1Mar2008
Filed under: Apps, Internet, Web Development
Author: Edgar
Firefox 3 is now my browser of choice. There are a huge number of improvements from the old Fox, plus the slick new Design is just nifty. The downside to user FF Beta is the lack of extension support.
If you’re a Web Developer like me you will not be able to do much without certain extensions, one of those being the Web Developer Toolbar. Earlier today I found a post from another blog that teaches you how to install the toolbar in Firefox 3. Luckily for me I was also able to use SEOQuake Toolbar as well. Here are the steps to do just that in my own simplified version:
- Download the Web Developer Toolbar. Remember to right click – save link as.
- Once it’s on your Desktop, rename the file to a ZIP file. In other words, from web-developer.xpi
to web-developer.zip.
- Extract the files into a separate folder and look for “install.rdf.” Rick click on this file and open it with notepad. Then hit CTRL+F to bring up the search bar and look for this line ofcode: <em:maxVersion>2.0.0.*</em:maxVersion> Change the above code to this code: <em:maxVersion>4.0.0.*</em:maxVersion> Now save the file.
- We must now return the files to their original state. Highlight all of the files that were extracted. Right click on the files and choose to archive into a ZIP file. It should look like “web-developer.zip”. Once again rename it to “web-developer.xpi”.
- Now fire up Firefox Beta 3.0b2. In the address bar type in “about:config” This will bring up a warning page. Ignore it and proceed. Right click on the config page and choose to create a new Boolean key called:extensions.checkUpdateSecurity Set this new value to FALSE and close the page.
- Now drag the newly modified web-developer.xpi onto Firefox Beta and install it. Restart and it should work just fine!
Enjoy!
Dan
February 10th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
thanks for linking!
Edgar
February 11th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
NP
Jeff
February 17th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Edgar,
Followed your process with v3.0b3 and got the following error:
Malformed File
Firefox could not install this item because ‘install-02f..rdf” (provided by the item) is not well-formed or does not exist. Please contact the author about this problem.
Should it still have worked?
Any ideas?
Edgar
February 18th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Hi Jeff. The file you have to modify is called “install.rdf”. Looks like you were trying to install a diff kind of file. If for some reason it isn’t there download the extension again. Let me know how it works out!
ruba
February 18th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Thank You !!!
Jeff
February 20th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Edgar thanks for the followup. Still no go. With exception to the “install.rdf” name (which changes each attempt) I continue to get the same error. Is v3.0b3 the culprit?
Edgar
February 20th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Well I though that too but I went ahead and installed Beta 3 this morning. Then installed Web Developer and SEO Quake without any probs.
Let’s back up:
After you modified install.rdf, did you change the file type by any chance?
Sounds like you did you something to install.rdf. Try again and let me know
BTW what do you mean when you say “which changes each attempt”?
JWG
February 20th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
When I try to right click and save link as, it only saves a .htm
and if i try to just do an automatic install i get an error saying, Could not install because it does not support secure updates…
Not sure what to do.
Edgar
February 20th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
JWG:
First click on the link above normally. You should now see the download page. This is where you right click and save as. Do not do an automatic install. Follow the instructions you should not have any problems.
Let me know how it goes.
Jeff
February 20th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
No, I didn’t make any changes to the file type.
(”which changes each attempt”) Meaning: the file name in the error message I get changes on each install attempt (i.e. “install-809..rdf”, “install-i7g..rdf” etc.)
Could it be a MacOS vs XP or Vista thing?
JWG
February 21st, 2008 at 1:29 am
Ahh, I have now followed the instructions..LOL, and once it comes time to “drag the newly modified web-developer.xpi onto Firefox Beta and install it. “, I don’t know how.
If i try to drop it on the Firefox icon in my Applications folder, it won’t let me. It just puts it in the applications folder itself.
If I try to drop it directly on to a Firefox window, it askes me how I want to open the file or if I want to save it to my desktop.
I could just be really stupid, but any help is great at this point. I fell dumb.
Clayton
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:13 am
@JWG: I was having the same problem. In OS X 10.5 I can’t “drag web-developer.xpi onto FireFox”.
If you right-click on a folder in Leopard and select “Compress” it will create a .zip archive. But when you change the file extension to .xpi it really just renames it to web-developer.xpi.zip
I had to open terminal and use the unix “mv” command.
clayton$ mv web-developer.xpi.zip web-developer.xpi
Next I opened FireFox and selected “Open File…” from FireFox’s File menu. I selected the web-developer.xpi file and it opened and appeared as though it would install.
BUT
I get the same error as Jeff, something about a malformed install.rdf. I edited the install.rdf file in vi so as to not change it at all.
Can’t seem to get past that last step.
Dustin Whittle
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:56 am
For Firefox 3b3 on Mac from terminal:
download web-developer.xpi
Follow instructions above and then:
mkdir web-developer
cd web-developer
unzip ../web-developer.xpi
zip -r -9 web-developer.xpi *
The problem is mac creates the archive with a directory, instead of having the files at the root.
Edgar
February 26th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I’m a Windows guy so… Everybody thank Dustin!
Sump
February 27th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
ROXOR!!! TY!
Nick Smith
February 27th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
many thanks!
Web developer
March 20th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Many developers use Firefox as their default web browser, and those who use Firefox know that there are a number of add-ons for the browser, including the excellent Web developer tool bar. Some of us may not be aware that there is also a Web developer tool bar for Microsoft Internet Explorer.
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