Firefox users: What do you need the Firefox address bar for? Many will probably answer that they do not need it at all while some say that they use it to check out links by hovering the mouse over them on the website. Then there is also the group of users with other add-ons that have placed their icons in the status bar to fill it with life.
Displaying the url of a website that the user is hovering the mouse over on the page. That’s something that can be achieved in another way; That must have been the reason for Josiah Decker to create the Firefox add-on Status Address Bar. The add-on displays the urls of links that the user hovers over in the Firefox address bar as well.
Why would someone want this? The answer is screen estate. Moving the functionality to the address bar makes the status bar in Firefox redundant if it is only displayed for that purpose. The status bar can then be set to hidden so that it does not appear on the computer screen anymore.
It is at first confusing to see the link urls appear in the Firefox address bar especially since it removes the url of the website the user is on for that time. There is another problem that was acknowledged by the developer of the add-on: Relative links are shown without part of the domain structure, e.g. /en-US/firefox/ instead of https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ which would appear in the Firefox status bar at the Mozilla website.
Status Address Bar might still be an interesting option for users who use the “hover over link” functionality in Firefox regularly but do not need the status bar otherwise and run Firefox on a small computer screen. It can be downloaded for all Firefox 2 and 3 versions at the Mozilla Firefox website.
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60 Responses to “Firefox: Show Mouse Over Urls In The Firefox Address Bar”
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[...] In the screenshot, for example, I’m at the Lifehacker homepage (http://lifehacker.com), but my mouse is hovering over the first post. As you can see, that post’s URL is visible in my address bar. It’s not groundbreaking, but if you’re looking for more ways to maximize Firefox’s viewing area without sacrificing functionality, it’s a nice addition. Status Address Bar is an experimental Firefox extension, works anywhere Firefox does. Status Address Bar [Firefox Add-ons via gHacks] [...]
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[...] Address Bar [Firefox Add-ons via gHacks] [...]
@adjohnson916: lol thanks for the tip; I never noticed Fission had that feature. Thanks for saving me ANOTHER addon install.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
nice.
i went a different way for the same effect, first i used url tooltip, but that didn’ t always play nice with certain websites (showing picture on mouseover would be useless due to the tooltip being on front), so i went with autohiding the statusbar when not in use, but showing whenever it’ s loading a page or when placing the mouse over a link. this is especially nice if you use extended statusbar for more loading info.
url tooltip:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12015
autohide statusbar:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1530
extended statusbar:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1433
Same thing can be done with fission plus more features….
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1951
I hate the ideea of an adress bar and I think it incomodates people. In my case it surely does!
Doesn’t Fission already do this?
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I have other icons in the bottom bar, so this isn’t really too useful for me, but I could see it being advantageous, especially on low-res screens.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I prefer the add-on Fission’s implementation as it also includes a customizable Safari-esque in-address-bar loading bar and other options such as connection status display to the right of the current/moused over link.
Link: [addons.mozilla.org]
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@TimothyH: Never has for me, but it ought to.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Or you could just, um, hit the F11 key. I installed this addon to see if it helped. If you have any other addons that run in the status bar, like say, interclue or fireFM, adblockPlus, or numerous other addons, it will not save you one iota of space.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@TimothyH: Yeah, it’s an option. I never realized it was in there until today.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I dunno about the others but my two (Chrome and Opera) both do this by default. Simply hover over a hyperlink and either in a corner or somewhere on the screen a box pops up with the links URL. Very helpful indeed!
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@jonny6pak: I feel stupid, but yet I’ve learned.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Fission does the same thing, only better. You can put your progress bar in the address bar too.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Hrm. I do use the status bar for other things though :) Like the weather. I like know that right now it’s Mostly Cloudy, 49 degrees F. And it’s going to rain tonight and be partly cloudy tomorrow.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
That sounds awesome, but I’ve still got other extensions (IE Tab, Read It Later, ServerSpy, & Foxmarks) cluttering up the corner of the status bar. =(
They only take up a tiny amount of space, but I can’t seem to move them up to the main toolbars, sadly.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I’m going to echo everybody else in saying that Fission does this better.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Yet another vote for fission :P
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Hmm don’t know if I can give up my status bar. If I had a netbook I could see how this would be very useful. Plus I like having my firebug icon in the status bar for quick access
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@Darklighter: I’m going to echo everybody else in saying that Fission does this better.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
This is great. Thanks to everyone mentioning Fission, I can finally get rid of the status bar, AND I get to dump my little placeholder addon that I used to keep the link address ~20 px out from the left hand side, because it interfered with my shell.
So Fission FTW, IMO.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I like the idea but wish there could be a 1 second or so delay so it isn’t constantly changing every time I move my mouse across the screen.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@jonny6pak: Holy crap! I’ve been using Fission for a while now and I’ve never noticed the option either!
