Also, the new look of Opera 10 is appealing and the interface is very clean and yet user-friendly. One of the reasons I wasn’t able to use Opera on day-by-day browsing was because I wasn’t just browsing. I was digging through the web with Firebug and some other Firefox extensions for developers and not only. Opera didn’t had that. However, Opera’s Dragonfly improvement is here to kick some ass. Didn’t had too much time to test it around and do a decent comparison between it and Firebug however it is good thing that the competition hasn’t soften.

I think you agree when I say that we are seeing slow but steady progress on Opera’s behalf as far as competition with Firefox. I think now they need to push those Opera Widgets in the next gear and encourage people to develop new ones and create communities around them. Anyway, I think that they are moving a little bit slower on this one because they don’t want to mess up the core of what they have now.

So, for example here is a list of extensions that I am using on Firefox and widgets I’m using on Opera:

For instance, I was just searching the addons portal for “firebug” and noticed that there were actually extensions developed for Firebug itself. How cool is that ? Extensions for extensions. Now that’s just great if you ask me.

I found a delicious bookmarks widget for Opera, however it wasn’t installable on Opera 10. No screenshots maker on Opera as well.

Opera kicks in with some features like the built-in torrent client, Opera Turbo (helps you when you have a slow Internet connection) and the well-known Speed Dial. I will try to stay on Opera for as long as I can to test some more.

What do you think about Opera’s progress so far ? Is it a competitive browser ? Do you know of some more cool widgets for Opera ? Don’t hesitate to tell in the comments.

Furthermore there are yet two other scripts that can help you with your forum browsing. With them you can toggle pagination on and off for both threads and topics.

Another interesting script is helping you to view posts older than 24 hours. You don’t have to be an expert to change a few lines of code in order to get it to show you the latest posts in X hours (which might be useful).

A preview of the content from the last post is automatically displayed when the small post icon is hovered using this script. Unfortunately this only works on a prosilver based theme (don’t know why).

For better accessibility you can use this script because it will highlight your topics which could be relatively useful.

There are a few greasemonkey scripts for WordPress. One of them can be used to display the version of the installation behind the blog you are currently browsing. It will also tell you if that blog allows trackbacks or not.

Another script will tell you which package is used for gaining statistical information on a blog. This script knows to identify a bunch of potential stats collectors so you don’t have to worry about that. If stats collector is used you will know it.

The next greasemonkey script isn’t exclusively for WordPress as it can be used web wide. It identifies nofollow links and applies a pink background to the corresponding url, so that you can identify it.

As a wrap up these are a few interesting scripts for greasemonkey that are worth trying.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that FireShot and Gmail Manager joined Alexa Sparky and StumbleUpon extensions which were already compatible with FF.

Now I must patiently wait until Colorzilla, del.icio.us bookmarks, Firebug, Greasemonkey, Live Pagerank, Smart Digg Button and TinyUrl Creator will all be fully compatible with FF 3 which is just around the corner. Many would ask why didn’t I just go for a forced install. I have one big reason for not doing that: I don’t have time for it.

Off-topic: Some asked me what happened with my blog. I feel somehow in debt and I need to answer them. Just imagine that from my average time of 5 hours allocated every day for browsing the internet, reading feeds, blogging in general I have come to a staggering 15 minutes a day just to keep myself informed with major updates without actually writing something. This unfortunately is because I only have about 3 weeks until my first exam will be here. I will give my best and hopefully after 5^th of July I will get back to serious blogging. Again, thanks a bunch for your understanding.

]]> http://softinquiry.com/my-extensions-list-update-for-firefox-3-rc1.html/feed 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://softinquiry.com/two-screenshot-takers-for-firefox.html http://softinquiry.com/two-screenshot-takers-for-firefox.html#comments Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:54:39 +0000 Dan http://softinquiry.com/two-screenshots-takers-for-firefox.html Screengrab! is a simple Firefox addon that can capture an entire webpage or a selected area and save it to an image file or copy it to clipboard. The default output format for the screenshot is png but you can change that to jpg if you like. It’s easy to use, doesn’t have any kind of built-in options menu and gets the job done pretty quick.

