Cool stuff I want Firefox to do

July 31, 2005 2:53 PM

Are Firefox and its extensions advanced enough yet to do the cool stuff I want to do?

Some things that would make my browsing easier:

Smarter Google-I'm-Feeling-Lucky-from-the-Address-Bar. If I type "meta filter", it sees two words and immediately goes to the first site on Google for that search. But if I type "metafilter", I have to wait for it to check if "metafilter" is a real address before it goes to the site. Can't it just not bother checking if it doesn't see a "." in the query?

Put Search Bar functionality in the Address Bar. The only engine I use from the Search Bar is Google, so I'd rather just be able to type my search into the Address Bar and hit some-modifier-key+Enter to make it search. (I know I can set up a keyword shortcut, but I just like modifier keys better.)

Middle click to open links in a new foreground tab, but Ctrl-click to open links in a new background tab. Right now I'm using the Open Link in... extension, which only puts the option in a right-click menu.

Google search results in the sidebar.

Rename menus. There must be some way to do this in userChrome.css.

posted by Nikolai to computers & internet (10 comments total)

http://metafilter/ is a perfectly valid address if you're on a LAN, it would be foolish for FF to stop looking for it.
posted by Mwongozi at 3:12 PM on July 31, 2005

Re: opening tabs in background or foreground:

Use the Super Click-and-Drag extension. This allows you to drag any link (or any block of selected text) to open that link in a new tab. Drag up to open in the foreground, drag down to open in the background.
posted by rxrfrx at 3:14 PM on July 31, 2005

Off-topic reply:

Opera: in the address bar, type "search term" and arrow-down, and it searches google. Alternatively, type "g search term" and press enter. There are other one-key identifiers for other search engines (a = altavista? y = yahoo, etc.)

Type "search term" and press enter, and it tries to go to the site. Depending on your tweaking, it searches for the .com, .org, .edu, .gov, .whateverelse in sequence.

Click to open in same window, shift+click for a new foreground window, ctrl+shift for a new background window. left+right click for background window. Etcetera.

Menus and dialogs and css and most everything can be customized six ways to sunday, if you are so inclined.

Google results in a sidebar is a cool idea, and I'll suggest it to them.

There really is not a better browser than Opera. And it's looks like they're headed for a free, no-advertising version for the next release.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:16 PM on July 31, 2005

Smarter Google-I'm-Feeling-Lucky-from-the-Address-Bar. If I type "meta filter", it sees two words and immediately goes to the first site on Google for that search. But if I type "metafilter", I have to wait for it to check if "metafilter" is a real address before it goes to the site. Can't it just not bother checking if it doesn't see a "." in the query?

I use a Quick Search keyword of gg for Lucky Google, which solves that problem. Personally, I don't want "smarter," I want unambiguous, especially considering what Mwongozi said.
posted by grouse at 3:24 PM on July 31, 2005

Also, the excellent Googlebar Firefox extension supports "I'm Feeling Lucky" hotkey searches... I have mine configured to use "Alt-Enter," so I can instantly do lucky searches from the search box.

The advantage to this is that Firefox doesn't need to discover that "metafilter" isn't a valid hostname before querying Google, so it's significantly faster.
posted by waxpancake at 4:40 PM on July 31, 2005

Rename menus. There must be some way to do this in userChrome.css.

Sorry, but no. CSS is explicitly designed to deal with style, not content, so it does not allow for overriding text. That's not to say that you probably can't find some user-end (versus hacking the source and recompiling) solution, but userChrome isn't it.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 5:21 PM on July 31, 2005

Can't it just not bother checking if it doesn't see a "." in the query?

Perhaps the AutoMark extension is up your alley. It autocompletes things you type in the toolbar from your bookmarks.

Middle click to open links in a new foreground tab, but Ctrl-click to open links in a new background tab.

I think this is supported in either Tab Browser Extension, or Tabbrowser Preferences. I used to use both (on different machines!) but now use Firefox's defaults, since they were slightly improved around 1.0. I tend to dislike changing things like this too much, because when I'm not at "my" machine they don't work and it freaks me out.

Google search results in the sidebar.

There's a Yahoo search sidebar, and a mozdev project SearchSidebar, and something called Search Station.

Rename menus.

Menu Editor.

I know I can set up a keyword shortcut, but I just like modifier keys better.

Poke around in stuff like Menu Editor, but I'm not sure that's something you could do without recompiling the source. Firefox already grabs the modifier keys to do autocompletion: ctrl-enter on "mozilla" gets you "mozilla.net", for example. You'd have to hijack that routine, somehow.
posted by dhartung at 8:36 PM on July 31, 2005

go to manage bookmarks and then select your bookmark to metafilter, or just make a bookmark to metafilter. Right click it and select properties. Then just enter metafilter in as the keyword.
posted by Iax at 9:16 PM on July 31, 2005

With Google searches, there's already one by default in Firefox:

Type google some search and press enter.

If you don't care to type Google every time, go to Bookmarks > Quick Searches > Google Quicksearch > Properties. Change the keyword "google" to "g" or something short.

You may also note that the term you entered after "google" or "g" is replaced with a "%s" in the URL listed in the bookmark properties. Armed with that knowledge, you can set up all sorts of keyword-based searches and quick accesses.

I covered this subject in a recent comment over at BusinessWeek's TechBeat blog.
posted by bbrown at 7:00 AM on August 1, 2005

Mwongzi: True, but I'm not, so it's useless for me.

rxrfrx: Hey, that's pretty useful.

grouse: Yeah, that's one workaround.

waxpancake: Hmm, I'll try that.

cyrusdogstar: Yeah, but I thought there might be some way to do it since CSS has things like the "content:" property.

dhartung: Lots of useful stuff there. Menu Editor doesn't seem to be able to rename stuff, though.

Iax: I can do that, but I want to be able to do it for primarily stuff that's not in my bookmarks.

bbrown: That's what I meant by a keyword search.

Thanks to everyone for their help.
posted by Nikolai at 7:58 PM on August 1, 2005