firefox’s Chrome - Tips and tricks related to tweaking the chrome style sheet. Learn how to reclaim screen real-estate.
• Sync your Firefox extensions and profiles across computers.

Extensions (listed in no particular order)

The following extensions are also available as single install so you can bypass installing each individually.

1. FEBE - FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) allows you to easily and quickly back up your Firefox environment including extensions, preferences, bookmarks, etc. It also has an automatic scheduler for these tasks as well.
2. Tab Mix Plus - The best extension around. Takes control of and greatly enhances the default tab browsing preferences within Firefox. Options include merging all browser windows into one, allowing hyperlinks to link in the same tab or new tab, having the toolbar and bookmark links open in new tabs, etc. It will also save your tabbed windows when restarting the browser. Here are my settings for reference.
3. QuickDrag - Adds customizable mouse gestures for text searches, link tab loading, and opening/downloading of images. A great tool to have and one that you’ll soon wonder how you ever lived without.
4. Download Statusbar - Places all downloads in the status bar with progress bars for each download. You can hover over the downloads to see full statistical data. TIP: Change your Firefox download settings so that all files go to a folder called “unfiled” and then make sure that once the download completes, it removes itself from the status bar. Makes for a smooth as silk experience. Here are my settings for reference:
   
5. PDF Download - The default browser behavior is to load a PDF immediately upon clicking a hyperlink to a PDF file. This extension allows on to be prompted with the choices of loading the PDF immediately or downloading it. Additional options exist to that clicking on a PDF will result in an automatic download operation.
6. Check Places - A great tool for those who have lots of bookmarks and want to quickly verify that all links are still valid as well as reduce duplicate entries.
7. CoLT - Adds the following to the Firefox context menu: “Copy Link Text” and “Copy Link Text and Location”. This is useful when copying hyperlinks from a web page to your clipboard as plain text or HTML formatted text. Check out this tip for setup and usage.
8. Web Developer - A feature-rich tool that adds all kinds of cool capabilities when dealing with web pages such as reading source code, page layout, etc. Really handy for debugging purposes.
9. FireBug - A complimentary developer tool to the Web Developer tool mentioned above. It allows you to inspect and debug JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and AJAX code. Follow the link and check out the screen shots.
10. FireQuery - A FireBug extension for jQuery development.
11. FireCookie - Easily view and manage your browser cookies.
12. FireUnit - A JavaScript unit testing engine for Firebug. Learn more about it here.
13. CSS Usage - A Firebug extension for finding and detecting CSS selectors that are unused on a page.
14. Inline Code Finder - Detects and finds inline JavaScript events, inline styles, and javascript: links.
15. ColorZilla - Adds a color picker to your status bar along with a context menu for site analysis of colors, color palette, and a range of other helpful web developer tools.
16. Page Speed - An open source Firefox/Firebug extension for checking page performance. Also offers advice on how to improve performance and, in some cases, does the work for you.
17. YSlow - A handy addition to Firebug where you can measure, be graded, and learn how to improve the performance of web site.
18. Selenium IDE - Designed as a Firefox extension that allows one to record macros within the web browser for testing purposes. Haven’t used this one but it might be cool…
19. Send Tab URLs - Allows one to send currently opened browser tabs, via e-mail, as list of tab names and URLs. You access this capability via the Firefox File–>Send Tab URLs menu item.
20. SQLite Manager - Adds a nice interface for manipulating and viewing SQLite databases.

Here are some other suggestions:

• 20 Firefox Extensions That Will Save You Money.

Resources

• Cheat Sheet Reference Guide - An excellent guide that can be printed for quick reference to keyboard and mouse shortcuts as well as other information.

Development

• LifeHacker - How to build a Firefox extension.
• Firefox Extension Development Tutorial.
• Extending Firebug Tutorials - Series of tutorials on how to enhance and extend the Firebug extension (yep, extension of an extension).