Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mozilla

Best firefox add-on for previewing tabs?

shivohum — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:23:14 -0800

What's the best firefox add-on for previewing/managing a bunch of tabs that are on the same site and look alike in thumbnails, but can be distinguished by their text? I have bunches of tabs open and the tab bar becomes utterly useless, so I need an add-on (not just thumbnail-based) that can do much better.

Can greasemonkey open a link in a different browser?

Roger Dodger — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:51:32 -0800

Is it possible to use a greasemonkey script in Firefox to open specific links in Internet Explorer? If so, what would it look like? The particular element in the HTML page is an input button which executes some javascript, which opens a different webapp in a new browser window. However, that webapp only works with IE, and I use Firefox. The element looks similar to this:

<input value="New Webapp"  class="btn" name="webapp" onclick="openIntegration('/servlet/servlet.Integration?scontrolCaching=1&lid=00b70000000zL1t&eid=50070000009tNYv&ic=1', 'height=600,location=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=1', 1)" title="New Webapp" type="button" />

The openIntegration function (which sits in a separate .js file) looks like this:

function openIntegration(url, props, positionType) {

    var newWindow = window.open(url, "_blank", props, false);

    if (positionType == 2){

        newWindow.moveTo(0, 0);

    } else if (positionType == 0){

        newWindow.moveTo(0, 0);

        newWindow.resizeTo(self.screen.width, self.screen.height);

    }

}

Can javascript be used to specify a browser other than default? How would I go about doing this?

Thunderbird in plain text

desjardins — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:39:28 -0800

How do I make everything appear in plain text in Mozilla Thunderbird? (using version 2.0.0.22 on Windows XP). I do not want to see any images, don't want to be asked if I want to see them, and I don't want anything to appear in HTML, including RSS feeds. I don't want to see people's cutesy stationary or Twitter's background colors when it notifies me of a new follower. I want black text on a white background, et rien de plus. I click "Show the article summary instead of loading the web page" when I subscribe to an RSS feed but the web page still loads. This was with a Yahoo News RSS feed (don't judge me). Do I need to use plain text news feeds? Does anyone use these anymore or is everything HTML?

Bonus question: How do I force Thunderbird to minimize to the system tray?

Firefox constantly crashing

stupidsexyFlanders — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:27:43 -0800

Wiped PC, reinstalled XP, now Firefox crashes VERY frequently. I can't get a mozilla version to run stable. Tried 3 and 2, two crashes slightly less often but still at least every half hour. The machine's clean, and AVG is updated and running. Crashes are on loads of random pages (google.com, for instance, or mefi) and cannot be reliably reproduced on specific pages. The browser goes away and the error reporting thing comes up. Any ideas?

Profiting from the Feed Icon ?

querty — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:58:54 -0800

Profiting from the Feed Icon ? graphics.design.legal.filter.dot.dot.dot...

If I wanted to do a design that includes the Feed Icon as the main focus (but not as the main subject) and the icon is only seen in less than ~25% of the design as a small element or if the Feed Icon is broken up in half or in a few pieces, would that be "okay" with Mozilla's Feed Icon Guidelines? The design would then be sold for profit of course.

If you read the last 3 answers/paragraphs on their guidelines, it is really loosely written. So what is stopping people from making Feed Icon designs and selling them as t-shirts and mouse pads on CafePress?

If you check iStockphoto, there are people who sell the actual icon file with little to no accompanied designs/artwork: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&text=rss+feed+icon

Switch to Firefox 3 or stay with 2?

jujube — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:15:48 -0800

Advantages/disadvantages of Firefox 3? I'm currently using Firefox 2, and am completely happy with it. After the latest security update, I see a message saying that there will be no more security updates, and that I should switch to Firefox 3 instead.

Should I switch? If you're currently using Firefox 3, what is better about 3? If I stay with 2, am I leaving myself open to viruses, attacks, etc.?
Also, I have a couple of firefox extensions I've installed. Do they transfer over to 3, or do I have to re-install them? Looking for the least troublesome/time consuming option here. Thanks.

Mozilla Thuderbird glitch

tangyraspberry — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:49:01 -0800

I use Mozilla Thunderbird for e-mail but, beginning about a week ago, although people received and continue to receive e-mails from me that are ok, when I open the same e-mails in my "send" file to review them, they're either blank or a jumble of code, often, related to e-mails other than what I just opened. Help!

How safe is Firefox 2.0?

storybored — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:36:44 -0800

How secure is Firefox 2.0? I recently attended a short seminar on Web security and the horrors of "drive by downloading". So how vulnerable is the latest version of Firefox 2.0 to this type of nastiness? What about 3.0? At Mozilla.org, there's a nice long list of the security flaws that each 2.0 update has fixed. But no general statement. Even a probabilistic statement would be nice....

