News Archive - M-Reimer/prefbar GitHub Wiki
As the PrefBar addons.mozilla.org page is no longer available, I decided to host some old screenshots here, to show what PrefBar used to be.
While going over the screenshots, I thought: "Wouldn't it be interesting to replicate the most recent screenshot with replacement Addons?".
Here is the screenshot that I used to show some features that I actually used:
And this is the same without PrefBar at all:
Used Addons:
I didn't add anything to toggle Flash. I have uninstalled Flash completely on all my devices years ago.
I've already created a website color toggler which works per tab: Toggle Website Colors (Tab). This solution has the advantage that it only changes colors on one tab and doesn't modify all other tabs and windows. This works well for everyone who wants to have something handy for some rare cases where websites have bad readable colors.
But this "per tab" solution pointed out to have some limitations for everyone who wants to remove author-defined colors for all websites (for some kind of "global dark theme). In the meantime the Firefox built-in color toggle feature, which was used by PrefBar, also got available to WebExtensions, so it is now possible to offer this as a second option for toggling website colors: Toggle Website Colors (Global).
So now you have the choice: Selective "per tab" color toggling, which may have some limitations as it is limited to what I can do with CSS without breaking too much pages, or the "global" color toggling, which controls a Firefox feature inside the renderer.
Actually these "toggle thingies" are surprisingly easy to make, so I've made a few more:
If you want to toggle website fonts with just one click (just like the PrefBar "Fonts" checkbox allowed to do), then feel free to try my latest Addon:
After some time, I decided to create another "PrefBar functionality replacement Addon".
To test multilingual websites it may be required to switch the browser language, sent to the webserver, to test the automatic language switch on the webserver. This is what my new Addon "Language Switch" is meant for. You may create a list of language identifiers, in the way you need it for your testing, just like it was possible with PrefBar.
You may find the new Addon here: Language Switch
I've created a simple "Referrer toggle" Addon for everyone who wants to disable this "feature" by default. It is already reviewed by Mozilla and can be installed from here: Toggle Referrer
If you need a "Firefox 57 proof" replacement for the "Page2Image" button, please have a look at this one: Save Screenshot.
Standalone addon available which replaces "Colors" checkbox. Migration planning list online. Please tell me which buttons you need!
My second standalone "PrefBar button" is online: Toggle Website Colors.
This replaces one of the most requested features: The colors checkbox.
This makes it possible to read pages with a bad color choice more easily
by disabling all the colors, so you can read the text "black on white".
The addon adds this feature to the browser context menu, so you don't
need to waste space on your toolbar. This way you can have the addon
enabled all the time and if you need to disable colors once in a while,
it is directly availble.
I've also published a page with my current migration planning. Please tell me if you still use some of the buttons, either via mail or on the mozillazine forum thread! Please also tell me if you did own buttons and want me to port them to WebExtensions. Otherwise it would be your job to do this until Firefox 57 is out!
I've created a first standalone Addon to replace the "Restore Tab" button, which was provided by PrefBar, so far.
You can download "Undo Close Tab" button from here: Undo Close Tab
I strongly recommend everyone to remove "Restore Tab" from PrefBar and get the new Addon as replacement.
I'm still working on some more buttons, but some of them need API which is only available with Firefox 54. So stay tuned for further updates on more Addons.
Just as a reminder: My plan is to port all buttons, that I need into standalone Addons. PrefBar itself will no longer work with Firefox 57 and higher! If there are PrefBar buttons, you don't want to loose, then please tell me so we can find a possible solution.
I've got some reports, that the "TXTURL" button no longer works. Yes, this is true as the new Firefox backend (electrolysis) would basically require a rewrite of this button. But as Firefox itself has a feature like this, I'm not going to do this.
To open a "not linked" URL, just do the following:
- Select the full URL you want to open.
- Right-click the selection
- The first four items in the opened context menu give you options to open the selected link in the current tab, a new tab, a new window or a new private window.
I consider this as the official replacement of the mentioned button. The TXTURL button has been removed from the button database.
