Will we later be able to use Site Launcher again?
I now have Firefox version 6.0. I was sorry to lose Site Launcher with this Firefox upgrade, which I used to use very frequently for my most commonly used sites. I do, however, like the "pin as App Tab" feature.
All Replies (3)
According to the user comments "Site Launcher" extension will work if you override compatibility.
In my opinion, despite the number of downloads and comments, it appears to me to be a rather useless extension and very large (225KB). You accomplish can the same thing with keyworded bookmarks (/bookmarklets) and not be limited to a single letter, nor add any additional keyboard shortcuts if there are any available without strange contortions. As bookmarks there would be no overhead for an extension.
For instance for GMail (keyword -- gmail:)
For Wikipedia (keyword -- w: )
To use the Wikipedia keyword shortcut
- w: firefox
- would generate
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=firefox
I have 750 keyword shortcuts, that I use and are available on my site:
- Firefox Keyword Shortcuts
http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/firefox/kws.htm - Bookmarks (most of which are in the "K" folder on my bookmarks toolbar)
http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/firefox/lessons/intro/k.html
They are easy for me to remember because I created my own names for my shortcuts. If I do forget a shortcut I can find it easily through the "AwesomeBar list feature" of the Location Bar, which does text string searching within your history and bookmarks and can be limited to just search bookmarks("*") with Javascript ("javascript:") and/or bookmarks with substitution ("%s") and containing other text strings.
Please mark "Solved" one answer that will best help others with a similar problem -- hope this was it.
Overriding compatibility (either method works, use with caution)
- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Extensions.checkCompatibility
- extensions.checkCompatibility.6.0 boolean false
- Add-on compatibility reporter (84KB)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compatibility-reporter/
Modified by David McRitchie
As far as I know you can edit the instal.rdf in the xpi file to let it be installed on firefox 6.0 http://www.webscopia.com/2011/08/how-to-make-sitelauncher-work-in-firefox-5-and-above/ but after that it seems impossible to edit bookmarks (or to view any for me) and I don't know how to do that manually by modifying the xml files.
I find it launcher very useful as well and better than bookmarking everything because I could launch it with mouse only (by assigning ctlr+space to a mouse button, I don't know how to do that with linux though). Ok using keyboard shortcuts can be fast but at one point or the other you will use your mouse and you need both hands to do some shortcut so it's not so fast or pleasant to constantly juggle between mouse and keyboard.
A possible alternative is to use new tab king, put it on new tab, pin all website you want but you cannot really choose them specifically as far as I know and use the new tab shortcut. Not as good as launcher though. If it was not for the lack of customization in chrome I will switch over just for the sake of site launcher.
Actually speed dial could do the same thing as new tab king. As for accelerating search with keyboard there are several addons available. Simplify awesome bar would be a start. Fastest search is a possibility but maybe the most useful is mouseless browsing.