The Add-on Bar is a toolbar at the bottom of your screen that keeps all of your add-on shortcuts, thus giving you a quick access to their features.

The status bar was primarily removed to make the most of the browser real estate- which makes many of us wonder why the newly introduced Add-on bar is absolutely un-optimized in terms of saving the browser screen space.

The following three addons attempt to fix that bug:

1. Move Addons Bar Into the Address Bar

URL Addon Bar is a little experimental FireFox add-on that requires no re-start.

It re-locates all your buttons from the Add-ons Bar to the URL bar (right inside the bar where you normally see the page URL and the star to bookmark the current page).

You are always able to hide the add-ons bar by clicking its X sign right inside your address bar:

Drawbacks:

• If you have too many add-ons, the buttons will fill up your whole URL bar (which happened to one of my FireFox profiles). This makes the add-on completely impossible to use.
• For small screens or long URLs, you might be unable to see the whole URL in the address bar, but that’s not a big deal as most screen resolutions will allow for an adequate URL bar width.

2. Transform Add-on Bar into a Set of Buttons

Barlesque is an easy-to-use add-on that collapses the wide gray add-on bar into a neat set of add-on buttons. What this basically means is that upon installation, your add-ons bar won’t be a solid horizontal band across the bottom of your browser window. Instead, there will be buttons that cover no more space than they need.

Before:

(Provided you have the add-on bar switched on: “View” menu -> “Toolbars” -> check the “Add-on Bar”)

After you install the add-on:

The add-on options let you:

• Toggle the “collapsed” mode using the little add-on icon within the address bar (as well as use the customized keyboard shortcut for that);
• Align the buttons to the right or to the left;
• Switch on the auto-collapse timer, that automatically collapses the add-on bar after the set number of seconds.

3. Set the Minimum Width of the Add-on Bar

Here’s another FireFox add-on that lets you minimize your add-on bar and save on screen real estate. Basically the add-on lets you set the width, height and color of the add-on bar.

You are most likely to be surprised after having it installed because:

• The default width seems to be set to 0, so you won’t see your add-on bar at all;
• All the buttons you used to have in your address bar will be removed. You’ll need to right click the add-on bar and choose “Customize” to  again add your add-on buttons to the new bar.

After having everything set up, you are likely to love using it though!

Any other space-saving tips for FireFox add-on bar? Please share them in the comments!

Here are a couple of more space-saving tips for FireFox users:

• Save FireFox Screen Space by Merging Your Toolbars
• HOW TO: Maximize Firefox Viewing Area.

However, there happens to be a very elite number of toolbars that do make it into my nice list, and the one we’re talking about today is one of them.

About The Toolbar

The friendly folks over at the incredible service known as WolframAlpha have produced both a toolbar for Firefox and an extension for Chrome, where the latter has less functionality. Either way, having a quick and easy way to get certain information from WolframAlpha is a valued item for those who need its information the most, such as math, nutrition, or geography students.

Installation

Installing the toolbar is easy, just like with any other extension. You can ignore the “experimental” label that is displayed along with the extension, as I’ve found it to be perfectly fine. After you restart Firefox, your new Wolfram toolbar will appear. If you wish, you can move this around so that it doesn’t take up a new row of space.

Features

The toolbar isn’t made up of a whole lot. The Wolfram logo acts as a button to go straight to the Wolfram website. This page isn’t going to be of too much help, as its more of a page where Wolfram can sell its products, which it integrated into its freely available services.

The search box will search for information across a number of its websites, which you can choose from. The WolframAlpha option should be familiar, as it’s the service that brings up all the statistical information for math and many other subjects of interest. Entering anything in the search box with WolframAlpha chosen will be like entering something on the website directly.