I already got some feedback from PrefBar users about how they use PrefBar. Please keep discussing in the forum thread or send me mails.
In my first post about the possible future situation, I may have underestimated the API situation (status of the future WebExtensions API) a bit. As Mozilla is already asking developers to use the new API for new Addons, I thought it would be more feature-complete, but in fact I think they are doing this to get feedback about which features are missing by developers. To be honest, I don't have time for that. I'll start with the new API as soon as it is at least 80% feature-complete. So far it seems like it may take pretty much time until I even can do first trys with it.
I did a first try to replace a few PrefBar buttons with individual (existing) Addons on my system and started with a simple thing: "Restore Tab". I found two Addons that would fit for that but both seem to be unmaintained and both had at least minor bugs. They also both depend on XUL and XPCOM, just as PrefBar does, so if these technologies are no longer available, they stop working, too.
The next problem is, that there is no API function in the WebExtensions API to restore a tab. Even Google Chrome doesn't have this. The Google Chrome Addons, which do this, seem to handle their own tab history.
Then I found the following website http://arewewebextensionsyet.com/#chrome which shows that Mozilla doesn't even have 40% compatibility with the feature set of Google Chrome (first browser which based Addons on "WebExtensions" API) which is known to have a somewhat limited API. Mozilla's plan was to add more features, later, to make stuff possible which is impossible with the Chrome API. Maybe this will even cover a simple "tab.restore" API call.
To make a long story short: I think it is far too early to a) worry about PrefBar and b) think about developing a replacement tool. But I also think it is good to communicate early so people can give feedback, allowing me to come up with a good replacement as soon as possible.
The most important first: Unlike other Addon developers, who decided to stop developing their Addon with the announcement of the deprecation of XPCOM and XUL, I won't do so. At least not now and not in the foreseeable future.
PrefBar started in a time where customizable toolbars were not possible at all in Mozilla. The only way to do this in the Mozilla browser was PrefBar.
Addon development was a nightmare, too. Many different files had to be written and placed at exactly the right place in different languages (Javascript, XUL, RDF, ...).
Installing new features without browser restart was impossible while PrefBar allowed to load buttons dynamically without restarting the browser.
Even "addons.mozilla.org" didn't exist, so it was difficult to find the right Addon for the right task. As PrefBar integrated many needs in one Addon, this simplified things a lot and with the simple "button import" feature, there was one central place to get more features.
But over the time things have changed.
Firefox got a very nice user interface, allowing you to change nearly any aspect of the interface with just a few clicks. PrefBar somehow got modified by me to integrate at least at a basic level with this UI, but it has some downsides. For example the buttons still are bound to the PrefBar toolbar "container" and have to be moved as group inside the Firefox customize dialog.
Sharing "buttons" (or better full Addons) is now easier, too. Mozilla has launched "addons.mozilla.org" some time ago where you can easily search the addons for your needs.
Even creating Addons got much simpler. Especially with the new WebExtensions API, currently in development by Mozilla. This new API is still far from complete but it will simplify Addon development a lot. Installing Addons without browser restart? No problem if Addon is designed to be loaded dynamically!
One big downside of the "All in one" attempt of PrefBar is, that I only use a fragment of the features myself. I depend on feedback of users if a feature, I don't use myself, gets broken. Unfortunately I only get feedback very rarely, so it may happen that some features keep broken for months. I'm almost 100% sure that at least one of the buttons in the upcoming 7.1 release is still broken. I don't have the time to test them all with every new release!
So in my opinion the whole PrefBar concept somehow got obsolete. I would prefer to get my "buttons" from addons.mozilla.org and to move them to everywhere I want in the Firefox GUI.
My plan is to wait until the whole "WebExtension thing" gets critical. Meaning that the first "Servo based" Firefox is in Beta or Mozilla decides to disable XUL based Addons in the Gecko based Firefox.
At that time I'll see if there are Addons available which fit my needs. If they are missing or are not ported to WebExtension, I'll create the missing Addons, but only in the form "one tool for one need". No more "all in one" attempts!
I don't know when this will happen and so far the WebExtensions API is still very basic and misses many features.
