Tab Progress Bar 0.6 : A Firefox addon

Firefox 3.7 comes with a page-loading progress bar on each tab. Those who want the same feature on their Firefox 3.5, there is an addon called Tab Progress Bar.

If you want to change the color of progress bar, please follow the steps.

1. Open your chrome folder. If you don't know where that is, read this: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox Once you're in the profile folder, open the chrome folder :)
2. Make a new file called userChrome.css
3. Paste the following code into that file (be sure to replace YOURCOLORHERE):
   
   @namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");
   .tab-progress > .progress-bar { background-color: YOURCOLORHERE !important; }
   
   If you are not sure how to type a color, check this out.
   
4. Restart Firefox. 

Click here to install the addon.

Firefox addon for TinEye Image Search

Tineye is an reverse search engine. It helps you to find the details of an image. You can submit an image to TinEye and they will provide you the results like the source of image, where it is been used, how many different version of it exists irrespective of the resolution.

Now they have released plugin for Firefox and IE and you can find it here.

How to use
After installing, right click on any image, select the 'Search Image on TinEye'.

The results will be opened in a new window.

To know more about TinEye or Image searching, please read this.

Twitter for firefox

I used to tweet lot of information whatever I see in internet. So every time it was tough to short the URL by going bit.ly (which I prefer) and open twitter and paste the short URL. These are the following addons I am using to tweet in different manner from my Firefox.

• Echofon (Formerly TwitterFox)
Echofon is an addon for Firefox. The addon can be installed from here.  

Some of the features are :
• Easy updation of status to twitter.
• Shows unread tweet count on firefox
• Multiple accounts can be added
 

 
• InstantTweets
An addon for Firefox using which you can post any URL into twitter. It is located on the address bar. Click on the blue bird posts into twitter. Even it shows how many more characters are left to update the status. Click here to install it.  

 
• Shorten URL
Shorten URL is an another Firefox add on, I found quite useful. The combination of Shorten URL and instant tweet is too powerful. If instantweet had shown URL is too long, it can be shortened by Shorten URL and post it.  

  Shorten URL can be configured to any URL shortening service. It can be configured from options.
• Long URL Please
Long URL Please is an must have Firefox addon for frequent twitters. It reveals the shortened URLs in the twitter. More about URL shortener can be read here 

Hope you will also have good time in tweeting with this Firefox addons.

History Tree addon & Application Launcher for FireFox

• History Tree
Have you ever wanted to track a URL or a page in your pile of history and found yourself lost? Then this addon could be the right choice for you. History Tree addon helps you to find the page you visited very quickly and easily. You can find your history as a tree or even as thumbnails, giving you more accurate selection of what you wanted. You can find the addon here
How To
Click on Tools menu, then select History Tree.


[Screen Shot used from addon site]
• External Application Buttons mod for Firefox
Do you live your day in Firefox browser? I am 24x7 on Firefox and this addon is a blessing for a lazy guy like me. I can launch my favourite application from FireFox without minimizing it ( I won't lose any second in my FaceBook Games ;-)).
How to
Right Click on Toolbar and select customize. In the Customize, you can find External Application Toolbar. Once added, right click on the toolbar, select add Application. Click here to get Firefox addon, for Thunderbird addon click here.
Note : This is an experimental Addon.

Weave : Sync your firefox

Weave Sync, a preject developed by Mozilla labs to sync the Firefox experiences across your browser. Weave makes you feel like you have portable Firefox.

• What weave offers




1. Get the same results on the Smart Location Bar on each of your Firefox browsers, so you can get to your favorite sites with just a few keystrokes


2. Continue what you were doing: have the ability to open any tab you have open on any of your Firefox browsers


3. Keep the same list of bookmarks on all of your Firefox browsers


4. Easily sign in to all your favorite sites using your saved passwords (this is especially handy on mobile phones, where it’s hard to type in complex passwords)


5. Do it all securely: Weave Sync encrypts user data before uploading it to Mozilla’s servers, so that only you can access your data




• What you have to do




1. Get the addon and install.


2. Create a username and password in Weave cloud. It can be done by the addon. Right click on the addon and select Sign In.


