How to turn Pale Moon into a convenient browser
After reading the article about the rich functionality of the old Opera, I decided to talk about the problems that I could (and could not) solve in the Firefox browser, or rather its Pale Moon fork. I will touch not only the issues raised in that article, but also other problems that I faced.
A small background to the issue:
1. Sidebar
One of my favorite pieces of the old Opera is a multifunctional sidebar. In Fox, it is replaced by the All-in-One Sidebar extension. It has tree bookmarks, tree history (including grouping by sites), downloads, extensions, page display (for example, about: config), as well as information about the page. Throughout this, a quick search with filtering is available.
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One of the differences between the new versions of Fox from Pale Moon is the download manager, which cannot work normally in the sidebar. In Pale Moon, this can be fixed with the Download Manager Tweak extension.
2. Highlighting some links
In Fox there is an opportunity to select a part of the link, holding Alt. To do this, disable saving by Alt + Click. We find in about: config parameter browser.altClickSave and switch to false. To select part of the link, you need to hold down the alt, select the text, first release the mouse button, and then the alt . This method works on regular links, but does not work, say, on Twitter names (it works like a click).
Bonus: to navigate to URI text as a link, use Text Link . Now you just need to double click on the text with the address of the site, which is not a link.
3. Image properties
Firefox has a context menu item, View Image Info, which shows the file format, resolution in pixels, file path, caption, and weight. Weight is indicated only for cached images, which for some reason does not occur on some sites (for example, on Habré).
4. RSS
After closing Google Reader, I switched to Inoreader . Everything seems to be in place. By the way, they recently updated the design.
5. Switch tabs
For everything related to tabs, I use Tab Mix Plus . It allows you to switch tabs with the wheel, adjust the behavior, appearance, context menu and much more.
Also Tab Mix Plus allows you to switch tabs by ctrl + tab with thumbnails or just a list. At the same time they can switch, both in the order of use, and in a row. You can switch the mouse.
6. Go to the next page by space.
Another killer feature of Opera is available with the Space Next extension. The bottom line is that the space bar scrolls down the page, like the PgDn button. If you reached the end of the page and once again pressed the space, the extension automatically goes to the next page (for example, from the first to the second on the main Habr).
7. Site loading indicator
The Extended Statusbar extension adds to the status of the Pale Moon indicators from the Opera, that is, information about downloading images, weight, speed, time and sending requests to the site.
8. Download indicator
In addition to the previous item, you can install Download status , which will show information about downloaded files in the same status bar. Compatible with both the Extended Statusbar (takes up space on the other side) and the All-in-One Sidebar (a click on the list of sidebar downloads opens).
9. Replacing Opera Wand
Wand is a tool that allows you to login to the site with one click, if the login / password has been saved before. In Fox there is a Secure Login for this. Cons: does not always work.
10. Reading mode
In Fox, as in Opera, you can turn off the entire design through View> Page Style. But in the Opera there were more settings, and as a rule, the site does not become easier to read, since the entire structure breaks down. If you need something against the layout curve and vigorous design, I can recommend Clearly or any similar extension for easy reading. Clearly changes the style of any page to one of the selected. There is an opportunity to create a custom style.
11. Address bar / search
The division into the address bar and the search always seemed to me a violation of Occam's razor. Foobar copes well with combining them into one (not to be confused with the player). In addition to hints from history / bookmarks, it shows hints of the selected search engine. Appearance and behavior can be customized. But with the lack of a normal list of recent sites, as in the Opera, I had to accept.
Bonus: for site search I use Site Searcher.
12. Separate history for the context menu of the forward / back buttons
Use the NoUn Buttons extension.
13. Disabling Extension Compatibility Check
This will help Disable Add-on Compatibility Checks . This will not resolve the issue of installing already inaccessible extensions, but will allow to save the existing ones. The extension did not work in Fox.
As for the installation of incompatible extensions (gray button on the site). Attention! You do this at your own risk. Right click on the gray “Add to Firefox” button. Select View Page Source. In the window that appears, find the line of the form addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/NUMBER / NAME .xpi Just paste the link into the address bar and press enter. Just keep in mind that installing an extension does not guarantee its operation.