Maybe it still takes several years...
I'll keep updating PrefBar as long as possible and as long as XUL addons are possible in Firefox, but I'll move over to single addons (which will be linked here in some kind of "how to migrate" list) as soon as Mozilla definitively drops XUL from Firefox.
PrefBar version 7.1 is waiting for review. This version should fix some of the latest bugs with current browsers. It also removes some obsolte stuff. Please have a look at the Changelog for detailled information.
Yan Li sent two howtos to be published on the PrefBar homepage. Thank you very much for sharing your work!
In the navigation you find the howtos below "Documentation". The new entries are:
- How to use icons instead of text labels on PrefBar buttons.
- How to attach tooltips to PrefBar buttons
As PrefBar 6.6 did not get the review, required to be distributed as update, I had to rewrite a few things. The way, how code is executed, was changed completely. As this is no small change and may cause some buttons to fail (I'll check the buttons in the online database as soon as possible and publish updates where needed) I decided to publish this as "7.0". Please report any problems you find.
This release is prepared for the upcoming "multiprocess support" (electrolysis) in Firefox. I at least tried to keep compatible with older Firefox versions, but I'm only testing with the latest final and with an up-to-date nightly version. If something fails, please report.
To fix a few of the current problems (non-working colors checkbox, non-working button import from "More buttons" page, ...) I've prepared a release candidate for PrefBar 6.6. Please report any problems, you still have with this, either via mail or via Bugzilla.
You may download the release candidate from here: PrefBar 6.6 RC1 MD5: 88ae30f40f46dd0746b73026abf0a4bd
A new release will be available, soon. This release contains the fix, required to clear the cache on Firefox 32 and a few smaller interface changes. For a full list of changes have a look at the changelog.
A new release is on its way. This release contains a new feature for the "Resize Menulist". Now it is possible to create entries that only set the width or height without modifying the second value. Have a look at the help system to find out how to use this.
The new release also contains many fixes for the new Firefox 29 interface (Australis). I hope that all major bugs are fixed now. If someone still has problems, then please contact me.
I've updated the "Full Page Zoom" checkbox to use a Firefox builtin feature to toggle the setting.
With this change, you no longer have to reload the page to see the effect.
As usual it will take some time until reviews are done, but in a few days, PrefBar 6.3 will ship as official compatibility update with Firefox 26.
This release also contains first fixes to get compatible with the new "Australis" theme, so give it a try if you already use an Australis based Firefox.
I've also replaced all occurrences of "Preferences Toolbar" with just "PrefBar". I don't want to advertise PrefBar to be a "toolbar" (separate bar in your browser) anymore, as this is just wrong with current PrefBar versions. You can use the "PrefBar menu" button or you can move the PrefBar button group to other toolbars. No need to use PrefBar's own toolbar!
This new PrefBar version fixes a problem with the plugin toggle checkboxes on Firefox 23. The plugin toggles now work again and with Firefox 23 and above you may change how the plugin toggles work with the new preference "preferences.plugintoggle.mode".
For more informations on this new preference, and what it does, please have a look at the help system.
This is primarily a bugfix release to fix some problems with latest browser versions.
This is also the first time, I open a thread on the MozillaZine forums for discussions about the new release, or PrefBar at all. I hope this helps me to get better contact with my users and maybe someone has good ideas or feature requests for the next release ;)
Maybe it's even a good idea to drop the PrefBar mailinglist and move all discussions about PrefBar over to the MozillaZine forum platform.
The forum announce thread is linked as "Comments" at the end of this news item.
At some point I finally want to get rid of backwards compatibility with the old "RDF based" PrefBar button format. So it's a good idea to port the whole button database to the new "JSON based" format.
While doing so, I fixed and improved some of the buttons:
The Clear Download Manager Button now uses a PrefBar builtin function so most probably no future updates will be needed for this button.
The Clone Tab Button and Reload Proxy Auto Config (PAC) Button now works again with latest Firefox releases.
The eBayNegs Button has been fixed to work with the current eBay website layout.
