Some reference material as i begin to dig into updating LCD for this new-fangled Firefox 1.5 thingy:

The ever-vigilant Jesse Ruderman’s 1.5 changelog is a great starting point:
• A MozillaZine Forums post about the new chrome manifest file system [new, easier way to set up theme development installations (no more install.rdf hokey-pokey)]
• Mozilla Bug 295265 – chrome registry overrides [possible way of setting up development installations of themes]

List of theme changes from 1.0 to 1.5 compiled by ehume and the ensuing discussion at the MozillaZine Themes Forum. Seems fairly comprehensive. Unfortunately, changes were posted to the thread upon discovery, but no master list was kept as far as i can tell—and i haven’t yet am not about to read through all 23 pages of that sucker. That type of info would be much better off (not to mention more accessible) as a KnowledgeBase article.
• Options Window (Pref V)

• My most-used extension is DictionarySearch, hands down. Because i spell only as well as the closest dictionary. And because i have it linked to Answers.com which pulls info from a bunch of great reference sources. And because it works from within textareas so you can check stuff you’re writing. It’s one of those things that’s so useful, yet so terribly simple that it should come installed from the factory.
  Install DictionarySearch.
• I also end up using MakeLink a lot when citing site links for blog posts. I have it set to copy both the URL and site title and format it into a proper HTML link with a title attribute.
  Install MakeLink 2.0.3.
• TripleSelect is an extension that i’ve grown really fond of. It makes Firefox replicate the standard Microsoft behavior of selecting the entire paragraph on a triple-click. Firefox normally only selects the line. The beautiful thing about it is that you can still only select the line by doing 2.5 clicks (double+hold down).
  Install TripleSelect 1.7.
• I’m glad to see that miniT (drag+indicator) is now built-in functionality in Firefox 1.5. (I’ve had the drag indicator themed in LCD for a while now.)
• SessionSaver is a life saver. It just works. Ironically, i haven’t experienced many crashes lately, but i don’t miss a beat if i do.
  Install SessionSaver.
• Couldn’t do without Adblock Plus. Almost literally. Flash ads bring my aged machine to its knees. Coupled with Filterset.G, you’ll never have to look at another ad again. (The filter rules can be a bit agressive sometimes—blocking actual content, but they’re constantly being refined.)
  Install AdBlock Plus 0.5.11.2.
  Install Filterset.G Updater 0.2.9.
• I read that Link Toolbar for 1.5 would require a separate extension to place it on the status bar. But i just realized that i pretty much only use it for navigating up through directories in a URL, so i’m gonna try going back to Digger, which i haven’t used since the Firebird era.
  Install Digger 1.0
• I use IE View occassionaly to peep sites from the other side of the fence, or if some page doesn’t work in Firefox.
  Install IE View.
• You used to be able to drag any bit of text (non-linked URLs, domain names, etc.) to the tab bar and Firefox would try to open it in a new tab. Somewhere along the way after 1.0 that stopped working. Right-Click-Link fills that void.
  Install Right-Click-Link 1.1.1
  Dragging text to the tabbar seems to be fixed in 1.5, so i don’t need this extension anymore.
• I’ve used ScreenGrab a little, but i’m not thrilled that it uses Java. Too slow on my machine. Not sure if i’m going to reinstall it in 1.5.

I had a few others installed, but never used them. Out with the old.

technorati tags: Firefox, extensions, Firefox extensions, Firefox 1.5

All the everyday stuff should work—i can get along in Flock just fine. But the Options window doesn’t work at all. There may be one or two other big things, but other than that it’s just gonna be bits of polish here and there. The only thing preventing me from diving into the water is the few can’t-live-without extensions that haven’t been updated for 1.5 yet. I seem to remember there was something you could run old extensions through to make them compatible, but haven’t been able to find it, if there was such a thing.

technorati tags: Firefox theme, Firefox extensions, LCD, Firefox 1.5, Flock

technorati tags: SessionSaver, Firefox, extension, Firefox extension, work

* It’s been well over fifteen minutes since i first clicked Write for this post.

So anyway, the idea. Add an Image Toolbar on the bottom of the window (like the Find Toolbar) when images are viewed. For a slight sacrifice in vertical screen real estate, you could have image details (size, format, etc.), resize feedback, and controls for zooming and other functions (like copying and saving). Being on the bottom would work out perfectly, since there’s no reason to have the Find Toolbar come up while viewing an image (which i just tried, and is apparently another bug).

[Save Image][Copy Image] [Set As Wallpaper] [Fit In Window] JPEG Image, 630x1200 - Scaled 53%

I’m going ahead and writing this now before i even check if it’s already been suggested so i at least get the idea down. Searching through bmo and the forums can be an arduous task. And i haven’t done it in a while. I’ll check back in after i get a chance to dig around a bit. Hmm, maybe this could be something i could tinker with as an extension. Would probably be easier than a frequent links toolbar with all its history messiness.

Apparently there’s been an Image Toolbar extension for a while now, which mimics Internet Explorer’s behavior. Though it has a few of the same features (Save, Copy) it doesn’t really solve the problem of resizing. And i personally never really liked that little floating toolbar anyway. May be able to borrow/learn some code from it. I don’t think there’s really enough overlap to make my idea worthless, but now i have to come up with a different name. That’s fine, though, “Image Toolbar” was a little to plain and obvious for my tastes anyway. Onward.

Might be able to glean more from the Image Zoom extension. Though i’d like mine to use the stock functions as much as possible. This sounds like it does some of its own zooming stuff, like incrementally zooming in and out, instead of just 100% and fitting to the window. Though that may be something to consider—zoom in/out. But that would probably get scrapped in favor of simplicity. I’m going for something that might actually be included in a Firefox release.