Tabs configuration, extracted from About:config entries

This page was created to be a companion of my page on Tabbed Browsing in Firefox.

The table on this page consisting of selected tab and window items has been extracted from http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries
which is part of the MozillaZine_Knowledge_Base article http://kb.mozillazine.org/MozillaZine_Knowledge_Base:About

Heuer's Razor:  "If it can't be turned off, it's _not_ a feature." (is often quoted in Developer groups.)

• browser.link. ...
• browser.search. ...
• browser.tabs. ...

To view table and your own settings at the same time, you might want to install the Split Browser extension and split the screen vertically with the table as the main at the bottom so it is with Find, and with the split about:config at the top, and descriptions such as on this page below.  (for more information see firefox.htm page)

Note:  Spaces between the dots in preference names exist purely for word-wrapping.  They are actually not present and should not be thought as so.

To find values related to an about:config configuration entries

• Type  about:config  into the location bar.
• The next thing that you might do is use the filter at the top of the about:config page to type/paste in a configuration name, or part of a configuration name.  Using part of a name can help spot related configuration entries.  For example -- filter: opentab
• You can use wildcards (and RegExpr) in filters (Bug:  213832), so many could be picked up with filter: browser*tab

Use your browser's FIND to find variables or descriptions matching a one word or character string.  For instance you might want to use FIND openintab in browser, and filter:  openintab in the about:config list where "browser.search.openintab" has extra spaces as "browser. search. openintab".

To change a configuration setting double-click on the variable and change the value (right-click context menu also works).  If the type is Boolean a double-click will toggle the value immediately, so always keep an eye on the value or the "user set" / "default" indication for each variable.

number rows   Click once on the bookmarklet at the left to Number the rows of each table.  Details of Text and Data Bookmarklets at squarefree.com also see my Keyword shortcuts page to invoke bookmarklets on any page.

Will be needed for 3.1 and 3.2 so that Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab work browser.ctrlTab.previews removes tab preview

http://www.browser-watch.com/2008/11/19/turn-off-new-ctrltab-behaviour-in-firefox-31/
# Set browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed to false (create name)
# Set browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedLimit to 0

also check these into table
loadDivertedInBackground is for external links, not bookmarks. There's a
loadBookmarksInBackground pref that has UI
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.tabs.tabClipWidth

How To Modify Hidden Preferences Using about:config[http://www.mozillazine.org/misc/about:config/]

How to open everything (url, search, bookmarks) in a new tab with Firefox 3 at x2b4 with JavaScript using userChrome.js instead of having to use Alt+Enter.  Should lead to groups of webpages that invoke Javascript (userChrome.js, etc) hands off similar to how userstyles.org works with styling changes instead of hardcoded in userChrome.css     As interesting this concept is (see comment #41 there), it prevents use of bookmarklets from the location bar and from bookmarks, so is unusable.  Possibly some code in http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html has a solution look for "// It is now possible to disable the JavaScript window.open() method" involving
  user_pref("dom.disable_open_click_delay", 1000);

Some settings used and/or found in newsgroups (#settings)

When you have finished changing your settings, test them out in the Target test area of Tabs page.

user_pref("copyurlplus.menus.12.copy", "<TR><td><a href=\"%URL_HTMLIFIED%\">%TITLE_HTMLIFIED%</a></td><td>Boolean 
|Integer |String</td><td>%SEL_HTMLIFIED%</td></tr> "); 
user_pref("copyurlplus.menus.12.label", "Tab documentation (3 columns)"); 

Testing of Ctrl+TAB

I've landed bug 465076 today. The UI is now disabled on trunk. This is controlled by the browser.allTabs.previews and browser.ctrlTab.previews preferences. I'd like to encourage nightly testers and whoever's interested to flip both prefs and report bugs, so that we can make further progress there. I've filed bug 505404 for tracking these bugs. (2009-07-21, by Dao)

Firefox/Sprints/Control Tab - MozillaWiki

Finding Preference Related Information (and sorting preferences) (#findprefinfo)

Sorting Preferneces:

You can type  about:support  into the location bar to see ONLY changed settings.  Change preferences are in the "Modified Preferences" section, which is in alphabetical order.
For other sections you may have to sort table columns with a bookmarklet or with an extension.
  https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/pagedata.html#sort_table
  https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tabletools2/
An additional advantage to using the extension is that you can sort first on a minor sort and then on your major sort, the bookmarklet only gives you one column of sorting.

Finding more information about your preferences:

In your  about:support list  select the preference name, then use built-in search by right-clicking on selection and choosing "Search Google for ...." (uses your default search engine)

Most of the common user assigned preferences are in
  http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries
if they relate to tabs, I probably have them here on this page, with additional information.
  http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/firefox/tabs_config.htm (this page)

Summary of my Tab related changes   (#summary)

Extensions   (#extensions)

The Tab extensions that I currently use are simple extensions and should be good from one version of Firefox to another but if one should fail it would be a minor inconvenience compared to those that have choose Tab Mix Plus (xxx) and never know what actually is available in Firefox and better choices of extensions.

You can see my complete InfoLister listing of extensions I have currently installed (some are disabled), and you can find descriptions and usage notes for those and extensions I may have used in the extensions table within Firefox Customization (Notes) where you will find my notes on the following extensions.  The extensions below total 198KB compared to the troublesome Tabs Mix Plus extension (417KB).

• Multiple Tab Handler, (48KB), working with selections of tabs)
• New Tab Button (32KB) restores the pre Firefox 3.1 new tab button to toolbar.
• Perma Tabs Mod (48KB), (prevents tab(s) from being closed/replaced via a link)
• Stay-Open Menu (16kb), keeps menu open after Ctrl+click or Ctrl+Shift+click either of which start a new tab.
• Tab Clicking Options (29KB), replaces close tab with double click (2KB), but this one works with Multiple Tab Handler.
• Tab Counter (23KB), Counts the number of open tabs per window and displays the count in the toolbar. [Options].
• Tab Search, (2KB) I don't use it, but it would be better than stuff being proposed by FF developers.

about:config       (#aboutconfig)

Keyboard Shortcuts   (#keyboard)

• Firefox and other Browser Keyboard Shortcuts (Comparison Table), Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts

Keyword Shortcuts (#kws)

• Firefox Keyword Shortcuts, one of the very powerful tools in Firefox and are the easiest to create and maintain.

Tab Related Styles at userstyles.org   (#styles)

• Keyword addition for Add/Change Bookmark (Fx3) (style 9029)
• Tab Color Underscoring active/read/unread (style 9023)
• Tabs Bar Minimal Size (style 9043)
• Tabs, Enlarge list-all-tabs button (DM*) (style 18553), wrote it for someone else

Testing of tab related changes (#testing)

• 001 Tab Capacity Test
• 001 Tab Capacity Test, same as above but with documentation and with line numbers at right for scrolling tests.