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I use a combination of Autohide Statusbar and Fission
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I use a greasemonkey script for that purpose instead of installing a new add-on: [userscripts.org]
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
What I don’t like about this implementation or the same thing in Fission is that it instantly shows the link in the address bar.
This means that when you’re browsing websites there’s constantly something blinking in the address bar and I find that distracting. What I’d like to see is the ability to set a delay on when to show the link so when you actually want to see where the link goes, you just hold the mouse over the link for a moment.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
what about all the other extensions that use the status bar? Gmail Manager, Echofon, Greasemoneky, Xmarks, etc…
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
i like what they did in chrome, a little round box thing that pops up after a half a second. when you dont need it, its not there, when you’re hovering it is. That’s only of the only neat things i like in chrome.
OMhotllamas! bnosach did just what i wanted!
EDIT: except i use a script that puts the gmail icon on my statusbar…which is sad not to have…but oh well.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Hmm. I have a whole lot of stuff in my FF status bar. But the left side is reserved for showing URL’s when I hover over them. I’ve always seemed to have this functionality, so didn’t know that an add-in was needed?
Jojo it might be useful for users who want to hide the statusbar in Firefox.
WHY would someone want to do that? The status bar on my screen takes up 0.25″ of space There are 16 icons/pieces of information displayed. That is a lot of value for the space it consumes!
@Dan Cardin: I actually tried to reproduce this in Firefox to some avail. I managed to get the status bar to show only when mousing over a link and overlay the page content but I couldn’t manage to make it only quarter size.
Only problem is: I don’t remember how I did it.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Fission does the same thing, with much more customization (via userChrome.css), and with an optional loading bar so that everything on your statusbar is truly in the address bar.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
The only reason? Do you have any idea just how much is down there in my status bar?
ProfileSwitch, NoScript, Foxy Proxy, Ad Block Plus (Why waste perfectly good toolbar space?), IETab, The Firefox Download Manager, etc. The status bar is darn useful.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@Tom Trelvik: Thats why you install the FF addon "Stylish" and the "Firefox Chrome: Autohide Status Bar" script found on userstyles.org
When you need to use a statusbar icon just move down to click them like you would’ve done anyhow, and they automagically appear.
Saves a ton of vertical screen real estate.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@xxdesmus: exactly. for other users like me and you, this extension is quite useless.
although some icons can be removed from the icon bar, i still think it’s pretty useless. 14pixels is 14 pixels. i hardly even notice my statusbar much anymore.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@TehBeardMan: Stylish to the rescue.
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Why are there a bunch of comments not being promoted when the commenters have obviously tried this addon and found fault? I really miss the old comment style. It makes it look like only positive reviews which is kind of misleading.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@Papa Midnight: Yeah, it’s a shame my Status bar has a few things that can’t go elsewhere, otherwise I’d get rid of it right now.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@TheLostVikings R.O.A.C.H.: But the problem with that is the Gmail notifier’s and such. You want to be able to see those at all times, without maniacally visiting your screen’s bottom all the time.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Quite. Fission has done this for an age.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Fission does the mouseover links AND turns the address bar into a loading bar, pretty much completely eliminating the need for a status bar.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
My vote is with fission on this one.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Heh, Vimperator does this in reverse – puts the real address bar in the status bar, sort of.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@Gonzie: I see what you did there ..
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I like the status bar being there. It’s partly out of habit and partly because I have 4 extension icons on the right side for Stylish, Greasemonkey, Firebug, and Yahoo Mail Notifier.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@Papa Midnight: +1
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Better: "Fission"
Get at: [addons.mozilla.org]
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Yes for Fission, just installed it, NICE! Instant favorite, saves a lot of eye movement, from top to bottom and back…
While we are at it… is there a way to save some vertical space with either the Tabs or the Main Menu bar?
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@bnosach: Hey great tip! I moved ABP and Noscript to the toolbar and now is all good (only problem is a bit of extra clicks for Greasemonkey in the Tools menu =)
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@lifeh4xor: sure, you can hide the menubar with the erm… ‘hide menubar’ extension: [addons.mozilla.org]
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I just want to put the address bar on the status bar and have it do both the address bar duties and hover over duties. I have been using fission for ever too. I thought this might be smaller and quicker but I guess not?
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
@demaxxx: Sweet! Thanks a bunch. Now I’ll search the add-ons for a way ro reduce the tabs size. There’s 13 a dozen of those.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
This is nice! i would use it if my statusbar didnt look like this :)
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Another FF extension to mimic something built into Opera.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Is there an addon for keeping bookmark toolbar while in full screen mode? i.e. I want to see address bar with buttons, bookmark toolbar, and tabs bar.
@Papa Midnight: darn useful yeah. my status bar is the heartbeat of my browser. without it, my browser feels stupid. :-P #featuredfirefoxextension
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Oh hell yes. I’ve been waiting for an extension that does this. #featuredfirefoxextension
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
Why would not they if they do not use it at all or only to check urls that they hover their mouse over?