| 10 Dec 08 | Added Email This! |
| 23 Oct 08 | Added Tree Style Tab. |
| 22 Oct 08 | Added Infolister; removed listzilla; retired Copy URL+ - anyone have another solution? |
| 11 Sep 08 | Added MinimizeToTray; Fixed Copy plain text and provided patch fix for TB 2. |
| 06 Apr 08 | Added Lightning. |
| 31 Mar 08 | Added GSpace; Updated session manager description. |
| 30 Mar 08 | Added Awesome Highlighter, Google Notebook, Scrapbook; Retired Chickenfoot. |
| 29 Mar 08 | Added All-in-One Sidebar. |
| 28 Mar 08 | Retired tinyurl; Updated UrlLink and reorganised extensions into everyday/occasional use. |
| 27 Mar 08 | Retired nntpthreads, QuickQuote; added MinimizeToTray, Dictionary Lookup, Web Developer, SpeedDial; added developer sections; Updated Thunderbird desired functionality Polishing Box. |
| 30 Nov 07 | Added Remember Mismatched Domains, reorganised and repaired links. |
| 19 Sep 07 | Moved Desired Firefox & Thunderbird functionality to blog. |
| 08 Jun 07 | Added Desired Firefox & Thunderbird functionality & added page navigation links. |
| 27 May 07 | Added What's new. |
| 07 Apr 07 | Added ColorfulTabs. |
| 10 Mar 07 | Added Firebug. |
| 07 Mar 07 | Updated MAF and added F8 tip. |
| 13 Feb 07 | Added Dictionary tooltip to Firefox section & Quote collapse to TB. |
| 25 Jan 07 | Copy plain text moved to Firefox & Thunderbird section. |
| 08 Nov 06 | Updated for Firefox 2.0 and added AutoCopy, View Source Chart. |
| 20 Oct 06 | Added Valid XHTML link & logo. |
| 11 Oct 06 | Added Venkman, Chickenfoot & MboxImport, updated MoreColsForAddressBook. |
| 10 Oct 06 | Added notes for IE Tab & DownThemAll! |
| 02 Jun 06 | Added Copy URL+. |
| 24 May 06 | Added MoreColsForAddressBook & changed nntpthreads comment. |
| 18 May 06 | Added StumbleUpon. |
Firefox extensions Thunderbird extensions Firefox & Thunderbird extensions Desired Firefox functionality Desired Thunderbird functionality
In no particular order:
| Extension | Note |
|---|---|
| Tab Mix Plus | Invaluable, this is by far the most powerful extension. It's session manager is more powerful than Firefox's inbuilt one; it can automatically saves all your tabs (a session) so when you reopen firefox you can access this seasssion if desired/automaitically - Sheer class. Here are a few things you can set in the options :
|
| BugMeNot | Great for accessing all those newspapers you have to login to read, etc - you won't need a login for them :-) |
| WikiPedia Lookup Extension | More and more I find this should be my first port of call if I am looking for info. Has a great sidebar as well. |
| Download Statusbar | No more annoying download popup but you still can see the progress. |
| Awesome Highlighter | I discovered both Cite Bite and the Awesome Higfhter recently, for anyone who passes on text of web pages via email they are a worthwhile boon. Awesome Highlighter takes it a step further by allowing you to highlight multiple passages and give you a shorturl which will show your emphasises. |
| Dictionary Lookup | Used Dictionary search (which I still uses for TB), until I discovered Dictionary Tooltip, defaults to the free dictionary but can choose to see other definition sources from a dropdown. However now I use Dictionary Lookup which takes it one step further by presenting the defintion in a sub menu. |
| SpeedDial | Add a drop down menu button to your toolbar with sites you visit frequently. Select putting button on toolbar when you install. |
| ColorfulTabs | Helps finding things if you have lots of tabs open. Works great with Tree Style Tabs. |
| GSpace | One of the reasons Firefox is indespensible. This turns a google mail account into a ftp site with 8.8GB limit. So open a gmail account share it bewteen friends and you can use it to pass files between each other. Absolutely astonishing. |
| Tree Style Tab | Showcase can help to find your tabs but if you work with a lot open having a treeview along the side can be quiet nice. |
| Email This! | Frequently I see some text on a web page and want to email it with the link. I have used various methods for this (see AllCustomizedLinks/Copy Url in retired section below). I was excited to make this discovery. With a right click now you have the option to open an email with the title set to the webpage title and the selected text and url appearing in the body. So useful. |
| Google Notebook | Similar to Scrapbook, except it's an interface to Google notebook, so the contents are stored online. Good if you want some notes to be shareable between multiple computers. Requires a gmail account. To have it accessible in the sidebar like Scrapbook, rather than the small default window, drag this bookmark to your bookmark toolbar, right click, select properties and select load this bookmark in the sidebar. Have not been using Google notbook of late, instead I find myself emailing my self messages of such notes and I need to re-evaluate habits. |
| All-in-One Sidebar | Finally I found a way to access multiple sidebars easily. Toggle between bookmarks, history and scrapbook. Have not been using of late. |
| Scrapbook | Sometimes a bookmark is not enough, you want to remember some text from a page for something you are working on. Have not been using the Scrapbook of late. |
