Mozilla Newbie Questions

Hi Everyone

I'm trying to get myself acclimated to Mozilla 1.6 after using Opera 6.x for a long time. Among some other quesitons, I was wondering if I could do a few things in Mozilla?

1. Strange, but after closing Mozilla and Mozilla reloads next to the clock, Mozilla never opens on the first try either through the desktop shortcut or the context menu. An hour glass appears as if it's starting then stops and nothing. It will open on the next attempt.

2. I take it that you cannot force new tabs as default instead of new windows from opening without either a potentially destablizing extension or using a key combo?

3. Is it possible to make the download manager open in a tab instead of outside of Mozilla? Or maybe inside the sidebar?

4. If you specify Mozilla to open a file type with a specific application, ie .pls winamp playlist, is it possible not to have it download via the download manager (while keeping the DL manager for everything else). I just find this annoying when I want to listen to an internet radio station.

5. Also seems that Mozilla doesn't really handle running .pls addresses from bookmarks well either...some addresses that run fine both Opera and Winamp are displayed as text v. launching Winamp and playing. While I realize that links go wonky all the time, I can get the playlist to work either but not Mozilla.

6. Anyone know of an extension or some way to be able to move the personal toolbar to the bottom of the screen?

Opera's configurability may be what I miss most at the moment...like a "search in page" box in the personal toolbar, a home button in the navigation bar, etc ... I would try the add-ons more, but I had some trouble trying to remove them and had to reinstall mozilla (or at least that seemed the easiest way to correct things at that point)

Well, I'm still playing with mozilla and look forward to a final release of 1.7 and it's promised speed increase.

Thanks
trephin

 

Hi trephin,

You're covering a lot of territory in one thread, but I'll try to answer your questions. You will find similarities and differences from Opera, but after also having used Opera 6 and 7, my vote goes to Mozilla!

1. When you right click on the Quick Launch icon in the system tray, and select "Navigator" you get nothing but the hour glass? If you're using Quick Launch, you really don't have to use the Desktop icon. Perhaps I don't fully understand the problem...

2. In Preferences | Tabbed Browsing
Select the options for: Open tabs instead of windows

3. There may be a UI hack for this, but I have no knowledge as to whether or not it is possible.

4. I personally don't use WinAmp, so have gathered this information from Newsgroups, and other Forums:

Clear the Location Bar, and enter about:config
(all one word, no spaces, altho you might view this with a space between about and the colon :)
Search for this line:
browser.helperApps.alwaysAsk.force
Right click the "Value "
Select: Modify
Change the value to false

Check the Windows Explorer Folder Options for WinAmp Playlist (.pls) filetype and see if "confirm open after download" is checked/enabled. Try unchecking/disabling "confirm open after download ". In Windows 98, that setting is under Edit. In Windows XP the setting should be in the Advanced options. The WinAmp Playlist Filetype (audio/x-scpls) for .pls files should have the "confirm open after download" option unchecked/disabled.

Next: disable the "always ask" box again in the Mozilla preferences Helper application entry and try another .pls file. Try this link:
http://www.shoutcast.com/waradio.phtml?genre=Pop

You may need to add the audio/x-scpls MIME Type in Mozilla's Helper Application Preferences
MIME Type: audio/x-scpls
Description: WinAmp pls file
Extension: scpls

I am listening to BBC Radio now, with RealPlayer 8. The Download Manager never comes up, and the radio station buffers and streams.

5. Mozilla strictly adheres to W3C standards, and if the website isn't in compliance, then there will be a problem. When the browser displays the actual text in the file, this is caused by the server sending incorrect MIME Type headers. If the server sends a .pls file without also sending the correct headers for it, then Mozilla will assume that it is just text. Can you post some of those links?

6. Moving the Personal Toolbar to the bottom would no doubt require another UI hack, or again, it might be a hard coded. I haven't a clue as to how, or even if it might be accomplished. No programming experience here.

Mozilla is not Opera, and you will see differences, most of them a plus.
Try Edit | Find in this page...
For a Home button in the Navigation Bar: http://3rdhand.info/mozilla/home/

As you have discovered, not all add-ons can be uninstalled, so read install instructions carefully.

Whew!


Ramona

 

Hey Ramona

1. Moz doesn't launch on the first try either from the shortcut or quick launch...not really a problem, but more an annoyance and curiosity.

2. Thanks...I was hoping for some way to simply left click links as I would normally and have a tab open....Again, not a big deal...Just asking in case I missed something.

3. Oh well, it'd make a nice option ... hint hint to all the programmers

4. I have to keep trying to get this to work.... What you get is what I want...my player to stream without opening the download manager ...I have a MIME type defined and everything else is according to Hoyle.

5. i'll PM a site.

6. Hint hint programmers

I tried the home button but it didn't skin/theme correctly with "Modern" and actually, I had trouble with removing it even with following the author's directions.

Thanks for everything. Don't worry. I'm sticking with Mozilla.

-trephin