FAQ - Frequently asked questions and answers

I tried to answer the most frequently asked questions. Also you will be able to find some customization hacks for the userChrome.css. Perhaps you'll find also an answer to your question in the forum.

General

1. How can I move the AiOS toolbar, e.g. to above the sidebar?

   The toolbar is fully customizable since AiOS 0.6. You could use a workaround if you want to move the toolbar.

   • create a toolbar in the usual manner
     (right-click on any toolbar, choose Customize..., choose Add New Toolbar, type a name and hit OK)
   • drag the buttons of your choice to the new toolbar
   • right-click on the new toolbar and choose where to move it to

   Finally you can disable the default toolbar under View > Toolbars > All-in-One Sidebar Toolbar.

   Please note that it's possible that some toolbar items do not work correctly when using them in the tab bar or in a toolbar below the tab bar (e.g. some items of the Google Toolbar and TMP's "Closed Tab Bin").

2. How can I add/remove other buttons to/from the AiOS toolbar?

   The toolbar is fully customizable since AiOS 0.6. The special support for other extensions like Sage and Scrapbook, which was a feature up to AiOS 0.5.6, is no more necessary. I removed the special support for all sidebar extensions due to this reason. Just right-click on the toolbar, choose Customize... and drag and drop the buttons of your choice to or from the toolbar. Voilá...

   You miss buttons for e.g. BookmarksHome, Edit CSS (Web Developer Toolbar), bioFOX, Document Map, KeywordBar, LiveHTTP Headers or other extensions? This is not an issue of AiOS. Please write to the author of the according extension. He has to add a button for the panel. You can also use the extensions Custom Buttons² or Customizable Toolbar Buttons to create your own buttons.

3. How can I change the icon size of the buttons on the AiOS toolbar?

   Right-click on the toolbar and choose Toolbar Properties > Small Icons

4. How can I place e.g. the bookmarks button in both AiOS and in FF toolbar?

   Normally this is not possible, because there is always only one button for one function. But nevertheless you have two possibilities to get doubled buttons.

   1. You can use Custom Buttons² or Customizable Toolbar Buttons to create a second button for one job.
   2. Use following workaround, which is actually a bug (I believe it's a Firefox bug, but I'm not really sure. :-))
      • configure your AiOS toolbar to your needs
      • disable AiOS in the extensions panel
      • make sure that no sidebar is open
      • restart Firefox
      • configure the other toolbars to your needs. You will have access to all toolbar buttons, also these, which are placed on the disabled AiOS toolbar, except the buttons provided by AiOS (Sidebar, Toggle Sidebar, Extensions, Themes, WebPanel, Page Info, JavaScript Console, DOM Inspector, URL-Tools, Top/Bottom)
      • restart Firefox and enjoy the result! :-)
      I can't guarantee that this “solution” is working in the future or for all buttons. Please don't bug me with problems, support questions or things like that. AiOS is not an extension to enhance all other extensions out there or the complete GUI of Firefox. :P

5. The AiOS toolbar is always hidden and I can't get it back. How to fix that?

   Sometimes users reporting this. But until now I can't reproduce such errors. And because I can't see any problem I have to assume that there are problems/errors in your profile.

   1. Please check if the setting View > Toolbars > All-in-One Sidebar Toolbar is enabled.
   2. Please try to force the showing of the toolbar by disabling and enabling the option View > Toolbars > All-in-One Sidebar Toolbar.
   3. If No. 1 and 2 doesn't help I have to assume that something in your localstore.rdf is broken. This file stores customized data on the interface and maybe it's corrupted. Please delete this file or reset your toolbars. Deleting localstore.rdf will reset your customized toolbars, window positions and sizes, tree sort orders, and similar settings. A new file will be created on start up or when the application first needs to write to the file.
      
      Firefox 1.5 or later: Exit Firefox completely and then start it in safe mode. A window called Firefox Safe Mode with some troubleshooting options will appear. Select the option Reset toolbars and controls and choose Make Changes and Restart.
      
      Alternate method: Exit Firefox completely and then open the profile folder and delete the file localstore.rdf. Make sure to delete the localstore.rdf file in the profile folder, not any in other locations such as under Program Files.

6. I lost my toolbar customizations on startup. What's going on?

   Mostly this is a problem of Firefox itself and has nothing to do with AiOS. Please read this article at the knowledge base and follow the instructions.

7. What's the difference between the Sidebar Switch and the Sidebar Grippy?

   Please see this screenshot. The item with the blue border is the Sidebar Switch (the hover color is also blue). This one can hide and show the sidebar and the toolbar, it can be wide as on the screenshot and it can be thin. You can customize the appearance and the behavior in the options dialog (General > Behavior in Fx 1.5 or General > Sidebar Switch in Fx 2.x).

