Super Awesome Firefox 3 Tips! (Linux)

Here’s a follow up to my previous post that featured Firefox 3 tips for all platforms – this post highlights tips that are specific to (or have specific details for) Linux, particularly Ubuntu Linux.

These tips include tweaks to userChrome.css for changing display aspects of your browser’s “Chrome”, such as reducing the size of the bookmarks toolbar and removing down arrows from folder buttons, as well as themes to make your Linux installation look more like Windows (if you so desire). Read on for details!

Make Firefox “bookmark toolbar” text smaller

Try adding the following to your userChrome.css (located at “~/.mozilla/firefox/<random>.default/chrome/userChrome.css”) to make the bookmark toolbar text smaller, more like Windows or Macintosh:

/* Menu Bar - Shrink and Fade Text */
#navigator-toolbox .menubar-text {
	font-size: 70% !important;
	color: #999 !important;
	}

/* URL Bar and Search Bar - Shrink and Fade Text*/
#urlbar, #searchbar{
	font-size: 85% !important;
	color: #333 !important;
	}

/* Tabs - Shrink Font and Height*/
.tabbrowser-tabs {
	font-size: 80% !important;
	height: 20px !important;
	}
.tabbrowser-strip {
	height: 22px !important;
	}

/* Bookmarks Toolbar - Shrink Font and Size*/
#PersonalToolbar {
	font-size: 75% !important;
	padding: 0px !important;
	margin: 0px !important;
	max-height: 20px !important;
	}
	/* Seperators - Remove */
	#PersonalToolbar toolbarseparator {
		display: none !important;
		}
	/* Toolbar Buttons - Reduce Margins */
	#PersonalToolbar toolbarbutton {
		margin: 0 -5px 0 -1px !important;
		}
	/* Toolbar Icons - Shrink and Reduce Margins */
	#PersonalToolbar .toolbarbutton-icon {
		max-width: 12px !important;
		max-height: 12px !important;
		margin: 0px 2px 0px 0px !important;
		}

(Thanks to s0l3x on Ubuntuforums for that code!)

Remove down-arrow from folders in bookmarks toolbar

Add the following line to your userChrome.css (again, located at “~/.mozilla/firefox/<random>.default/chrome/userChrome.css”) to remove the folder arrows. You can add it below the code in the tip above…

#PersonalToolbar .toolbarbutton-menu-dropmarker {display: none !important;}

Strata Human Theme Modernizes Firefox in Ubuntu

One of Firefox 3’s notable improvements was shipping with themes that matched the native operating system. In Ubuntu, that meant tiny, vaguely cartoonish orange arrows, which, while color-coordinated, was a disappointment to some. The Strata Human 1.0 Firefox theme does a nice job of adding the larger, rounded buttons of XP and Windows, with a perfectly-matched orange-brown coloration. If that back button looks a bit too big to you, Gina’s shown us how to take it down a peg. Strata Human 1.0 is a free download for Firefox 3.

Strata Human 1.0 [Firefox Add-ons via Daily Gyan]

Strata XP on Linux

Firefox 3’s default XP theme adapted for Linux. Based on Pascal Herbert’s “XP on Vista” theme, tweaked to fix some UI quirks.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9123

The Ultimate Chrome Guide

If the above tips aren’t enough for ya, this site will surely float your boat, as it has a huge list of userChrome.css tweaks that should address just about any Firefox 3 customization desire: http://www.linnhe2.free-online.co.uk/firefox/chrome.html