How to sync my Treo with Mozilla's Lightning?

armoir from antproof case — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:05:48 -0800

I'm looking for a way to sync my Palm Treo 650 with Mozilla's "Lightning" calendar add-on - on Linux - without having to use an over-the-air data service. I've been happily using Ubuntu for quite awhile now; currently, Hardy/8.04 (which works *perfectly* on my Toshiba Satellite, btw). I would like to be able to synchronize the Datebook / Calendar app on my Treo 650, with the Thunderbird "Lightning" add-on. (If I can get Tasks to sync to, then, Rock; but that's a lesser need.)

It seems that at the moment, the number of synchronization-with-PDA options for Lightning seems small.

The best I've been able to think of, is:

- get a data plan for my Treo
- get an account with Goosync
- use Goosync to sync my Treo, over the data network, to Google Calendar
- use one of them add-ons I've seen for syncing the Google Calendar with Lightning

The problem is, I don't want to buy a data plan for my Treo. My thinking is: if that's what's needed in order to get my PDA to sync with my PIM of choice, then I really need to start being honest with myself and admit the sad truth that the Treo / PalmOS is a dying platform, and just go by a frikkin' iPhone. Sigh.

FWIW, I am able to successfully sync the Treo with my linux / KDE desktop, via KPilot, and get the data into Kontact. Wondering then if there's a way to get Thunderbird / Lightning to sync with Kontact?

All ideas will be entertained and appreciated. Thanks!

How can I close a specific browser window under linux

yetanother — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:19:53 -0800

Can I control a browser from an application under linux. My application has an option to run as an http server, and kick off a browser that points to itself using (for example) /usr/bin/mozilla.
I want to add a quit button to the generated html, which tells the application to quit serving, then closes the browser, window, or tab that was created.
Obviously I dont want to quit any other windows or tabs if the user is doing something else at the time.
Stopping the server is no problem, but I'm hitting a roadblock closing down the browser side. Javascript wont let me close the current window, and I cant find any command line options to mozilla that let me do what I want.
Is there something I'm missing, or a better approach to the problem?

configuration of vista breadcrumb bar/firefox second tab row

lrodman — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:15:34 -0800

Is it possible to trim Vista Breadcrumb sections so that the breadcrumb bar doesn't clip off most of the path in long titles? I.e. anything over say, 10 characters gets cropped, so that long paths can be shown? Also, is there a way to fix the glitchy second row of tabs in firefox? I want the second row of tabs to have the same height as the first, so that graphics don't go all screwy.

Bang goes my thunderbird !

Baud — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:10:23 -0800

Mail client going postal ! Received emails held hostages ! Please help me see them again ! I am in serious thunderbird trouble :

Thunderbird will not load properly and not give me access to my received emails. here is a screenshot

On my Windods XP box,

- I get my email via POP (webmail is fine not an ISP problem)
- In my profile, I see the Mail folder with my received emails in it
- deleting the profiles.ini generates a new profile, but does not help
- uninstalling reinstalling plain vanilla TB or the latest nightly release (yes, I am desperate) did not change anything

What should Ido to fix this and see my received emails ?

Why why is is Firefox Firefox repeating repeating words words??

nitsuj — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:24:58 -0800

Why does Firefox occasionally repeat the right-click spellcheck suggested words? This is perhaps easiest explained in a screenshot: BAM!

Ocassionally, after spellchecking a few words in Firefox, the words start to repeate themselves which makes my right-click menu super long and annoying. Any clues as to why this would be happening, or how to fix it?

Windows Vista Home Basic, Firefox 2.0.0.11

Help me not download .pdfs I don't want!

escabeche — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:28:34 -0800

How do I keep Firefox from saving every .pdf file I look at onto my desktop? I love everything about my new Mac except one thing. When I view a .pdf file in Firefox (using either Preview or Adobe Reader) the file is automatically saved to Desktop. Since I look at dozens of .pdfs every day, this means that there are tons and tons of random files cluttering up my desktop. What's more, since these .pdfs are often from the arXiv or Math Reviews, they have meaningless filenames, so I have to open each one in order to see whether it's something I want to trash.

What I would like: either a) to be able to view .pdfs in Firefox without downloading the file to my Mac at all; or b) to have the download automatically go to a folder "Temp Downloads," which I would trash every once in a while. What's more, for the files I _do_ actually want to keep, I would like it if it prompted me to choose a filename for the download -- as it is, I seem to have no choice except for the meaningless filename that the file comes with.

I've already tried changing the Preferences in Firefox to the Temp Downloads folder -- this works for ordinary downloads, but the .pdfs I view still go to the desktop. I installed the PDF Download plugin, which also didn't help.

Using OS/X 10.4.10, Intel processor, Firefox 2.0.0.3, if this matters. Any ideas, or am I fated to a life of tedious Desktop cleaning?

Curb my internet addiction

jujube — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:08:45 -0800

I spend way too much time surfing the web and checking e-mail when I should be working on my job. My job requires that I use the computer, so I cannot simply turn the computer off. Is there a way that I can disable my web browser (Mozilla Firefox) for a set amount of time? Also, because sometimes my job requires that I conduct web-based searches, even better would be if I can disallow me from certain addresses, such as mail.google.com, for a set amount of time. Ways in which I can do both or either would be much appreciated!

