View contents of Zip/Jar files using firefox

With Firefox 3, you can use firefox browser to view contents of zip/jar files.
For viewing contents of filename.zip type following at location bar:

jar:file://< full path to filename.zip >!/
Example: jar:file:///home/user/Desktop/filename.zip!/
Also: jar:file:///home/user/Desktop/filename.zip!/dir/file1.js

This is specially very useful when you want to see contents (.js, .css, .html files) included in firefox extension’s jar file.

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View page source trick in firefox, flock

You may have read about firefox's special about: pages like about:config, about:cache etc. Or you can go through Firefox about: pages to have an idea about them. There is one similar functionality in firefox which allows you to view page source of a page. You can type

view-source:http://www.google.com/

this in location bar to view page source of google.com.
So i have made this Bookmarklet to view page source: View Source (So you can drag this to your bookmark toolbar to have quick access).

Similarly you can type javascript: in your location bar to open java script error console.

Related Post:
Firefox About Pages
Little tweaks with javascript : Bookmarklets.
Open webpages in sidebar

My Del.icio.us Toolbar 2.0

Yesterday I was working late night till 3AM, to update my extension 'My Del.icio.us Toolbar' which I made long back in October 2006. Reason was to make it work for newer versions of firefox. But then I added some new features too :

• I added a Explore feature which is similar to Stumble.
• Checking Del.icio.us cookies to verify authentication. (You can find more details on how to read browser cookies from javascript here. Actually It uses nsICookieManager interface to iterate over all of the cookies.

Try My Del.icio.us 2.0 (Right now you may have to login to access the extension as it's in Sandbox.)

I also noticed that mozilla has redesigned the extension page. They have also added a nice statistics Dashboard for extension, provided graphical representation of number of downloads, active daily users etc. I was surprised to see that older version of My Del.icio.us has reached a total download of 11,200 (not that a big number but still surprising for me) and number of active user around 1000.

Try My Del.icio.us 2.0 and provide feedback.

Also Try: Del.icio.us SearchER
Related Post:

• If you want to develop firefox extension..
• Firefox about: pages
• Firefox shortcuts

Firefox shortcuts

Today I learnt 2 new firefox shortcuts/tricks through this article 20 Amazing Firefox Shortcuts to Save You Time and Money.

• Deleting Address: Highlight them and use SHIFT + DELETE to remove from drop down menu in address bar.


• Get Instant Downloads : Just drag the link to download icon in toolbar which you ca get by customizing your toolbar.
  

Read article for more such tips.
Related Links:

• Firefox about: pages
  
• Speed up firefox
  
• Firefox Tips
  

Open webpages in sidebar

Yesterday i found this great way to store some imp bookmarks in your sidebar. And you can create different sidebar for each such collection. Like for my bookmarks click here.
Now you can save this bookmark (may be in bookmark toolbar folder) and use it.

This link is a javascript :

javascript:window.sidebar.addPanel('title of sidebar','url of sidebar panel','');

So now you can point to any URL. and that URL will open in sidebar with given title.
atleast Works with Firefox

Update: Run google talk in firefox sidebar

You can click here: Add google chat to sidebar
Add Digg|River
A bookmarklet to bookmark websites to open in sidebar. click here
Also read : Webpages for Sidebar

Web Development Tools

Great listing of web developers powertools by Brennan Stehling.
I'll starts with extension for firefox that comes very handy while web devlopment.

• Web Developer : Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.
• Firebug: Allows you to edit debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
  
• ColorZilla: Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.
• Live HTTP Headers

The list Web Development Tools for the Power Developer contains :

Validators

• HTML/XHTML Validator
• CSS Validator
• Feed Validator (RSS and Atom)

Javascript

• Prototype Javascript Framework
• Script.aculo.us
• Yahoo! JavaScript Developer Center
• Javascript Lint

Websites

• A List Apart
• Position Is Everything
• Quirks Mode
• WaSP
• CSS Zen Garden

Read More>> (also containing ASP.NET, Proxy tools)
And w3schools, a great place for finding tutorials realted to web development.

Updated(29 April 2007) : Tools for web-designers.

