Here are some Prefbar tips I’ve kept around.
– To create a button for Normal ‘Text Size‘, use the onclick value
ZoomManager.prototype.getInstance().reset();
– To create a button for ‘Close Tab‘, use the onclick value
BrowserCloseTabOrWindow();
(this may cause your window to close if you click on it, with one tab open)
– In the Mozilla Application Suite, to create a button for ‘Fill in Form‘, use the onclick value
formPrefill();
A little teaser…
![[for Firefox users]](https://images.ilias.ca/Firefox-32x32.png)
I don’t know why, but some people prefer to have a splash screen appear, as an application is loading. Netscape has one, the Mozilla application Suite has one, but Firefox does not.
Yes, you can add one, if you like.
– Download this splash.zip file.
– extract the files within it to your Firefox program directory
– edit the splash.ini file (text editor, like Notepad, should work), so the file paths are correct
– change your shortcuts to point to splash.exe
If you want to change the splash screen provided above, replace the splash.bmp file with a BMP file of your choice. Just make sure you rename it to splash.bmp, thus replacing the included file.
![[for Mozilla Thunderbird users]](https://images.ilias.ca/Thunderbird-32x32.png)
The Mozilla Application Suite allows the user to customize the colour of hyperlinks. This setting also affects email and newsgroup messages. However, because it is a browser setting, the options panel for it is not in Mozilla Thunderbird. Once again, this is one of those things that you can change in Thunderbird, through hidden settings.
The best way to do it, is using the AboutConfig extension, who’s function will be part of the upcoming Thunderbird 1.5.
To figure out what colours you want, open a message composition window in HTML mode. (If you see a toolbar that lets you change the font, size, colour, etc., you are in HTML mode. If not, hold down Shift, as you click on the Write icon.)
Open the colour picker.
Pick the colour you want to use, and copy the HTML colour string, at the bottom.
Now open AboutConfig [Tools -> about:config], and look for the setting browser.anchor_color. Double-click on it, and change the value to the HTML colour string you copied earlier. Click OK, close the about:config window, and you’re done.
If you ever want to change the setting back to the default, right-click on the setting in AboutConfig, and select Reset.
Some additional notes:
The setting for unvisited links is browser.anchor_color
The setting for active links is browser.active_color
(Since Thunderbird doesn’t have a browser history, there are no such thing as visited links in Thunderbird)
You can also change these settings using a user.js file, as described here.
I recently got into Gmail‘s labelling system, which is pretty cool. You can create as many labels as you want, then label messages with as many of those labels as you want. Underneath the list of message folders, is a list of your labels, which you can click on to see a list of messages with that label (virtual folders).
Mozilla Thunderbird has similar functions, that can accomplish that, but with limitations. There’s the saved search folder feature which can not only achieve virtual folders for labelled messages, but for any search criteria. Then there is Thunderbird’s own labelling system, which works almost the same as Gmail, except 1)you have a limit of 5 labels, and 2)you can only apply one label to a message.
This is something I would love for Thunderbird to have; so I went through Bugzilla to search for any RFEs. I found Bug 114656 [allow arbitrary number of labels], and voted for it. Then I read comment #44, which points out an extension to help achieve this.
The Header Tools extension (by Audilecce) allows one to modify/add/remove headers of an email message. This means you can add your own header to a message, such as ‘X-Labels’ or ‘X-Categories’, and apply as many labels as you wish. You can set up saved search folders with the criteria [X-Labels][contains], and list the label. You can even have one saved search folder for a combination of labels.
Of course, I’d like each message to display its labels. This is where one of my favourites extensions can be used. Mnenhy is an extension that allows one to customize header views. These two are a match made in heaven! 
By default, Mozilla Firefox comes with the file npnul32.dll in the \Plugins\ directory. If you enter about:plugins in the location bar, you’ll see a list of installed Plug-ins, with file information, and MIME-type assignments. In that list, you’ll see npnul32.dll listed as “Mozilla Default Plug-in”, assigned to the MIME-type *.