Install Screengrab! addon

The next addon is a more complex one. FireShot can also create screenshots of an entire page or just the visible area. After you captured your desired image you can go ahead and use the built-in editor for adding annotations, cropping and basically everything you might need to do. If you want to edit your screenshot in a more professional way you can export the image to an external editor of your choice. However if you are happy with it you can choose to upload it to their private server (a cool new feature will be to actually choose the server you want to upload the screenshot to), save it to your disk (PNG, JPEG and BMP formats are available), copy it to clipboard or have it sent in an e-mail. I think this addon is by far the best screenshot taker out there. It surely stands out with it’s neat features. Remember that this is just an addon for Firefox; no third party programs are needed.

Of course i don’t need to explain where you can use this addon. It’s just obvious that content reviewers (websites reviewers in general), bloggers, web designers, testers, etc. will surely appreciate this cool addon.

If you want to view an example screnshot taken with FireShot or just want to see it in action check out this screenshot and this demo.

Install FireShot addon

Firefox is the application i use in 80% percent of the time i spend in front of my PC so i need to have all the necessary functions at hand. One of them is an RSS reader. I don’t like to use some third-party apps just for the simple fact that i want to be connected with my feed subscriptions.

Wizz RSS is a Firefox extension that reads RSS and Atom news. It practically creates a new tabbed sidebar in your browser that shows your RSS subscriptions. The Wizz sidebar has three main parts: a tree based directory structure (like the Bookmarks sidebar), a section to view the latest RSS news and a third section for previewing the content of the hovered news.

You can also configure a “Watch List” and search for RSS news. Some basic filtering is available such as “Show/Hide read items”. A built-in, tabbed structured options window is available.

You can choose to e-mail yourself the latest headlines from your RSS subscriptions. Also you can choose to be alerted whenever a new RSS article is available. A customizable shortcut key combination with which you can show or hide the Wizz sidebar si also at hand.

Below is a screen capture of the Wizz RSS extension.

Install Wizz RSS for Firefox

Don’t forget to backup your files before you proceed and to refresh your template files from ACP after you are done.

“Evil Quick Reply“ is the name of the MOD which adds a button next to “Post Reply” that says “Quick Reply” and when pressed toggles a textbox (without refreshing the page) in which you can type a fast reply and submit it right away without going through the “advanced reply form”. This MOD is extremly easy to install, it doesn’t require any database adjusting and you can get it up and running in like 2 minutes. It has been successfully tested on the latest phpbb3 version (3.0.0). Also it supports prosilver and subsilver2 styles engines. Optionally you can choose to add the BBcodes and the smilies to the quick reply form.

Unfortunately not even to this day there isn’t an official MOD designed to quick edit posts on both prosilver and subsilver2 styles. However if you use a subsilver2 based style you can consider yourself lucky because in spite of the fact that it’s just in its DEV state there is a MOD that provides the quick edit function. “Ajax Quick Edit“ is also a great MOD that’s easy to install, supports phpbb 3.0.0 and it doesn’t require any database adjusting. The single disadvantage for the moment is that it currently supports only subsilver2 style engine but as the developer promised, support for prosilver will soon be available (i might post a quick notice article when prosilver will be supported just to give the ones that are interested a heads up).

These being written all that remains now is to inform you on the alternatives you have in case of you’re not the admin on the forum but still want to use this great functions as the forum administrator didn’t implemented the above MODs. As some of you already know, GreaseMonkey is an awesome Firefox addon that supports user scripts. I bet most of you already know what i’m about to write because of the terms association firefox-greasemonkey-userscript-phpbb. You got that right ! There are two user scripts available that will enhance your experience with phpbb3 based forums.

