[ext] Stay-Open Menu

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custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

[ext] Stay-Open Menu

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

Preference now available in Firefox 57+

Set about:config pref

Code: Select all

browser.bookmarks.openInTabClosesMenu
to false for basic stayopen behavior built-in to Firefox.
Further details

I find this particularly useful combined with another pref

Code: Select all

browser.tabs.loadBookmarksInTabs
Details

Stay-Open Menu for Firefox versions prior to 56 (legacy)

Description:
Facilitates opening multiple items from the Bookmarks Menu and various other bookmark/history related dropdown menus.

Bookmarks or History menu stays open when middle-clicking (or optionally Ctrl-clicking) items, so you can easily open multiple items. Especially useful when you wish to view many, but not all, menu items in tabs (e.g. RSS feed items). Works similarly on the Bookmarks Toolbar, Bookmarks Button,History Button, and the Location Bar.

For extra convenience, turn on the auto-closing option, and the menu will automatically close after it detects that you've moved the mouse off the menu.

Details and download: AMO has removed all legacy addons from the site, so this has been moved to the Seamonkey addons site. This version should also be compatible with Firefox 29-55.
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/seamonkey/addon/stay-open-menu/

Stay-Open Menu for PaleMoon & Seamonkey (legacy)
This has been updated to a release version and moved to the Seamonky add-ons site:
Download Link: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/seamonkey/addon/stay-open-menu/

Stay-Open Menu for Firefox 56 (legacy)
This is an alpha version (and will not be updated to a release version). Known Issue: Ctrl-click does not work except in the location bar dropdown (WONTFIX)
Download Link: http://www.shadetreeapiary.com/extension/Prerelease/stay_open_menu-3.1.1a1-fx%2Bsm.xpi

Stay-Open Menu for Firefox version 57-64 Nightly Users (legacy)
(Note that as of 11-30-2018 (Fx 65) support for bootstrapped extensions has been removed from Fx. Meaning all bootstrapped extensions, including this one, are now unusable. Addons Mgr. shows them as 'disabled' and the only available option is 'remove'.)

This is a majorly stripped down version intended for Firefox Nightly users; please read carefully before installing!

* Note the new description: Location bar dropdown menu stays open when middle-clicking or Ctrl(Meta on Mac)-clicking items, so you can easily open multiple items. Intended as enhancement to browser.bookmarks.openInTabClosesMenu preference introduced in Firefox 57, but does not depend on that preference.
* See viewtopic.php?f=48&t=633732&start=329 for details on the new Firefox preference to get very basic 'stay open' behavior on Bookmarks Menus.
* Note that Stay-Open Menu no longer has any Options to set. If you don't want the Location Bar support, don't install 4.0b1!
* extensions.legacy.enabled must be set in about:config to enable legacy extensions in Firefox57+. (Pref only has effect in Nightly.)
* This version is not signed. It cannot be uploaded to AMO, since AMO does not consider anything except Web Extensions to be compatible with Firefox 57+.
* This version is not supported or tested on previous versions of Firefox, although it may work there if you override compatibility check (4.0b1 claims compatibility with Fx 58.0a1.)

Download Link: http://www.shadetreeapiary.com/extension/Prerelease/stayopenmenu4.0b1_fx.xpi

This Nightly only version is unlikely to receive future updates.

Webextension

No, there isn't and won't be one. Unfortunately there is no available method to convert Stay-Open Menu into a webextension. So I took the road less traveled and learned how to patch Firefox itself. See Bug 260611 for the long process on getting it landed and viewtopic.php?f=48&t=633732&start=329 for details on the new Firefox preference to get very basic 'stay open' behavior on Bookmarks Menus.
Last edited by custom.firefox.lady on December 5th, 2018, 7:45 pm, edited 12 times in total.
custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

Anyone using this on Mac or anyone willing to test it on Mac? This information would be helpful to know before attempting to get it out of sandbox at AMO. Extension is now at version 1.2. Thanks.
trimel
Posts: 2
Joined: January 4th, 2008, 12:24 pm

Doesn't Open in New Tabs

Post by trimel »

Hi. Love the idea of the Stay Open Menu extension. The problem I have is that the middle-click of bookmarks always open in the right-most already-open existing tab, overlaying what's already there. Am I missing something?

I think all my settngs for Firefox and other extensions (e.g. Tab Mix Plus) indicate to open links, bookmarks, history, etc in new tabs. I'm using version 1.2 on Firefox 3.0.1 and XP Pro SP2.

