Barlesque, Minimize Firefox 4's New Add-on Bar

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 4, 2010
Updated • Nov 20, 2012
Firefox, Firefox add-ons
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Firefox 4's new add-on bar and the removal of the old status bar has caused some controversy and quite a misunderstanding amongst Firefox users. The new add-on bar basically integrates the icons that are placed by Firefox add-ons in it or the old status bar. It does lack the ability to display link information when the mouse hovers over a link though.

Barlesque is a new add-on for Firefox 4 that may be useful for users who want more screen-estate but have icons in the add-on bar that they need to access every now and then at least. Barlesque minimizes the Firefox add-on bar to the rightmost or leftmost position so that only the icons of it are displayed.

Even better, there is an option to minimize it further so that only a small icon indicates that the add-on bar is still there and ready for access.

The minimized add-on bar hides the website's contents in that position, which can be inconvenient sometimes. Worse is the fact that it is not fully compatible with some add-ons, like NoScript or Status 4 Evar. The NoScript bar for instance that is sometimes displayed appears beneath the add-on bar which means that it is more difficulty to interact with it.

Status 4 Evar users will notice that the address of a link is not displayed fully, and that there is no way of changing that.

This means that Barlesque is mainly for Firefox users who use add-ons that do not expand the status bar when they display information and for add-ons that do not place notifications at the bottom of the screen. Button interaction on the bar however works as usual.

As mentioned before, Barlesque offers a second mode to minimize the display further. A click on the down arrow in the bar reduces the display to a single arrow in the lower left corner.

The add-on's options contain settings to configure the position of the Barlesque bar, and shortcuts to hide and display the add-on bar.

Barlesque offers a compromise between fully disabling the add-on bar and displaying it fully in the browser. (via)

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Comments

  1. kalmly said on December 5, 2010 at 4:13 pm
    Reply

    Opera is working out just fine for me.

  2. Jojo said on December 4, 2010 at 11:21 pm
    Reply

    I have 70 add-on’s. I will not be switching to FF 4 until most of the important ones are made compatible.

    Is there an add-on that will check the compatibility status of a users add-on collection and produce some sort of report?

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