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Customize Shortcuts, Firefox Keyconfig Alternative

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:01:50 +0000

The Keyconfig extension for the Firefox web browser was released in 2004. Back then it allowed Firefox users to change both native and third party shortcuts in the web browser. This was for instance extremely useful if an extension developer picked the wrong shortcuts for an extension, or if you have installed two extension that made use of the same shortcuts.

Keyconfig is still being developed, despite that it is not available in the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Customize Shortcuts now is a relative new extension that offers a similar functionality. The core difference is that it is available in the add-on repository, which means that it has been tried and tested by Mozilla.

The extension adds a new entry to the Firefox options window. A click on the new Shortcuts icon displays all Firefox shortcuts in a long list. The shortcuts are sorted into groups such as Navigation or Current Page.

A search is available at the top to find a specific shortcut or group of actions directly. You could for instance enter the keyword tab into the search form to display all tab related shortcuts in the browser.

You change shortcuts with a double-click on the shortcut field. This makes the field editable, and all you have to do is to press the new keyboard combination to set the new shortcut for the action.

The new shortcut is available right away in the browser. Customize Shortcuts not only lists the native Firefox shortcuts but also shortcuts that have been added by extensions. This way you can make changes to those shortcuts as well.

Please note that there is no warning or notification if you add an already existing combination to another action. This is probably the biggest concern right now. What you can do to avoid conflicts is to enter the shortcut into the search form to make sure that it only returns one action and not multiple actions.

Customize Shortcuts is a very handy extension for Firefox users who want to have more control over the browser’s keyboard shortcuts. Firefox users can install the restartless add-on right from the Mozilla add-on repository.

Cycle Input Focus, Activate Forms In Firefox With A Shortcut

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:31:19 +0000

The NoScript add-on blocks the automatic focus of the search field on the Google and Bing search page. That’s a issue for me as I use those search engines regularly throughout the day. While I could whitelist the search engines, I prefer not to do so as it whitelists other services that run on those domains.

But there are other sites where you might want to jump to a form on, for instance on your favorite tech blog after reading the article there to leave a comment in the comment form.

The tab key would feel natural as it is used in many desktop applications for that task, but web browsers use it to cycle through page elements.

Firefox users can install an extension like Cycle Input Focus or Fox Input for the task. The former supports the majority of forms on a website, while the latter only supports input fields (that is single line forms). Users who want comment forms supported therefor need to install the Cycle Input Focus extension.

The shortcuts Ctrl-Alt-x and Ctrl-Alt-c are used to activate the next or the previous form field on the web page. For Fox Input, it is the shortcut Alt-i that puts the cursor into the next form. Users who are not comfortable working with those shortcuts can do the following. Fox Input comes with a single setting to change the keyboard shortcut natively. Cycle Input Focus on the other hand does not. The suggested Keyconfig extension for Firefox is still working despite its age and absence at the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

You may need to force compatibility to get the keyboard shortcut configuration utility working in your version of Firefox. Select the shortcut and press a new keyboard combination to set it. The new shortcut becomes immediately available after a click on the Apply button.

Thunderbird Archiving Shortcuts

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 10:22:26 +0000

The Archive This Thunderbird add-on provides configurable keyboard shortcuts to archive email messages with the press of a button. The add-on is compatible with all versions of Thunderbird 2. It is experimental which not only becomes obvious while trying to download the add-on but also when looking at the keyboard shortcuts that have been implemented by the software author.

The Thunderbird extension adds ten keyboard shortcuts to the Thunderbird email client which can be used to archive email messages. The functions are mapped to [CTRL 0..9] which proves to be difficulty as Thunderbird uses [CTRL 1] and [CTRL 2] for different functions making those two keyboard shortcuts not working initially.

The user can basically map a folder of his mailbox to one of the keyboard shortcuts. This essentially means that any selected mail would be moved to that folder upon pressing the keyboard shortcut. The shortcut [CTRL 0] has been reserved to work with mail filters which can also be defined in the extension. Pressing that shortcut while working in Thunderbird will apply all configured filters to the selected messages.

This proves to be a very effective method of moving mails quickly to designated folders in Thunderbird. It is possible to correct the non-working [CTRL 1] and [CTRL 2] keys by installing the excellent Keyconfig add-on for Thunderbird. Keyconfig will display all keyboard shortcuts in the email client and provide the means to change them. It can be used to either change the keyboard shortcuts of the extension or to change the original keyboard shortcuts to something else so that all keys can be used when working with the extension.