You can also search through the Wolfram Demonstrations Project. This service lets you search for any number of demonstrations for fields that WolframAlpha is capable of computing with. There is nothing much you can do on the site itself, other than browse through the different demonstrations and download .CDF files. I’m sure there’s a program somewhere out there that knows what to do with those files…

You can also search through Wolfram MathWorld, which is a large collection of math resources, all of which appear to be fairly complex. However, for those who can make something out of all that information, it is definitely another handy resource to have.

The Wolfram Mathematic Documentation Center offers plenty of help for using Mathematica (the engine powering WolframAlpha) to its fullest extent. There are a handful of tutorials that you can search through, thanks to the toolbar.

Finally, there is also WolframScience, which lets you, as it sounds, look through all the science resources that it offers.

Note that choosing a site to search on within the search box sets the default, although clicking on any of the buttons on the right while something is entered in the search box will start a search on the site you clicked on.

Conclusion

WolframAlpha is possibly one of the most useful services out there, and I can’t deny that I use it quite a bit. Having this nice toolbar to search for a solution to my newest problem in a split second is a wonderful comfort. This toolbar is definitely worth having, and if you don’t have much experience with WolframAlpha yet, you should play around with it!

It’s the essence of the smartphone app brought to the desktop. Real-time notifications means you always know how many emails, messages or news items you need to read. To read them, simply click the icon. Perhaps best of all, these apps can be added and removed in a single click once you’ve installed Pokki.

Using Pokki

Getting started with Pokki couldn’t be simpler; just head to the Pokki homepage and click “download” beside any “Pokkie” (read:app) that interests you. For example, I clicked Gmail:

Note that, as of this writing, only Windows 7 is supported. Versions for Mac and earlier versions of Windows are coming soon; no word on a Linux version yet.

Once installation is complete you’ll notice your installed apps between the Start button and your currently running applications:

As you can see, I’ve installed four apps: Gmail, Twitter, Facebook and RSS. The number on the Gmail icon represents how many unread messages await me.

Clicking the icons brings up the “app”, which is a compact version of a given website. Here’s what Facebook looks like:

I can browse my current news feed as well as messages and notifications. It’s all quick to navigate, and loads much faster than Facebook itself does.

Every app works pretty much like that. There currently aren’t many apps, but the list is growing and third-party coders are starting to contribute. Current highlights include Gmail. The interface is lacking features in the full-blown Gmail interface, including priority inbox. That’s part of the point: this app is meant to quickly give you access to your email so you can get back to what you were doing before.

Another well-done app is the Twitter app Tweeki:

Again, this is simple but that’s the point. Like the other apps, the emphasis is on fast.

Clicking the acorn icon allows you to install more applications:

The list of potential apps is low now, but growing.

Conclusion

This isn’t a completely new idea, of course. There have long beeen widgets available for a variety of platforms, similar to apps in many ways. Heck, many of Chrome‘s extensions behave in a similar manner to Pokki; we highlighted a number when we pointed out Chrome extensions for the newly converted.

Still, I think this application is on to something for one reason, and that’s simplicity. This program is easy to install, easy to use and easy to install apps for. And the apps themselves are very easy to use. There is a focus here that mimics smartphones, and in a good way. For this reason I think Pokki’s worth checking out, though some may disagree.

What do you think? Share your thoughts about Pokki in the comments below, along with any alternatives to this program.

We have shared quite a few tips on how to save browser screen space: there’s a cool addon that lets you get rid of open tabs while still having them in front of your eyes, there’s also an awesome tip on how to have more space by merging your toolbars and here’s a thorough guide on maximizing Firefox viewing area.

Today’s post shares another great tool that would work well in combination with previously shared tips.

I always feel skeptical about the addons forcing you to install and use a new toolbar and usually these addons never stick – but sometimes you can’t do without a toolbar. Some toolbars I am constantly using include: Menu toolbar, Toolbar Bookmarks, Stumbleupon Toolbar. Today’s tool allows you to hide any of your favorite toolbars while still being able to easily access it.

