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How to make address and awesome bar not auto-expand?

  • 5 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by lapsangleaf

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I'm looking to customize firefox's appearance. I want two rows: one with the menu button, tabs, and awesome bar (in that order), and another with the forward/back buttons, address bar, home button, and bookmarks toolbar items (also in that order).

In both cases, the address bar and the awesome bar expand to fill all of the empty space (ei. my awesome bar starts spanning almost the entire row) and shrink as more items are added (ei. as I open more tabs). I would like to make it so they have a set size.

I'm looking to customize firefox's appearance. I want two rows: one with the menu button, tabs, and awesome bar (in that order), and another with the forward/back buttons, address bar, home button, and bookmarks toolbar items (also in that order). In both cases, the address bar and the awesome bar expand to fill all of the empty space (ei. my awesome bar starts spanning almost the entire row) and shrink as more items are added (ei. as I open more tabs). I would like to make it so they have a set size.

Chosen solution

Add code to the userChrome.css file below the default @namespace line.

The customization files userChrome.css (interface) and userContent.css (websites) are located in the chrome folder in the user profile folder.


@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* only needed once */

#urlbar-container { max-width:400px!important; }
#search-container { max-width:200px!important; }
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All Replies (5)

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Chosen Solution

Add code to the userChrome.css file below the default @namespace line.

The customization files userChrome.css (interface) and userContent.css (websites) are located in the chrome folder in the user profile folder.


@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* only needed once */

#urlbar-container { max-width:400px!important; }
#search-container { max-width:200px!important; }
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Thank you! It took me a while to get around to doing this, hence the late response, but it works like a charm!

Cheers, Steavio99

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Well, either this doesn't work for me (using ff 22 on OS X 10.8.4) or I'm getting something wrong. Could you, perhaps, simplify this workaround even more? Thanks.

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These directions are found within the articles cor-el linked to. Here they are simply:

Go to help->troubleshooting. Click the button 'show folder', next to 'profile folder'.

Create a new folder named 'chrome'.

Open up TextEdit (for non-mac OS: use notepad or your favorite text editor). Copy in the lines at the end of cor-el's message (from "@namespace" onward).

Save the file in the folder you just created (chrome) and name it 'userChrome.css'. I don't use mac, but there's probably some option of what format to save it in. Choose 'plain text' or 'all formats' or something like that.

Restart Firefox. Your panels should now be a fixed width. You can experiment with changing the values 400 and 200 to make the panels longer or shorter to your needs.

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That's exactly what I did. I created a chrome folder here: (home)/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/(....default)/chrome Within which I created a userChrome.css file that reads:

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* only needed once */

  1. urlbar-container { max-width:400px!important; }
  2. search-container { max-width:200px!important; }

It hasn't worked.