1. Tab grouping
The coolest thing in the old Opera is tab grouping by simple drag and drop. All operations with them occurred directly in the tab bar. There are no analogues. For Fox, there is an extension that creates a second row of tabs that works as groups. There is a toggle button . But this is all wrong. Well, non-usable built-in groups.
2. Turbo
Of course, there are now thousands of proxies and extensions for them. But, first of all, Turbo pushes traffic, and secondly, the proxy from the authors of the browser causes more trust, and it works stably and quickly. On Anroid I use Opera for this very reason. By the way, Opera Max recently came out for Android, compressing all traffic. Unfortunately, it does not compress the official Twitter client (for some time did not check, it may already compress).
3. Fit to width
Another function of the Opera - to fit the page width. In the 12th version, by the way, it does not work for me at all. I never found a direct replacement, and I don’t need it. As an option, you can use the zoom or readers.
4. Disabling pictures
For Fox there is an extension HideImages , which allows you to hide both all and individual images on the page. The downside is that it leaves a gray field in its place. Pictures appear after refreshing the page.
You can also hide images using the Adblock Plus - Element Hiding Helper add-on. It will automatically create a filter for the selected item. Minus: unlike the Chrome version, it may be difficult to choose the desired item.
Again, you can use the reader.
This is not a complete list of usability problems that have to be solved, but I tried to focus on the most basic and universal ones. Share your tips in the comments!
If you could not find an extension with the functionality you need, I advise you to search among user scripts (at the time of writing the site lay, here is a mirror ) or styles . To do this, respectively, need Greasemonkey and Stylish .
PS Please note that I don’t really follow the changes in the versions of Firefox and some of the above may work there / not work / work wrong. Information checked on the latest stable version of Pale Moon (at the time of publication - 24.5) If you find an error, please report it in the comments.
A small background to the issue:
Read
I have used Opera since the sixth version. Norwegian developers began to make controversial decisions around the ninth. Of course, compared with the current state of affairs, the 12th version is a masterpiece of design. After the Opera, I switched to Firefox, finding it in the last successful version - 3.6. Since then I have tried many browsers, including Chrome, but have not found the perfect one among them. Recently, changes in the interface and functionality of Fox have become so irreversible that I switched to Pale Moon. In essence, this is the same Fox, with the same extensions, only with the old interface and unbroken functionality. Unfortunately, the browser can not boast of stability and speed (at least for me).
What problems could be solved:
1. Sidebar
One of my favorite pieces of the old Opera is a multifunctional sidebar. In Fox, it is replaced by the All-in-One Sidebar extension. It has tree bookmarks, tree history (including grouping by sites), downloads, extensions, page display (for example, about: config), as well as information about the page. Throughout this, a quick search with filtering is available.
')
One of the differences between the new versions of Fox from Pale Moon is the download manager, which cannot work normally in the sidebar. In Pale Moon, this can be fixed with the Download Manager Tweak extension.
2. Highlighting some links
In Fox there is an opportunity to select a part of the link, holding Alt. To do this, disable saving by Alt + Click. We find in about: config parameter browser.altClickSave and switch to false. To select part of the link, you need to hold down the alt, select the text, first release the mouse button, and then the alt . This method works on regular links, but does not work, say, on Twitter names (it works like a click).
Bonus: to navigate to URI text as a link, use Text Link . Now you just need to double click on the text with the address of the site, which is not a link.
3. Image properties
Firefox has a context menu item, View Image Info, which shows the file format, resolution in pixels, file path, caption, and weight. Weight is indicated only for cached images, which for some reason does not occur on some sites (for example, on Habré).
4. RSS
After closing Google Reader, I switched to Inoreader . Everything seems to be in place. By the way, they recently updated the design.
5. Switch tabs
For everything related to tabs, I use Tab Mix Plus . It allows you to switch tabs with the wheel, adjust the behavior, appearance, context menu and much more.
Also Tab Mix Plus allows you to switch tabs by ctrl + tab with thumbnails or just a list. At the same time they can switch, both in the order of use, and in a row. You can switch the mouse.