PrefBar 6.1 currently is waiting for review on addons.mozilla.org. The biggest new feature is the built-in Japanese translation. Thank you to Norah Marinkovic for translating PrefBar to Japanese! There are a few smaller changes, too. For a full list, please have a look at the Changelog.
On the "More buttons" page, you'll find a new button called "Locale Switch Menulist". This is a very useful tool for addon developers, who want to test their addon in a different language, easily. Also have a look at the button description for more info.
Thanks to Norah for sharing!
The "Online Checkbox" was updated to work in current PrefBar releases. The new version properly updates, if the online status changes, and not longer throws errors on error console.
This set of buttons contains 5 buttons, useful for addon development. It contains checkboxes for a few pref toggles, useful for developers, and a button, which reloads the current browser window, including all overlays, without needing to restart the full browser process!
Thanks to Norah for sharing!
[2012-01-26] Update: Norah sent me a new version of his button set. Now it includes 8 buttons for addon development. Please have a look at the button description for details.
Two new buttons are available in the button database.
"Clear Domain Cookies" clears all cookies belonging to the domain of the currently active browser tab.
The Tab Focus Checkbox toggles if new tabs should be loaded in foreground or background.
Two new buttons are available in the button database.
The Expire History Button allows the user to expire and delete entries from the browser history older than a specified number of days. Thanks to David E. Ross for sharing his work.
The Permissions Menu gives quick access to the page permission dialogs for popups, images, installation and cookies (and restores access to those on SeaMonkey).
A new PrefBar button is available, which allows you to have finer control on how cookies are accepted. The Cookie Behavior Menulist. Thanks to David E. Ross for sharing his work.
You may also find a updated Server Info Button, which has been fixed to work with hotkeys, which caused some problems (error messages in error console) in previous versions.
Please note, that both buttons require you to have PrefBar 6.0.1 installed, as the new button format can't be imported by older PrefBar releases!
Exactly 20 days ago, I wrote, that PrefBar 6.0 will be available, soon.
Unfortunately PrefBar 6.0 had a unicode problem. The prefbar.json file was saved without unicode characters, which would cause problems for anyone who wants to use such characters anywhere in buttons.
Second problem is, that I got no review for PrefBar 6.0 at AMO. One smaller modification was needed, which is a whitelist for hosts, allowed to use the "prefbar://" protocol. SeaMonkey/Firefox also have such whitelists for XPI installation and as button files have the same privileges as real addons, it is a good idea to make importing buttons as secure as installing addons.
PrefBar 6.0.1 has been sent to the AMO reviewers today and I hope to get review soon. If this works this time, then you'll get automatic update to 6.0.1, soon. I hope all the bigger bugs are fixed in 6.0.1, now.
Some minutes ago, I've uploaded PrefBar 6.0 in its final version to addons.mozilla.org. It now will take some time until it gets reviewed by the mozilla team.
Most important changes: Support for SeaMonkey 2.2 and higher and complete port away from RDF as datasource format. Mozilla also started to reduce their usage of RDF in Firefox, so this format has no future. In the past, RDF caused more workarounds than it actually did what it should, so this change also improves code quality a lot.
Full changelog, as always, in the online help system.
Some bugs have been reported to me (thank you very much to the reporters!), so I'll create a second RC to allow interested people to test the current status with all bugs, I got reported, fixed.
You may get PrefBar 6.0 RC2 from here
Most important news first: PrefBar 6.0 RC1 is ready for testing. Maybe someone wants to help me with fixing last bugs before this one gets final?
Download from here
Next, I want to write a few sentences about the move of PrefBar to tuxfamily.org. So far I didn't write anything about this. Main reason is, that I've found a security hole on mozdev.org about three years ago. It took me much time and many mails until finally someone even tried to resolve this issue. As a word of "thank you" they finally disabled PHP for the PrefBar project without asking me first, which actually destroyed the layout of the PrefBar homepage. I already started creating a new hosting on tuxfamily.org, as they offer more services and have a more secure hosting platform. The disabling of PHP forced me to move over to the new homepage as soon as possible.
I've uploaded six new buttons to the "More buttons" page. Please have a look and import what you like.
With my last update of Bookmarkmanager Button, I missed to upload the new button file. If you are interested in an updated button, please try again, now.
As someone asked me to also update "Print Menu", to work with Firefox 4.x beta versions, you may now find a new version of this button here: Print Menu
I just released a modified version of the Bookmarkmanager Button, which should work with current Firefox 4 beta versions. I don't give support for Firefox beta versions, but I thought someone may be interested in the update. You may get the button here: Bookmarkmanager Button
I have uploaded PrefBar 5.1.1 to addons.mozilla.org, which will be available for download in a few days. This is primary a bugfix release. For a detailed list of changes, please have a look at the changelog.
Two changes have been made on the More button page:
- Infolist Button updated: The new version of this button now supports current nightly versions, which use a new addon manager. I also removed old SeaMonkey 1.x support code in this new version.
- Geolocation Checkbox added: This checkbox allows to disable the geolocation feature, built into current browsers, completely. Most people won't need this, as this feature is always "opt-in", means SeaMonkey/Firefox asks you for every domain, if you want to make this page know your (mostly very inaccurate) position.
Yesterday, PrefBar got reviewed by the Mozilla reviewers, so from now on, you'll find new versions here: https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/67148/.
Some of the new features, added with PrefBar 5.1, are:
- New feature "Copy button" (right click on a button in PrefBar customize window and choose "Copy". This makes it easier to create own versions of built-in buttons.
- PrefBar menu now is a toolbar button, which may be placed to anywhere, you like (using browser built-in toolbar customize feature).
- Clearall button has been modified to contain some more options to clear stuff. They are all commented out in the button "onClick" code. To enable them, use the new "Copy button" feature, to create your own copy, then doubleclick the copy to edit, switch to "onClick" tab and uncomment as desired.
The new release also contains many bug fixes. For a full list of changes, have a look at the changelog
I've published PrefBar 5.0.2 as second (and hopefully last) bugfix release for PrefBar 5.0.
This primarly fixes bugs that only exist on the Mac OS 10 platform. As I don't have a Mac and so can't debug such stuff on my own, I depend on feedback of Mac users, in such cases. Thanks to anyone who helped me with fixing those bugs. Especially Arivald, who guided me into the right direction, when debugging the prefwindow issue, and Bob for helping me with testing my trunk builds.
I've published a bugfix release, fixing this bug: Bug 22344
After many hours of development, PrefBar 5.0 is finally ready for the end user.
The biggest change is, that I've dropped SeaMonkey 1.x support. This allowed to delete many old lines of code and, on the other side, finally allows me to use some new features of SeaMonkey 2.x and Firefox 3.x, I didn't use, so far, as they would have broken SeaMonkey 1.x support:
- Separated Toolbar and Toolbar items. Made toolbar customizable and added toolbar items to toolbar palette. This change allows you to move PrefBar's buttons around to any toolbar, you like, using the browser built-in "customize toolbar" feature.
- Dropped PrefBar's built in "OSD message" support. Now, if you toggle a checkbox using a defined hotkey, the browser built in notification bar will notify the change to you.
- Dropped the built in "rename based" Flash toggle stuff. Only the better Flash toggle code, based on the built in plugin manager, is left. For SeaMonkey 1.x users: Be sure to enable Flash before upgrading to SeaMonkey 2.x with PrefBar 5.0. PrefBar 5.0 is not longer able to reenable a Flash plugin, which has been disabled in SeaMonkey 1.x.
For a full list of changes, please have a look at the changelog
Would be nice to get some feedback about what you think about the new features. If you still find bugs in this version, please file a bug or send a short bug report. Contact address: [email protected]
SeaMonkey 2.0 came with a pretty nice feed reader, built into the Mail/News component, which I found to be pretty useful.
To also support feed readers, I added an Atom feed to the PrefBar homepage.
To subscribe to the Newsfeed, you just have to click the orange button on the right in your address bar and follow the instructions.
