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2011 12 30 Chris Ilias Firefox
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How to add thread lines in Thunderbird for Mac

If you use Mozilla Thunderbird on Mac and read messages in threaded view, it may be a little hard to track a thread tree. For instance, in this screenshot it is difficult to tell who MikeR’s last message at the bottom is in reply to.

Did he reply to his own post, Mike Easter, or perhaps a message off screen?

You can connect the messages with thread lines, using a userChrome.css tweak.

  1. In Thunderbird, click on the Help menu, then select Troubleshooting Information. This will open the about:support page.
  2. Click on Show In Finder. That will open your profile folder in the Finder.
  3. Create a new folder called “chrome”.
  4. Create a file in the chrome folder, called “userChrome.css”.
  5. Open userChrome.css, and insert this text: 
    #threadTree treechildren::-moz-tree-line {
  visibility: visible !important;
}

#threadTree treechildren::-moz-tree-line(selected, focus) {
  border-color: #FFFFFF !important;
}
  6. Save userChrome.css and restart Thunderbird. Threaded view should have lines connecting messages.

2011 10 28 Chris Ilias Mozilla
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Need your help in the support forum

53% of questions in the Firefox support forum are not getting replies.

If you can, please make some time to answer a few questions, so we don’t end up with users coming to Mozilla for help and getting no reply.

Here’s a link to posts without replies: https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions?filter=no-replies

If you haven’t created an account on support.mozilla.com, you should first repent, then go to https://support.mozilla.com/users/register

2011 09 29 Chris Ilias Firefox
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Deleting individual newsgroup messages in Thunderbird

Let’s say you’re reading a newsgroup with Thunderbird, and some spam gets posted. Or someone posts an offensive message you just want to remove from the message list. Or any case in which you just want to remove an individual article you’ve already downloaded.

In the past, it wasn’t possible to delete individual messages. At least not without exploiting the message aging feature. In the latest version of Thunderbird, you can delete individual messages. You just need to change a preference in the config editor to enable the feature.

  1. Go to Tools > Options > Advanced > General, and click on Config Editor.
  2. In the Config Editor, search for the preference: news.allow_delete_with_no_undo
  3. Double-click on it, to set the value to true.

After that, the delete command will work when you have any newsgroup messages selected.

2011 07 22 Chris Ilias Mozilla
Thunderbird Comments (4) Permalink

When all you want to know is if the bug is fixed

For some specific bugs, I’ve added myself to the CC list, because I’m interested in knowing when the bug is fixed (and maybe when the target has changed). Problem is: because there has been a lot of discussion in a few of those bugs, I’ve been getting a lot of bugmail that I’m not interested in. I don’t want to remove myself from the CC list, because I still want to be notified when the bug is fixed.

I don’t know if I’m the only one with this issue, so I thought I’d share how I fixed it.

In my Bugzilla Preferences, there is an Email Preferences tab that allows me to choose what changes I get emailed about based on my relationship to the bug. In it, I turned off most options for when I am a voter of a bug. Then, for any bugs in which I only care if the bug is fixed, I vote for it instead of adding myself to the CC list.

I made that change over a week ago. So far, so good.

2011 06 17 Chris Ilias Firefox
Mozilla
Mozilla Suite
SeaMonkey
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What is compacting folders in Thunderbird, and why you should do it.

Are your Thunderbird folders taking up a lot of disk space, even though you only have a few messages? Is Thunderbird slow to open folders? It’s probably because you have not compacted your folders.

When you delete a message, it doesn’t really get deleted from the folder. It gets marked as deleted. Thunderbird sees that marking, and knows not to display the message. Compacting a folder will command Thunderbird to remove all messages marked as deleted from that folder.

To compact your folders, go to the File menu and select Compact Folders.
To compact an individual folder, right-click on the folder and select Compact.

If you’re having any issues, post in the Thunderbird Support forum at https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/ask

2011 06 10 Chris Ilias Mozilla
SeaMonkey
Thunderbird Comments (13) Permalink

Firefox 4 Youtube HTML5

Okay, now that Firefox 4 is released and has been downloaded 40 million times, I want all Firefox users to do the following:

  1. Go to http://www.youtube.com/html5
  2. Click on “Join the HTML5 Trial“

Most Youtube videos you watch will be served in WebM format with HTML5 markup, instead of Flash.

Sidenote: Before you go thinking Firefox 4 is the first version of Firefox to support HTML5 video, it should be noted the HTML5 doesn’t specify video codec. Firefox has had support for HTML5 video since version 3.5.

2011 03 28 Chris Ilias Firefox
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How to change the colour of link previews in Firefox 4

In Firefox 3.6, if you want to see the destination URL of a link in a webpage, you can hover the mouse over the link, and the URL will be displayed in the status bar. In Firefox 4 Beta, the destination URL is now displayed in the Location bar.

There have been complaints the the light grey colour makes the text hard to read. This is something you can fix right now with a userChrome.css tweak.

  1. In Firefox, click on the Firefox button and go the Help menu, then select Troubleshooting Information. This will open the about:support page.
  2. Click on Open Containing Folder. That will open Windows explorer in your profile folder.
  3. Create a new folder called “chrome“.
  4. Navigate to the \chrome\ folder, then right-click and select New > Text Document.
  5. Name the file “userChrome.css“.
  6. Open userChrome.css, and insert this text: 
    .urlbar-over-link-box {color: #0000FF !important;}
  7. Save userChrome.css and restart Firefox. Link destinations should now appear in blue.

2011 01 05 Chris Ilias Firefox
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How to update Firefox 4 Beta

A new Firefox 4 Beta is out, and users looking to update may have noticed that the “Check for Updates” menu item no longer there. That’s because the Firefox updater has been moved to the About Firefox window.

To check for updates in Firefox 4, open the Firefox menu (or Help menu if you have the menu bar enabled), and click on About Firefox.

The About Firefox window will open and Firefox will automatically check for an update. If there is one available, Firefox will automatically download it.

When the download is finished, just click on Apply Update.

2010 12 22 Chris Ilias Firefox
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Firefox tip: Disable unused plugins

I used to post a lot of tips and tricks for Firefox and Thunderbird, but I haven’t posted in a long time. Here’s a new one.

If you’re having speed/stability issues with Firefox, the cause of the problem is often one or more plugins. Mozilla offers a plugincheck tool, that tells you if you have the latest version of each of your plugins, so you can make sure all of your plugins are up to date with the latest security and stability fixes.

But many people don’t realize how many plugins they have installed. Seeing so many plugins should be an eye-opener in terms of:

  • how many are listed
  • how many you were aware of
  • how many you use
  • how many you need

Unfortunately, many plugins get installed without us knowing. Even on my mac, when I look at my list of plugins, I see something called “iPhotoPhotocast“. I use iPhoto, but I don’t know what the plugin is for.

One tip that should help improve the stability and performance of your Firefox installation is to disable any plugins you don’t need. To do that, open the Tools menu and click on Add-ons to open the Add-ons manager.

Select the Plugins panel.

For each plugin you don’t need, select it and click Disable.

  • If there is a plugin you need once in a blue moon, just re-enable it when you need it.
  • If you see a “Mozilla Default Plug-in“, leave it alone.

In my case, the only plugin I have enabled is Flash, because I watch videos on Youtube. I find that I’m needing it less and less using Firefox 4 Beta and joining the Youtube HTML5 Beta program.

2010 09 22 Chris Ilias Firefox
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