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How to make back & forward buttons like before (I still dislike FF 29's layout)?

  • 18 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 251 views
  • Last reply by Moses

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The layout change implemented in FF 29 has made using FF harder and continually frustrating. Contrary to the spin ("limiting the number of controls in the primary interface makes those that are there much quicker to find"), moving buttons from where I automatically look for them and hiding them elsewhere does not make them much quicker to find. I have been able to downgrade to FF 28 and turn off upgrades on my machine at home, but at work, the IT department has implemented some procedure that automatically upgraded me to FF 29 and prevents me from downgrading. I don't know if I should start using a different browser.

I have added the classic theme restorer (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/) and the status-4-evar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/versions/) add ons, but there are still two issues that I cannot fix:

1. I cannot get the back & forward buttons to show up as they used to on the far left. The back button seems to be 'stuck' to the address field. On the classic theme restorer page, it says: "Back-forward, reload and stop buttons. Browsers default buttons got merged with urlbar and cannot be moved to different toolbar positions or to different toolbars. CTB recreates these buttons." So I'm guessing that it is supposed to be possible to do this, but I can't see how.

2. There is a weird-looking bar of some sort at the bottom, which I assume is supposed to be the status bar. However, there is a horizontal line though the middle of it for no reason, and if I mouse over a hyperlink the url does not show up. In fact, nothing ever seems to show up in the bar, it just takes up screen space, and there doesn't seem to be any way to find out the url for a link without clicking on it, seeing where I land and then going back.

Does anyone know how to resolve these issues?

The layout change implemented in FF 29 has made using FF harder and continually frustrating. Contrary to the spin ("limiting the number of controls in the primary interface makes those that are there much quicker to find"), moving buttons from where I automatically look for them and hiding them elsewhere does not make them much quicker to find. I have been able to downgrade to FF 28 and turn off upgrades on my machine at home, but at work, the IT department has implemented some procedure that automatically upgraded me to FF 29 and prevents me from downgrading. I don't know if I should start using a different browser. I have added the classic theme restorer (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/) and the status-4-evar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/versions/) add ons, but there are still two issues that I cannot fix: 1. I cannot get the back & forward buttons to show up as they used to on the far left. The back button seems to be 'stuck' to the address field. On the classic theme restorer page, it says: "Back-forward, reload and stop buttons. Browsers default buttons got merged with urlbar and cannot be moved to different toolbar positions or to different toolbars. CTB recreates these buttons." So I'm guessing that it is supposed to be possible to do this, but I can't see how. 2. There is a weird-looking bar of some sort at the bottom, which I assume is supposed to be the status bar. However, there is a horizontal line though the middle of it for no reason, and if I mouse over a hyperlink the url does not show up. In fact, nothing ever seems to show up in the bar, it just takes up screen space, and there doesn't seem to be any way to find out the url for a link without clicking on it, seeing where I land and then going back. Does anyone know how to resolve these issues?

Chosen solution

You would think that it took so much work but it didn't. CTR and other extensions are well known here so I keep them disabled just in case I need it for a case like this :)

    The new back / forward buttons don't work like they used to, though. E.g., if I click on the back button, instead of going to the previous webpage, it drops down a menu of prior pages.

Hmm that's odd. I'm using Classic Toolbar Buttons (make sure you aren't using NoUn) and the only time I see the list is when I click and hold the back button. Screenshot

EDIT: Using Status-4-Evar works awesome for me. Make sure that it's enabled in View > Toolbars > Status Bar

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You can try this extension

You can also try one of the beta builds here. I can't test it out as I'm running Linux

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Thanks for your help. I added the NoUn buttons addon, but there is still only one back button which is stuck to the address field. Is there a trick to this?

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In addition, do you know how to get the status bar to work? The mouse pointer doesn't show up in the screenshot, but it was over the link, and you can see that there is no url in the status bar. You can also see that the status bar is wider (taller) than normal and has a horizontal line through it.

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The Status Bar was removed in Firefox 29 but is easily obtainable through an extension

Also see What happened to the Status Bar

As for the NoUn add-on it seems like that extension isn't fit for 29 as the preferences are broken (They don't do anything just say Preferences are coming soon)

Have you tried the other addon (Classic Toolbar Buttons)? The beta builds can be found in the link below and it looks like they've been modified for 29. I've installed the Linux version and it looks like you can go to the add-on prefences and set the "Navigation Toolbar Buttons" to "Enabled Small Button for Fx29+ and that'll bring back the Back/Forward buttons separately. They have a kind of Firefox 3.6 look to it.

