User:Operations

Personal homepage: ACD - HUB

Overall the purpose of this write-up is just to enlighten others by bringing together some of the more intelligent browsing enhancements I've found. I'm also hoping that actual Firefox user-interface developers might consider setting the browser up as I have, but not everyone thinks like I do. Many others besides myself have suggested the following changes but I'm afraid those people and I may just be power-users.

OUTSIDE RESOURCES:
- MakeUseOf - The Winners of ‘Extend Firefox’ - Best Firefox Addons
- Mozilla Wiki - Talk:Firefox:3.0 Tabbed Browsing
- Mozilla Wiki - Firefox/Feature Brainstorming:Default Browser UI

CURRENT IMPLEMENTATION EXAMPLES:
- Firefox Campus Edition
- Firefox eBay Edition

FIREFOX DERIVATIVE IMPLEMENTATIONS:
- AT&T - Pogo
- Flock / Flock Eco
- Galeon
- Kirix - Strata
- Miro
- Orca Browser
- Qtrax
- Songbird
- Wyzo (may be dead)

DEFAULT INTERFACE PROBLEMS: [ more ideas can be found here ]
  BUTTONS:
   - New Tab button
        [ isn't a default but should be the first button on the toolbar ]
   - Stop and Refresh buttons
        [ could be integrated into one button, like how Apple's Safari browser is, please make it an option via about:config ]
   - Home button
        [ is a default that nobody probably uses ]

  WINDOWS:
   - Preferences, Add-ons, and Downloads
        [ each opens a new window instead of using the tabbed browser interface, they should load in the sidebar or in a separate tab ]
   - New windows
        [ new windows should only be used/allowed for separate Firefox profiles, Tab Groups should supplant the necessity for windows ]

  MENUS:
   - Menubar (at the top of the browser)
        [ people rarely use this and Internet Explorer already dumped it, a great way to change this is best exemplified by the extension Hide Menubar ]
   - Send Link option
        [ what is this? it never seems to work ]

  TABS & TAB BAR:
   - Tab sizing
        [ most websites only need an icon-sized tab like FaviconizeTab ]
   - Tab grouping
        - more ideas can be found here
        - should use menus not additional tab-bars to select tab-groups
   - Floating tabs
        [ it should be possible to float a tab, like picture-in-picture only for your browser ]

  ICONS:
   - Bookmark icons
        [ icons disrupt the flow and consistency of menus, they look good on toolbars not menus ]
   - Menu icons
        [ icons disrupt the flow and consistency of menus, they look good on toolbars not menus ]
   - Loading statusbar and toolbar icon
        [ each tab in Firefox shows the loading status, is it necessary to display this information anywhere else? Fission is the way it should be implemented if at all ]

  LOCATION BAR:
   - Integrate search
        [ why would anyone want an error page in response to forgetting .com? I say make this the search bar ]
   - Paste options
        [ add a paste-and-go option to the contextual menu, like how Maxthon's location bar is ]

  OTHER:
   - Download manager
        [ integrate (torrent / Metalinker / ZIP) support ]
   - OpenID integration
        [ VeriSign's OpenID SeatBelt extension is really buggy but the idea is great, another tool is Sxipper ]
   - Pop-up blocking notifications
        [ it may just be me but the exclamation marks in the status-bar should probably be set as default, instead of the annoying bar that appears under the tab-bar ]

TWEAKS:

EXTENSIONS (to be considered for integration):
- All-in-One Sidebar / Download Statusbar
- ArchView
- Autohide
- AutoPager
- Badges on Favicon
- Callout
- Cooliris
- FaviconizeTab
        [ the only sane way to browse the internet ]
- FavLoc
- Flash Block / NoScript / Adblock Plus
- Flem
        [ should include support for RSS, take advantage of pre-loading, and behave more like Cooliris ]
- Greasemonkey
        - AutoPagerize
        - Greased Lightbox
        - HTTP-to-HTTPS redirector
        - TinyURL Popup Preview
- Hide Menubar
- IE Tab
- Link Fixer Thing / Linkification
        [ WARNING: can cause an extreme decrease in performance ]
- Mozilla (Ubiquity, Weave)
- Options menu
        [ quick and easy access to extension settings ]
- Organize Status Bar
- Peers
- Screengrab!
- Split Browser
- Stop-or-Reload Button
- Tab Groups
        [ this should replace any need for new windows, but currently causes problems with Greasemonkey ]
- Tab to Window
- UrlbarExt
- VeriSign's OpenID SeatBelt / Sxipper
        [ WARNING: can cause an extreme decrease in performance ]
- WiseStamp
        [ needs a more simplified user-interface ]

EXTENSIONS (that have been or will be integrated in some form):
- Mozilla (Geode
- Undo Closed Tabs Button
- Unified Back-/Forward Button
        [ doesn't always work well with certain Firefox themes ]
- Update Notifier

OTHER EXTENSIONS:
- BlueOrganizer
- BugMeNot
- CraigsToolbox Image Viewer
- Fission
- FoxClocks
- Haute Secure / LinkScanner / SiteAdvisor / Web Security Guard
- DownThemAll
        [ resume/stop downloads, Metalinker support, could be better integrated ]
- Menu Editor
- Prism for Firefox
- RetailMeNot
- WebMynd
- Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin
- Yet Another Smooth Scrolling

GOOGLE EXTENSIONS:
- AideRSS
- Better Gmail 2
- CookiePie
- gDocsBar
- Gmail S/MIME
- Google Earth
- Google Gears
- gReader Comments
- Greasemonkey
        - AideRSS Google Reader Integration
        - Google Reader Filter
        - Google Reader Preview Enhanced
- Stylish
        - Gmail Redesigned (by Globex Designs)
- Xoopit
- Zemanta

--Operations 17:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)