2009.02_One-Trick Ponies-Nifty Firefox Extensions.pdf

(574 KB) Pobierz
One-Trick Ponies - Nifty Firefox extensions - Linux Magazine
Nifty Firefox extensions
One-Trick Ponies
We look at a few extensions that can make your daily work with Firefox more enjoyable and efficient by
removing tiny annoyances and adding nifty features.
By Dmitri Popov
What do the Word Count Plus, FoxClocks, and QuickNote Firefox extensions have in common? They all
belong to a category of tools that make a virtue of doing a limited range of tasks well. In this article, I'll cover
a few such extensions that you might find useful.
FoxClocks
If you work with people or companies in other countries or on other continents, a world clock tool can help
you better plan your day. The FoxClocks [1] extension can help you not only keep track of time in multiple
geographical locations, but also do it with consummate ease. Once installed, the extension adds a couple of
default clocks to the Status bar. To replace them with clocks that show the time in cities you want, use the
Ctrl+Shift+Q keyboard shortcut. This opens the FoxClocks dialog window containing a long list of continents
and cities to choose from. However, you don't have to scroll up and down the list to find the location you
need: Just enter the name of the city you need in the Search field, and the Zone Picker window shows the
matching results as you type (Figure 1). Select then the found city and press the Add button to add the selected
city to the Watchlist window. If the city you want is not on the list, you can add a custom location by selecting
a city in the same time zone and pressing the Add as button. To tweak FoxClocks' settings, right-click on a
clock icon in the Status bar and select Options . Here you can specify a custom time format, change
FoxClocks' position, and adjust the way the extension displays the clocks.
One-Trick Ponies
1
593108358.007.png 593108358.008.png 593108358.009.png
Figure 1: FoxClocks puts world clocks in the Status bar.
dragdropupload
Attaching multiple files to an email message in Gmail can be cumbersome: Click on the Attach a file link,
locate the file you want, press OK, then repeat for other files. It might not sound too bad, but if you have to
send emails with attachments every day, this procedure can become a nuisance quickly. The dragdropupload
extension [2] provides a fix to the problem. After you install it, you can drag a file onto the Attach a file link
to add it to the email. Better yet, you can drag and drop several files at once and use the extension with other
websites and services such as Flickr and Facebook. The extension also adds the Drag Drop Sidebar, so you
don't have to switch to your file manager to locate the files you want to attach. In Firefox, when you choose
View | Drag Drop Sidebar , you can pick the file you need without leaving the convenience of your favorite
browser.
Morning Coffee
If you had to choose only one extension to take with you on a desert island (provided you have an Internet
connection and are allowed to take your computer with you), Morning Coffee [3] should be it. The basic idea
is pretty simple: With this extension, you can create bookmark sets for each day of the week and open them
with a single click (Figure 2). So if you regularly visit Slashdot, Linux Pro Magazine, and other sites, you can
add them all to a specific set and open them at once. The clever part is that you can add a website to a
particular day. For example, if your favorite blog is updated on Mondays, you can add it to the Monday set
and check it once a week.
Figure 2: Read your favorite websites with Morning Coffee.
TimeTracker
The main purpose of the TimeTracker extension [4] is to make you feel bad about spending too much time
watching YouTube videos and hanging on Facebook instead of working. Unlike other tools that simply
register how long your browser has been opened, TimeTracker provides a few features that you can tweak to
get a better idea of how much time you spend working or slacking (Figure 3). For starters, you can add
websites to the Do not track filter, so TimeTracker pauses when you navigate to any site on the list. The timer
also stops after a specified idle time (60 seconds by default) and when Firefox is not in focus. Of course,
TimeTracker can't prevent you from chatting with your friends on Facebook for hours, but psychologically,
the ticking timer can be highly motivating.
One-Trick Ponies
2
593108358.010.png
Figure 3: Track time with TimeTracker.
Lazarus
Here is a situation many users might find familiar: You spend half an hour writing a forum post, Firefox
crashes, and all your work is gone. Even if Firefox doesn't crash, too many things can still go wrong and force
you to start from scratch. To avoid pulling your hair out each time this happens, install the Lazarus form
recovery extension [5]. It runs quietly in the background and saves the text you enter into forms in a database.
