Mouse tips

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This article applies to Firefox.

Many of these tips come from Firefox support.

See also Keyboard shortcuts and Mouse-Keyboard Combo Tips).

Middle Click

Note
Two-button mouse

A Mouse Wheel Click can be used wherever a Middle Click is required in the tips below. For those without middle mouse buttons or mouse wheel, clicking both mouse buttons at the same time also mimics the Middle Click function. Many Laptops mimic the Middle Click function if you click the right and left pads at the same time.

Opening Tabs

Middle Click on a link will open that link in a new tab. This principle will work in many other situations, such as on bookmarks, bookmark folders, history items, page images, and also on toolbar buttons such as Home, the Back and Forward buttons, Personal Toolbar items, and the Throbber [the 'busy' icon at the top-right]. Moreover, you can even Middle Click on menu items which represent web page (such as items from the Back, Forward, Bookmarks, Go, and View Image menus) to open them in a new tab.

Closing Tabs

Middle Click on a tab marker will close that tab.

Note that user preference "middlemouse.contentLoadURL" must be set to false (default for Windows version) for this to work. To verify that the preference is set to false, enter "about:config" in the Firefox address bar, enter the preference "middlemouse.contentLoadURL" in the filter, and verify the setting appears as 'false' in the 'value' column. If it is set to 'true', double-click anywhere along the row and it will revert to 'false'. Middle-clicking on a tab to close it will now work.

Double Click

Opening Tabs

Tab Bar

Double Clicking empty space on the Tab Bar will open a 'New Tab.

Download Manager

Double Clicking a file entry in the Downloads Manager will open/launch the file (provided that you haven't moved it from its saved location).

Right Click

Customize the toolbars

You can adjust your toolbars to your liking. Right click on any toolbar, and select 'Customize'. While this dialogue is up, you can move buttons around on your toolbars by click-and-drag to the new location. The window that pops up when you do this is a holding area for unused icons. You can drag any item from it onto your toolbars to have it made available, and you can drag any icon from your toolbars onto this box to hide that icon completely.

Tip
Some toolbar items, such as the Location bar, will expand to take up all available space.
Tip 2
You can fit the Menu Bar, Personal Toolbar, Location bar, Back and Forward buttons, etc, all to one single row if you really want to maximize viewable area.

Create a keyword bookmark

Right clicking in a search box (such as the search box on the left of this page) and selecting 'Add a Keyword for this Search' lets you make an interactive keyword bookmark.

Here is how it works
Give it a name, such as 'mozillaZine Knowledge Base search'
Now, assign a keyword to it, such as 'mozkb'
Click 'OK'
From now on, you can search mozillaZine Knowledge Base (or any other search box you used for this) from your address bar like this
Enter 'mozkb search topic' in your address bar and click Go!

View selection source

Right-click on a highlighted area of a page (obtained by click-and-dragging the mouse, for example) and choose 'View selection source' to display the source code for the selected part of the page only.

Drag and Drop

Moving bookmarks and folders

You can change a bookmark's position in a folder or move it from one folder to another or move it to another position on the toolbar by dragging it to your desired position. A folder can be moved the same way but you must hold down the Shift key while dragging. To copy a folder, hold the Ctrl key while dragging.

Icons

You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon from the location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to the desktop to make an icon for that page. Drag a text file, a link, a picture, etcetera... from your folders or your desktop to Firefox and it will open in Firefox!

Links

"Click-and-drag" a bookmark to the main content window (which is the biggest on the Firefox user interface),so you can open it in a new tab! Dragging a link onto a new tab will open the link in the new tab.

Downloading links

Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add and download the link. You can also directly download anything from a page by drag and dropping it onto the "Downloads" icon in your toolbar (provided you put it there through Customize).