   The item with the red border is the Sidebar Grippy (the hover color is also red). This one can hide and show only the sidebar. But it doesn't really hide the sidebar - it only collapses the sidebar. The advantage is that the sidebar content doesn't have to be reloaded when you show the sidebar again. Simply try it. :-)

   You can enable/disable the switch and the grippy in the View menu.

8. How can I completely hide the Sidebar Switch?

   Deselect the item Sidebar Switch in the View menu of the main menubar.

9. What is the Advanced Options Mode and where can I enable this?

   Some users want a light version of AiOS. But unfortunately I have no time to develop different versions. Additionly it would be very difficult to do this, because surely every user would see different features in different versions. So I had the idea to integrate all features and hide some advanced settings by default. This makes the options dialog a little bit cleaner and easier to use.

   You can enable the Advanced Mode in the Settings menu of the AiOS options dialog View > Sidebar > All-in-One Sidebar Options...

   After enabling this feature you'll see a bigger dialog and some red typed options in different areas.

10. What is “Opera's Behavior”?

    This is a specified behavior of the AiOS Shortcut, the Sidebar Switch and the Toggle Button. You can enable this feature in the options dialog by selecting it under General > Behavior > Open/Close the Sidebar in Fx 1.5 or under General > Special > Open/Close Sidebar in Fx 2.x. The Advanced Options Mode must be enabled.

    If you enable this feature for e.g. the Sidebar Switch, then the Switch will show/hide the sidebar and the toolbar, if both were visible or invisible. But the Sidebar Switch will show/hide only the toolbar, if only the toolbar were visible at this time.
    Excuse me, but for me this is very difficult to explain it in english. Just try it out. :-)

11. I can't uninstall an extension. What's going on?

    Or you get the message "Firefox is checking for a compatibility update to xyz", the right-click menu is greyed-out and you can't uninstall these item(s)?

    Sometimes this and/or similar problems happens for different extensions. It's not a bug related to AiOS. Please delete following files from your profile folder while all Firefox windows are closed:

    • extensions.rdf
    • extensions.cache
    • extensions.ini

    New files will be generated automatically when you restart Firefox.

12. What means “Sidebar Collapsing”?

    The sidebar can collapse instead of closing. The advantage is that the sidebar content doesn't have to reload after re-opening so it responds faster. The default behavior of closing the sidebar unloads the opened panel from the memory. All settings, cursor positions and so on are gone (except if the developer of the sidebar panel includes a feature for that).

    An example: I suppose you use Sage, a great RSS reader. Open the panel, select a feed and then an item of the feed. You close the sidebar to get a bigger viewport. After reading the article you open Sage again. But now there is no feed selected. Firefox and the extension forgotten this last state, because the panel has to reload completely.

    Now I suppose you enabled the "Sidebar Collapsing" feature of AiOS. You open Sage, select a feed, select an item, close the sidebar and read e.g. an article. Now you open the sidebar again and the last selected feed and feed item are still selected. The sidebar was not closed and unloaded, it was still loaded in the sidebar, but simply not visible for you. :-)

    Disadvantages:

    • Perhaps you can observe a strange behavior. Supposed you open the history and then close the sidebar. Now you open e.g. the extensions panel. You will see the history for a short time before the extensions panel will open. This happens, because the history was still loaded (only invisible), and the extension panel needs some time to show up all items (the more extensions are installed the more time is needed). I will work for a better solution.
    • The feature works only if you open a panel, close the sidebar and re-open the sidebar; not for switching between different panels.
    • The feature could cause problems with other sidebar extensions. At present I know of comaptibility problems in conjunction with EZ Sidebar, Optimoz Tweaks and OutSidebar. The feature will not work if you use one of these extensions and the option in the options dialog will be greyed out. It also doesn't work in Minefield (Fx 3).

    Enabling the Sidebar Collapsing feature (enabled by default): View > Sidebar > All-In-One Sidebar Options... > General > Special > Sidebar Collapsing

Panels

1. How can I enable/disable the automatically opening of the download manager when a download starts?

   This is not a feature of AiOS - it's from Firefox itself. Do the following to enable/disable this feature:

   • open the preferences (Tools > Options)
   • choose "Downloads"
   • enable/disable the option "Show Download Manager when a download begins"

2. How can I customize the download links in the tools menu of the add-ons extensions and themes sidebar?

   Open the AiOS options dialog, choose Misc. > Extensions or Misc. > Themes in Fx 1.5 or Panels > Add-ons in Fx 2.x. Make sure you enabled the advanced options mode in AiOS. Check these setting by clicking on the settings buttons at the bottom of the dialog and tick the option Advanced Mode.

