[Ext] Firefox Showcase 0.9.1 : 1-16-2007

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Old joseprio
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Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Re: Focus problem / Distinguish active tab

Post by Old joseprio »

David.P wrote:Right. Actually I did experience the unwanted closing of the sidebar instead of the active thumbnail-tab already in the previous version as well. However, with the latest version of Showcase, it seems to happen much more often that sidebar instead of the tab gets closed.


No problem, I'll make sure that this will be solved in the next version. I changed something when closing tabs, so probably this made the problem worse.

David.P wrote:Hmm -- I have switched to this style; however, the problem persists, since also with the "Plain with close button" setting, after tabflipping what remains with a blue highlighted title bar still is the inactive tab...


I'll give it a look, and then write about it here ;) I don't have internet at home at the moment, so it will take me a few days to check it.
David.P
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Joined: July 25th, 2006, 11:27 am

Post by David.P »

Ok Josep, that's great,

Cheers David.P
JulianL
Posts: 60
Joined: May 7th, 2007, 2:06 am

Post by JulianL »

I'm a very new Firefox user (24 hours) and I love it. It's extensions like this that make Firefox so good. Unfortunately I think that I might have hit one downside of extensions already, i.e. conflicts. Maybe I've misunderstood a feature on Showcase but let me explain and I'd be very interested in feedback.

I really want to get at the "Open Showcase Window" button on the tab bar (i.e. as a button next to the "Open new tab" button on the tab bar). I see that in the Showcase options, under the "Advanced" section, there is an "Enable task bar enhancements" option where I can set up what the "List all tabs" button invokes. I've tried setting this but nothing happens and I can't see anything anywhere in Firefox where I have a "List all tabs" button. I now confess that I am also running the equally excellent "Tab Mix Plus" extension.

Now, I'm just wildly guessing here, but could the "List all tabs" button be something that Showcase introduces onto the tab bar when the "Enable task bar enhancements" option is set but that the Tab Mix Plus extension is stopping being displayed?

In any event, the basic thing that I'm trying to do is to find a way to invoke showcase in a more convenient way than going up to the main toolbar and for me a button on the tab bar seems a logical place to put it. How can I do this (I already tried dragging the regular toolbar button there and the tab bar doesn't seem to accept new buttons being dropped on it)?

- Julian
Old joseprio
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Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

Hi Julian.

First of all, welcome to the Firefox world :)

The "List all tabs" button is a button that appears in the tab bar of Firefox 2. Unfortunately, the current public version of Tab Mix Plus doesn't show it... it's "development version" (available at the author's website) includes it, and it's 100% compatible with Firefox Showcase.

By default, that button would show a drop down with the tab entries. Showcase can override that functionality and a Showcase window (or tab, or sidebar).

If you want to add a Showcase button to your toolbar, the best option is to customize it: right click on the buttons area (where "Back", "Forward", "Reload", "Stop" and "Home" buttons are), and choose "Customize...". Once you do that, you'll enter the "customization mode". Showcase includes 6 new buttons, 2 for each mode. Just drag those and place them at the toolbar. Once done, click on the "Done" button in the "Customize Toolbar" window.

Quite a lot of extensions place new buttons there, so it's good to keep that in mind :) Let me know if you've any problem.
JulianL
Posts: 60
Joined: May 7th, 2007, 2:06 am

Post by JulianL »

Hi Jose,

Wow. Thanks for the quick response and the welcome. I found the Tab Mix Plus developer site and downloaded the developer release and everything works exactly as expected now. Personally I'd prefer the "List all tabs" button on the left edge of the tab bar not the right, but that's clearly a core firefox issue.

I had used "Customize..." to drag the showcase button onto the nav toolbar already but that was just a bit further away from the web page display area than I wanted it, hence my interest in getting access via a button on the tab bar which is closer to where my mouse is likely to be (i.e. within a web page) when I discover I want to switch tab.

I did have one other question related to getting Showcase invocation even closer to where my mouse is. Another amazing extension that I'm using is EasyGestures (easygestures.mozdev.org). This has a facility to set a gesture to "call any Firefox API function or a function inside another extension". The example given in the help file is: "var string = "Test ok !"; BrowserOpenAddonsMgr(); dump(string);".

Are there Showcase APIs that are exposed in this way that could be called so that it could be invoked via an EasyGestures action? If so then what would be the correct code string to invoke the simple ShowcaseWindow and ShowcaseTab functions (I haven't decided which I prefer yet, showcase window or tab!).

- Julian
Old joseprio
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Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

JulianL wrote:I did have one other question related to getting Showcase invocation even closer to where my mouse is. Another amazing extension that I'm using is EasyGestures (easygestures.mozdev.org). This has a facility to set a gesture to "call any Firefox API function or a function inside another extension". The example given in the help file is: "var string = "Test ok !"; BrowserOpenAddonsMgr(); dump(string);".