The latest beta should work. But if you have any trouble with this add-on you should post at the support site as this forum is only meant for Mozilla products tech support

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Hey, that does work! Is there any way to get rid of the round back button that is attached to the address field?

Regarding the status bar, I have status-4-evar added already. That's why I have the weird bar at the bottom. It just looks funny and doesn't do anything. I'd love for it to look like it used to, but I assume I'm just going to have to put up with stuff with FF 29. Is there any way to get the functionality back? I would like to be able to see what the url is behind hyperlinks before I click them. I can right-click -> inspect node -> read the underlying HTML tag -> close the inspect pane, but that's really a huge hassle. It would be nice if it were possible to mouseover a link and have the url show up in the status bar like it used to in FF 28.

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Hey, that does work! Is there any way to get rid of the round back button that is attached to the address field?

I don't know that unfortunately. The Back button is just pinned there and can't be removed. I think it can be hidden using CSS in the userChrome.css file but I don't know the format as my CSS is basic.

When I hover over links, it displays them correctly, see screenshot below. Do you have any extensions added that could conflict with the Status4Evar extension. I've heard of the Add-on Bar restored extension doing that.

Can you send me your troubleshooting information from the Firefox installation that's having issues? This will list all of your extensions and other things about your install.

  • Navigate to about:support via Address Bar
  • Click the button that says Copy text to clipboard
  • Now, go back to your forum post and click inside the reply box. Press Ctrl+V to paste all the information you copied into the forum post.

Modified by Moses

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Application Basics


Name: Firefox Version: 29.0.1 User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:29.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/29.0

Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days


All Crash Reports

Extensions


Name: Adobe Acrobat - Create PDF Version: 1.2 Enabled: true ID: web2pdfextension@web2pdf.adobedotcom

Name: Classic Theme Restorer Version: 1.1.8 Enabled: true ID: ClassicThemeRestorer@ArisT2Noia4dev

Name: Classic Toolbar Buttons Version: 1.4.1beta2 Enabled: true ID: CSTBB@NArisT2_Noia4dev

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JavaScript


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Accessibility


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Ah, I've done it! I needed to set my Firefox up the way yours is. I think I've got it though.

Go to the CTR preferences (Ctrl + Shift + A, Extensions, Classic Theme Restorer, Preferences) Once there, check the box that says "Movable back-forward button". Once you're done, go into the Customize page (about:customizing) then drag out the original 29 Back button back into the Customize page. Then simply move your Classic Toolbar Buttons (back/forward) where you want it.

Should look like this. (screenshot attached)


EDIT: I noticed something whilst exploring CTR. The additional toolbar seems to be coming from CTR itself. Go to View (press F10 or ALT to show the menu bar) -> Toolbars -> uncheck Additional Toolbar. How's that?

Let me know if that's what you wanted.

Modified by Moses

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That must have been a lot of work ;-). I appreciate your efforts. It does make the weird back button attached to the address field go away. The new back / forward buttons don't work like they used to, though. E.g., if I click on the back button, instead of going to the previous webpage, it drops down a menu of prior pages. Then I need to click on the previous page additionally. I would like to be able to click on the back button and go back to the previous page.

Any thoughts on how to get the status bar to work and show urls? (I don't want to take your whole day, though.) "Additional toolbar" wasn't checked. If I do check it, it just adds extra space below the address field & above the tabs. Actually, if I uncheck the "addon bar", the status bar looks shorter / normal. But it still doesn't display urls.

Modified by el.jefe.32

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Chosen Solution

You would think that it took so much work but it didn't. CTR and other extensions are well known here so I keep them disabled just in case I need it for a case like this :)

    The new back / forward buttons don't work like they used to, though. E.g., if I click on the back button, instead of going to the previous webpage, it drops down a menu of prior pages.

Hmm that's odd. I'm using Classic Toolbar Buttons (make sure you aren't using NoUn) and the only time I see the list is when I click and hold the back button. Screenshot

EDIT: Using Status-4-Evar works awesome for me. Make sure that it's enabled in View > Toolbars > Status Bar

Modified by Moses

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We're almost there! Now the buttons look right, are in the right place, and even work. I had to disable both NoUn and Classic Toolbar Buttons, and just use the CTR.

The status-4-evar looks normal since I unchecked "addon bar" in view. But the urls don't show up on mouseover.


