Slightly Remarkable

I recently came across a link to an Intel-optimized version of Firefox 3.1 called Shiretoko. I tried it out this afternoon, hoping to be surprised, since Firefox has been known to run slow due to heavy extension usage. So I gave Shiretoko a shot, and my discovery was that it does indeed run faster, if only by a little (and that is probably due to the fact that it could not load any of the themes or extensions I have installed). In light of this, I am going to stick with the default Firefox builds for the time being — the difference is negligible, and while I applaud the folks who have been working on optimized versions of Firefox, I am finding my extensions far more pragmatic than saving a couple hundred milliseconds here and there.

Interesting to note, Facebook seems to think that Shiretoko is “an older browser” and tosses the chatting function into a new window for you. Looks like they do browser sniffing instead of testing for available functionality. Of course, the browser could be cloaked to report that it is Firefox, but that would only be worth it if Shiretoko provided a significant performance improvement. I do, however, like that the only browser that Facebook suggests upgrading to is Firefox — it doesn’t mention Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, or any other browser. Facebook likes Firefox.

Let me first summarize the problems I was having. Upon upgrade completion, Firefox alerted an error (though I do not remember what it was), but then seemed to function fine. It did try to update all the extensions and remove those that were incompatible, but plugins that claimed to be compatible with 1.5 were not working. Right-clicking an extension and hitting the “Options” menu froze the Extension Manager window. I tried to uninstall an extension to reinstall it, and it said “This item will be uninstalled when you restart Firefox.” I restarted Firefox, but it did not uninstall the extension. I uninstalled Firefox, restarted the computer, and then reinstalled Firefox, but the extension’s message did not change.

Now, considering all I had done, the only thing that could be the problem was that the profile was somehow corrupt. It turns out that was the case, but fortunately, the problem in the profile was isolated to a very specific segment, which saved me all of my bookmarks, form information, cookies, etc. If I’ve described your problem, or something very similar, the following steps may be most effective for your recovery. Be warned, though, that this method requires you delete and reinstall all of your extensions (and possibly your themes). If you lose anything or your computer crashes, it’s not my fault. You may wish to read over the steps before taking them.

1. Make sure you have Firefox 1.5 installed. Make sure it’s completely closed (all windows, including things like the Download or Extensions Managers).
2. Create a new folder somewhere easily accessible, preferably on your desktop. Don’t worry, you can delete the folder once we’re done.
3. Navigate to your profile directory in a new window.
4. In your profile directory, find the following files. Highlight them, right-click and hit “Cut.” (Alternatively, you can drag and drop the files into the folder on your desktop.)
   • defaults.ini
   • components.ini
   • extensions.rdf
   • extensions.cache
   • extensions.ini
5. Navigate to the folder you created on your desktop and hit “Paste.” The files from your profile directory will be removed and placed in the folder on your desktop.
6. In your profile directory, go to the folder named “extensions.” Right-click and hit “Select All” (or just hit Ctrl+A) to highlight all files. Right-click and hit “Cut” again (or just use Ctrl+X).
7. Go back to the desktop folder. Create another folder inside the desktop one called “extensions” and hit “Paste” (Ctrl+V) inside the new “extensions” folder.
8. Open Firefox again. All the files you cut out of the profile directory, excluding the extensions, should be regenerated by Firefox. If you open your Extensions Manager, you should only see the Talkback extension which comes with Firefox 1.5. If you see other extensions, go back and make sure you didn’t miss a step.
9. Go to the folder on your desktop and into the “extensions” subdirectory. Most, if not all, of the folders should have awkward names, such as “{A04838-c918a0 … }” In each of those folders there should be a “chrome” directory. Typically, you can find out what extension it is by the name of the file in that folder. If you can’t, go back up a folder and open the file “install.rdf” (or “install.js” if there is no RDF file) in your favorite text editor. The name of the extension can be found in there (if you’re unfamiliar with most of what’s in the file, you can be sure that the only thing you recognize is the name of the extension – also it’s easier to tell the name of the extension in the RDF file because RDF is an XML format that is easier to read than JavaScript). Note that themes are located here, too, so if you run across a theme you may want to look for new versions of that, or simply delete them if they are incompatible with Fx 1.5. The only way to get your extensions back now is to search Google for the name of the extension and reinstall it. Once you’re done, you may have to restart Firefox a couple of times before all the extensions are enabled, and once you’re sure everything’s working properly, you may delete that folder from your desktop.

I admit it may seem like it would take forever, but the time it takes to search for and install each extension over again isn’t that bad. I have a great number of extensions and found that it only took a few minutes, possibly 20 to 30, to reinstall all the ones I had previously. Also, I’ve found that a number of extensions, such as URI ID and miniT, are obsolete in favor of native inclusion in Fx 1.5. This is also a great way to redisover or find new extensions.

With that, ladies and gentlemen, I am soon going to explore the wonderful new things Fx 1.5 has implemented, such as the canvas element and SVG!

Oh, and look! They fixed that weird bug where you have to focus on a textarea or div with scrollbars in order to scroll with the mousewheel.