Thanks.
custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

The problem I have is that the middle-click of bookmarks always open in the right-most already-open existing tab, overlaying what's already there.

Are middle-clicked bookmark urls opened in a new tab without Stay-Open Menu installed? If not, there is a problem outside of Stay-Open Menu.
Otherwise try temporarily disabling TabMixPlus and any other bookmark and/or tab related extensions and see if Stay-Open Menu works then. If so, try to find out which one it is conflicting with.
trimel
Posts: 2
Joined: January 4th, 2008, 12:24 pm

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by trimel »

That was it ! Thank you 'lady" ! I found an overlooked setting in TabMixPlus (Events - Tab Opening - at the very bottom) for opening links with middle-click. Stay-Open Menu is a great extension that solves a long-standing annoyance for me.
custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

trimel: You're welcome. Thanks for letting us know what fixed it for you.
custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

Announcement: As of 8-24-08 Stay-Open Menu is now public (out of the Sandbox, ie no longer experimental) and can now be downloaded from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6459 without the need to login there.
nitro322
Posts: 11
Joined: October 20th, 2007, 1:49 pm
Contact:

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by nitro322 »

Thanks for the great extension. I often have a need to open several pages at once from a group of bookmarks, so this will definitely save me some time. I have a request, though: in addition to leaving the menu open for middle-clicks, could you also leave it open for ctrl-clicks? Functionally, a ctrl-click (control + left-click) does the exact same thing as a middle-click, and I often use that where middle-clicks may not be as convenient or even possible on some systems (laptops, for example, that fail to provide 3-button emulation).

Is that possible, or is there some technical limitation that would prevent it?

Thanks.
custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

in addition to leaving the menu open for middle-clicks, could you also leave it open for ctrl-clicks?

Glad you like it. The original idea was to use middle-click for this purpose and leave Ctrl-click for when you do not want the menu left open. In practice, I rarely use Ctrl-click anymore, yet I hesitate to remove that potential use. I am currently considering possibilities for the next version of Stay-Open menu (whenever that may occur) and will note your request for consideration, perhaps as a selectable option. Thanks for the laptop info, I had not considered that, as I almost always connect a mouse when using one. I am not currently aware of any technical reason this could not be implemented, though I am not certain until such time as I attempt it.

If anyone else has any comments on whether this is desirable either by default or as an option, please post your remarks.
LLane
Posts: 37
Joined: July 30th, 2006, 2:26 am

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by LLane »

Great extension. Is there any chance this could be configured to keep the toolbar menu open after clicking Mark all read on a feed? I generally wish to mark several feeds as read at a time and it's rather tedious to open the bookmark menu 15 times when it closes after each feed is marked. I know it's not the original purpose of Stay Open Menu, but it would certainly be an excellent addition.
custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

Thanks.
keep the toolbar menu open after clicking Mark all read on a feed

I don't have any such entry for 'Mark all read'. Are you using some other extension that adds that text?
LLane
Posts: 37
Joined: July 30th, 2006, 2:26 am

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by LLane »

I do use Boox, but I didn't know that there was no way to mark all read without it. Basically, you right-click on the Feed and can mark all new items under it read.
custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

I do not use Boox, but it's preview image from amo indicates a "Mark as read' menu item. Making Stay-Open Menu work with Boox in the way you suggest is an interesting idea and I thank you for mentioning it, but this is certainly unlikely to be added to Stay-Open Menu anytime soon, if at all.
LLane
Posts: 37
Joined: July 30th, 2006, 2:26 am

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by LLane »

All right. I just thought I'd take a shot and ask. Thank you anyway. :)
custom.firefox.lady
Posts: 407
Joined: February 28th, 2008, 3:48 am
Location: PA

Re: [ext] Stay-Open Menu (New – for Firefox 3 only)

Post by custom.firefox.lady »

Follow up to:
nitro322 wrote:in addition to leaving the menu open for middle-clicks, could you also leave it open for ctrl-clicks? ...
Is that possible, or is there some technical limitation that would prevent it?

Happy to report that this is indeed possible. No decision has yet been made on whether this should be included in the next version of Stay-Open Menu, and if so, whether it should be optional. It will need further testing/debugging if included and there may be issues with Mac OS, which IIUC uses the Ctrl key for a different purpose. But then I've never gotten anyone to report whether Stay-Open Menu even works on Mac.
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