middlemouse contentLoadURL behaviour changed since ff 3.6... why, how to fix it?
clicking the middle mouse in the content area loads the URL stored in the X11 clipboard (if there is one). In FF 3.6 the URL did not need to be complete, e.g., instead of http://mozilla.com it was enough to have mozilla.com in the clipboard. The page would load anyway.
In Firefox 4.0(.1) this does not work anymore, i.e. it is necessary to have the http:// bit in front of the URL, otherwise the middle click has no effect.
If I paste an incomplete link in the url field and press return, the link is automatically completed, so the mechanism for completion is still available somewhere.
How to activate this autocompletion for incomplete links from the clipboard?
This is about the Unix/Linux version, 4.0, 4.0.1, 64bit. The problem is independent of any add-ons: the described behavior shows in a pristine profile in safe mode, with add-ons switched off.
Modified by sciryl
Chosen solution
Why they would go through extra work to remove valuable functionality is beyond me, but I tracked down a fix for anybody who's interested. First, if you're running Ubuntu, disable "Ubuntu Firefox Modifications." If you don't it'll reset Firefox's middlemouse.contentLoadURL to false every time you restart (at least it did for me). Then, follow the how-to here:
http://shallowsky.com/blog/tech/web/
It's a little bit touch and go but not too bad, especially if you have an editor that can navigate .zip files. You have to edit a javaScript file inside a .jar (which is just a .zip by a different name). Anyway I hope this helps. One note, the how-to refers to /usr/lib/firefox-4.0/omni.jar, but you should replace 4.0 with whatever version you happen to have (ie. /usr/lib/firefox-4.0.1/). Also, they recommend deleting XUL.mfasl. You'll find that in your home directory under .mozilla/firefox/[profile hash or whatever that is].default/
Read this answer in context 👍 2All Replies (8)
You can modify the pref keyword.URL on the about:config page to use Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" or Google's "Browse By Name".
- Google "I'm Feeling Lucky": http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=
- Google "Browse by Name": http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=
Hiho cor-el, thanks for the answer, although it is to a different question :-)
Works fine here on Linux with Firefox 3.6.x and Firefox 4.0.1 and Firefox 5.0a2 with mozilla.com on the clipboard.
splendid. What do you recommend?
Chosen Solution
Why they would go through extra work to remove valuable functionality is beyond me, but I tracked down a fix for anybody who's interested. First, if you're running Ubuntu, disable "Ubuntu Firefox Modifications." If you don't it'll reset Firefox's middlemouse.contentLoadURL to false every time you restart (at least it did for me). Then, follow the how-to here:
http://shallowsky.com/blog/tech/web/
It's a little bit touch and go but not too bad, especially if you have an editor that can navigate .zip files. You have to edit a javaScript file inside a .jar (which is just a .zip by a different name). Anyway I hope this helps. One note, the how-to refers to /usr/lib/firefox-4.0/omni.jar, but you should replace 4.0 with whatever version you happen to have (ie. /usr/lib/firefox-4.0.1/). Also, they recommend deleting XUL.mfasl. You'll find that in your home directory under .mozilla/firefox/[profile hash or whatever that is].default/
troyvit, you are a genius! Your fix works! I actually was also looking into the omni.jar already, but my javascript capabilities are bad, and I ran into the same problem that ff would not load the new jar, so eventually I gave up. But now everything works. And yes, totally, I really wonder myself why a new major version of ff always comes with a degradation of basic functionality.
Thanks a lot for this!
http://shallowsky.com/blog/tech/web/
Unfortunately this tip didn't help me =(
I've patched omni.jar, removed in turn extensions.sqlite and XUL.mfasl, but FF5.0 still doesn't want to load urls without protocol prefix =(
Anyone found another solution?
Modified by George L. Yermulnik
yermulnik, I don't know about ff 5, but I just added a slightly modified patch to the ff6 omni.jar, and it worked again (after removing the XUL.mfasl from the profile directory, that is). I think my modification of the patch is not really relevant, so perhaps just try again with the old one. It might be necessary though to apply the changes in the patch manually in an editor, using patch might not work.