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Saturday, November 18, 2006
Making Firefox sexy
One of the many beauties of the Firefox web browser is the ability to make it do just about anything you want it to. In its default state, it works great. But you're not default, are you? No. You're super sweet, and customization is what you're all about.
Internet Explorer 7 is out now, and it's worth examining. Mainly because they've finally caught up to many of the features Firefox has had since the beginning of time.
But too little, too late, in my opinion. And their support for standards hasn't improved yet. I won't bore you with that part.
I do like the layout of the new IE7 in how it conserves screen real-estate (making more of the actual webpage visible without scrolling). Luckily, you can make Firefox look anyway you'd like with customization and extensions.
Here's mine:
The main helpful change I made is more effectively using all the blank space on the menu bar found at the top of the default layout. By right clicking on it and choosing 'Customize...' you can rearrange all those toolbar elements.
I moved the navigational buttons to the top-left, with the address bar next to them. I've optimized my bookmarks by using the bookmarks toolbar, and when an icon for the site is available, deleting the title of the bookmark for a nice icon-only toolbar.
The drop-down menus, which I rarely use, got moved to the right of the address bar. Since the 'Tools' menu is the only one I find myself clicking on regularly, I consolidated more space by putting the rest in a single drop-down with the Tiny Menu extension. You can put all or some of your menus in one drop-down. Very handy.
I also gave the address bar a little more room by getting rid of the progress spinner in the top-right corner, and the Go-button I never use on the address bar.
With some option-tweaking, and more advanced code pasting, you can make your browser exactly how you want it. Check out tips and tricks on Mozilla for more fun changes.
What have you done with your Firefox?
Internet Explorer 7 is out now, and it's worth examining. Mainly because they've finally caught up to many of the features Firefox has had since the beginning of time.
But too little, too late, in my opinion. And their support for standards hasn't improved yet. I won't bore you with that part.
I do like the layout of the new IE7 in how it conserves screen real-estate (making more of the actual webpage visible without scrolling). Luckily, you can make Firefox look anyway you'd like with customization and extensions.
Here's mine:
The main helpful change I made is more effectively using all the blank space on the menu bar found at the top of the default layout. By right clicking on it and choosing 'Customize...' you can rearrange all those toolbar elements.
I moved the navigational buttons to the top-left, with the address bar next to them. I've optimized my bookmarks by using the bookmarks toolbar, and when an icon for the site is available, deleting the title of the bookmark for a nice icon-only toolbar.
The drop-down menus, which I rarely use, got moved to the right of the address bar. Since the 'Tools' menu is the only one I find myself clicking on regularly, I consolidated more space by putting the rest in a single drop-down with the Tiny Menu extension. You can put all or some of your menus in one drop-down. Very handy.
I also gave the address bar a little more room by getting rid of the progress spinner in the top-right corner, and the Go-button I never use on the address bar.
With some option-tweaking, and more advanced code pasting, you can make your browser exactly how you want it. Check out tips and tricks on Mozilla for more fun changes.
What have you done with your Firefox?