| Showcase | If you have lots of tabs open sometimes it can be hard to find the one you want, this pops up a thumbnail of each page. I used to use Viamatic foXpose, I then moved onto Reveal and loved the F2 functionality of it but when that was not updated for Firefox 2 I moved onto Showcase. I miss the F2 funntionality of Reveal but you are meant to be able to plug in keyConfig (see Showcase options - Shortcuts) and get equivalent funtionality with F12 but that has not worked for me yet. Have not been using since I started using Tree style tabs. |
| Extension | Note |
|---|---|
| IE Tab | Occasionally a page gives problems, this allows it to be checked in IE. This can be used to keep an eye on a 2nd gmail account at the same time as one open in a normal tab. |
| Nuke Anything Enhanced | Seldom used, but when something is annoying you on a page you are reading, this is the business. |
| DownThemAll! | Ever want to download a bunch of tunes or pix from a page. I used to use a website ripper (WinHTTrack) before this came along. |
| StumbleUpon | Pick some categories that interest you and you never know what you will find, really worth having a spin of this. |
| Mouse Gestures | I think this perhaps merits persisting with more, it means changing some habits but is possibly worthwhile. |
| Developer | Note |
|---|---|
| Venkman Javascript debugger | If you use Javascript this is an invaluable debugger allowing you to step through the script line by line as it executes. |
| View Source Chart | If you ever look at the source code of web pages this is invaluable. |
| Firebug | Of interest only if you want to see the inner workings of web pages, Just discovered this, absolutely amazing. Breaks down a html page and shows css/javascript, etc, you can even do live editing seemingly. The above View Source Code might become redundant. |
| Web Developer | |
| Infolister | Get a nice list of your extensions. Since my laptop was robbed last I am extra cautious about backups now and this helps for setting up a new machine, in addition to these pages of course |
| Retired | Note |
|---|---|
| Mozilla Archive Format | No longer necessary as now you can choose to save as html only, not sure when that came in. |
| TinyURL Creator | I find using DQSD much handier for this. |
| Chickenfoot | I normally don't go tweaking mad but it really annoyed me when google moved the link for groups. Using this tweaker and the script one set a trigger for http://www.google.com/* and the link showed fine. Then google brought back groups to the main page. |
| ListZilla | Stopped being maintained and not compatible with ff3. Infolister replaced. |
| Copy URL+ | I used to use AllCustomizedLinks which allows context sensitive bookmarks and had a Javascript bookmarklet which (I have now lost) open a new email with the selected text pasted into it. Now I can use this externsion to Copy URL + Title + Selection to the keyboard, I have to then open a new email and paste...not an elegant solution but tell me a more efficient way to achieve same?. This is no longer suppported - so it's back to cut and paste.Update - found Email this! extension. |
You can add a custom dictionary (eg. english UK) from Options | Composition | Spelling.
The invaluable extensions I use, in no particular order:
| QuickText | Can be used for signatures and often used text in emails. |
| Quote collapse | This makes working with replied email / email chains a dream. |
| Dictionary Search | Dictionary Lookup does not work for TB so use this instead. |
| Lightning | If you are hanging onto Outlook at work because of the calendar, now with Lightning, there is no longer any need! |
| Occasional | Note |
|---|---|
| MoreColsForAddressBook | If you want to export your address book as a vcard (vcf file) this is superb. You can also use it to rename the custom fields on the other tab. |
| MboxImport | Previously I have had problems with Thunderbird and have had to reload some mailboxes from backups using this extension. It turnd out my files had got corrupted as I had not compacted folders (now I have selected Tools | Options |Advanced | Disk Space | Compact folders when it will save over 100 KB) and defragmented in ages. |
| Retired | Note |
|---|---|
| nntpthreads | I used this to colour codes watched messages in newsgroups but thius can be done with Tags now. |
| QuickQuote | This was great if you just want to quote a little bit of the email and not the whole text in a reply. Not supported in current Thunderbird. |
| Url Link | You know the way you get an email with the url broken over a number of lines or you find an unclickable link on a site, well this solves that problem! | |
| AutoCopy | Highlight text and it is copied to your clipboard. Find an update for Thunderbird 2.0 here. | |
| Copy Plain text | For copying text snippets (that you don't need to scrapbook) from the web and emails this is invaluable as it strips all the formatting. Here is a version that works for Thunderbird 2.0 | |
| MinimizeToTray | Get TB and FF out of the way but still have them right there, perfect, what you always needed. |
