DescentBB

I, the poster boy for the loyal IE user, have downloaded Firefox and enabled it as my default browser. I must be delirious. Seriously, though, the thing that really and finally sent me over the edge about IE was when I tried to download a certain file and had IE give me an error message stating, "Your current security settings do not allow you to download this file." Of course, there was absolutely no explanation on how to fix the problem. This wasn't the first time I had come across this, but I had forgotten what I had done in the past, so I checked Microsoft's Knowledge Base. Yeah, like that does any good. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out that the site was listed as a "Restricted site" in the security settings. That was pretty much it. Just today, I finally decided to bite the bullet and try Firefox. So far, I'm very happy with it; tabbed browsing is pretty cool, if not the Earth-shattering development that some people seem to drool over. Other than a few visual differences between the two browsers (see PD on both browsers, for instance), I haven't noticed any difference in use. Plus, the built-in search in the upper-right is great, as are some of the plugins.

There are one or two issues I'm having, though. First of all, is there any way to get rid of the "Bookmarks toolbar folder" in the Bookmarks menu? I don't plan on using the toolbar, and it's just cluttering up the top of the menu. Secondly, I'm somewhat annoyed by the mouse-wheel scrolling feature. Obviously, when you click and release the mouse wheel, you get the regular arrow cursor that allows you to move quickly up and down the page. I'm not sure if anyone else really uses this, but in IE as well as in any of the internal Windows Explorer menus, when you're in this arrow mode and move the scroll wheel up or down, the arrow changes back to the normal cursor. Firefox doesn't do this, though; it remains in the arrow mode when you scroll, meaning that you have to click the wheel again to exit it. This is somewhat of an annoyance, as I've been using the IE method for a long time and am used to it. I don't suppose there's any way to change this, is there? (I'm aware that I can just hold down the mouse wheel to scroll and release to stop, but I find that to be uncomfortable.) Finally, while playing a certain Shockwave game, Firefox keeps displaying an error message and crashing, but I suppose that could be due to incompatibilities.

Anyway, I guess I'm one of those "switched" people now. Stop rubbing it in.

P.S. A few more observations. When I'm in a window with multiple scrolling windows, such as the posting menu, I have to physically click on each section to scroll it. In IE, simply moving the cursor over each section allows you to scroll. Also, there's no ability to open a new tab on the right-click menu, which would be a big improvement; there's probably a plug-in for this, though.

P.P.S. Firefox's pop-up blocking is amazing. Also, I've seen a few recent threads about speeding up Firefox, but I don't seem to have any need; as far as I can tell, it's much faster than IE. The image downloading does seem to be somewhat slow, though.

P.P.P.S. Yes, yet another question. I'm trying to access a specific FTP server that requires a username and password login. On IE, when I first accessed this, a dialog box would come up prompting for the username and password; there was also an option to automatically log in, so after the first time, I didn't have to worry about it. On Firefox, however, I get an error message referring to logging in anonymously. Any way to get it to bring up a password dialog box? Obviously, I can just use IE for this, but I'd rather not have to. Also, on a graphical note, I've noticed, at least on the DBB, that spaces at the end of words that are up against the right-hand scroll bar in the dialog box get cut off. This becomes annoying when I don't realize that I've already used the space and end up doing 20.

hey TG, I'm using firefox now!

sorry for the off-topic...

Top Gun wrote:There are one or two issues I'm having, though. First of all, is there any way to get rid of the "Bookmarks toolbar folder" in the Bookmarks menu?

Not that I've found. In previous versions they wouldnt let you delete it per se, but you could cut and paste it into the trash can

Dunno bout the rest of your questions. About the scroll wheel thing, youre just nitpicking

Select another folder as the bookmarks folder. Go to Manage Bookmarks, select another folder, then go to Edit-->Set as bookmarks toolbar folder. Doing this will allow you to delete the Bookmarks Toolbar folder.

Top Gun wrote:Also, there's no ability to open a new tab on the right-click menu, which would be a big improvement; there's probably a plug-in for this, though.

You sure you looked in the right spot?

P.P.S. Firefox's pop-up blocking is amazing. Also, I've seen a few recent threads about speeding up Firefox, but I don't seem to have any need; as far as I can tell, it's much faster than IE. The image downloading does seem to be somewhat slow, though.

You'll be amazed how much faster overall it'll be once you apply the tweaks I posted some time ago.

P.P.P.S. Yes, yet another question. I'm trying to access a specific FTP server that requires a username and password login. On IE, when I first accessed this, a dialog box would come up prompting for the username and password; there was also an option to automatically log in, so after the first time, I didn't have to worry about it. On Firefox, however, I get an error message referring to logging in anonymously. Any way to get it to bring up a password dialog box?

try this:

ftp://username@server.com/

That brings up the password dialog box.