6. Go to the next page by space.
Another killer feature of Opera is available with the Space Next extension. The bottom line is that the space bar scrolls down the page, like the PgDn button. If you reached the end of the page and once again pressed the space, the extension automatically goes to the next page (for example, from the first to the second on the main Habr).
7. Site loading indicator
The Extended Statusbar extension adds to the status of the Pale Moon indicators from the Opera, that is, information about downloading images, weight, speed, time and sending requests to the site.
8. Download indicator
In addition to the previous item, you can install Download status , which will show information about downloaded files in the same status bar. Compatible with both the Extended Statusbar (takes up space on the other side) and the All-in-One Sidebar (a click on the list of sidebar downloads opens).
9. Replacing Opera Wand
Wand is a tool that allows you to login to the site with one click, if the login / password has been saved before. In Fox there is a Secure Login for this. Cons: does not always work.
10. Reading mode
In Fox, as in Opera, you can turn off the entire design through View> Page Style. But in the Opera there were more settings, and as a rule, the site does not become easier to read, since the entire structure breaks down. If you need something against the layout curve and vigorous design, I can recommend Clearly or any similar extension for easy reading. Clearly changes the style of any page to one of the selected. There is an opportunity to create a custom style.
11. Address bar / search
The division into the address bar and the search always seemed to me a violation of Occam's razor. Foobar copes well with combining them into one (not to be confused with the player). In addition to hints from history / bookmarks, it shows hints of the selected search engine. Appearance and behavior can be customized. But with the lack of a normal list of recent sites, as in the Opera, I had to accept.
Bonus: for site search I use Site Searcher.
12. Separate history for the context menu of the forward / back buttons
Use the NoUn Buttons extension.
13. Disabling Extension Compatibility Check
This will help Disable Add-on Compatibility Checks . This will not resolve the issue of installing already inaccessible extensions, but will allow to save the existing ones. The extension did not work in Fox.
As for the installation of incompatible extensions (gray button on the site). Attention! You do this at your own risk. Right click on the gray “Add to Firefox” button. Select View Page Source. In the window that appears, find the line of the form addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/NUMBER / NAME .xpi Just paste the link into the address bar and press enter. Just keep in mind that installing an extension does not guarantee its operation.
What remained unresolved:
1. Tab grouping
The coolest thing in the old Opera is tab grouping by simple drag and drop. All operations with them occurred directly in the tab bar. There are no analogues. For Fox, there is an extension that creates a second row of tabs that works as groups. There is a toggle button . But this is all wrong. Well, non-usable built-in groups.
2. Turbo
Of course, there are now thousands of proxies and extensions for them. But, first of all, Turbo pushes traffic, and secondly, the proxy from the authors of the browser causes more trust, and it works stably and quickly. On Anroid I use Opera for this very reason. By the way, Opera Max recently came out for Android, compressing all traffic. Unfortunately, it does not compress the official Twitter client (for some time did not check, it may already compress).
3. Fit to width
Another function of the Opera - to fit the page width. In the 12th version, by the way, it does not work for me at all. I never found a direct replacement, and I don’t need it. As an option, you can use the zoom or readers.
4. Disabling pictures
For Fox there is an extension HideImages , which allows you to hide both all and individual images on the page. The downside is that it leaves a gray field in its place. Pictures appear after refreshing the page.
You can also hide images using the Adblock Plus - Element Hiding Helper add-on. It will automatically create a filter for the selected item. Minus: unlike the Chrome version, it may be difficult to choose the desired item.
Again, you can use the reader.
This is not a complete list of usability problems that have to be solved, but I tried to focus on the most basic and universal ones. Share your tips in the comments!
If you could not find an extension with the functionality you need, I advise you to search among user scripts (at the time of writing the site lay, here is a mirror ) or styles . To do this, respectively, need Greasemonkey and Stylish .
PS Please note that I don’t really follow the changes in the versions of Firefox and some of the above may work there / not work / work wrong. Information checked on the latest stable version of Pale Moon (at the time of publication - 24.5) If you find an error, please report it in the comments.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/223383/
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