I've uploaded another "test version" for the upcoming PrefBar 5.0 release. It would be great, if as much people, as possible, could give this a try, so bugs, I didn't find, so far, can be fixed. Nearly any code line has been touched in the way from PrefBar 4.3.2 to this release, so there unfortunately is a good chance, something got broken in this process. If noone finds any bugs, a final version will be published next week.
The new test version is available here.
A new InfoList button is available, which makes the button work on the current SeaMonkey trunk.
Now, as SeaMonkey 1.x is not longer supported by the SeaMonkey team, I decided to drop SeaMonkey 1.x support. This also means, I'm finally able to use all those nice new features, built into SeaMonkey 2.x and Firefox 3.x, I was unable to use, so far, as using those features would have broken SeaMonkey 1.x support.
The most important change is, that I've separated PrefBar in a customizable toolbar, which is displayed as usual and can be toggled using F8 (or the hotkey, you defined for this) and a "toolbaritem", which holds PrefBar's buttons. This separation allows you to move the PrefBar buttons to any place on any toolbar on SeaMonkey/Firefox, using the built-in toolbar customize mechanism. It also allows you to place foreign buttons, or Buttons, which come with SeaMonkey/Firefox itself, onto the PrefBar toolbar (and hide/show those buttons, together with PrefBar itself, using the F8 hotkey).
Another bigger change is the redesign of the PrefBar preference system, you use to edit the toolbar. In Firefox, it now has a more "Firefox like" design.
Please only use this alpha release on non-productive environments and please send me feedback about what you think about this release and about any bug you find. You may do this via Mail ([email protected]) or (even better) using our Newsgroup
This release fixes a small bug in the Java checkbox, which caused the checkbox to fail, if the "Java Deployment Toolkit" plugin is installed.
If anything works well, this release has been notified to you by the Addon manager of SeaMonkey/Firefox. I hope this works...
This release is just a bugfix release, mostly for fixing several SeaMonkey 2.x related bugs. I've also enabled "automatic update" using the built-in addon-manager for this release, based on the file management mechanism, provided by mozdev.org. I didn't try it, but hopefully the next release will be notified to you by SeaMonkey/Firefox.
For a complete list of all bugs, fixed in this release, please have a look at the Changelog
PrefBar 4.3 is available, now. The biggest change in this release is the cleaned up configuration dialog. Based on the idea "less is more", I dropped all the buttons between the lists and placed them to a context menu. Drag&drop now is the only way to move the items around. Deleting items is done via context menu or via "Del" key and editing is done via doubleclick or via context menu, again.
You may have a look at the Changelog for a more detailled list of changes.
Another big change is, that PrefBar now officially works on SeaMonkey 2.0. It worked in the past, too, and a few people already used it there, but now I'm officially supporting SM 2.0, while I'll now start to fade out SeaMonkey 1.x support.
I've also uploaded new versions of two buttons. The Infolist button, which had to be updated to support the addon manager, now available in SeaMonkey 2.0 (this also makes this button work in Firefox) and the Bookmarkmanager button which needed a small fix to be able to open the bookmark manager in SeaMonkey 2.0.
As Referer Spoof Menulist got broken by a change, I had to do, to get PrefBar to work in Firefox 3.5, I uploaded a new version of this button. The new version is available here.
PrefBar 4.2 is available, now. Most important changes:
- It's possible to add SOCKS proxies to the Proxylist
- PrefBar 4.2 works with Firefox 3.5
You may have a look at the Changelog for more info.
I've uploaded three new buttons, I've been working on. Please check them and tell me, if you have any problems.
-
Page2Image Button
This is next version of the old "Page2Jpeg" Button. It'll also save your currently visible page to one big image file, but lets you choose between JPEG and PNG for the output format. -
New Windows Checkbox
This, most probably, is the most important new button. Anything, it does, is to allow you to choose where to open new links, by disabling nearly all ways, a webmaster can use to cause your browser to open new windows. -
eBayNegs Button
If you have a eBay article page open in your current tab, then this button quickly opens a list of all neutral and negative feedbacks of the eBay member, selling this article.