Buttonizer is a fun experimental addon that lets you minimize any of your toolbars to a little button.

Let’s see how it works…

Once you have it installed, notice a tiny button next to the Awesome bar in the Address panel:

Right-click on it to select which of your currently running toolbars you want to access using the button:

Once you select any toolbar, it will be hidden from your browser screen and will be accessible via the button:

Now, you can do anything using the button: search, access your toolbar bookmarks, vote on Stumbleupon, use any of your additional toolbars.

Here’s a Stumbleupon toolbar using the Buttonizer:

You can run it for those toolbars you don’t use too often but still need occasionally and don’t want to get rid of. It is also usable enough to hide your most frequent and necessary tabs (like the menus toolbar, for example). Besides, is is very flexible: it easy to switch toolbars to be used through the button, so you can experiment a lot to find the best solution that suits you.

To restore any hidden toolbar, you just need to select another one. If you don’t want the button to use any toolbar and need all toolbars in the normal mode again, right-click on the button and select “Reset”:

Issues

Some little issues I have noticed while running the tool (and I am still am, by the way):

• Sometimes the button won’t open some deeper levels of the menu which forced me to click twice (but that may be a specific issue for my computer);
• I had bad time controlling my toolbars after I reset the button options.
• The button doesn’t seem to work in the full-screen mode (it shows nothing when you hover over or click):

What do you think about the addon? Since this is an experimental extension, I am sure the developer is looking for feedback. Can you suggest any improvements (like keyboard shortcuts, for example)?

Do you have any other screen-space-saving tips to share?

Apple has also made it easy to install extensions. You simply click on the install button for an extension and it will automatically get embedded into your Safari browser. In most cases you don’t even have to restart Safari in order to begin using the installed programs. However, if for some reason an extension doesn’t show up or work, just restart Safari and you should be good to go.

You can turn off and on extensions by clicking on Safari > Preferences > Extensions. It’s a good idea to completely uninstall any extensions you’re not using.

All of the extensions described below can be found in the Safari Extensions Gallery.

Duplicate Tab Button

One of my most used Safari extensions is Thiemo’s Duplicate Tab Button. The name says it all. It simply duplicates the currently active tab and opens it in a new tab or browser window. Before using this extension I can’t count how many times I would be on a webpage and wanted to, for example, leave a comment, but at the same time refer to or check a piece of the article as I’m writing.

With Duplicate Tab Button I can simply duplicate the page, move it over to my second monitor attached to my computer, and blast away with my comment. Duplicate Tab Button is a simple but powerful little tool.

GToolbar

If you’re a heavy Google Tools user, BBShare Networking has developed a Google toolbar, similar to the toolbar available for Firefox, that you should probably check out.

Though it grows your Safari browser by half an inch, it provides you with icons for most all of Google’s popular tools and sites, including Google Search, YouTube, Gmail. Google Reader, Voice and a lot more. The toolbar does clutter up Safari a little, but it’s a faster way of accessing specific Google sites.

KeySearch

Another search tool extension is KeySearch. You use it by typing in a keyword for a designated website, such as “youtube,” followed by a topic, and then hit the Return key. KeySearch will navigate to the website and perform the topic search for you. This saves you the trouble of always using Google for searches.

What’s even more powerful about this extension is that you can create keywords for your favorite sites. So for example, to create a keyword for MakeUseOf, simply navigate to the search field of a MUO page, right- or Control-click in the search box and choose “Create keyword for this search” in the drop-down box. You will be asked to give your keyword a name, such as “muo.”

Now instead of first navigating to MakeUseOf.com to do a search, you simply type “muo [followed by the topic you're searching for] and hit the Return key. KeySearch will take you to MakeUseOf and do the search for you. Click on the “Edit Keywords” in the KeySearch toolbar to manage your settings.

ResizeMe 1.0

One of the downsides of web browsing is that you have to keep re-sizing browser windows to view the content on the page. This is especially a problem for laptops and other smaller screens.

