Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
> For example, IE has a File/Send Page as Email
>  function that has no obvious corollary in Firefox. 

Netscape/Mozilla has the same "Email this page" feature.

Though no Firefox expert, let me venture a guess.   Firefox has
no email component.  Netscape, Mozilla, and IE do.  Without a
built-in email engine, Firefox can't send a page on its
own.   At least in a Windows context it ought to be able to 
dig up the email agent from the Internet Options but
perhaps they chose not to implement Windows-only features.

I've tried Firefox a bit, and it's lightning quick, that's
fer sure, but I was a bit put off by the simplistic configuration
capabilities.   My usual browser/email suite is Mozilla, which
I can configure to within an inch of its life to suit my own
peculair preferences.   However, I've found the simple 
straightforward configuration to be advantageous when setting
it up for (e.g.) elderly relatives or non-geekish friends.
  

    
Firefox will indeed launch your mail program when you choose
 File->Send Link...
  

    

> I was a bit put off by the simplistic configuration capabilities. 

try typing about:config in the browser window to see everything you can
tweak.
  

    

I want to thank Scott Granneman for joining us here in Inkwell, and I also
want to thank Loren for all you've done to help guide this conversation.
It's been two weeks since the discussion began, and we've just turned our
virtual spotlight onto our next author. That doesn't mean you have to stop
talking here, though. The topic will remain avialable for further comments
indefinitely, so feel free to continue if you wish.

Thanks, and best of luck with your book, Scott!
  

    
Richard Banks: You said that "IE has a File/Send Page as Email"; as
other pointed out, Ff has that too. File > Send Link. I use it all the
time. I'm almost positive that Ff uses whatever your default email
program is on your OS to send the mail. If you use web-based email,
like I do, I recommend the WebMailCompose extension, available from
http://jedbrown.net/1.0/mozilla/extensions/, which allows you to use
virtually any web-based email service around, as well as client-based
email. I use it for Gmail, & it works beautifully.

As for your problems with Salon's AudioFile & iTunes, I can't help
you. I'm a Salon subscriber, but I don't get the audio, and I don't use
iTunes. 

Ff *is* alerting you about new updates. However, it's not as obvious
as I'd like, a major problem, in my opinion. In the upper right of your
Ff windows, you may notice what looks like a Christmas tree surrounded
by a colored circle. If you see that, you have updates to Ff
available. That's pretty bad - a colored circle & a triangle? Of COURSE
that must indicate updates available! Sheeesh ... that's one where Ff
let us all down.
  

    
Hal Royaltey: one of the goals of Ff was simplified configuration. In
fact, the developers were reacting AGAINST Mozilla's plethora of
choices. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't configure Ff until the
cows come home; it just means that those options aren't exposed in the
Options/Prefs. As Public persona recommended, try about:config, or,
better yet, create & edit your user.js file, which is more permanent. 

I cover user.js & some other files in my book, but here are some
excerpts from mine.

#1 - user.js (settings & prefs for the browser & its behavior):

// More DOM/JavaScript options
// Make sure all pop-up windows are resizable:
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.resizable", true);
// Make sure all pop-up windows are minimizable:
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.minimizable", true);
// Always display the menu in pop-up windows:
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar", true);
// Always display the Navigation Toolbar in pop-up windows:
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.location", true);

// Force frames to be resizable
user_pref("layout.frames.force_resizability", true);

// Turn off pre-fetching
user_pref("network.prefetch-next", false);

#2 - chrome/userChrome.css (how the browser looks):

/* ##### Improved Back button ##### */
/* Make the Back button bigger */
#back-button .toolbarbutton-icon {
padding-left: 10px;
padding-right: 8px;
}
/* Force the label to be visible, even in no text */
#back-button .toolbarbutton-text {
display: -moz-box !important;
padding-right: 4px;
padding-bottom: 2px;
}
/* Put the label to the right of the button */
#back-button .toolbarbutton-menubutton-button {
-moz-box-orient: horizontal !important;
}

#3 - chrome/userContent.css (the browser & the pages it displays)

/* make textareas bigger */
/* textarea { width: 600px; height: 600px; } */

/* improve form widgets */
/* input[type="button"],
input[type="submit"] {
    font-size: 12px !important;
    font-family: 'Lucida Grande' !important;
    background: #eee !important;
    -moz-border-radius: 18px !important;
    padding: 1px 6px !important;
    border: 1px solid #ccc !important;
    border-bottom: 2px solid #999 !important;
} */

(Notice that I commented out both changives above; I was just
experimenting).

I cover some of these settings in my book; Firefox Hacks, by the late
Nigel McFarlane, contains even more. 

Is that enough customizability for you? :)
  

    
Cynthia, I'd like to thank you, Loren, and the folks at The WELL for a
great two weeks! I've had a wonderful time talking to all of you you
about Ff, the Web, and related topics. In particular, I can't express
how impressed I've been with The WELL. After hearing so much about it
over the years, I have to say that it has lived up to the hype.

I'm almost finished with a second book for John Wiley & Sons titled
Hacking Knoppix, about the wonderfully powerful and diverse Linux-based
Live CD operating system Knoppix. I've already started working on my
next book after Hacking Knoppix, but I'm not ready to divulge the
subject yet (don't want to jinx myself!). 

If you'd like to keep up with my writings, please check out my
Publications page, at http://www.granneman.com/pubs; you can also
subscribe to my RSS feed that provides info about things I've written
using http://www.granneman.com/xml/rss.xml.

In addition, I blog for The Open Source Weblog, and one of the topics
that comes up all the time (no surprise!) is Firefox. You can read the
blog at http://opensource.weblogsinc.com, or subscribe to the RSS feed
using http://opensource.weblogsinc.com/rss.xml.

I'll keep checking this page out for the next week or so, as long as I
can, do keep posting questions or comments if you'd like. Thanks
again, everyone - it's been great! Keep using Firefox!
  

    
Scott, since I've been unsuccessful installing Spellbound, one of my
favorite extensions, on my new iBook, I'm wondering if you might know
of any alternatives?
  

    
Thanks for the expansive answer Scott.   Mebbe I'll re-install
Firefox and see about those options.   
  

    
Scott, I think the person was asking about Send Page, as in IE where
the entire page will be put into an email, not just the link (if your
Mail Format is defaulted to HTML the page will be in the body of the
email; if the default is Plain Text the page will be an attachment).