I've modified the "documentation" navigation entry, above, to have a "sub-navigation", to allow me to store even more documentation for end users, and in future even for developers.
So far, a new "Howtos"-area is placed there next to the "PrefBar Help", which always had been there.
The first Howto is one, which shows how checkboxes may be colored, depending on their switch state, using CSS.
A new button file to validate your pages is available here. It contains one button to validate HTML and one to validate CSS.
I've uploaded a new PrefBar release which primarly fixes bugs with Firefox 3.0, like the non-working Font resize buttons and the corrupted PrefBar menu after customizing toolbars. It also fixes a bug which causes PrefBar to be corrupted if collapsed using the "grippy" on the left side of the toolbar, in SeaMonkey. You may have a look at the Changelog for more info.
If you don't use Firefox 3.0 or don't use grippies in SeaMonkey, then you most probably don't need this update!
I also updated the Font Reset Button to work with Firefox 3.0.
I've uploaded bugfix releases of two buttons:
- Page2Jpeg Button placed copies of the big image files into the download manager database. See Bug 19454.
- Referer Spoof Menulist failed and started to flood the error console as soon as the first browser window got closed
Referer Spoof Menulist 2.0 is online for a pretty long time now. It also has been downloaded several hundred times. The interesting about it: It couldn't work in PrefBar < 4.1.1. There has been a bug in PrefBar that breaks initifunctions in extlists (Bug 19216). I myself had an older version running which doesn't use initfunctions and so I first got told about this bug via mail some weeks ago. So what did all the other people do? I'm always happy if someone gives feedback!
PrefBar 4.1.1 now is online. It contains a security fix for SeaMonkey 1.x users, has a new checkbox under "options" to optional disable the update check and should work well with the upcoming Firefox 3.0. For more information have a look at the Changelog. The installation link can be found on the Installation page
Just another release candidate in hope some testers help to find missing bugs to be able to fix before 4.1.1 gets released. Thanks for any help!
Download/Install: PrefBar 4.1.1 RC 2
It would be nice if as much people as possible could give PrefBar 4.1.1 RC 1 a try. This one fixes some bugs that got reported after PrefBar 4.1. Most of those are issues with Firefox 3.0 and as there is already a RC1 of Firefox 3.0, I think it's time to get a release which works well there.
Please test NOW. If you report your bugs after 4.1.1 is out, then it's too late to fix them!
PrefBar 4.1 RC1 is online for several weeks now and I didn't get more bug reports, so it seems like it works for most people and is ready to be published. In PrefBar 4.1 several smaller bugs have been fixed and some small features have been added. To just name a few of them:
- The text in the hotkey editor fields now becomes red if the hotkey is already taken by another extension or the browser itself
- The "Del" key now works for deleting buttons in the button editor
- PrefBar 4.1 contains a simple update notifier which will tell you about future PrefBar updates and asks you if you like to visit the PrefBar homepage
Unfortunately I only tested my "Server Info Button" with one of the PrefBar 4.1 pre-finals and as I added some "PrefBar 4.1 only" features, the button didn't work for PrefBar 4.0.
I've fixed the button to also work with PrefBar 4.0, now and reuploaded the button. Anyone, who tried the old version without success, may give the button a second try, now.
Sorry for the mistake.
This most probably is the last update before publishing PrefBar 4.1 final. I've added an update notifier into this version, which will tell you if there is a new update (after 4.1) available and fixed some minor bugs.
I've also uploaded a new button to the More Buttons page. The "Server Info" button will fetch some information about the server, hosting your currently viewed page, like the installed server software, operating system, database, ...
Just another Beta of 4.1 with some smaller bugs fixed. Available as always on the installation page
I've uploaded a first beta of the upcoming PrefBar 4.1. It would be nice if as much people as possible could give this version a try and file any bug they find, so I'm able to fix them before publishing PrefBar 4.1 in a few days. The new version may be downloaded here.