Well, the extension ResizeMe may be of some use for this problem. When you click the ResizeMe icon in your Safari toolbar, (after it’s installed of course) it will re-size the frontmost Safari window to the size you set in the preference settings for ResizeMe. These settings are located in Safari > Preferences > Extensions > ResizeMe.

Mindful Browsing

The Internet is a gigantic encyclopedia of information and an amusement park of entertainment, which means that sometimes it can be a huge distraction when you’re constantly visiting Facebook, Twitter, and other sites you can’t seem to tear your eyeballs from.

The extension, Mindful Browsing may well help you with your addiction to visiting specific sites. With Mindful Browsing you will get a warning that you blocked a designated site for certain period of time and/or days. You can ignore the warning if you want, but at least you’ll be reminded that you’re about to feed your addiction yet again. Thus the first step to tearing yourself away from Facebook for three days straight may be downloading and installing Mindful Browsing.

So these are the top five Safari extensions I’ve recently added to my Safari browser. There are others, including the weather extension tool, Cloudy, Facebook Ads Blocker, and the social network sharing extension, YourVersion, that might also be of interest to you.

Let us know about your favorite Safari extensions and how you use them. If you’re looking for reviews of other Safari extensions, check out these MUO articles, here and here.

The easy way: Simply copy-paste the lengthy URL.
The time consuming but neater way: Wrap the keyword with the <a> tag and the HREF attribute i.e. <a href=”URL”>.

As a commentator, I am sure you would go by the former. But as a reader, I am also sure that you would prefer the latter any day. So, let this short how-to tip you off on a simple Firefox add-on that can strikeout the “time consuming” bit and leave your blog comments, forum postings, and wiki entries looking spiffy and well formatted.

Easily Format Your Posts With The Text Formatting Toolbar

We receive lots of comments on our site. Usually a common comment with some HTML elements looks like this –

Ideally, we would want it to look like this –

The manual way is to code in the HTML tags. But manual is also slower. So, let’s take the help of a Firefox add-on called the Text Formatting Toolbar that sets our text just the way it should be with a simple click. The Text Formatting Toolbar supports three formats: BBcode (bulletin board) that’s used on most forums, HTML for blog/website comments, and the markup format used by Wikipedia. Do remember that this works with Firefox only.

Bypass The Mozilla Add-ons Gallery

The Mozilla Add-ons Gallery strangely doesn’t have the updated version. But you can get the version which works (v.0.1.4.12) with the latest Firefox from the developer’s site.  After the quick download and install, the toolbar is accessible from the menu (View – Toolbars – Text Formatting Toolbar).

Using The Text Formatting Toolbar

The default format is BBcode. If you are on a blog, choose HTML from the little dropdown on the extreme right.

You can optionally change the default to the format you use usually. There are loads of options you can customize in the Options box (Tools – Add-ons – Text Formatting Toolbar – Options)

Using the Text Formatting Toolbar is as easy as using the format bar of your email program. The toolbar is auto-enabled when it recognizes that there’s a text area on the page. Select the keyword(s) and press the appropriate button to add the code. Here’s the lineup of the basic button on the toolbar.

Discussion boards and Wikis follow a slightly different markup. So, with the Text Formatting Toolbar, you don’t have to take the pains of remembering all the tags. Just a toggle on the menu will switch it over to one of the three markups supported.

Create Your Own Tags With Custom Buttons

You can extend the formatting functions of the toolbar by adding your own buttons which are nothing but formatting tags which you plan to use often. The extra functions which you define become one-click buttons for adding the markup codes. The developer site has a detailed walkthrough of the process.

For instance, my screenshot below illustrates a custom button which when clicked puts in the <small> tag.

This is just a simple example. If you are a HTML and CSS virtuoso, you can extend this to other time-saving uses.

