How do you set up your browser?

[James]

There are about a dozen sites I always check (sometimes multiple times) when I go online. In order to do this as efficiently as I know how, I use the Bookmarks Tool Bar on which I have folders with these sites embedded in each folder. Frankly, I'd like to gain back the monitor real estate by getting rid of that tool bar but I don't know of another way as efficient as using this tool bar.

That brings up the so-called Speed Dial. I could set it so that my dozen sites are on the dial BUT the problem is, I have my Options set to "open new windows in a new tab" so that when I go to the Speed Dial and click on one of my dozen sites, the Speed Dial is replaced by that site. Now the only way of navigating to the next site is to reopen the Speed Dial page by opening a new tab (not very efficient... or at least, not as efficient as having my dozen sites always displayed above in the Bookmarks Tool Bar.

So, tell me either what I'm doing wrong or how you set up your browser for browsing. Perhaps I can learn to surf differently than my current method.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b9) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b9

[DJGM]

On SeaMonkey and Firefox, I can right click on the main toolbar, select Customise... and drag the label
that says Bookmarks Toolbar Items and then move it upto the right of the Help Menu, on the Menu Bar.
I can then right-click on the main toolbar once more, uncheck Personal Toolbar in SeaMonkey,
or Bookmarks Toolbar in Firefox (same thing, different names) to hide it.

I also have access to my Bookmarks from a Sidebar tab, or from the Bookmarks menu in the Menu Bar.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101123 SeaMonkey/2.0.10 Firefox/3.5.x

[Anonymosity]

If it is always the same set of pages, you could bookmark all tabs, give a suitable name to the resulting folder, then when you want to recall them, choose that folder and open all in tabs.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko Firefox/3.6.13

[James]

Thanks, Guys. I'll look at this. The menu bar is no longer relevant in FF 4 since it's hidden anyway. I have the task bar and the bookmarks bar and that's it. My question to you is: how do "you" set up "your" browsers? I'm looking for simplicity and would like to be rid of the extra tool bar but it would seem that this would make surfing a bit more cumbersome for the sake of an extra thin slice of monitor space at the top. So... how do you set up things?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b9) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b9

[DJGM]

. . . it would seem that this would make surfing a bit more cumbersome
for the sake of an extra thin slice of monitor space at the top . . .

This has been one of my main arguments against the continuing trend of over-simplifying the layout
of the user interface on a browser. While you may be gaining a few extra pixels of display space for
viewing pages, by removing or hiding toolbars that some might consider surplus to requirements,
other aspects, such as deciding where to best place your Bookmarks, becomes a problem.

Anyway ... here how the setup of my current SeaMonkey installation usually looks . . .




On the far left of the toolbars, a UI element that's been around since Netscape 4.x, called "grippies".
Back then, you could click the grippies to hide any of the toolbars, or swap around their positions.
On SeaMonkey (since Mozilla Suite v0.x - 1.7) the swap around option is gone, the click to hide
option is still available. If I want to hide the Menu Bar, which is extremely rare, one click and
it's gone ... well, not so much gone, but folded away under the main toolbar . . .




Same applies to the Personal Toolbar (Bookmarks) and the main toolbar . . .



Click the grippies again to bring the toolbars back.


And just for the sheer heck of it, let's put the main toolbar buttons on the Menu Bar . . . !




(BTW ... Grippies are not available in Firefox, but AFAIK, can be added ... with an add-on.)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101123 (like Firefox/3.5.x) SeaMonkey/2.0.10

[James]

Thanks for taking the time and effort to show me your set-up, Greg. It's almost identical to how I have had my browser customized in the past. As I mentioned previously, with the advent of version 4 the Menu bar is now hidden under a drop-down arrow just above the task bar. So in essence, I only have two tool bars: the task bar and the bookmarks bar (and here I am complaining about wanting to rid myself of the bookmarks bar to gain one more slice of monitor space... blush).

Does Seamonkey offer you the speed dial option (when you open a new tab)?

You see... I'm wondering how people make use of the speed dial. When I set it up and then click on one of the sites, I'm taken to the site at the expense of the speed dial page which is replaced by the site. Not much good if you want to do continuous surfing... from site to site. I'd need to go back to the previous page each time (the speed dial page) in order to navigate to my next site. Doesn't seem to make much sense to me so I'm wondering just how it is used.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b9) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b9

[DJGM]

Thankfully, despite the over-simplified default layout of Firefox 4, Opera 10/11 and Safari 5, they can
quite easily be customised to regain a more standard browser toolbar layout, rather than the type of
cut-down browser that would be best suited to a locked down public internet kiosk.

SeaMonkey doesn't have any "Speed Dial" type feature by default, and I don't think Firefox has either,
but I'm sure there's at least one add-on available that adds this particular functionality, or similar.

AFAIK ... only Opera and Safari have this included by default, although Safari calls it "Top Sites" .

It's not really a feature I'm particularly bothered about anyway ... I can take it or leave it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20101123 (like Firefox/3.5.x) SeaMonkey/2.0.10

[Antony]

Frankly, I'd like to gain back the monitor real estate by getting rid of that tool bar but I don't know of another way as efficient as using this tool bar.

If you want to hide the Personal Bookmark Toolbar, you can learn the shortcut keys that would launch bookmarks.
In Safari it is option + command + B
In Firefox, it is shift + command + B

Alternatively, you can consider getting a larger monitor, or have one of the monitor rotate 90°.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 AlexaToolbar/alxf-2.0 Firefox/3.6.13

[ncd]

There are about a dozen sites I always check (sometimes multiple times) when I go online. In order to do this as efficiently as I know how, I use the Bookmarks Tool Bar on which I have folders with these sites embedded in each folder. Frankly, I'd like to gain back the monitor real estate by getting rid of that tool bar but I don't know of another way as efficient as using this tool bar.

That brings up the so-called Speed Dial. I could set it so that my dozen sites are on the dial BUT the problem is, I have my Options set to "open new windows in a new tab" so that when I go to the Speed Dial and click on one of my dozen sites, the Speed Dial is replaced by that site. Now the only way of navigating to the next site is to reopen the Speed Dial page by opening a new tab (not very efficient... or at least, not as efficient as having my dozen sites always displayed above in the Bookmarks Tool Bar.

So, tell me either what I'm doing wrong or how you set up your browser for browsing. Perhaps I can learn to surf differently than my current method.

James,

I don't know of a way in FireFox to do other than the Bookmarks Toolbar. In K-meleon, I use the Groups Menu item to load up various collections of URLs and its option to backup to an INI file so I can use my collection on different computers.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16pre) Gecko K-Meleon/1.6.0

[PaulD]

"There are about a dozen sites I always check (sometimes multiple times) when I go online"
1. I like Anonymosity's method (17 Jan 9:21 PM)
- Create a folder where desired, populate it with the desired bookmarks
- cursor to folder; then either: { right-click > Open All In Tabs} or { left-click > Open All in Tabs [at bottom of list] }
2. If you want unconditionally to open these every time when going online, make them your Home Page.
- Bring up all the pages, in the order you want them
- Tools > Options > (tab) General > Use Current Pages
Caveat: I haven't tried Version 4. Does it work the same?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[Fulvio]

I have no need to use every square millimeter of space, so I have all the toolbars, including the Menu Bar.
I don't see any grippy, so the Menu Bar is absolutely essential. In fact, I can get by with the Menu Bar only.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b10) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b10