Two buttons on the More Buttons page have been updated:
Referer Spoof Menulist
A new Version (2.0) has been updated, which uses the "initfunction" feature, which has been added with PrefBar 4.0. The old Referer Spoof Menulist just abused the "getfunction" for initializing, which doesn't work well, if you, for example, place the menulist to a submenu on PrefBar. In this case, getfunction will be called first, if you open this submenu, but initfunction will be called immediately after browser startup.
Text URL button
In some situations, the selected URL hasn't been detected. This has been fixed in the new version (1.1).
I've uploaded two new buttons for you, to import into PrefBar. The first will save the currently viewed page to an image file and the second turns popup windows back into real browser windows. Visit the More Buttons page for more info.
The new PrefBar (Version 4.0) is finished now.
Now it's possible to import buttons with just one click! Just visit the More buttons site and click "Import" for those buttons, you like to have. And, of course, send me the buttons, you created on your own, so I'm able to add them to this page!
A second big feature are the submenus, which allow to group buttons and so to save space on your PrefBar.
For a list of all features: Have a look at the Changelog
You'll also find some new buttons for download. Just have a look on your own, to decide if something is useful for you.
And finally its done... This is just a bugfix release, which fixes several smaller bugs and this silly "Hotkey disable" bug, which made the browser unusable, if the "F8" hotkey is disabled. You'll find the new version on the installation page.
I've also uploaded some more buttons. David E. Ross was so kind to send me all his buttons and I've uploaded some of my buttons, too. Have a look at the More buttons site!
I've published a beta version for PrefBar 3.4.1. This version will fix some smaller bugs in 3.4, like the disabling of the "hide/unhide" hotkey, which may cause the browser to be unusable.
I also want to introduce a new site: More buttons.
I'll add buttons there, I currently don't want to add to PrefBar by default. The first button, you'll find there, is a button, which allows to modify the Referer, sent to websites.
Finally, PrefBar 3.4 seems to be ready. Most of the bugs in bugzilla are fixed now and some new features have been added. To just name the two biggest ones:
- Hotkey support, which enables to set a hotkey for buttons and links!
- Tab dependent checkboxes, which makes it possible to toggle Javascript, Images and Plugins for the currently displayed tab/window
All the smaller changes are listed here.
The new version is, as always, available on the installation page
I've uploaded the release candidate for PrefBar 3.4 now. If noone finds major bugs, this will get the final release of PrefBar 3.4. In this RC1 the flash checkbox was improved, again and hotkey support has been modified to work without problems in all current SeaMonkey and Firefox versions!
I've uploaded a second beta of PrefBar 3.4 today.
I hope there will be some testers, who may help me with testing the new features. This new beta has hotkey support. You may define hotkeys for Buttons and Links and use them inside your browser window.
In SeaMonkey the hotkeys are updated immediately if you change them. On Firefox the hotkeys will only affect new windows! This is a limitation in Firefox. This problem will not longer exist in Firefox 3.x.
I've uploaded a beta of PrefBar 3.4 today. This is only for testers!!! You aren't able to go back to PrefBar 3.3.4 as soon as 3.4 is installed, as PrefBar 3.4 will convert your button database to a new format! Create a test profile to use this beta version!
I also want to inform all PrefBar users, that PrefBar 3.4 will be the first PrefBar, where Mozilla Suite is not longer supported!
edit 2007-05-09: moved information about Mozilla suite to separate page
PrefBar 3.3.4 has been published today. The new PrefBar, again, tries to fix several problems with the flash checkbox. It also has a modified "Restore Tab" button, which will use the built-in "Restore Tab"-feature of Firefox 2.0. This means, that the PrefBar-built-in backend now is exclusively for SeaMonkey.
Minor redesign of page. Now the news section is much bigger and so I'm able to write more than just a line for each release. The Documentation is now linked in the main navigation and the old versions and experimental builds have been moved to the installation page.
I've also released PrefBar 3.3.3. Sorry for the mistake, but I just missed to update the version numbers in 3.3.2. If you already have installed PrefBar 3.3.2, then there is no reason to install 3.3.3 if you don't need the correct version numbers in the installer or extension manager. I'll now create a checklist for future releases in hope I'll not miss something again.
The new version is, as always, available on the installation page