The Sisyphus Comments

More Useful Firefox Tweaks

Every time I think I have Firefox tricked out as much as possible, I discover some great new feature that is buried in the code. The other day, I found some notes I had made about Firefox so I though I would share some of my favorite tweaks.

If you haven’t switched to the Firefox browser yet, you can download it at Mozilla.com. Firefox is more secure and faster than Internet Explorer and it is free for the taking. Once you get Firefox up and running, open a new window or tab, type “about:config” into the address bar and hit “enter” to configure some great hidden options.

For instance, have you ever tried to cut and paste a multi-line item like an address into a web form? You probably noticed that it only pastes the first line of the text. You can fix this little inconvenience by scrolling down in the about:config window until you locate “editor.singleLine.pasteNewlines.” Double click on on the “1” in the value column. If you change the value to “0”, you will be able to paste content intact, including the returns that you cut and pasted. If you change the value to “2”, the returns that you paste will be replaced by a space. If you change it to “3”, all of the returns will simply be removed. Finally, changing the value to “4” will substitute a coma for the returns which makes it handy when cutting and pasting addresses into Google maps.

You may not have realized it but by default, the spell checker in Firefox only works in text fields with at least two rows. You can change the default settings for the spell checker so that it is active in all text fields or not at all. Simply scroll down in the about:config window to “layout.spellcheckDefault.” Double click on the “1” in the value column. Change the value to “2” to turn the spell checker on in all text fields. Change it to “0” to turn off the spell checker completely.

If you are a power user, it is probably not uncommon for you to have several tabs open at once in Firefox. You probably have accidently closed a tab by mistakenly clicking on the little “X” on the tab. Want to prevent that from happening again in the future? Just head back to the “about:config” window and scroll down to “browser.tab.closeButtons.” Double click on the “1” in the value column and change it to “3” to create a close button on the active tab only. Changing the value to “2” removes the close button from all of the tabs so you can only close a tab using the keyboard command (ctrl-w on Windows or command-w on a Mac). Leaving the value set to the default value of “1” leaves a close button on each tab. Here’s an extra tip to keep in mind, pressing ctrl-shift-T on Windows or command-shift-T on a Mac will restore an accidentally closed tab. Pressing this key combination multiple times will restore previously closed tabs in the order in which they were close.

Do you use Firefox’s search toolbar to search the web? Have you noticed that the search result opens in the currently active window/tab? So unless you remember to open a new tab before you do the search, the new results may open in a window you still want to use. You can prevent this from happening with another tweak to “about:config.” Scroll down to “browser.search.openintab” and double click on “false” in the value column to change the value to “true.” Now Firefox will open up a new tab every time you do a search using the search toolbar.

Finally, if you are a real tab junkie and you love to leave numerous tabs open, many of them may end up being hidden off the side. You can solve this problem by adjusting the minimum tab width before they go off the screen. Go back to “about:config” and scroll down to “browser.tabs.tabMinWidth.” Click on the “100” in the value column and change it to something small like “5.” Now it will take a huge number of open windows before the tabs are hidden to the side.

Remember, with any of these tweaks, you have to restart Firefox before the changes will take effect. I hope these little adjustments will help make your web surfing experience a little more enjoyable in the future. Try them and let me know what you think by clicking on the “comments” link below and leaving a comment.