After getting Synaptics virtual scrolling for Firefox, I fiddled with a few more settings. I slowed Coasting down to a minimum so that I can scan web pages and documents by swiping my finger down once the vertical scroll region. For drawing diagrams, I enabled Constrained Motion (the pointer would only move horizontally or vertically when I hold down the Left-Shift key) and Slow Motion (slow pointer to a minimum when I hold down the Left-Control key). These two two options are useful for drawing connection lines with elbows. Finally, I enabled Tap again and hold to drag and Locking Drags (try not to think too hard about the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) so that I only need one finger to drag and drop objects. This gesture was the hardest to learn. I had to tap then press down on the touch pad for about a second before the Synaptics driver recognises the start of a drag event. If there is too long a delay between the tap and the press, the driver would generate two single click events. Another reason it's hard to learn is that Windows doesn't change the mouse pointer for a drag action until after the mouse pointer starts moving. Finally, if you're making a text selection, the selection action doesn't end until you tap the touchpad while the mouse pointer is within the selection area.
2007-03-24
Firefox Find Link Shortcut
It's only when I started reading news articles again that I found Firefox's find as you type link keyboard shortcut (' or apostrophe) more useful than expected. News articles often span several pages and their links have a numeric label ("2" or "3") or "Next" label. If you use plain Find shortcut, your cursor would jump to the first, usually inappropriate, occurrence of that character in the page while find as you type link would move the cursor only to the required link.
2007-03-18
Firefox Adblock and Flashblock
Advertising on web sites is fair enough; media providers want some return on their effort. Sometimes the ads are amusing and they add sparkle to pages. But it becomes seriously, seriously, annoying when a video clip starts playing when a page is loaded. Adblock and Flashblock to the rescue!
Of the two extensions, Flashblock is the simpler to use. It just replaces an embedded Flash movie with a still image. You can still click on that image to play the movie. Adblock doesn't do anything when it's installed. You have to mark individual elements to block or specify a regular expression filter to identify these elements. In theory, Adblock can block all advertisements but have to configure or download your filters while Flashblock doesn't block all Flash movies (sometimes the references are tricked up), so it makes sense to combine the two extensions for control and convenience.
Asus Touchpad Firefox Scrolling
For whatever reason, I've never been able to use my Asus' touchpad to scroll pages in Firefox; when I try virtual scrolling in Firefox, only the mouse pointer changes to a scrollbar. It hadn't particularly annoyed me until I decided to use my touchpad more. The most recent driver from the Asus web site didn't support Firefox but the generic 8.3.4 driver from Synaptics worked.
I didn't realise until I enabled virtual scrolling for Firefox that the feature worked like turning the mouse wheel. For instance, if I hold down the Control key while scrolling vertically, the page's font size changes.