Making extensions compatible in Firefox 3

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Life isn’t all that easy when you have updates and upgrades available at such rapid pace as Mozilla Firefox project. With an upgrade usually the framework is so much modified that your current Firefox extensions don’t work with the Alpha or Beta release. Now if you have an intermittent problem of testing newer non-stable versions of softwares then you miss out on the extensibility feature.

For example, there are very few extensions of Firefox 2.0.* which are compatible with Firefox 3 Beta. Hold on please, there is a tweak to get all your extensions (With exception of a few like Google Toolbar for Firefox crashes) working with Firefox 3 beta release. From what I have experienced the so called and much awaited FF 3 has some cool features. I have not played around with it much, but the first problem that I faced was to get all my extensions working with this new release. Here’s what you have to do to get all your extensions working. I must caution you though that there could be extensions that might make your Firefox unstable and make it crash. From what I have read All-in-one gestures when used with this tweak makes it crash for the first time. Also, this can cause some security glitch as well. So please use it at your own risk. Following are the steps:

1. In a new tab type about:config. You get a beautiful (and funny) window which looks like this.
   You know which button to hit.
2. Once you reach the about:config page look for an entry named extensions.checkCompatibility. If you see the entry then change the value to false.
3. However, if you did not find an entry, then right click any where on the page and under new select boolean. Set it’s value to false. That’s all.
4. Now you should have an entry that looks like this
5. Close Firefox and restart. See the magic, all your old extensions are now working and are visible.

You see a warning message marked with an arrow like the following:

Help yourself with further experimentation. And remember it’s a tweak that means it’s not suppose to be tweaked to avoid any glitches. I am sure with the final release all the extensions will be compatible. There is another way as well to make extensions compatible, but for that you have to make code level changes and I am not discussing them. Let me know if someone wants to do it that way.

Got stuck

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I know I have not been writing for a while now. No one feels more guilty than me. However, I find myself caught it handful of things.

1. First and probably the most useless of all is that I am in-charge of FPM (Fellow Programme in Management) for the batch of 2008. It’s a donkey’s job (no offense, but that’s what I feel). If you want to see bureaucracy personified you have to see it in MDI. Someone can write a great case on “What a Management school should not be”. May be I have a biased opinion as I’ve never worked for anything less than an MNC. However, the college has some great learning to offer and some great professors.
2. Second, I have been working on an idea, that I do not wish to reveal as of now. But soon I plan to launch something that’s not been done yet. I hope with my limited capabilities as a programmer, I’d achieve what I plan to. As a hint I am working like an ass on getting Joomla insights.
3. I am also doing a little bit of photoshop and have actually come up with a banner. Doesn’t match my expectations of being great but still I feel I have worked fairly on it to kick start my photoshop journey. At the end of the post there is a sample of what I have tried creating.
4. I am also, working with a small HR firm to get their blog journey started. I hope something fruitful comes out of it.

Upgrade to WordPress 2.5

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Just in case you have not upgraded to wordpress 2.5, the stable and public release is out and is quite something. As I mentioned in my previous post “WordPress 2.5-Step-by-Step upgrade Guide for Beginners“, please make sure to take a backup of your current wordpress.

As a decent upgrade tool (Just in case you don’t want to flirt with your directory structure on your FTP), you could use InstantUpgrade plugin. This plugin is in Beta, so please use it at your own risk. Also, one bug that I found with the plugin is that even when you deactivate it (even remove it from your WP Plugin Directory), it doesn’t listen and tries to associate itself with the upgrade link in WordPress Dashboard.

The second drawback (for advance user) of the plugin is that it only allows you (by default unless you mention the version) to upgrade to the latest stable release. Doesn’t automatically upgrade to the beta or nightly builds. As, I promised, I’ll do a complete review of WordPress 2.5 on my other blog.