When you need to restore a form, right-click in it and choose Recover Form from the context menu. Using
Lazarus' options, you can specify how long you want to keep the saved form data and protect the data with a
password.
Word Count Plus
In some situations you need to know the exact word count in a text area of a form - for example, when you are
working on a blog post of a specific length directly in the browser. Such a situation as this is when the Word
Count Plus extension [6] can come in really handy. First, select either a text fragment or all the text in the
form, then click on the Word Count Plus icon in the Status bar to view the word count. To view the character
count, mouse over the icon. That's it!
Mouseless Browsing
Although a netbook is a perfect machine to have with you on the road, its minuscule trackpad can be a real
pain. Also, an airplane seat or a coffee table does not have much space for a mouse. In these situations, you
need the Mouseless Browsing [7] extension (Figure 4). When you restart Firefox after you've install the
extension, you will notice that every link on any web page now has a unique number. Now just type the
number next to the link you want to open and press Enter. In this way, you can navigate the web without
touching your mouse or trackpad. The Mouseless Browsing extension has a host of options you can tweak to
make it behave the way in which you want. For example, you can make the extension show the ID numbers
only when you press a specific key combination, tweak the ID number style to minimize clutter, and enable
the numeric pad for mouse-free browsing.
One-Trick Ponies
3
593108358.001.png 593108358.002.png
Figure 4: Browse the web without touching the mouse with Mouseless Browsing.
Screengrab!
Quite a few extensions are out there that you can use to take screenshots of web pages, but Screengrab! [8]
lets you do this with a minimum of fuss and has a few useful features to boot. With this extension, you can
take a screenshot of a selected portion of the page, the visible part of the page, the entire page, or even an
individual frame. When taking a screenshot, you can save it on the disk or copy it to the Clipboard. By
default, Screengrab! saves screenshots in the PNG format, but you can switch to JPEG if you like.
QuickNote
The web is brimming with services that let you save and share notes, but sometimes you just need a simple
tool to scribble down notes and ideas quickly. In this case, you need QuickNote [9]. As the name suggests,
this extension adds a notes feature to your browser.
Although QuickNote installs as a conventional Firefox extension, it requires an extra step if you want it to
load notes in the sidebar (Figure 5). After installing, restart your browser and enter
chrome://quicknote/content/install.html in the Address bar. Now press the Install QuickNote in the Sidebar
button, and you are set. From QuickNote's preferences, you can tweak note colors and enable multiple tabs,
allowing you to manage several notes at once. All notes are saved as plain text files, and you can always
extract them from the browser by pressing the Save as button.
Figure 5: Scribble notes with QuickNote.
ReminderFox
Because you spend most of your time in Firefox, it only makes sense to use it for keeping tabs on your to-dos
and reminders, which is exactly what the ReminderFox extension [10] allows you to do. Although it's not a
full-fledged calendaring tool, it provides all the features you need to manage your tasks with minimum effort.
Besides reminders and to-dos, you can use ReminderFox to create so-called quick alarms, which you can use
to help you remember small things (Figure 6).
One-Trick Ponies
4
593108358.003.png 593108358.004.png
Figure 6: Keep tabs on your to-dos and reminders with ReminderFox.
In addition to the default sections Reminders and To-dos, you can create custom task lists and group your
tasks by type. For example, to keep tabs on your article deadlines, create a separate list. When creating a
custom list, you can specify a link to an iCalendar file, and the calendar will appear as a separate list. The
features don't stop here, though, because you can sync your ReminderFox data with either an FTP or
WebDAV server. To enable this feature, specify the synchronization options in the Options dialog window
under the Network tab.
Final Word
In this article, I've covered just a fraction of the simple yet useful Firefox extensions. If you are willing to
spend some time digging through the official Firefox Add-on repository [11], chances are you will find
dozens of other one-trick ponies that can make your daily computing more efficient and even pleasant.
Dmitri Popov holds a degree in Russian language and computer linguistics. He has been writing exclusively
about Linux and open source software for several years, and his articles have appeared in Danish, British,
North American, German, and Russian magazines and websites.
One-Trick Ponies
5
593108358.005.png 593108358.006.png

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin