Sidebar
Monday, April 11, 2005 ~ Comments Off
Firefox question – Anyone know how to display a webpage in the sidebar?
Lyle asks “Huh?” so let me expand on this.
In Firefox, if you select View > Sidebar, you can open various useful things like your bookmarks, or your browser history (where did all that p*rn come from!!). I want to know if there is anyway (manually, Firefox extension, add-on program) to display a webpage there. I’ve tried dragging a URL or shortcut to no avail.
Why? Because it will make editing the HaloScan Wiki much easier, as I’m constantly switching back and forth from the Recent Changes page. If I could have that page in my sidebar… see? There IS a good reason!
UPDATE
Problem solved! With thanks to the venerable diamond geezer who points out that to display a web page in the sidebar you need to:
Find Manage Bookmarks in the Bookmarks menu.
Right-click on any web page and select Properties.
Then tick the box that’s labelled, unbelievably, Load this bookmark in the sidebar.
I post this here to preserve this piece of knowledge. Thank you dg, you’ve just made my life much MUCH easier.
Firefox Experience
Wednesday, February 16, 2005 ~ Comments Off
It’s been a while since I posted about Firefox but as it’s just crashed through the 24 million downloads mark, and has increased it’s browser share AGAIN I thought it was reasonable time to look back over the past year of using Firefox and see how, if at all, it has changed my browsing habits.
Blimey, I’ve been using Firefox for an entire year, how time flies!
The main and most obvious change to my browsing habits has been my ready adoptation of tabbed browsing. It’s now an integral part of my browsing technique (for want of a better term) and, coupled with an extension that remembers what tabs were open the last time I closed the browser, I find I rarely have to bookmark anything of interest any more. Instead I can open the sites in a new browser tab, and if I don’t get around to checking them out they will be re-opened the next time I start Firefox. Note that this cycle may repeat for up to a week, and has certainly been a key factor in improving my online information management.
Whether it’s articles of note, to do (Ta Da) lists, or just silly email links, I just open them in a new tab and get to them when I’m ready. Did someone mention an interesting book at lunch? A quick Amazon search in a new tab and it’ll sit there until I either order it, or add it to my wishlist (which itself sits open in another tab, just in case). Ohh and that “quick Amazon search” is also something I should mention.
Scrapbook
Monday, January 31, 2005 ~ Comments Off
If, like me, you struggle to keep a track of this snippet of information, that website, the quote you wanted to use, the thought that prompted a post or article, then may I suggest (and if you are using Firefox as your main browser) you install the Scrapbook extension. Once installed you can start it from the Tools menu.
It allows you to capture either URLs, snippets of websites or entire web pages. It probably does more than that, to be honest, but I’ve only been using it for a few hours (since this afternoon) and I’m already blown away. It’s just SO DARN USEFUL!
Now, how would you do this in Internet Explorer??
SITE NOTE: With thanks to Lyle and David for their helpful suggestions I’ve managed to implement a stylesheet switcher. It’s over their on the left. Not a huge choice at the moment but I was concentrating on getting it working first before worrying too much about the actual “style”. Cheers for your help guys, turns out that I’m a numpty and forgot to give the correct directory path to the CSS files (David I’d started with the ALA PHP switcher and went back to it and spotted my mistook). Suggestions for ‘new’ styles are welcomed.
Browser Stats
Friday, January 7, 2005 ~ Comments Off
Prompted by the news that there have now been 16 million downloads of Firefox 1.0 in two months. I thought I’d check my stats and see what the browser share for this site is. Previously IE (5 & 6) was running at about 96% and that has dropped to around 82%.
Of course there is the small issue of the user agent used by Firefox which, it appears, is being picked up differently by different referrer statistic packages – it shows as Netscape 5 & 7 in my stats. Ohh and let’s not forget that you can also change the user agent if you want.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the browser share for Firefox is definitely growing, but you should always bear in mind that there are three untruths: lies, damned lies and statistics. (more…)
IT WORKS!!!
Thursday, December 23, 2004 ~ Comments Off
FINALLY.
Many many MANY thanks to Adrian and Jann for their sage advice and time.
I tried Jann’s advice first – as it was the simplest, namely adding <br style="clear: both;" /> right before the closing DIV tag. Whaddya know, it worked straight away. I’m not sure which I’m more relieved about, the fact it now works in IE AND Firefox (other browsers and versions still to be checked), or that it wasn’t anything I’d coded but a ‘gotcha’ with the Mozilla based browsers. Seemingly it’s “one of those things”, meaning it’s one of those things you learn once and never ever forget!
Now this does mean that my beloved Firefox browser is flawed slightly but it’s still a safer browser than IE – 12.5 million downloads can’t lie! (yes, I know that statistics ALWAYS lie but that’s not my point).
So, without further ado you can ALL have a gander at the 2005 version of this site. Comments welcomed and bear in mind it’s not completely finished yet.
UPDATE: Apologies to Shelagh, I posted this late last night (early this morning) and didn’t spot the code snippet wasn’t showing.
CSS Woe
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 ~ Comments Off
Can anyone spot what is wrong with this snippet of CSS?
Works fine in IE but not in Firefox – argh!! The background image (maincolumn.gif) won’t repeat vertical down the column in Firefox yet it works fine in IE.
.rigid-demo { margin: 0 auto; text-align: left; width: 790px; background: url(../images/maincolumn.gif) repeat-y; }
P.S. This is NOT a reason NOT to use Firefox! It’s my shoddy coding that’s to blame, and lack of l33t CSS skills, or however the kids are saying it these days.
UPDATE: OH ARSE. Still can’t get it to work. Sample page here, CSS here, background image here.
The CSS file validates OK.
Why oh why oh why… Works fine in IE, no background image in Firefox. Chuff chuff chuff.
Ding Dong
Wednesday, December 1, 2004 ~ Comments Off
Completely missed St.Andrews day. But then we don’t get a public holiday to mark the occasion of our national saint.
Also missed the vote for our “national bird” (I did suggest Kirsty Wark but seemingly they didn’t mean that kind of ‘burd’), with the fiery little Robin coming out tops, beating the lesser seen Golden Eagle into second place. I’m convinced that if more people HAD seen a Golden Eagle in real life it would have triumphed. It is a soaring majesty of a bird, much larger than anything else that shares it’s skies.
Still, what better way to celebrate the passing of time into the month that holds Christmas than to select a bird that will soon be adorning several thousand dead trees. I wonder what Robin thinks of it all?
In other news: I currently have two items for sale on eBay. My old SPV mobile phone and a Bluetooth headset.
And for Firefox users, if you’ve installed any of the extensions I’ve previously mentioned, check for a little green arrow in the top right of the window. Some of them have been updated. Click the arrow and Firefox will download the updates you want and install them for you. Brilliant.