2 Alternative Ways To Click Through Links In Firefox

10 Feb 2010

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click links in FireFox Productivity is not (only) about improving your working habits and skills. It is also about tiny things that help you do your work faster.

For example, it took me quite some time to learn to use Firefox and Photoshop keyboard shortcuts but once I did, the working process has become smoother. I think I am twice as fast now.

This post aims at helping you to faster browse the web using links in Firefox – it shows you two tools that will make clicking through various links quicker and more fun.

Mouseless Browsing

Mouseless Browsing (MLB) (previously reviewed by Mark) is a Firefox addon that “enables you to browse the internet with the keyboard.” It adds small boxes with unique ids next to every link and/or form element on the page. You just have to type in the ID and press enter (there is also an automatic mode available) to trigger the corresponding action i.e. following a link, pressing a button or selecting a text field.

Open links ff

Immediately after installing it, you will be offered to configure it: By default Mouseless Browsing uses [Ctrl+<number>] for opening links in the same tab and [Alt+<number>] for opening links in a new tab. This disables the default behavior of Firefox to change tabs with these key combinations. Mouseless Browsing substitutes this by providing special ids beginning with ‘0′ for each tab. If you want to keep the default behavior of changing tabs with Ctrl/Alt+<number> you can change the modifier.

Mouseless browsing

More Features To Play With:

Try to use character IDs; character set configurable (You can choose whether the ids should be numeric or generated out of a self defined character set).
Configure for which page elements you would like to see the ids (see Visibility of ids ). There are four types: text-links, pure image-links, form elements and frames.
Configure modifiers to open links in new tab / new window / Cooliris Previews

By default (and if you don’t change the settings), there are also the following non-visible ids which acts like normal ids: “0″ focuses the address field of Firefox, “00″ focuses the web search field in the right upper corner and “01″, “02″, “03″ … activates the corresponding tab.

Here’s also a video tutorial for you to better get an idea:

Snap Links

Snap Links (the most recent edition can be downloaded here. The extension isn’t on addons.mozilla.org currently) is an awesome way to open several links in Firefox with only one click of a mouse: just use the right mouse button to select the area and all the selected links within the area will open in new tabs (there is a visual aid to show which links are currently selected).

The main goal of the extension is to allow easy and fast opening of multiple results presented by search engines (but it should work on any site).

Snap links

The available shortcuts include:

The user may move the selection area by holding the Alt key while moving the mouse.
Pressing the Shift key will select all links that intersect the selection area instead of just the main links.
The Escape key will cancel the selection area.

The tool can be customized in numerous ways. To access options, go: Tools -> Addons, find “Snap links” in the list and click “Options“. There you can:

Set the active mouse button to select the area;
Select the default action on the options window. You can thus customize the actions performed after the area is selected:
- Open links in new tabs;
- Open links in new windows;
- Open links in new window;
- Copy links to clip board;
- Bookmark links;
- Download links.
Customize the area border color:

Snap links options