FireFox Hack Opens Favorite Sites in Sidebar

Posted on September 14, 2007

Browser plug-ins present some fantastic efficiencies. Any regular reader of this site knows my affinity for the browser, specifically Firefox and the amazing power of adding the right extensions. One must use constraint however to know the right plug-ins as each one requires more resources which can slow launching the browser and CPU utilization.

One nifty answer to this conundrum is to harness already built-in functions of the browser. The Firefox sidebar presents a handy option for accessing key frequented sites without adding a load to your performance.

With a few simple steps you can access sites independent of the main browser window.

Locate the mobile URL for your favorite site. A few examples of popular destinations are:
Facebook: m.facebook.com
Twitter: m.twitter.com/home
Gmail: m.gmail.com
GoogleTalk: talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client
Google Calendar: google.com/calendar/
Remeber the Milk: m.rememberthemilk.com
Jaiku: m.jaiku.com
Bookmark the site to your tool bar. Notice the Twitter bookmark in the screenshot.
Right-click on the bookmark and click Properties.
Check "Load this bookmark in the sidebar" and press "OK" and you are done.

Now when you click on the bookmark, the site will open-up. One word of caution, your standard browser "back" and "forward" buttons don’t work on the sidebar. Neither does the refresh. To refresh the page, simply click the bookmark and it will reload the page. This is especially handy for streaming content like Twitter.

Do you know other browser hacks? What efficiencies have you learned?

Filed Under Productivity, FireFox |

Comments

9 Responses to “FireFox Hack Opens Favorite Sites in Sidebar”

Mike Scott on September 14th, 2007 7:55 am

This is such a great tip! It works really well for Remember the Milk!
Thanks Phil!
Phil on September 14th, 2007 8:07 am

Check out: http://pownce.com/thoughtsparks/notes/712423/ Michael Potter told me about an unofficial mobile address for Pownce at: http://www.bobjim.com/pownce/ It’s not full-featured by any means but essentially a good replacement for the AIR app that you can run on your desktop. Don’t miss the refresh button at the bottom of the page.
Phil on September 14th, 2007 10:16 am

Follow-up tip to bookmarking the sites: To create a fav icon for the sites, uncheck “Load this bookmark in the sidebar” in properties and click on the bookmark. It will then create the fav icon. Then return to properties and recheck. Worked for most except GoogleTalk and Gmail.
kellypea on September 14th, 2007 12:36 pm

I love my firefox toolbar. It’s how I access just about everything — including feeds I can’t put on netvibes…It’s so cool how when I scroll over one site’s feed, another window opens with a ton of their latest entires. It makes everything so easy!
Phil on September 14th, 2007 1:18 pm

Kelly, yes FireFox rocks and gets better all the time!
Random Magus on September 14th, 2007 7:12 pm

Thanks I just did that for Facebook…I love your tips! What’s especially great is, that they are accompanied by a visual representation, for somewhat-technologically-challenged people like me!
Phil on September 14th, 2007 9:11 pm

Random, Thanks for the feedback. Yes, illustrations do indeed help us all no matter our technical experience. It seems like a simple but too often overlooked thing to capture images to reinforce an idea. Tech-oriented tutorials really lend themselves to it. I’ll keep keeping-on w/ the visuals.
Avinash on September 25th, 2007 7:52 am

Hi Fill,

Your comment here made me solve a big issue at critical moment. Actually I wrote a code to bookmark my page for Firefox and after bookmark it was opening in the sidebar. My QA raised a bug for this and I was unaware about this feature of firefox of “Load this bookmark in sidebar” and so I was struggling to find a solution.
Its looks really stupid thing that i didn’t noticed that in firefox

Thanks
Avinash
Phil on September 25th, 2007 8:20 am

Avinash,

How very cool to help in solving a critical issue. That guns my engines. I’m delighted to have affected your work in a positive way. Thanks for the comment. I know I often miss solutions that lie in existing functions already present in an application. The browser has many hidden jewels just waiting to be discovered.