Mozilla/Firefox User Tips
revised 5 Jul 2010
Copyright © 2003–2010 by Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems
Contents:
See also: Holger Metzger's Netscape 7 Tips and the Unofficial Netscape 7 FAQ
These solutions work in Windows systems with Mozilla 1.4; they may or may not work in other systems or with other Mozilla releases.
Put a file called "userContent.css" in the "chrome" folder inside your profile folder.
source: newsgroup articles "[CSS + Mozilla]: alternatieve stylesheet behouden op de nieuwe pagina's?" (2003-03-28), by John Westera
The problem: When you click on a link to a PDF file, Acrobat opens embedded in the Mozilla client window. The solution:
source: newsgroup article "Open pdf in acrobat" by Joris Desmet (3ec22fd4$1@news.uia.ac.be, 2003-05-14); and newsgroup articles "How to force PDF to save or open outside of browser" by "david" (bf7f9c$sqf6@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-07-17) and Ant (bf7pfm$6ui3@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-07-17)
You can disable these alerts (and replace them with a HTML error page), by changing "browser.xul.error_pages.enabled" in about:config to "true" (without quotes).
source: newsgroup article "The Documant Contains no data - still on 1.4b WIN2K" by Tom Veidt (baddqj$jfn1@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-05-20)
Mozilla will display a favicon if one is explicitly linked in the <head> section of the document; otherwise it won't. To make Mozilla go looking in the server root directory for a favicon when none is specified in the document, add this line to your user.js file:
user_pref("browser.chrome.favicons",true);
source: newsgroup article "favicon 'feature'" by Sailfish (bcak3e$7mj4@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-06-12)
Multizilla has functionality which allows you to force View Source (among other things) into new tabs rather than windows. (Multizilla is an add-on for Netscape or Mozilla, not a separate browser.)
source: newsgroup article "Can I make 'View Page Source' load on tabbed browsing" by David Spade (bd7eio$2tj1@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-06-23)
You can either add a new preference to about:config, or add a line to the user.js file. In about:config, add in 'network.protocol-handler.external.mailto' as the preference name, choose the preference type as Boolean, and set it to true. Then, you won't need to mess with user.js at all.
source: newsgroup article "Changing default mailer in Mozilla 1.4 -- can't find user.js file" by David Spade (bda09u$n682@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-06-24)
When you click on a link that has a target attribute, and teh targeted window doesn't exist, browsers normally create a new windoww for the page linked to. You can have all new pages open in the current browser window by adding this to your user.js file:
user_pref("browser.block.target_new_window", true);
ssource: newsgroup article "Moz1.4 - tabbed browsing" by David Dorward (bfv0mo$4o1$1$830fa795@news.demon.co.uk, 2003-07-26)
When you click on an http: link in the mailer or newsreader, it should pass the link over to Mozilla for display. If Mozilla is already running, it will look at the boolean setting "advanced.system.supportDDEExec" in user.js or about:config to decide whether to use the existing window or open a new one. The value "true" (no quotes) uses the existing window; "false" (no quotes) opens a new window.
source: newsgroup article "Call Moz and open in new browser (from email/news/etc)" by Erik Harris (tpiggvk2hjd9hvg5c9fuu4329svkscj6jt@4ax.com, 2003-07-06)
See <http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html#keys>.
source: newsgroup article "Key Bindings (again)" by "miseryman" (MPG.199332ba646fbca6989898@news.telenet.be, 2003-07-31)
In newsgroup article "Close Other Tabs" (bfe2f4$4fo2@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-07-20), Geoff answered a query about moving the "Close other tabs" selection in the menu that appears when you right-click on a tab:
Copy the toolkit.jar from the chrome directory, e.g. /usr/local/mozilla/chrome/toolkit.jar somewhere (and keep a backup). jar files are just zip files so unzip the copy. Open content/global/bindings/tabbrowser.xml in your favourite editor and just move the closeOtherTabs.label section further down the menu. For good measure I add a few separator lines above it. Then zip the bundle back to a toolkit.jar file and copy it over the original.
The repository for plug-ins is http://mycroft.mozdev.org/.
For example, to add Yahoo as a search engine, type "yahoo" into the Mycroft search window and then click it in the results list.
source: newsgroup article "How can I change the default search engine on Mozilla 1.4" by miseryman (MPG.19aab101c19859519898d7@news.telenet.be, 2003-08-18)
Install Mozex. (Have a look at the screen shot first if you wish.)
After you install Mozex, configure it in Edit → Preferences → Advanced → mozex. Thereafter, don't use View → Page Source; instead, right-click on the page and select mozex from the context menu.
source: newsgroup article "View Page Source using different program?" by Nicolas Moreau (binn02$h4t$1@news-reader1.wanadoo.fr, 2003-08-29)
Install Linky. Then you will be able to right-click on any link and open all or selected links in separate tabs or windows.
source: newsgroup article "Open all links on a page?" by miseryman (MPG.19c0826ad52261ee9898f7@news.telenet.be, 2003-09-03)
Install Live HTTP Headers; then Mozilla will display a Headers tab in the page info window and a tool in the Tools → Web Development menu to show headers live, as they are received.
source: newsgroup article "Headers in page info" by Jeff Klawiter (bijrj7$35h3@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-08-27)
See this Web page; or put these two lines in prefs.js:
user_pref("plugin.scan.4xPluginFolder", true);
user_pref("plugin.scan.SunJRE", "1.4");
source: newsgroup articles "never upgrade Mozilla again" by Morten K. Hansen (bkg0n0.afk.1@news.hansen-winkel.dk, 2003-09-19) and Jay Garcia (bkg5ji$8bj3@ripley.netscape.com, 2003-09-19)
The file compreg.dat is probably corrupt. Close Mozilla, delete compreg.dat frm the Components folder, and restart Mozilla. (This is a known bug.)
source: newsgroup article "Why cant I download via http?" by Matthias Versen (bk46gg.1ag.1@mversen.de, 2003-09-15)
mozilla.support.firefox on server
news.mozilla.org (from Blinky the Shark)source: Usenet article “Firefox support? (summary)” by Stan Brown (MPG.22f7f5467927978c98b74b@news.individual.net, 2008-07-28)
(July 2010)