The Text Formatting Toolbar add-on has another inadequately explained feature called the Format Toolbar Composer. It should let you use the toolbar as an offline editor, but quite frankly I couldn’t fathom it, nor is there any adequate explanation around on how to use it. So, I have refrained from mentioning it in more detail.

The Text Format Toolbar has its uses, like inserting markup code on the fly. You can use it in any text box (like a social network) that supports the three kinds of markup. But most of all, this small format app should be viewed as a productivity tool that not only helps you to be neater with your comments but also apply the proper formatting in double quick time.

The Text Formatting Toolbar is one of those Firefox add-ons which don’t shout out much, but once you put it to use, it can grab your attention. Do you think this Firefox tip is useful for properly formatting your blog and forum comments along with wiki entries?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

If you’ve been around for a while you will know that we used to use the Wibiya bar on MakeUseOf. Well, Wibiya has come a long way since then and has been continually adding new features to their toolbar. Let’s take a look at the recent happenings as described on the company’s blog.

New Facebook Like Button

With Wibiya, you can now choose to connect the Like button on your toolbar to your Facebook fan page. Essentially, this will give your fan page a major boost, as you are basically linking the traffic on your blog directory to your fan page. According to Wibiya, many have asked for this feature and they will not be disappointed.

Until now, the Facebook Like button application was attached solely to the content page. Whenever a visitor clicked Like they were “˜liking’ the content on that page, not the page itself. Get it?

You can still keep the regular settings if you like (pun intended), but now you can choose how you want to promote your site on Facebook. This short video shows you how you can install this new feature:

You can see the added benefits of using this new Like button in a follow-up article on Wibiya’s blog.

In Other News…

Wibiya has also added dozens of new icon designs for each of its apps, allowing you to choose the image and size you want alongside your application. You can upload icons and even combine them if you so choose.

Lastly, they’ve added a new Style Editor, but that will only be available to premium users.

What do you think of these additions by Wibiya? Will you be installing this on your site?

Source: Wibiya Blog

Having the search terms highlighted on the target page will increase your browsing speed dramatically. This way you can quickly locate the most relevant part of the page and find the required information.

There are three tools that can highlight search terms on the page you land on.  Read on to find out about them.

1. Google Toolbar Highlighter

If you have the Google toolbar installed, you may be using its handy highlight feature:

• It highlights each search term in a different color within the Google search results page;
• It highlights each search term in a different color on each result page you go from SERPs;
• It highlights each search term in a different color on each webpage you visit (even when a click did not originate from Google) as long as the highlighter in the toolbar is activated.
• You can click through the terms which occurred on a page using the toolbar:

2. Word Highlight (Greasemonkey)

Word Highlight is a Greasemonkey script which can be a nice alternative to the Google toolbar (in case you don’t want to install it):

1. It highlights each search term in a different color within the Google search results page;
2. It highlights each search term in a different color on each result page you go from SERPs;
3. You can click through the terms which occurred on a page using the toolbar;
4. It displays a “heat” map of all colored search terms on a page:

To change the colors to whatever you want, you can edit the script:

• Select Tools -> Greasemonkey -> Manage user scripts;
• Choose “Word highlight“ in the left-hand panel;
• Click “Edit“. This should open the installed version of the script in your favorite text editor (if it doesn’t, choose any text editor to open the script);
• Scroll down to the following line and edit all the colors (for example, you can set one color for all different search terms to make the output less colorful):

3. Google Quick Scroll (Google Chrome)

Google Quick Scroll is a Google Chrome extension that scrolls the target page right to the place you saw in Google snippet:

• It works only if the search terms are hard to locate on the page you landed on after clicking through from the search result listing: it appears on the bottom-right corner of the page, showing one or more bits of text from the page that are relevant to your query. Clicking on the text will take you to that part of the page.
• It highlights the part of the page that looks most relevant to your initial query.

Are you using any of these tools?  Do you find them helpful?  Do you know of any others? Please share your thoughts!