Easy Mozilla Thunderbird Filter Creation

takeyourmedicine — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:40:31 -0800

Mozilla Thunderbird: When I place a message into a folder I want to simply right click the message and select "Place all future/past messages from this sender into this folder". How could I achieve such simple filtration?

How do I export or convert my Thunderbird inbox into the Unix mailbox format?

FakeOutdoorsman — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:47:19 -0800

How do I export or convert my Thunderbird inbox into the Unix mailbox format? I need to compile a spam corpus to test a Beysian spam filter. Thunderbird mailbox looks like a Unix type mailbox, but it adds some extra headers: X-Account-Key, X-UIDL, X-Mozilla-Status, X-Mozilla-Status2.

How do I open Mozilla tabs that load the last visited webpage?

atmu — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:27:49 -0800

How do I open a new tab in Mozilla that opens up with the most recent webpage? For instance, right now, when I press ctrl+t, it opens a new tab that is blank. I'm trying to open tabs that automatically load with the current webpage. This way I can open a lot of tabs w/ the same page quickly, instead of opening tabs and copying and pasting the URL to each one.

Anyone know how to do this?

Bonus question: how do I open a new tab that automatically loads my homepage?

Printing headers only in Thunderbird

Paragon — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 21:41:30 -0800

Is it possible to just print out the headers (subject, sender, date, etc.) for all the e-mail in a folder in Thunderbird? I need to print out a list of received e-mail in Thunderbird. What I'm aiming for is a single page with a column for the message title, a column for the sender, a column for the date received, etc.

I know this is possible in Outlook by selecting all the messages and hitting 'print', but Thunderbird insists on printing each whole message on a separate page, and I only want the headers (on one page). The knowledge base has nothing. So, is there a way to either (a) get Thunderbird to print this, or (b) export the data to a spreadsheet or something so I can print it out? I'm using Thunderbird 1.5.0.8, if that's relevant. Thanks in advance!

Why won't Amazon open in Firefox 2.0?

unknowncommand — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 06:54:40 -0800

In Firefox 2.0, Amazon will not load for me. It doesn't time out, exactly, just keeps trying and trying and trying. It works fine in IE. What can I do? Everything seemed fine before I upgraded to 2.0, and I've tried reinstalling Firefox. Mac OSX 10.2.8, if that matters. Obviously(?) I know very little about computers, so keep that in mind.

Firefox 2.0 Not Working

Falconetti — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 17:32:01 -0800

I updated to Firefox 2.0 yesterday and everything was fine. Today, after using Firefox periodically, I came home and tried to start it and nothing happened. In Windows Task manager, I can see that the firefox.exe process is running, but the actually browser is not popping up. I've tried rebooting and I've checked for spyware. What gives? Also, between the time earlier today that Firefox was working and the time this evening that it stopped, I added nothing. I hadn't even turned my computer off in the interim. Let me know if there is anything else I should mention that might be important. Thanks!

How do I get rid of the menu bar in Mozilla Firefox?

Goblindegook — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:24:06 -0800

Help me streamline my Mozilla Firefox interface by hiding the menu bar in a small toolbar button. Having recently installed Firefox 2.0 on my Windows computers, I decided to do some spring cleaning around the interface and try to make the most of my screen real estate. I've successfully put away most of the buttons and widgets I don't use, and fit everything into a single strip, but one item in particular has been giving me trouble: the menu bar.

I know I can disable individual menu items by tweaking the userChrome.css file in my profile directory, but because I still need to access some of them from time to time, I don't want them to disappear completely. Ideally, there should be an extension that allows me to hide all the menus behind one or more toolbar buttons, in a way similar to the new collapsible IE7 menu bar.

I searched the Mozilla extension repository to no avail, so I was wondering if anyone here has heard of anything vaguely matching my description before I call off the search and try to do some coding of my own.

(Older Mozilla extensions are okay. They don't have to be compatible with Firefox 2.0 if I can get them to work with Nightly Tester Tools.)

Three-column two-line layout in Thunderbird?

matthewr — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 08:30:57 -0800

I'm using Thunderbird in three-column view. How can I make the middle column use a two-line format, like Outlook does? On my laptop's 1024×768 screen, a one-line layout is too compressed.

Graceful googling generated great grief.

Netzapper — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:53:38 -0800

Several months ago I remember hearing something on boingboing or /. about a mozilla-based media player/library. I remember it having features such as automatic spidering/downloading of mp3-laden webpages, as well as your standard media library stuff. Will you point me toward it?

NO, I would not like to open the link in a new tab

pornucopia — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 10:07:47 -0800

Can I get rid of the "open in new tab" option on the right-click menu in firefox? I hate opening things in a new tab. I don't use tabs, tabs don't work for me. That's just how it is. So I basically NEVER want to open a link in a new tab.

"Open in new tab" is right next to "Open in new window" on the right-click menu in Firefox, so I'm constantly accidentally opening something in a new tab. I would like this option completely removed from the menu, if possible. I guess if it were removed, "Bookmark this link" would then be the new accidental target, so if you could tell me how to add a blank slot to that menu that would be cool too.

Thanks!