Related Post :

• Improving interactivity with Javascript
• Firebug : web development evolved
• Play with html using javascript
  

Paint Chat !!

Now chat using a paint brush !!.

I had made this app which uses paint brush to express yourself and share with others. This uses HTML:Canvas for drawing graphics using javascript, so no sluggish java applet and flash. It uses XMLHttprequest to synchronize paint screen with server. You can share this url with your friends to have a chat with paint brush and use Refresh !! to update your paint screen with that of your friend.
Read about Paint chat.
Try It out : Paint Chat

Updated: I have added feature for filling up whole background with color and also the transparency feature.

Related Post:
Shout-Box

Firefox about: pages

Updated Post here
Special pages available in firefox :

• about: A simple prompt without any parameter will display the Mozilla “about” information.


• about:licence Informaion regarding licencing, Mozilla Public licence, Source code licence
  


• about:buildconfig It shows the build platform configuration and parameters.


• about:blank — A blank page. Useful for setting as your homepage.


• about:cache Displays info and statistics regarding memory cache device and disk cache device including the number of enteries, name of your cache’s directory and a list of the entries you can find there. From there ou can view cached webpages and images.


• about:config It provied you an nice interface to tweak firefox settings. It allows you to modify firefox preferences. Read About:config entries to more about it. These entries are stored in pref.js folder in your profile.
  


• about:plugins provides information regarding installed plugins (plugins help your browser perform specific functions like viewing special graphic formats or playing multimedia files.) like flash, quicktime, realplayer, adobe reader and java plugin
  
  
• about:credits This is an alphabetically sorted list of all the people that gave their contribution to the development of Firefox.


• about:Mozilla from Book of Mozilla, 7:15
  

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

Works with Flock too but with different Quote:
from Book of Mozilla, 11:1

And when the Beast had taken the quarter of the Earth under its rule, a quarter hundred Birds of Sulfur flew from the Depths. The birds crossed hundreds of mountain views and found twenty four wise men who came from the stars. And then it began, the believers dared to listen. Then, they took their pens and dared
to create. Finally, they dared to share their deed with the whole of mankind. Spreading words of freedom and breaking the chains, the birds brought deliverance to everyone.

Update : (4th April 2007)

• javascript: - opens the js console (So you can also bookmark this link to have quick access to java console)
  
• view-source:http://www.aburad.com/ view source for given url.

Update: (12th April 2007)

• chrome://browser/content/browser.xul To open firefox inside firefox :)

Update: (13th April 2007)

• Editing configuration files..
  

About protocol links >>

Related Post:
Firefox and Thunderbird cheat sheets
Firefox Tips
Speed up firefox

My Del.icio.us Toolbar

Update: Noticed some changes made by mozilla in extesnion's page
I developed this toolbar that provides you all functionality of del.icio.us website with a quick access right in your toolbar. It helps you in searching bookmarks and tagging new websites and lot more functionalities. Try it :)
Download it from here : My Del.icio.us

Related Post : Del.icio.us Bookmark Search

If you want to develop firefox extension..

It will be helpful to have :

• Real Time XUL editor
• JavaScript Shell
• Developer@Mozilla

For creating toolbar extensions: Toolbar tutorial
Roachfield : how to create firefox extensions

Related Posts :
Firefox tips
Speed Up Firefox
Creating firefox extension

Greasemonkey script to Replace URLs in webpage

Yesterday night i made this script which replaces urls with their alternatives in a webpage. What r its usage :

• Ad blocking (Replacing such URLs with blank so that clicking them will result in nothing.
• Unblocking some sites :) . At many places sites are just blocked by url names so it replaces them with ip.(for example i did same for youtube as its blocked in my college). you can modify script to include more such urls.
  

You will need firefox with Greasemonkey extension installed to use this script.
Here is the script : Right Click to install

Resources : Dive into Greasemokey

Firefox and Thunderbird cheat sheets

A nice cheat sheet of shortcuts can be just what the doctor ordered
when you're looking to adopt a new program and get straight to
productive use.

