Simple but effective hacks

I’ve been using these hacks for a long time now… since Firebird 0.7. Thought someone might find good use for them.

The first one up is userChrome.css, located in ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile_dir>/chrome. There is a built-in file called userChrome-example.css which you can build on top of, which is what I’ve done. To this file I only made a single change:

/* Make inactive tabs partially transparent */
#content tab:not([selected="true"]) { -moz-opacity: 0.5 !important; }

Then we’ve got userContent.css, also located in ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile_dir>/chrome, which also comes with an example files called — what else — userContent-example.css. To this file I made some more changes:

/* Change cursor for links that open in new window */
:link[target="_blank"], :visited[target="_blank"],
:link[target="_new"], :visited[target="_new"] {
cursor: crosshair;
}

/* Change cursor for JavaScript links */
a[href^="javascript:"] {
cursor: move;
}

Over time these modifications have become an integral part of my daily Firefox experience. I originally found them in the customizing Mozilla page. If you want to try some of the hacks there you’re obviously welcome to try them, but be aware the page is now extremely outdated. The ones above do work with all versions of Firefox and should work with Firefox-based browsers like Flock, but I’m not making any promises.

If you do want to try them out, just make sure to backup your profile folder.