The best part about this book, I’m not quite sure about yet. Thus far it looks to be very informative and useful as a resource, but there’s much more to this book for me.

Before the book was published, sometime mid-summer, I got an email from Mark Pilgrim asking for permission to use my Smart Firefox Greasemonkey script in his book (the script is featured on pages 86-89). Although I would have consented immediately regardless, Mark offered in return a free copy of the book when it was published and a small paragraph about me in the credits section. Thus, for writing a free Greasemonkey script, I got a free book and some publicity (as my web address is printed in the “about me” paragraph). Is that cool or what?

After installing, most of the extensions still appear and claim to be compatible, but not all of them work. On its site, the Web Developer Toolbar is supposedly compatible with Fx 1.5, but the toolbar doesn’t appear when I open (or restart) Firefox. A number of extensions behave this way, including FoxyTunes, my alarm clock. What’s more, themes do not work, even ones that claim compatibility. In addition to all of that, Firefox freezes every time I try to change the options of an extension. It just freezes.

This is the problem with upgrading Firefox. I want to use the new features such as SVG and so forth, but I want to keep the functionality of the extensions I installed. Well, hopefully all the extensions are updated and work properly, and the freezing problem is fixed in Firefox soon as well.

So, there’s that. I haven’t had a chance to play with SVG and all the new cool stuff in Fx 1.5 yet, but I just wanted to rant on how I’m disappointed with not only the fact that my extensions failed to work (yet claim to), but also that Firefox still has obvious bugs. If anyone has any tips on fixing, please let me know. Until then, I’m going to look around for a way to solve the issues I’ve experienced thus far, and update this post with new information if I can get my hands on any. Peace.

What’s new?

• Hold the Shift key to halt all functionality; you can click or right-click objects during this time. As long as you hold down the Shift key, putting your mouse over an item won’t invoke its action.
• Hold the Ctrl key to open links in new windows/tabs. Note that this only works if your popup blocker is disabled, due to the use of the window.open() command.

You can still grab the script at the same location as before.

Here’s a list of the changes.

• Hold Shift key to halt functionality — links will only be “clicked” on mouse over when you are not holding the shift key.
• Form field select — instead of just focusing on a field, Don’t Click It now automatically selects text within text fields.
• I was thinking about adding a timeout-function for buttons, but then I decided otherwise. Advanced uses can uncomment that part of the code in the script to enable the timeout functionality.

You can still access and install the script at the same location as before. There are going to be even more major enhancements coming soon, but I thought I should release what I worked so far.

Would anyone be so kind as to point me in the direction of a Greasemonkey (or at least highly Greasemonkey-aware) forum, where I can ask questions in the presence of a community in the future? Is there even such a place?

Maybe if there isn’t a Greasemonkey forum, someone can answer my question… How do I open a new window/tab with a Greasemonkey script? I’d normally use window.open (and Firefox will open new windows in new tabs automatically, right?), but according to Firefox the script originates from the page it is executed on thus disabling the window.open feature. Is there a way to force it to automatically open a new window/tab like an extension would be able to do? I can’t find answers anywhere.

There’s this site called DontClick.it — basically it’s a Flash-powered user-interface approach that avoids the necessity of clicking for navigation and other functionality. The web site claims that there is a small gap of time between clicking that can be eliminated by omitting the clicking process altogether. While this may be the case, I don’t think that the omission of clicking would be beneficial to many users who are often uncertain whether they want to select a particular item (be it a link, input field, or something else). However, for advanced users of the Web, clicking may actually be a hindrance to productivity — I can’t confirm this, though, because I’m much more experienced with clicking than with hovering. In order to decide which is truly more efficient, I have to evaluate which is better after I’ve acquired a good deal of experience with them both. This means I’ll have to have some way to evaluate both of them; clicking I’m already experienced in — I do this every day, all the time — but how do I avoid clicking on every site I visit?

Introducing Don’t Click It!, a Greasemonkey script for Firefox power-users. Install this little bugger and your clicking is over, unless you decide that you’re more productive with clicking (but like I said, you should evaluate the usefulness of a click-free interface objectively rather than assume it’s too difficult because you’re “not used to it”). I’d look into giving it a try — there are some things that may not work (e.g., file inputs that can’t be accessed by JavaScript and I noticed a problem with a Yahoo! Mail drop down menu), but it’s a good start, anyway. Enjoy, and don’t forget to tell me what you think or suggest improvements! There’s always room for that!

Update: it seems that I have troubles controlling my mouse (especially when I’m using my laptop’s mousepad), so perhaps clicking would be better just if everything (including very small links) were easier to click. Hmm, I feel yet another Greasemonkey script coming on…

Update 2: something really cool that I noticed earlier was that I could be talking on instant messaging (on a seperate monitor on the same computer) and browsing the Internet at the same time because the instant messaging window would stay focused, but I could still browse the Internet at the same time. Pretty cool, huh? The 19th (or 20th) I should be releasing a much better version of this Greasemonkey script, so hang tight for that!

Update 3: I’ve updated the script. What do you think of the updates?

Update 4: More updates…

As before, install the user file and begin using it. The update simply converts “<-" and "->” into “←” and “→” respectively. Enjoy!