Are there Showcase APIs that are exposed in this way that could be called so that it could be invoked via an EasyGestures action? If so then what would be the correct code string to invoke the simple ShowcaseWindow and ShowcaseTab functions (I haven't decided which I prefer yet, showcase window or tab!).


Sure! It is using the function "showShowcase(allWindows, embedTab);", so there are 4 possibilities:
  • Showcase window showing the tabs of the current window: "showShowcase(false, false);"
  • Showcase window showing tabs of all windows: "showShowcase(true, false);"
  • Showcase tab showing the tabs of the current window: "showShowcase(false, true);"
  • Showcase tab showing the tabs of all windows: "showShowcase(true, true);"
imhotep27
Posts: 3
Joined: May 16th, 2007, 10:46 am

Post by imhotep27 »

Hi Jose,

The little arrow button on the tab bar that invokes FS disappears when Tab Mix Plus is also installed. I wonder if you know of a way to work around this. I can't figure a way to invoke FS when the button is gone. I know this is more a Tab Mix Plus functionality issue since it takes over the tab bar, and I've posted in their forum, but I think you might have some insights as well. Thanks for the very useful extension.
Old joseprio
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Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

imhotep27 wrote:Hi Jose,

The little arrow button on the tab bar that invokes FS disappears when Tab Mix Plus is also installed. I wonder if you know of a way to work around this. I can't figure a way to invoke FS when the button is gone. I know this is more a Tab Mix Plus functionality issue since it takes over the tab bar, and I've posted in their forum, but I think you might have some insights as well. Thanks for the very useful extension.


In Tab Mix Plus author's website you may download the current "version in development", which re-adds that arrow. It works as it should together with Showcase :)
imhotep27
Posts: 3
Joined: May 16th, 2007, 10:46 am

Post by imhotep27 »

Thanks so much, Jose, for your response and to Julian for asking the same question to begin with. I did a search for Tab Mix Plus in this forum and JulianL's question didn't show up (or more likely I missed it). Sorry for the duplicate question.
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

I don't know if it has been already mentioned but closing ShowCase by clicking the X button closes the complete firefox. Does not look like intended behaviour. Can it be a Minefield issue?
Think for yourself. Otherwise you have to believe what other people tell you.
A society based on individualism is an oxymoron. || Freedom is at first the freedom to starve.
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Old joseprio
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Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by Old joseprio »

trolly wrote:I don't know if it has been already mentioned but closing ShowCase by clicking the X button closes the complete firefox. Does not look like intended behaviour. Can it be a Minefield issue?


Hi trolly,

yes, this happens only in Firefox 3. However, it can be solved easily:
  • Go to Showcase options panel
  • Go to "Advanced" tab
  • On the "Window attributes" section, uncheck "Dependent"

Now you can use the close button without problems. If that behavior doesn't change before the release of the final version of Firefox 3, I'll disable that option by default.

There are some problems in the thumbnail layout for Firefox 3... they'll be solved before the final Firefox 3 release, but I don't know exactly when :(
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trolly
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Post by trolly »

Thanks for the fast answer. :-)
I think it is still some fallout from the units bug. For me it looks like the thumbnail size should include the header and the footer which is currently not included leading to overlapping. I'm not concerned about it at the moment. I'm more concerned about the missing page zoom. ;-)
Think for yourself. Otherwise you have to believe what other people tell you.
A society based on individualism is an oxymoron. || Freedom is at first the freedom to starve.
Constitution says: One man, one vote. Supreme court says: One dollar, one vote.
robbyx
Posts: 979
Joined: September 1st, 2003, 10:08 am

Reading Thumbnails

Post by robbyx »

The small print in my thumbnails is so blurred that I can not read the text. Should I change the font and if so to what?

I would like to have scroll bars at the side of each thumbnail. Is their a configuration that does that?
Robin
Old joseprio
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Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Re: Reading Thumbnails

Post by Old joseprio »

robbyx wrote:The small print in my thumbnails is so blurred that I can not read the text. Should I change the font and if so to what?

I would like to have scroll bars at the side of each thumbnail. Is their a configuration that does that?


This will improve in Firefox 3. Although the current version isn't working too well in it, I'll make sure it does when the final version comes out.

To scroll a thumbnail you may place the mouse cursor over a thumbnail and use the mouse scroll wheel while pressing "Alt". Also, in "zoom mode" (middle clicking on a thumbnail, by default), you'll see some arrows in the thumbnail in the case scroll is possible. Just place the mouse cursor over them to scroll on that direction.
sirblackheart
Posts: 0
Joined: August 9th, 2006, 9:38 am

undo closed tab

Post by sirblackheart »

i only would like to ask if it would be possible to ad the undo closed tab function into to context menue,
the one when right clicking a tab in showcase,
or maybe an icon somewhere.

thx
Last edited by sirblackheart on August 22nd, 2007, 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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