Also, on a graphical note, I've noticed, at least on the DBB, that spaces at the end of words that are up against the right-hand scroll bar in the dialog box get cut off. This becomes annoying when I don't realize that I've already used the space and end up doing 20.

So scroll over.

While you're at it, install these extentions:

http://adblock.mozdev.org/
http://bugmenot.mozdev.org/

You won't regret it.

Spend time going thru the tools menus.

More specifically: "options"

Many of what you want is there.

The scroll option works on my version of FF. Personally, I can't stand it. I use the wheel to scroll up and down.

Once I got it tweeked in, I love FF. Some things I still use EI for. I like the tab browsing tho.



For some reason, in IE, my right click "Save As" quit working and is grayed out. :\

Vander wrote:Select another folder as the bookmarks folder. Go to Manage Bookmarks, select another folder, then go to Edit-->Set as bookmarks toolbar folder. Doing this will allow you to delete the Bookmarks Toolbar folder.

Dude! I freakin love you!

aahhh... clean bookmarks menu

Top Gun wrote:Also, there's no ability to open a new tab on the right-click menu, which would be a big improvement

rightclick the link and select open in new tab, 2nd from the top, as MD pointed out.
but i prefer to just middle click on the link, as this is a hell of a faster way to open things in new tabs. (also, middleclicking on a tab title will instantly close it).

as far as plugins go, i also recommend:
Dict (rightclick -dictionary search- any selected word.)
TabBrowser Preferences (makes tabbed browsing better, does things like trapping new opened windows and makes them new tabs instead, so you only have 1 firefox window open).

something i find very useful is adding the archive.org Wayback Machine to the search bar. do a search for "wayback" on http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html
archive.org is the internet archive, it keeps archived webpages of prettymuch every website, so you can look what a particular website looked like last month, or last year, etc. it doesn't even matter if the website no-longer exists, so this makes it a kindof sweet searchable archived google cache (but with pictures too).

Get the "easygestures" extension.

Pie menus are the greatest improvement in browser interactivity since the invention of the scroll bar.

Use middle mouse button to open links into a new tab. Very useful, especially in reading a BB. Just go down a list, middle click the topic you want to read, then tab over and read each one.

What the hell is a pie menu?

Mmmmmm pie...

Top Wop wrote:Use middle mouse button to open links into a new tab. Very useful, especially in reading a BB. Just go down a list, middle click the topic you want to read, then tab over and read each one.

That's what I like doing. Just middle-click all the topics I want, then read the thread and close the tab when I'm done. Rinse and repeat until there's no tabs left.

Whenever I use IE, I'm annoyed that I can't do that.

All right, I seem to have been misunderstood about opening a new tab. I'm not referring to opening a new tab by right-clicking on a link or by clicking the mouse wheel; I'm already aware of both of those. I was wondering if there was an option to right-click anywhere on the screen, not on a link, and open up a new tab. My rationale being that, if I wanted to open up a new tab to view a new site, I would have to go up to File->New tab. It's not a big deal, but I was wondering if it was available.

Thanks for the tip about the bookmarks folder, Avder. I'm used to going straight to the first folder for my few most-visited sites, and that thing was starting to annoy me. I can't understand why there's no option to turn it off, either; that just seems like common sense.

MD, thanks for the FTP tip. I already have the Bugmenot plugin; it's definitely useful. (Why is the DBB in there anyway? ) As for the spaces at the end of words, I think you may have misunderstood me. Say I'm in the posting box, and the word I'm typing happens to end at the very right edge, right up against the up-down scroll bar. When I hit the space bar, no matter how many times, no space appears. The spaces are still there; it's just that I can't see them. Horizontal scrolling doesn't do anything. I know it's another nitpick, but I'm just saying.

Vindi, you may call the scroll thing nitpickign, but when you're used to using a certain mouse motion for four years or so, and it suddenly doesn't work, you'd probably do a double-take too.

roid, thanks for the links. About that TabBrowser plugin, I found a tweak on the Firefox site that adds an option to have links that normally open in a new window open in a new tab. It involved creating some type of config file in the Application Data folder.

The first two paragraphs hurt my eyes, so I stopped reading.

TG, customize the toolbar and add the New Tab button to it.

Ctrl-T opens a new tab... I generally use that. Or right-click something in the bookmarks menu and open that in a new tab...

You can also middle click your bookmarks/favorites to open them in a new tab.

You guy's may wish to try this out. Tabbrowser Extensions.

Interesting. I just ran a Google search and found out that Firefox doesn't have built-in FTP support. However, I just as quickly discovered a great extension called fireFTP available on Mozdev that does a good job.

Use a FTP client, not a browser.

I've been using firefox for a while now, useful.

neat find topgun.
woo - only 55KB too.

wooooo getting scary in here, starting to look like a firefox forum