Mozilla Tricks and Stuff

MOZILLA TIPS

History File

The browser history in Mozilla apps is stored in a plain-text file called "history.dat." Unfortunately, it is in the "MORK" database format which has all sorts of extraneous markup in it. If you want be able to read your history in a readable format, you can use the little utility program called DORK. I didn't write it but the author allows it to be distributed freely. Since I can't find the original link where I first got it I put it on my site for download. Just download this file and unzip it into a folder of your choice: There's no installation.

Once it's unzipped, just run the program. Then drag and drop your history.dat file into DORK's window. It will output a re-formatted text file (with all the MORK crap stripped out) called "history.txt" in the same folder as your history.dat file.

If you try this while your Moz app is running you may get an error in DORK. You don't have to close your Moz app, just copy the history.dat file to another folder and use that copy to drop into DORK. Enjoy.

Mail Viewing - Set options to organize how you view your mail messages. On the menu toolbar do the following:

View - Sort by - Date / Ascending / Threaded
View - Messages - All
View - Threads - All

Newsgroup Viewing - Set options to organize how you view your newsgroup messages.

View - Sort by - Order Received / Ascending / Threaded
View - Messages - All
View - Threads - Threads with unread

Obviously you can tailor these prefs to your own liking; these happen to be mine. Especially the last one for newsgroup viewing which hides threads that have no unread messages in them. It makes it much easier to navigate through big newsgroups.

Reading Mail or News Messages

Select a folder in the tree pane (the one on the left where all your accounts and folders are)
Press the space bar to select and display the next unread message
Set the focus to the message pane (the one on the bottom right). You can do this by either of these methods:
- Left-click once in the message display pane - or ...
- Hit the tab key three times
Now advance through the current message by hitting the space bar instead of scrolling
When you reach the bottom of the current message hitting the space bar will take you to the next message in the thread or the first unread message in the next thread.

MOZILLA TRICKS

Well, these aren't just Mozilla tricks. Some of these work in many browsers, some only in some browsers, and some not in the most recent versions of any given browser, etc. Still, I find them fun. See this link for more info.

In your browser's location bar enter the following URLs, press Enter, and see what happens. If clicking on these links doesn't work for you, copy/paste or type them into the location bar and press Enter to invoke the function. You can also (in some cases) simply drag and drop the link onto an existing tab or a blank spot on the tab bar. Also, you can drop them into the bookmarks sidebar or onto the Personal Toolbar. Or right-click and choose "Open link in new window" or "Open link in new tab." Or right-click and choose "Copy link location" and then click once in the location bar in the browser and click CTRL+V to paste. Or even save the page to your local disk; the links should work from there if they don't while viewing this page online. NOTE: Not all links work in all versions of Mozilla-based products.

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