   
   You will see this options and the text field with a list of visible links

   Type in the text field the language acronyms of your choice as a comma-separated list. See the following list for available acronyms and links for the add-ons and the extensions and the themes sidebar.

   Available extension links:
   acronym	link		acronym	link
   cs-CZ	CZilla.cz		ja-JP	Premier's Page
   de-DE	erweiterungen.de		ko-KR	Mozilla Korea
   en-US1	Firefox Add-ons		nl-NL	Mozilla-nl.org
   en-US2	The Add-ons Mirror		pl-PL	MozillaPL.org
   es-ES	Proyecto NAVE		ru-RU	Mozilla.ru
   fr-FR	Geckozone		sk-SK	Mozilla.sk
   it-IT	eXtenZilla.org		zh-TW	Mozilla Taiwan

Themes & Cosmetics

1. I use the theme 'XYZ'. Why it looks strange?

   Because the theme has no support for AiOS. Please write to the theme developer and tell him your wishes. :-)

   Or try to find a fix in the forum...

2. Which themes have full support for AiOS?

   At present I only know three themes with full support. :-(

   • BlackJapan by Elric Erekose
   • Shift-Themes (7 themes based on different colors) by Cameron Nicks
   • DancingMouse by Martin Picek

3. How can I hide the version numbers in the extensions and themes panel (add-ons)?

   Please add the following code to your userChrome.css

   /* hide version numbers of extensions/themes (FF <= 1.5.x) 
   or add-ons (FF >= 2.x) */
   .extension-item-version,
   .addonVersion {
   	display: none !important;
   }

4. How can I hide the icons in the extensions, themes and downloads panel (add-ons)?

   Please add the following code to your userChrome.css

   /* hide icons of extensions/themes and downloads (FF <= 1.5.x) 
   or add-ons and downloads (FF >= 2.x) */
   .extension-icon,
   .addonIcon,
   .downloadTypeIcon {
   	display: none !important;
   }

5. How can I hide the labels from buttons in most sidebars?

   Please add the following code to your userChrome.css

   /* hide labels from buttons in most sidebars 
   (Downloads, Extensions, Themes, WebPanel, Error-Console, PageInfo) */
   #bookmarksPanel toolbarbutton > label,
   #bookmarksPanel button > label,
   #history-panel toolbarbutton > label,
   #history-panel button > label,
   #downloadManager toolbarbutton > label,
   #downloadManager button > label,
   #downloadManager #cleanUpButton label,
   #extensionsManager toolbarbutton > label,
   #extensionsManager #commandBarBottom button > * > label,
   #webpanels-window toolbarbutton > label,
   #JSConsoleWindow toolbarbutton > label,
   #inforeload-button > label {
   	display: none !important;
   }
    
   #downloadManager toolbarbutton > image,
   #downloadManager button > image,
   #downloadManager #cleanUpButton image,
   #extensionsManager toolbarbutton > image,
   #extensionsManager #commandBarBottom button image,
   #JSConsoleWindow toolbarbutton > image {
   	margin: 0px !important;
   	padding: 0px !important;
   }

6. How can I get back the default icons for the history, bookmarks and downloads buttons?

   Save following images to the chrome folder of your profile (right-click, choose Save Image As..., navigate to the chrome folder and click Save - don't modify the filename of the images).

   

   Finally add the following code to your userChrome.css

   /* use default icons for extensions, themes and downloads */
   #bookmarks-button, #history-button, #downloads-button {
   	-moz-image-region: rect(0px 24px 24px 0px) !important;
   	max-width: 30px !important;
   }
    
   toolbar[iconsize="small"] #bookmarks-button,
   toolbar[iconsize="small"] #history-button,
   toolbar[iconsize="small"] #downloads-button {
   	-moz-image-region: rect(0px 16px 16px 0px) !important;
   	max-width: 24px !important;
   }
    
   #bookmarks-button {
   	list-style-image: url(bookmarks.png) !important;
   }
    
   toolbar[iconsize="small"] #bookmarks-button {
   	list-style-image: url(bookmarks_small.png) !important;
   }
    
   #history-button {
   	list-style-image: url(history.png) !important;
   }
    
   toolbar[iconsize="small"] #history-button {
   	list-style-image: url(history_small.png) !important;
   }
    
   #downloads-button {
   	list-style-image: url(downloads.png) !important;
   }
    
   toolbar[iconsize="small"] #downloads-button {
   	list-style-image: url(downloads_small.png) !important;
   }
   /* END */

7. Why have some entries in the sidebar menu no icons?

   I assume you're talking about entries from different extensions (e.g. LiveHTTPHeaders). There are no icons for the entries, because the appropriate extension developer didn't add an icon for it. It's also possible that you can't add a button for this extension to any toolbar of the browser. I can't improve such things. Please write to the author of the extension and tell him your wishes. :-)