I just installed the new FireFox and by doing so, I lost a little trick that
I have been enjoying greatly so far: whenever I click on a link from outside FireFox, I
want it to be loaded in a separate tab in an existing window and not in a new
browser.
The instructions to enable this feature are in the FAQ but a bit scattered,
so here they are in a more concise fashion:
- Add the following to your user.js:
// Stop reusing active windows: user_pref("advanced.system.supportDDEExec", false);
- This file doesn’t exist by default, so you must create it. On
Windows XP, it can be found at:c:/Documents and Settings/[user name]/ApplicationData/ Mozilla/Profiles/default/[random chars].slt/user.js
- Download and install
TabBrowser extensions
- Select Tools > Extensions, select Tabbrowser Extensions and click the
small Options icon.
- Expand the General node.
- In the Window Mode panel, select Use multiple browsers only
for my request.
Note that the "small Option icon" in the Extensions window is not only
minuscule but doesn’t look like a button at all (no push affordance). It’s
the label with a check mark on it. I find this inconsistency in the FireFox GUI annoying: why should options for extensions be in a different
menu than the regular preferences?
Anyway, FireFox is a cool browser, and even if the progress in terms of
features is pretty slow, it is still light-years ahead of Internet Explorer,
which has been stagnating for years now.
Update, 2004/08/23: I updated these instructions for the latest Firebox build since the path of user.js and the Settings option panel of the TabbedBrowsing extensions have slightly changed
#1 by jeff on June 17, 2004 - 8:29 am
cedric, you can also set the prefs of Firefox by going to the url about:config directly.
jeff
#2 by Anonymous on June 17, 2004 - 9:39 am
If you want only to open external URLs in the same browser window and a new tab you can install Single Window 1.0 http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=50&vid=53&category=Tabbed%20Browsing
It will do.
Rergards,
Horia
#3 by Michael on June 28, 2004 - 11:07 pm
Tried all this out on the new firefox build of OS X. Just keeps crashing – so I unloaded the extension and things are good. Bummer – since this extention for Tabs was quite nice.
smitty