Hmmm. If I disable status-4-evar, the status bar disappears, but the urls show up in the lower left corner.

Modified by el.jefe.32

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   The status-4-evar looks normal since I unchecked "addon bar" in view. But the urls don't show up on mouseover.

Check your S4E settings. (Ctrl + Shift + A > Extensions > Status-4-Evar -> Preferences -> General tab -> Make sure Show status in is set to Toolbar as having it set to None will...well not show it. Make sure it's not anywhere else (options are None, Toolbar, Location Bar. Popup)

Modified by Moses

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Actually the key setting seems to be "show links in". It is set to "toolbar", but doesn't seem to be working. If I set it to "popup", the status bar is there, but the urls pop up above it. If I set it to "location bar" the urls show up in the address field at the far right. "toolbar" and "none" have the same effect (none). I notice now that when I click on something there is no status displayed either, but if I set "show status in" -> "location bar", the green status bar scrolls across while the page loads. So maybe there is something wrong with the toolbar.

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   Actually the key setting seems to be "show links in". It is set to "toolbar", but doesn't seem to be working. 

Yes, show links in is the correct one. Got confused for a bit. This is what works for me (based on what you want)

Status section: General Tab "Set links in" is set to Toolbar "Delay before showing links" is set to 70ms "Delay before hiding links" is set to 150 "Enable protocol hiding" is checked

Status section: Location Bar tab Enable domain highlighting is checked.

Progress section, Location Bar tab Unchecked "Show progress in Location Bar"

Progress section, Toolbar tab Everything is unchecked (Always show the toolbar item, Use a custom style)

Modified by Moses

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That's pretty much what I had (except Progress section, Location Bar tab Unchecked "Show progress in Location Bar", which was checked). Unchecking that as well does not make urls show up. If I switch to show links in -> popup, then they show up (by poping up above the status bar). Dunno... This may be good enough though, if you want to call it quits.

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To be honest, we've spent about 24 hours or so working on this. My initial post was yesterday at 4:39PM. It's now 5:30PM for me. Seeing as I'll probably implode from trying to figure this out any longer (this question is entirely off-topic FYI), I'm going to call it quits. That's not usually my attitude on support questions but I can't figure out anything honestly. I'll try to mess around with the settings later on but for right now, I'm done. If I find any relative info, I'll be sure to post it here so you're not left in the dark on this issue.

One thing I noticed is that you are using the beta version (Version: 2014.06.01.03b) of Status-4-Evar. Any reason in particular? The newest version (2014.05.03.06) works just fine for me. Try to uninstall the beta version of S4E and reinstall using the stable release. Hopefully this should correct your issue


Once you get the original version, try to set it back to these settings. It should work, if not, my only advice is to contact the developer as add-ons are supported for troubleshooting here.

Status section: General Tab "Set links in" is set to Toolbar "Delay before showing links" is set to 70ms "Delay before hiding links" is set to 150 "Enable protocol hiding" is checked

Status section: Location Bar tab Enable domain highlighting is checked.

Progress section, Location Bar tab Unchecked "Show progress in Location Bar"

Progress section, Toolbar tab Everything is unchecked (Always show the toolbar item, Use a custom style)

Modified by Moses

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Thanks for all your help. If you're feeling bad about it, I give you permission to throw your hands up and walk away. I'm not really "left in the dark" at this point. The issues have basically been resolved. Upgrading status-4-evar was a good idea, but it didn't do the trick unfortunately. On the other hand, I have the functionality back with just a minor cosmetic difference. The buttons are just how I want them. I marked your answer above pertaining to that as the solution to this thread. I'm not looking for another browser anymore, and this is good enough that I'll probably upgrade FF on my machine at home.

I also apologize for being off-topic. I didn't realize that it was. It seems intuitive to me that this would be on-topic, but what do I know?

Have a great weekend.

Modified by el.jefe.32

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  I also apologize for being off-topic. I didn't realize that it was. It seems intuitive to me that this would be on-topic, but what do I know? 

It's no problem. You can always check out the Mozilla Support rules and guidelines for future reference. Typically anything that doesn't regarding Firefox (add-ons and extension are 3rd party that's why they aren't on-topic) should be posted on the link that the support site is given on the add-ons page. The best thing to do would be to contact the developer on their add-ons page. They don't have a support site but rather a thread over at mozillaZine so it would be best to jump in there

  Have a great weekend.

Thank you. I hope to enjoy it :)

Modified by Moses