3. Select what you want to sync in preferences. It offers to sync Forms, History, Tabs, Bookmars and Preferences

Now you have the portable Firefox. Enjoy!

Tune up Firefox memory issues

Firefox is free and a good browser, but eats lot of resources. Sometimes my firefox consumes 1 GB making my system run slower.
So my search in google to reduce firefox memory usuage, yielded the following conclusions.

1. Force firefox to release memory while minimize

Windows usually frees memory from the minimized applications. But firefox do not allow this. To make firefox to release the memory do the following. Type about:config in your address bar and press enter, add a new boolean value "config.trim_on_minimize". Set the value as True, close about:config and restart firefox. Now your firefox will release memory on minimize.


2. Restrict cache capacity

This done again by tweaking the about:config. Add a new interger value "browser.cache.memory.capacity". Refer the Mozilla page for more details about the values.


3. RAMBack

RAMBack is addon available for firefox that clears the cache of not used sites or closed tabs. You can find it here.



4. What lifehacker says

I found many posting under lifehacker.



• TooManyTabs.


• Extensions that leak memory.

Hope this will solve your memory issues with Firefox

Make Firefox faster by vacuuming the database

Doing a VACUUM on FireFox tables will help it to work more efficienty. All you have to do is,

1. Open the Error Console from Tools Menu or press (Cntrl+Shift+J).


2. In the Code text box paste the below code (Single line). :
   

   
   Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");
   



3. Press Evaluate button. All the UI will freeze for a few seconds while databases are VACUUMed

There is an experimental addon available to execute VACUUM. Click here to install it.

A new addon(Vacuum Places Improved) also available now and is experimental. It is more enhanced with features compared to the previous one. You can hide the status bar icon and it will appear after x start ups, thus reminding you to clean or it can auto clean clean after y start ups. Its all configurable. You can download it here

How to make your own search plugin for Firefox

Firefox search engine plugins are xml files stored in the Profile folder of Firefox.
In the profile folder you can find searchplugins folder.
A sample xml looks like the one below.

<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/" xmlns:os="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<os:ShortName>Technology Freaks me out!!!</os:ShortName>
<os:Description>Search Tyrants World</os:Description>
<os:InputEncoding>UTF-8</os:InputEncoding>
<os:Image width="16" height="16">data:image/x-icon;base64,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</os:Image>
<SearchForm>http://tyrantsworld.blogspot.com/search</SearchForm>
<os:Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://tyrantsworld.blogspot.com/search">
  <os:Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>
</os:Url>
</SearchPlugin>

1. os:ShortName
The name to be displayed on the search plugins select box.


2. os:Description
Any description as you want.


3. os:InputEncoding
Encoding to be used while searching. Usually it is UTF-8


4. os:Image
An image to be displayed along with search enging name. You can add the site logo or favicon. Image data should be provided as a base64 encoded string. A free online converter can be found here


5. SearchForm



6. os:Url
The search action. In the above xml search action is "http://tyrantsworld.blogspot.com/search". os:Url should have an argument "os:Param". os:Param name is the name of the search box in the web page and value should be {searchTerms}

A Web Developer Must Have Add Ons (FireFox)

I am a big fan of Fire Fox browser and using it over the past five years. As a web designer, I have add many extension to my FireFox.

1. Web Developer Toolbar

A handy tool which gives you lot of features. You can control or view every minute details of a web page.


2. MeasureIt

A small ruler to calculate width of TD or images.


3. IE Tab

Add on that enables IE inside FF. Very useful to view the page layout in IE and FF together.


4. Page Info Forms and Links


Adds form and link information to page info dialog. Easy tool to verify the hidden fields instead checking the source code.


5. JavaScript Debugger

A very powerful, but need to have good knowledge in debugging.


6. Firebug


Its really cool tool. My fav option is right click on the page, select Inspect Element. It shows the selected element tag in source. More accurate than FF default "View Selection Source".


7. Extended Statusbar

Add on that displays page load time, transfer rate etc. Handy tool to understand your page loading time. As FF do not support FasterFox now, I am using this instead.


8. View Source Chart

Nice add on that displays page source formatted with colors. Its really easy to identify the table structures.