blake » firefox

Gmail Redesigned Update

Runeshai — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:10:40 +0000

So I’ve been using my computer all day, and noticing a few updates in Globex Design‘s Gmail Redesigned add-on for Firefox, and I like it.

It always bugged me that when you hit Tab+Enter after finishing a message there was no button highlighting that confirmed your ‘Tab’ had selected the ‘Send’ button… et voila! That’s been addressed by a nice faded orange highlighting of the entire button, not just the usual dotted outline most ‘Submit’-type buttons get when selected by keystrokes.

Some cool GUI features have been added, including button outlines and clearer highlighting of the message actions menu just above your list of messages, which I’d always been curious about. There’s a more compact feel throughout the whole thing, with icons and extra separation spacing eliminated from the drop-down menus, giving more focus and limelight to your messages – the point of checking your email in the first place. Non-message text is even smaller now, making message text look slightly larger, a nice addition to the add-on. In-message links are slightly more attractive, and that same nice ‘Submit’-button highlighting is used in search boxes, which is nice.

Overall, nice updates to an already great add-on. And I can forgive the jittery page scrolling for a nice GUI. If you don’t already have the extension, get it here, and be sure to check out their GCal Redesigned and GReader Redesigned extensions. Alternatively, get the whole bunch of them with Google Redesigned.

Firefox Extensions

Runeshai — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 08:39:00 +0000

Google FX is a pretty sweet-ass extension that offers all kinds of cool customization options and features to Google Search users. One bug I did discover though – which is not so much a bug as a sort of conflict – for those of you using the Google Redesigned extension to make your Gmail, GCal, etc. look and feel cooler, more usable, go into ‘Manage User Scripts…’ under ‘Greasemonkey’ in the ‘Tools’ menu, and change the ‘https://*.google.*’ rule. [Note: You should be using secure connections for your Google apps anyway, and if you're not, change that in your 'Settings' section of your Google account.]

userscripts via Lifehacker.

Web Developer by Chris Pederick (who has a pretty awesome website, by the way) is a sweet-ass looking tool for web designers, one of the coolest aspects of which allows them to essentially code with real time updating of the results of said code, and then a simple copy-paste-save ensures a faster, accurate workflow [no more Ctrl+S-Alt+Tab-Ctrl+R to check your code]. Also, you can validate CSS and HTML, and even local versions of those languages while you’re working on them. Tons of other features abound in this extension, check it out online and fiddle with it a bit. I promise you’ll be happy :P.

Chris Pederick via Themeforest.

Oh, and if anyone figures out how to use Chris Pederick’s other extension, ‘User Agent Switcher’, let me know. I was excited at the prospect of checking IE rendering results on my Mac, but was slightly confused and disappointed when it seemed that wasn’t what the extension was for.

Enjoy the goodies!

Mozilla Ubiquity

Runeshai — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:41:52 +0000

Ubiquity is a term I associate with the internet, however, after watching this video, I’m beginning to think it may become more manageable in the next few years. Check it out.
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
via NetTuts

Lifehacker Code

Runeshai — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:29:11 +0000

A cool little list of Lifehacker’s homegrown Firefox addons and standalone apps. Some cool little useful stuff. There are some other things I remember them making that aren’t on this list, but this is a vote on the best 5 I think, so maybe that’s why they didn’t include them all.

Some of the unmentioned ones: