BOOT CAMP 419 (11/04/06)

MOZILLA FIREFOX TOP TIPS part 2

It’s no exaggeration to say that Mozilla Firefox has revolutionised the browser market, before it came along we were (mostly) content to surf using Internet Explorer. A few brave dissidents experimented with rival browsers, or had them forced upon them by their Internet Service Providers, but for the most part IE reigned supreme.

The tide is now turning and as we saw last week one of the main attractions of Firefox is the extensions or add-ons developed by users to make it more functional. We’ve some more for you but most of this week’s tips are concerned with Firefox’s inner workings and configuration settings.

If you read a lot of PDF web pages then this one will definitely be of interest. PDFs can seem slow to open in Firefox as it tries to load the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in at the same time as it’s downloading data so the trick is to make it download the file first then open Acrobat Reader in a smaller window. Go to the Tools > Options > Downloads, click the Plug-Ins button and uncheck the item Adobe Acrobat Document then click OK to close the box.

Whilst we’re on the subject, PDF Download is an extension that lets you choose between viewing the PDFs in the browser in a separate Acrobat Reader (or your chosen PDF viewer) window. 

This next tip fixes one of Firefox’s few annoyances. When you click on a link in an email or document it will open the page in your currently open browser window, which can be a nuisance. To force Firefox to open a new window or create a new tab when you click an external link go to Tools > Options > Advanced. Scroll down to ‘Tabbed Browsing’ and check either ‘A new Window’ or ‘ A new tab in the most recent window’.

It’s time to pay a visit to Firefox’s hidden Configuration Console. This is the key to the program’s flexibility and it contains hundreds of settings, which determine the program’s performance, appearance and the way it does things. Most of them are best left alone, or adjusted using external means -- more on that in a moment. Nevertheless there’s one small adjustment you can try. If left to its own devices can swallow up a sizeable portion of your PCs’ memory. To set a limit on its RAM allocation we need to enter the Configuration Console, so go to the address box and type ‘about:config’ (without the quotes) then press enter.

Right click into an empty space and select New > Integer and in the ‘New Integer Value’ box type (or copy and paste):  ‘browser.cache.memory.capacity’ (without the quotes). Click OK and a new box appears, now change the default memory value to 16000 (which represents 16Mb of RAM), click OK, exit Firefox and restart. If you want to change or reset it simply go back into the Configuration Console, the new entry will be highlighted in bold. Right-click on it and choose from the list of options. There’s more on about:config in the Mozilla Knowledgebase.

Now we’ll see how we can make much more detailed changes to the Configuration Console without getting our hands dirty using a separate program called Firetune. This lets you optimise Firefox’s performance to suit your PC’s specs and Internet connection. It is safe to use and keeps a backup of your original configuration, should something go wrong.

Okay, that’s enough of the teccy stuff, to round off here are some useful keyboard shortcuts. You won’t remember them all so write them down on a Post-It note and stick it close to your screen or keyboard. Try a few, you’ll be surprised how much time you spend using the mouse.

Ctrl + 1, 2, 3 etc. switches between open tabbed windows

Ctrl + B Bookmark pane

Ctrl + F Find on page

Ctrl + H History dialogue box and list

Ctrl + N new window

Ctrl + O file Open dialogue box

Ctrl + R refreshes current Page

Ctrl + S saves current page

Ctrl + T open new tab

Ctrl + Tab steps through open tabs

Ctrl + U page source code

Ctrl + W close open tab

Firefox isn’t automatically updated or patched but it will let you know is there’s an important download waiting to be installed. A small notification icon (white arrow on a red button) appears in the top right hand corner of the screen. Click on it and the update begins. You can also manually check for new versions available by clicking the ‘throbber’ (the pulsating dotted circle in the top right corner), which takes you directly to the Firefox home page.

This last tip is for heavy-duty surfers who regularly work with groups of two or more open tabs. Rather than individually bookmarking all of the sites or pages and opening them one at a time you can Bookmark multiple tabs. Open each of the pages then go to Bookmarks > Bookmark this page, check the item Bookmark all tabs in a folder’, give the newly created folder a name and click OK. As an added refinement you can drag the folder onto the Bookmarks toolbar and with a single click open pages as many websites as you want.  

NEXT WEEK - INTERNET EXPLORER 7

JARGON FILTER

PDF

Portable Document Format - web-friendly, cross-platform format for encoding documents and graphics, normally viewed using free Adobe Acrobat Reader program

RAM

Random Access Memory - a computer's working memory, where programs store data and information when they are running

SOURCE CODE

The HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) text codes and commands used to compose web pages

TOP TIP

There are more than a thousand Firefox Extensions and virtually all of them are free. One of the best general collections can be found on the Mozilla.org website. There are also huge libraries at Mozdev.org and in the Extension Room. For a complete archive of past Boot Camp top tips visit: www.rickmaybury.com

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© R. Maybury 2006, 2903

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