downloads · Grey Nicholson

Big New Tab Button

2009-05-06T18:09:00+00:00

In Firefox 3.5 there's a button on the tab bar that opens a new tab. It's a bit small. This add-on makes it bigger. That is all.

Remove Close Buttons from Tabs

2009-03-03T21:04:00+00:00

Having a close button on each tab in Firefox makes closing tabs discoverable, but at the expense of accidental clicks.

When the tabs get too small the close buttons on inactive tabs are removed, again as a trade-off between discoverability and accidental clicking, but there's still the off-chance.

So for those of us who're comfortable with closing tabs by middle-clicking them, Remove Close Buttons from Tabs removes the close button from every tab, all the time.

Hence the name.

You can get it from Mozilla Add-ons or, if you really trust me that much, directly from me.

It's licensed under the ISC licence:

Copyright © 2009, Grey Nicholson

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

The software is provided "as is" and the author disclaims all warranties with regard to this software including all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the author be liable for any special, direct, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this software.

Mmm… shiny simplicity.

Red Head points out that you could just set browser.tabs.closeButtons to 2 instead, if you'd rather use about:config than install an add-on.

Just Give Me A Back Button

2009-02-16T08:57:00+00:00

A while ago, the Mozilla developers did some research and related some anecdotes, both of which suggested that web browser users use the Back button rather a lot. So in Firefox 3, they made it bigger than the Forward button. (—except on Linux, where they imitated a native design instead, shrewdly surmising that (A:) we like our applications consistent, and that (B:) our native design is pretty sensible.)

At the same time, they combined the Back drop-down menu (showing pages you've previously visited in this tab in this session) with the Forward drop-down menu (showing pages you've visited in this tab in this session that you've then come away from by going Back).

A couple of years previously, I'd made two Firefox extensions that played around with these menus' appearance & functionality. One removed the drop-down buttons, aiming for a simpler look (and leaving the menus accessible by a right-click); the other turned each entire button into the menu trigger (also providing the simpler look, but working less efficiently without providing any extra capability). The latter was never supported, and when the menus were unified I stopped using (& thus supporting) the former.

A couple of hours ago I was thinking about how Google Chrome manages to reduce all of a web browser's UI into five toolbar buttons & two menus, and thinking about how to do a similar thing with other applications, particularly Firefox. I realised that I tend not to remember which page is one Forward, so when I want to go to any page other than one Back, I usually use the drop-down menu. So I may as well get rid of the Forward button.

I also realised I could. So I did.

Just Give Me A Back Button is named after Asa's memorably-titled blog post and consists of one line of code:

#forward-button{display:none}

—plus the necessary incantation to install it and apply it to the main Firefox window. It may look like arse on Windows & Mac, where the Forward button is visually integrated with the Back & drop-down buttons—I don't know. Don't complain. (Fixes are welcome, though.) It actually doesn't look like arse—I've now checked.

It mainly lives at Mozilla Add-ons, but if you trust me—and there's no reason why you should—you can also get it directly from me.

It's licensed under the ISC licence, which reads:

Copyright © 2009, Grey Nicholson

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

The software is provided "as is" and the author disclaims all warranties with regard to this software including all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the author be liable for any special, direct, indirect, or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this software.

It's only a minor simplification. Arguably, those overwhelming menus are a much bigger problem (in every sense). But it's something.

Places’ Full Titles

2008-02-10T17:33:00+00:00

Places’ Full Titles is a tiny extension for Firefox that eliminates unnecessary truncation of bookmarks' and history items' titles.

Make “Smart Bookmar...” a thing of the past! ...or something.™

To leave space for sub-menus, menus that unfold vertically still have a size limit, but it's somewhat wider than usual. This applies to the top-level Bookmarks and History menus, to any folder on the bookmarks toolbar, and to the bookmarks toolbar's overflow menu.

It's an updated, slightly-improved and renamed version of Bookmarks' Full Titles for previous versions of Firefox. (If you've already got Bookmarks' Full Titles, it'll be upgraded automatically.)

You can get it from Mozilla Add-ons.

Back/Forward Dropdown Menus - an Extension for Firefox

2005-08-03T02:00:00+00:00

Back/Forward Dropdown Menus is another little CSS hack created by request of BobFox. It removes the main Back and Forward buttons and styles their dropdown arrows to look like them. The net effect is that clicking the Back or Forward button shows a history list rather than navigating immediately.

This add-on is no longer being updated (by me)—there won't be an update compatible with Firefox 3 (or later versions).

It's not a good idea to use this extension with Back/Forward Dropdown Remover; combined, they annihilate all of the buttons' useful parts.

Known issue in version 0.1: the buttons' tooltips still include one page.

Bookmarks' Full Titles - an Extension for Firefox

2005-08-01T02:02:00+00:00

Bookmarks' Full Titles version 2.0 is a tiny extension for Firefox 2 that eliminates truncation of bookmarks' titles, in the Bookmarks menu and in dropdown menus from the Bookmarks Toolbar.

If you're using Firefox 3, you want Places’ Full Titles instead.

Bookmarks in top level menus - i.e. directly under the Bookmarks menu or directly under a folder on the Bookmarks Toolbar - don't expand to full width, because submenus would be inaccessible if they did. But this extension does make them somewhat wider than they are usually.

It was inspired by some code _Jim_ posted to MozillaZine Forums that I then packaged into an extension for ease of use and general good karma. Besides, it took about thirty seconds to hack up based on Back/Forward Dropdown Remover.

Back/Forward Dropdown Remover - an Extension for Firefox

2005-08-01T00:29:00+00:00

Back/Forward Dropdown Remover is a tiny extension that removes the dropdown arrows from Firefox's Back and Forward buttons.

This add-on is no longer being updated (by me)—there won't be an update compatible with Firefox 3 (or later versions).

It's now compatible with Firefox 0.9.x and 1.0.x, as well as “Deer Park” development versions and Firefox 1.5 beta onwards. I figured out compatibility with 1.0.x, despite it requiring a more complex, obsolete extension packaging system, mainly because lots of people couldn't read Requires: Firefox: Deer Park - Deer Park.

The userChrome CSS code itself has been floating around for ages on various Firefox tips sites; I just packaged it up into an extension for ease of installation, and in order to gain some limited extension-making mojo.

Firefox-related miscellanea

2004-09-22T03:06:00+00:00

I was going to entitle this entry “Mozillanea” but realised that was intensely naff.

Modified Rewind/Fastforward extension for Firefox

I've cooked up a modified version of Piro's Rewind/Fastforward extension for Firefox, based on version 1.2.2004092001. The changes are as follows:

Changed three-arrow Previous and Next buttons (for the default Firefox theme only) to yellow versions of the equivalent two-arrow buttons
Changed toolbar button captions “Prev.” and “Fastforward” to “Previous” and “F.Fwd” respectively
Changed Previous and Next tooltips from “Previous page ([text from page])” and “Next page ([text from page])” to “[text from page]”
Added my name as a contributor

I made the changes mainly for my own use and packaged them into an XPI so I can reinstall the modified version more easily; it should install nicely over the official version.

2004-10-06

Additional changes, to improve Previous and Next link-guessing:

Removed “after”, “ahead”, “back” and “before” from the link-detection list

Get Drunk

Inspired by the slew of spoof “Get Firefox” buttons, I GIMPed up the following in knee-jerk fashion: