What Is in This Book?

I have arranged this book into parts and chapters. Both parts and chapters run from basic techniques to advanced topics, such as creating extensions and building Firefox or Thunderbird.

Part I, "Making Firefox Yours," is your introduction to Firefox. This part covers user-oriented topics, ranging from basic techniques, to advanced changes in Firefox's look and feel.

Chapter 1, "Hitting the Ground Running with Firefox," is an introduction to Firefox, mostly for those of us who have never used Mozilla, Firefox, or Thunderbird. This chapter takes you through downloading and installing Firefox, migrating Internet Explorer settings, and basic Firefox configuration.

Chapter 2, "The Power of Tabs and Bookmarks," tells all about tabbed browsing and bookmarks. It covers how to open tabs; close tabs; and have multiple home pages, one in each tab.

Chapter 3, "Finding Information with Firefox," details Firefox's extensive and powerful search capabilities. The Firefox Location bar and the built-in Firefox search bar are described, showing how to search for sites by name or by text contained on the site. This chapter also discusses how to store a search for later reuse and how to use bookmarks.

Chapter 4, "Managing Profiles," gives you the story on setting up and modifying a user profile. Each user can have her own profile, allowing users to have different extensions, themes, and other features (such as bookmarks).

Chapter 5, "Taking Control of Your Browser," covers the important things websites can do that affect users without their control. Firefox takes control and contains built-in tools to block pop-up ads. In addition, several important extensions are available that enhance this capability.

Part II, "Extending and Modifying Firefox," brings on more advanced Firefox techniques. It covers extensions, themes, customization, and plug-ins, as well as a number of other useful topics.

Chapter 6, "Power Firefox Tricks and Techniques," shows you how to customize Firefox to suit your own desires. You can control how Firefox looks using skins, which are called themes in Firefox. This chapter also covers some performance enhancements.

Chapter 7, "Themes and Plug-ins," is dedicated to themes, which control how Firefox looks to the user, and installing some of the more popular plug-ins, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader, QuickTime, and Real Player.

Chapter 8, "Making Extensions Work for You," is an in-depth discussion of the user side of extensions. It talks about how to install an extension, some popular extensions, privacy and security issues, and search-related extensions.

Chapter 9, "Changing Preferences and Settings," shows how you can use the various built-in locations, such as about:config, about:plugins, and about:cache. These built-in locations enable you to see how Firefox is currently set up, which plug-ins are in use, what the cache status is, who helped build Firefox, and other useful information.

Part III, "Using Thunderbird," switches the focus from Firefox to Thunderbird. It starts at a basic introductory level and moves to more advanced user topics.

Chapter 10, "Hitting the Ground Running with Thunderbird," covers the basics of Thunderbird. It explains how to download, install, and configure Thunderbird for typical users. It also covers topics such as composing emails and using the spelling checker.

Chapter 11, "Organizing Email with Thunderbird," shows you how to organize, sort, filter, and otherwise process messages. You can label messages and group messages based on user-specified criteria. Also in this chapter is an introduction to the Thunderbird address book features.

Chapter 12, "Fighting Spam," discusses Thunderbird's Bayesian spam filter. Thunderbird's spam fighting technology is very advanced and is one of the best available.

Chapter 13, "Customizing Thunderbird for Power Users," covers topics such as installing themes you can modify Thunderbird's look and feel just as you can modify Firefox's look and feel. This chapter also covers extensions and setting preferences in Thunderbird using the about:config extension.

Part IV, "Web Development and Firefox Extensions," covers both web development and creating Firefox extensions.

Chapter 14, "Web Development with Firefox," explains topics such as Cascading Style Sheets (which can affect the way content looks in Firefox), the JavaScript Console, and DOM (using the Document Inspector).

Chapter 15, "Creating Your Own Theme," walks you through the process of creating a simple theme for Firefox. Themes are one way you can express your personality with Firefox. Themes for Thunderbird are very similar to Firefox themes.

Chapter 16, "Writing an Extension," covers creating an extension that can be used with Firefox. Extensions are somewhat more complex than themes, but once the basics are mastered, they can be fun to write.

Part V, "The Way of Mozilla for Programmers," is a look into the inner workings of the Mozilla Organization; the tools available for supporting developers; how you build the products; and the future of Mozilla, Thunderbird, and Firefox. You can find Chapters 17 19 and the Glossary on our website at www.quepublishing.com/title/0789734583.

Chapter 17, "Mozilla's Tools for Developers," describes online tools such as Bugzilla (a bug management and tracking tool), Tinderbox (a tool giving the up-to-date status of the state of the Mozilla products), and LXR (a source code tool to search and find cross-references in the source). It also talks about Open Source and the various types of public licenses.

Chapter 18, "Browsing the Code," takes you through the process of setting up a development environment for the Mozilla products. You'll find in-depth coverage of what is needed to configure your development computer, how to get the most recent source code, and the etiquette and rules for being a contributor to the Mozilla effort.

Chapter 19, "The Future of Firefox and Thunderbird," is the final chapter. Here you will find a history of Mozilla, along with some comparisons between Firefox and Internet Explorer and a comparison between Thunderbird and the various versions of Outlook.