Bling bar

[unixronin]

Anyone know how to turn off Firefox 3's "new improved" Wonder Blingo Address Bar But Wait There's More and make it work like it used to in Firefox 2?  I'm used to being able to recall a recent TinyURL from address bar history, edit it slightly, then load it.  As far as I can tell, in Firefox 3 you can't do it, because the "improved" bar is so damn helpful it helps you into things you didn't actually want to do.  You can't do the edit-before-loading trick because Firefox 3 always loads the URL immediately, not giving you a chance to edit it first.

Mozilla.org calls it the "Awesome Bar". I've started calling it the Bloated Pain In the Ass Bar.  I've also seen "AwfulBar" fairly widely used.

A partial solution is the oldbar extension, which at least restores the look of the old bar, but unfortunately it's just a cosmetic add-on that leaves the underlying broken new functionality broken.

Update:

wyrdling gave me a tip that helped me figure out how to do it in Firefox 3.  The key piece of information is that if you want to edit the URL before loading, you can't use the mouse to select it.  You need to use up and down arrow keys to select the URL you want to modify, then hit the left or right arrow to enter it into the URL bar without actually loading it.  At that point you can edit it freely.

Comments

grumble

[nephthys510.livejournal.com]

If you get an answer, please let me know.

Re: grumble

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

See update and wyrdling's tip. The key thing to know is that if you want to edit the URL before loading, you must select it using the arrow keys only, not the mouse.

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

you can still go in and edit them after clicking down to the one you want to edit (without hitting enter.) just use the cursor.

i assume that's what you mean? i know i found it weird to adjust to initially...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That sounds like what I'm trying to do, and with a little experiment, yes, I was a ble to figure out how to do it. Thanks for the pointer.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

y'know, I used to hate it, because I used the url bar as a command line -- the first few characters of the url I wanted to go to, enter, done.

But with AwesomeBar there was this indecision step -- the first few, damn, the options have been changed on me, where the hell is the url I want, oh....THIS SUCKS. JUST DO WHAT I TOLD YOU TO, and stop guessing you idiot piece of software.

But after living with it for a month or more it's grown on me. I can still use it as a command line -- using unique parts of the middle of a URL. And the inherent search-my-history feature has really become useful to me.

I guess what I'm saying is, give it a bit.

...that being said I'm not understanding the problem you're having with it. It's loading a suggested URL before you hit enter? Did you click on the url, perhaps? (I use arrow keys to navigate among suggested urls, so that might be the difference, and a work-around.)

You might also find this helpful:
http://lifehacker.com/396603/tweak-the-awesomebars-suggestion-algorithm

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll check that out. The key piece of data turns out to be that in Firefox 2, you could select a URL with the mouse, then edit it befre actually loading it; in Firefox 3, if you want to do that you HAVE to use the arrow keys for selection.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

You'd think they'd allow you to control-click or something to pop it into the url bar...but...no. Ah well.

[hrrunka]

FF3 seems to have picked up a number of somewhat daft quirks, if the number of other similar grumbles is any indication...