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
[ should be possible to float a tab, like picture-in-picture only for your browser ]
- Double-click on Tab-bar
[ should create new tab, Tab Clicking Options ]
ICONS:
- Bookmark icons
[ icons disrupt the flow and consistency of menus, they look good on toolbars not menus, Hide Favicons ]
- 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 ]
EXTENSIONS (to be considered for integration):
- All-in-One Sidebar / Download Statusbar
- ArchView
- Autohide
- AutoPager
- Badges on Favicon
- Callout
- CyberSearch
- Extension List Dumper
- 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
- Hide Menubar
- Link Fixer Thing / Linkification
[ WARNING: can cause an extreme decrease in performance ]
- Options menu
[ quick and easy access to extension settings ]
- Organize Status Bar
- Screengrab!
- Stylish
- 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, Ubiquity, Weave)
- 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
- Cooliris
- DapperFox
- Fission
- FoxClocks
- Haute Secure / LinkScanner / SiteAdvisor / Web Security Guard
- DownThemAll
[ resume/stop downloads, Metalinker support, could be better integrated ]
- Hide Favicons
- IE Tab
- Menu Editor
- Prism for Firefox
- RetailMeNot
- Split Browser
- Stop-or-Reload Button
- Tab Clicking Options
- Tab Groups
[ this should replace any need for new windows ]
- Tab to Window
- UrlbarExt
- WebMynd
- Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin
- Yet Another Smooth Scrolling
GREASEMONKEY & STYLISH EXTENSIONS:
- Greasemonkey
- AutoPagerize
- Greased Lightbox
- HTTP-to-HTTPS redirector
- TinyURL Popup Preview
- Stylish
- Adjust Menu Height
- ChangeAddOnsManagerView
- Compress the Firefox Status Bar
- CuteMenus - Alignment Fix
- NASA Night Launch Theme Cleanup
- Remove all icons (except tab-bar)
- Remove locationbar bookmark star
- Remove locationbar drop-down arrow
- Remove locationbar Go arrow (FF3)
- Remove locationbar RSS icon
- SquareTabs
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 14:33, 17 November 2008 (UTC)