Firefox features seem to be locked

November 11, 2004 7:41 AM

Firefox Filter: HELP! I downloaded the new non-preview FF, and now some of the option boxes seem to be locked, AND when I try to scroll down on a page using the mouse wheel, the font size changes instead. How do I change these features? Or, are they bugs?
posted by ParisParamus to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Try opening it with the profile manager (firefox.exe -profilemanager) and create a new one. That shouldn't be happening; I have the full 1.0 release, just installed two days ago, and I'm not having any of those problems. (The scrollwheel should only change the font if you have ctrl held down...)
posted by gramcracker at 7:47 AM on November 11, 2004

Now both phenoms stopped. Is this a bug?
posted by ParisParamus at 7:47 AM on November 11, 2004

Maybe your CTRL key was stuck.
posted by smackfu at 7:50 AM on November 11, 2004

As smackfu said, it probably had nothing to do with Firefox. By default, mouse wheel while CTRL is down changes the font size. And, as I just tested, if your computer thinks CTRL is down, you can't click option boxes (at least under W2K. If you use another OS, it may be different). If it happens again, trying click all of your CTRL, ALT, and shift keys. It's happened to me; Windows just gets confused some times.
posted by skynxnex at 8:01 AM on November 11, 2004

I have other problems with FF 1.0. Many things about it appear to have not been tested very well. A lot was changed since the PR (e.g., something around 80% of extensions that work in 1.0PR don't work in 1.0); maybe I'm missing something, but I thought the point of having a "1.0PR" release was for it to be a release candidate, meaning that there would be no significant changes between it and the final candidate?
posted by lodurr at 8:03 AM on November 11, 2004

The only reason that most of the extensions don't work is that the extension must say "works with versions 0.6-0.10pr/rc" or whatever. Then FF will refuse to use any that aren't nominally compatible with its version. All it takes is for the extension's author to change that "works with", and all is well. (I think.)
posted by gleuschk at 8:06 AM on November 11, 2004

lodurr, there were actual release candidates after 1.0PR (called 1.0RC1 and 1.0RC2).
posted by smackfu at 8:43 AM on November 11, 2004

There is also a FireFox support section for people who need help with Firefox.
posted by terrapin at 11:47 AM on November 11, 2004

Yes, smackfu, that makes it all better.

I use Firefox. I use it because that's where all the extension development is at -- nobody develops new extensions for Mozilla anymore. But Mozilla is clearly a better piece of software on every other important metric (it's more stable, the installer makes fewer errors and unwarranted assumptions, it's faster, it's easier for non-Mozheads to understand, and it uses less net RAM than FF+TBird, just for a start). If you want to pick a product that is least likely to give end users problems (on Windows, at least), you pick Mozilla, not Firefox. (And, for that matter, you pick Mozilla Mail, not Tbird.) (Additional data point: I do also use Tbird, in addition to MozMail -- one at work, one at home.)

The triumph of FF over Mozilla is a phenomenon that I find terribly interesting. It's a great case-study for the behavior of karmic economies in open source. Mozilla "failed" to get the glamor spot not because it wasn't be better browser -- in the areas that would matter to the overwhelming majority of users, it is -- but because it wasn't cool.
posted by lodurr at 5:17 AM on November 12, 2004