“phpBBv3 Quick Edit“ for GreaseMonkey is just another breathtaking, must have script (with a little AJAX) that’s more than useful because it offers you the chance of editing an article without refreshing the entire page EVEN when no such MOD has been implemented to that forum !

“phpBBv3 Quick Reply” script offers the much needed quick reply function to phpbb3 forums users. Remember that this is possible even if the forums don’t have MODs implemented !

The above two user scripts for GreaseMonkey represent a kind of consolation yet a very viable alternative !
*to download/install the MODs or scripts mentioned in the above article please refer to the links given.

• Wordpress
• Movable Type
• Drupal
• Textpattern
• Roller
• Meta Weblog API
• Blogger

You can install this addon and post your first article in no more than 2 minutes. It doesn’t require any kind of web development (php, css, html, js, etc) knowledge.
You just need to input your blog’s address and of course your username and password (you don’t need to worry about security issues because it’s perfectly safe). You can choose to manually set up the connection with your blog or you can have it done fully automatically by ScribeFire as it detects your blog platform. After the connection is successfully established information such as tags, posts, pages, etc are imported from your blog.

A wonderful feature that ScribeFire has is that it allows you to use it in another tab, window or you can split your window in half (similar to FireBug). Also ScribeFire is written to support addons itself and themes but for the moment they are unavailable.

Another great thing about this addon is that after you log into your del.icio.us account (via a form it provides, also perfectly secured) before you post your article you can choose to bookmark it at del.icio.us, tag it at Technorati and here comes the biggest candy of them all: you can choose to ping all or some of the following portals:

• Technorati
• Weblogs
• Blo.gs
• Blogrolling
• Icerocket

That way you make sure you let everyone know about your great article and even improve your blog’s traffic. I can’t do anything else but invite you to at least test this GREAT Firefox addon. ScribeFire integrates an option in the right-click menu of Firefox so when you find a great page and wish to blog it you just need to righ-click on it and choose ScribeFire -> Blog this page. Let’s not forget about the intuitive FTP module that’s also available. If you encounter any problems of any kind or you just want to request a cool feature you can head over to the forums.

Install ScribeFire addon for Firefox 1.5 – 3.0b3

I took some shots just to help you make an ideea of how this addon looks because i can tell you that it feels great.

Below you can see a clip i recorded just to show you how easy this is. If you want to see a little more details about what’s happening in the following clip you can choose to download it as it’s just 2.2MB.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Again, this method involves Firefox browser and GreaseMonkey addon for it. After you installed GreaseMonkey addon and restarted Firefox you can then click the following link that will install the script i am talking about.

Install Google Account Multi-Login script for GreaseMonkey.

When you finally installed the script all you need to do is to log into your Analytics account and check out the new menu in the top right corner:

After you add your accounts you will have the chance to select the account you want to see info about and then select another available account from the list, when you are done with the first one. This saves you from interacting with login forms, signing in and out therefore you can win some time.

I find this script most useful, i hope you do too. If you get stucked somewhere on the way i advise you to have a look at another article that shows how to implement some other script into GreaseMonkey.

This solution i found involves the Greasemonkey addon for Firefox (which is kept updated quite often) and a script from userscripts.org that’s named the same like my post is. After installing Greasemonkey addon and restarting Firefox (make sure you see a monkey head in the right bottom corner) you need to install the script that reminds you that the RapidShare download counter stopped.

Install RapidShare download ready alert script for GreaseMonkey

After you click on the link above the following window will show up, just click on “Install”:

The actual reminder is a message box that says “Download ready!” and brings on top the RapidShare tab so you can proceed and download the file, here’s a picture of it:

This way you don’t need to worry again about forgetting about the counter, your cookies expiration as you won’t need to repeat the same process over and over again. Below there are some example pictures of GreaseMonkey’s GUI:

I hope this helps someone because i know it helped me a lot.