So what is the Mozilla Default Plug-in? What does it do? Why is it there? Can one disable it? How does one disable it?
The Mozilla default plug-in is the plugin finder that gets initiated, when you try to load a page that requires a plug-in, which is not found. Whether or not the default plug-in is enabled or disabled dictates how the plugin finder works.
For instance, if don’t have the Macromedia Flash plug-in, then go to their test page, this is what you’ll get with the default plug-in disabled:
![[screenshot]](https://ilias.ca/screenshots/ff-defplugin-disabled.png)
This is what you’d get, if the default plug-in is enabled (click on it for full size):
![[screenshot]](https://ilias.ca/screenshots/ff-defplugin-enabled.png)
To enable the Mozilla Default plugin, use about:config to change the pref plugin.default_plugin_disabled to false
If you use the address book in Mozilla Thunderbird, you’ll notice a little button that appears in Address area of the Card Summary Pane, entitled Get Map. If you click on it, your default browser will open, going to the MapQuest website, in search of a map to that person’s address. Pretty nifty. 
Some people might prefer to use Google Maps for this feature. Here’s how to change it:
It would probably be best to use the AboutConfig extension; so if you don’t already have it installed, install it.
Using the AboutConfig extension, look for the preference:
mail.addr_book.mapit_url.format
Double-click on it, and edit the value to:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=@A1,%20@A2,%20@CI,%20@ST,%20@ZI
For more info see:
http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/arch/addrbook/hiddenprefs.html#Map_It_pref
On Friday, Gerv announced that Giganews would be hosting the new Mozilla news server. This is something that was five years in waiting. It will also be the first time user support forums will be on a server called “mozilla.org”. (I’ll post more info, when the groups go live.) While there have been mentions of the new server in recent staff meeting minutes, and various posts by members of the community, I want to tell the story of my small role in how this came about.
I am a very satisfied client of Giganews usenet services. I also subscribe to their internal giganews.* newsgroups, in which their support staff participate. Over the last year, I had noticed that many Giganews support personnel had started using Mozilla Thunderbird to post their messages. Assuming that many people at Giganews were fans of Mozilla products, I thought maybe one of their server administrators may be interested in helping out Mozilla.org with their server.
After Gervase Markham posted his (what was beginning to look like annual) request for a news administrator, I decided to contact Giganews about it. The next morning, I got a reply from the vice president, with interest in helping Mozilla. I gave him Gerv’s address, and Gerv verified the contact with “He has indeed been in touch, and we’re in discussion.” A couple of weeks later, he informed me of their success, with “It will be happening very soon.”
Moral of the story:
I felt it important to publicize how I was able to help, because I am neither a Mozilla employee, a Giganews employee, or an NNTP administrator. Yet there was a bug I really wanted fixed, and I was able to get it fixed (at least find someone willing and able to fix it). The lesson is for users of Mozilla products, who want certain bugs fixed. Even if you aren’t a coder, you can still help get bugs fixed, and play an integral part. Don’t be afraid to look for someone willing to fix the bugs that bug you. After all, it is open-source development. Everyone can contribute, no matter how small the contribution.
Firefox users have an option to enable smooth scrolling in the options menu, but what about Thunderbird? Is that part of the back-end Mozilla code, that they share? Why yes it is!
To enable Smooth Scrolling in Mozilla Thunderbird, add the following line to your user.js:
user_pref(“general.smoothScroll”, true);
Or, if you have the AboutConfig extension, go to Tools -> about:config.
Right-click on any preference line, and select New -> Boolean.
Preference name: general.smoothScroll
Value: true
Most of my website traffic comes from Mozilla Europe. As such, I’d like to make an effort to add more international links to my links page.
Anyone know of some good Mozilla sites in other languages? (help sites, forums, development, anything)