• Mozilla Firefox cheat sheet
• Mozilla Thunderbird cheat sheet

Source: Kshitij's Blog

Creating Firefox Extension

Learn by example

Everyone has a good idea at one time or another to implement a new feature in a web browser. Well, with the goodness that is Mozilla Firefox, now you can do just that. You need to have a vague understanding of XUL and Javascript, but you certainly don't need to be a master of either.
The author explains how the extensions break down in a nutshell, using BugMeNot as an example

read more >>

Related Post : If you want to develop firefox extension

Speed up firefox

HOW TO SPEED UP FIREFOX

Here's something for broadband people that will really speed up Firefox :

1.Type 'about:config' into the address bar and hit enter. Scroll down and look for the following entries: -
network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set 'network.http.pipelining' to 'true' (double click to change)
Set 'network.http.proxy.pipelining' to 'true' (double click to change)
Set 'network.http.pipelining.maxrequests' to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once. (double click to enter number)

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it 'nglayout.initialpaint.delay' and set its value to '0'. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!"
Find more firefox tweaks here

Related Posts:

• Firefox Tips
• Firefox about: pages

Firefox Tips

• Bookmark
  Just drag the URL icon (in location bar) to the bookmark toolbar (and may be then to specific folder) to bookmark that URL.
  

• Setting Homepage
  With firefox you can set two or more pages as Homepage simultaneously. Just Goto to Preferences-> then write two or more Homepage Locations using "|" . Example:
  http://www.google.com | http://yahoo.com | http://www.blogger.com
  you can add a pipe and a new URL after it.
  

• Setting Alias
  If you want to set an alias for a long URL. for example if you want to set alias "gm" for http://mail.google.com then do : Just bookmark the page you want... Than right-clik on the bookmark -> Properties and type the alias for that URL in "Keyword". For example here set alias "gm". Now in location bar if you type "gm" and enter then it wll take you to "http://mail.google.com".
  

• Increasing/Decreasing Font Size ... Use Ctrl + / Ctrl -
  
• Smart Keywords : more details here
  

some more usefull tips can be found here

Firefox Extension

Me and Kshitij are working on a firefox extension Itranslator
that converts and selected itrans text to Unicode that is being
supported by Firefox (Better if pango enabled). Earlier we were using
a server which was hosting scrits for itrans to unnicode conversion.
But now (in Newer Version) we are doing this conversion with help of
Javascript which is part of extension itself. In javascript we have
made an array so that each character is mapped to unicode
character according to Itrans standard. The real fight was in mapping
of character where two or three character like ("kha", "cha")
combinely map to a single unicode character which causes
problem for other mapped character.
I would like to thank Harsh for helping us with his script he used in
message box at Varta

My Firefox extensions

The most interseting feature of firefox is to add extra funnctionality and features through extensions. By extensions you can extends the capabilities of browser which makes firefox a leading browser.So I'm posting here about my favourite firefox extension :

Tabbrowser Preference: It allows you to open link in new tabs. Also add functionality to middle click to open links in new tab.But newer versions of firefox already have this feature.

FoxyTunes: It allows you to control any media player without leaving browser. It has many features like keyboard short-cuts, skinnable, volume control, Track information.

All-in-one-mouse-gestures: Allows you to play with browser using mouse-gestures (can be user defined) . It increases speed of browsing by customization , tab and history scrolling and many more navigation aids.

Googlebar:It gives you the advanced search features of google search like search images, search particular site, search via special google site( like linux search , dictionary search, scholar search). It also add features for Google blog.

Download Manager Tweak : The Download Manager Tweak extension replaces the default Firefox download manager with a customized version. The customized version allows you to open download manager either in a seperate window, the sidebar, or a new tab.

Web developers (for firefox as developer tool) :The Web Developer extension is a toolbar (among other tools) that allows you to visually see how a website is created. Using this extension, it is easy to view various information about the website, such as the size of images. It also allows you to outline elements of the site, such as tables and other block elements. If you develop web pages for a living or as a hobby, or simply want to learn more about HTML, XHTML and CSS definitely install this extension.

There are many more extension available on :

• http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/
• https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/
• http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/

Updated list extended to include this : My Firefox extensions (2)
Related Post:
Firefox About Pages