One of the posible solutions to get right with Gmail (and not only) is to disable Firebug for the websites you don’t want it to stick it’s nose into. Here comes the real issue: after a while you get sick and tired of disabling Firebug for every website you visit (at least if you could save the “black list” somewhere to import it whenever you need it or something like that). Firebug lacks an option that should say “Disable Firebug for all sites except…”, that way things would get a lot more easy. Ok, this is the short way but not necessary the best way of getting things right without compromising your developer activity. You can choose to apply it and analyse the outcome, or not.

If you want to take things further and take advantage of the oportunity of organizing your work, this is your chance. So another possible way of correcting the problem (if we care to take things really personal) is to create another browser profile (it’s just like having two or more Windows user accounts). In this example i will use just two basic profiles: one profile would be for normal browsing and the other one for web developing purposes. The first thing you’ll need to do is to close Firefox and open the “Run” dialog and execute the following line:

firefox -ProfileManager

just like in the following picture:

After executing the command a window like the one below will appear allowing you to create multiple profiles:

The first step you might want to do after the small window loads is to rename your default profile’s name to something like “Developer” (because this will be the profile that will have all the web dev related addons and settings). Of course you may want to keep this profile only for pure browsing purposes so then you can rename it to “Browsing” instead of “Developer” as mentioned early above. Either way you will have to install + uninstall some addons (extensions, plugins if you like) in order to customize your profiles to best suit your purposes.

After you rename your profile as mentioned above you need to create a second profile. Make sure you leave the box that’s followed by “Don’t ask at startup” checked. I suggest that you create another shortcut to Firefox. So now we should have two different Firefox shortcuts on our desktop and the differences between them shoud consist only in their “Target” field content as shown in the pictures:

The next step is to customise your browser profiles. I suggest you keep the profile you’ll be using exclusively for browsing as “addons clean” as possible to make sure your experience with Firefox is as fast as it can get. When it comes to installing addons for your web developing profile i’d say to have a brief look over the addons i’m using:

• CollorZilla (”advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies”)
• DownloadHelper (”download videos and images from many sites”)
• Dummy Lipsum (generate “Lorem Ipsum” dummy text)
• Firebug (”web development evolved”)
• Greasemonkey (”a user script manager”)
• IE Tab (”enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Firefox”)
• OperaView (”open pages in Opera from Firefox, Mozilla, Flock and Netscape 8 context menus”)
• Screen grab! (”saves a web-page as an image”)
• Tab Mix Plus (”tab browsing with an added boost”)
• Web Developer (”adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools”)

The given descriptions will just have to do for the moment as i will write a separate article for every addon listed above. Now, related to the fact that you might want some things to be syncronized between the two browser profiles such as bookmars, passwords, cookies, history, etc., this might be a possible solution but i recommend backing up your data before you decide to go any further. To have your bookmarks syncronized you can do one of the following. For example go in one of your profile directories and delete bookmarks.html and instead put a shortcut to the other bookmarks.html file located in your other profile folder; or you can use FoxMarks addon to keep your bookmarks syncronized (but then you install an auxiliary addon for this and for that and you find yourself again from where you left: a Firefox browser that moves slower than your granny so i recommend the firest option). This was for the bookmars, now regarding your other shared stuff also delete the original file and create a shortcut for history.dat, history.dat and cookies.txt.

I’m sure that many of you think that this method is the same as you scratch your left ear with your right hand but it’s a possible solution if you like to take things further.

You might also want to know that i can’t be held reponsible if something goes wrong. I tested this workaround on Windows XP SP2 with Firefox 2.0.0.12 but this might also work with other versions.

Now, back to the fact that Google says Firebug slows Gmail down, that’s a fact but i pose myself the question why Google didn’t show some benchmarking charts or some kind of statistical information related to this matter. However i do not approve with Google’s solution because disabling Firebug’s network monitoring tool would mean a great loss for it’s benchmarking features.

The bottom line as i already said earlier, would consist in an option within Firebug that will help you disable it for all other websites except the ones you choose to have it enabled on.