User:Penubag/optimum toolsets

Firefox

Remember that each addon can be configured to your liking (Tools>Addons>(select addon)>Options)
This list is in no particular order.

Firefox Addons

Addon name	Description	Good for	Download link
Split Browser	Your browser can split tabs onto different portions of the screen. It's like having multiple monitors and great for typing and researching at the same time.	Wikipedia; researching, multitasking	[1]
QuickNote	This addon allows you to open up the left-hand sidebar to jot down notes that can be recalled. Very convenient when researching and compiling a bunch of facts	Wikipedia; researching	[2] note:
XUL/Migemo	Upgrades the findbar to allow searching in regular expression and foreign words with the keyboard. For example: You want to find sól, you only have to type sol, or if you want to find たいおtype taio. This addon also highlights the words on the scroll bar. Also see Find In Numbers [3]	Wikipedia; browsing; searching	[4]
FasterFox	Makes Firefox preform faster by tweaking network and connection settings. I've noticed some page loads to be ~2x faster. You no longer need to be envious of Google Chrome users!	browsing	[5] note:
SiteDelta	This addon will notify you with a message (akin to the Downloads complete message) if any page on its list has been changed or updated since your last visit. This is very useful for monitoring pages like blogs, your Wikipedia watchlist, special pages (like user contribs, logs), and others. If you keep Firefox minimized, it will still notify you while you are typing a report, watching a video, or otherwise not using Firefox. There is a defferent version, Update Scanner, which has a nicer GUI but has slight issue when monitoring the watchlist since it notifies you when text is also removed, so when your watchlist removes entries, you will be falsely notified. Update Scanner: [6]	monitoring pages, Wikipedia	[7]
Research Word	This addon will allow you to quickly find out more about any word you highlight and rightclick. You can choose Wikipedia, dictionaries, images, and custom databases.	researching	[8]
Tab Mix plus	This allows you to configure tabs any which way you can ever think of. A useful function is that it backs up all your tabs so if you close one, it can be retrieved later. Other useful features include cloning tabs and load bars on tabs. If you have this, you can get rid of most all your other tab related addons.	browsing	[9]
Yahoo! Mail Notifier	This addon will notify you with whenever there's a new message in your inbox (akin to the Downloads complete message). This is handy because I no longer have to have Yahoo! as my homepage and constantly check my inbox. There's also one for Gmail but you'll have to search for it.	email	[10]
QuickPageZoom	Enlarges the screen with nice toolbar buttons. Firefox has a built in zoom but it only increases the text size. This will increase the size of images (and svg), tables, movies, etc all proportional to the text.	browsing	[11]

Addons that aren't as useful but nice to have nonetheless

Addon name	Description	Download link
Organize Status bar, Menu Editor	Downloading a lot of addons clutter your context menu, toolbars, and menus. With these 3 addons, you can remove and organize unnecessary buttons, links, and menus.	[12], [13]
Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper	This helps you make your own blocking filters	[14]
Blank Your Monitor	Makes your screen black which is easy on the eyes at night. Options are configured under Tools>BMY Options	[15]
ColorZilla	Allows you to capture the exact color output from the browser. Great for graphic artists who need the exact color to match.	[16]
Download statusbar	A much better and neater UI than the Firefox default. Your downloads in progress are displayed in a status bar rather than a window.	[17]
Firebug	This is such a useful addon for web developers, it's a must have. So many tools will be open to you once you have this. But, don't load this if you don't web develop since it slows flash down a little.	[18]
ErrorZilla Plus	This is another extremely useful addon that should become a Firefox default. When a page cannot load, this will modify the error page and allow you possibly load the page anyways in alternate ways	[19]
Stylish	You know how you can customize Wikipedia through your monobook.css? This lets you customize anything through "firefox.css". The browser, individual pages, etc. There are also wealthy amount of presets. You have to try this to know what it is! This is beautiful and this is useful.	[20]
Menu Icon Plus	Puts icons on most of the menus. Visually appealing. Can be customized.	[21]
	There are addons that let you download anything on a webpage from Youtube videos, streaming music, and anything coming from firefox. They all have their pros and cons so I'll let you research.

Wikipedia

monobook

Copy the code into Special:Mypage/monobook.css or Special:Mypage/monobook.js

monobook.js/css

Code name	Description	Code
histcomb	Trims history pages and truncates them. Color codes your entries. Install in .js	importScript('User:Alex Smotrov/histcomb.js');
Time	Puts date and time in UTC on the top right corner. Better than the gadget version in my opinion.	importScript('Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Time');
User contribs apps	Implements very useful tabs when viewing user contibs such as a link that counts edits, shows what hour the user typically edits (example), and, the most useful feature in all the codes for Wikipedia, show/hide top contrib, which shows what pages the user is the most recent editor to, useful on your own contribs	importScript('User:ais523/editcount.js');
Admin rights	Highlights the names of administrators. Useful for knowing who to respect ;) The highlight color can be changed at .css (example)	importScript('User:Ais523 non-admin/adminrights.js');
Friendly Tag	Adds a tab that let's you quickly tag the article with amboxes and such.	importScript('User:Ioeth/friendlytag.js');

Tools

Wikipedia tools

Category	Description	link
Page view rankers	Find out how often a page on Wikipedia's been viewed	[22], [23]
Categories	Catgraph: show which category links to other categories in a nice graph	[24]
RC	This recent changes list is sure to have vandals all over it. This shows only anons editing in mainspace edits at special:recent changes	[25]
history	This tool tells you who is the primary contributor of a Wikipedia page among other stuff	[26]
Expand template	This will open up the coding to all those complicated templates like {{CURRENTDAY}} and view their source	link

Online Apps

converters

Online converting tools

Description	Notes	Link
Image to ascii art	converts any image into ascii characters	http://asciiconvert.com/
Text to stylized ascii art	converts text into big ascii art, good for edit notices	http://www.network-science.de/ascii/
Image to vector graphics	This will convert any image (even photos) into a vector version automatically after you guide it through some steps. This website provides 2 free conversions per email address...time to make more email accounts	http://vectormagic.com/home
URL to shorter URL	If you have a huge URL to paste, it's an eye sore. This'll shorten the link	http://tinyurl.com/
Translators	Translate foreign words	http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&sl=fr&tl=en, http://babelfish.yahoo.com/
Text to graphical text	turn text into a pretty graphic	http://cooltext.com/
Media converter	Convert any sound format into another as well as extracting music from streaming videos etc. Good alternative to Audacity	http://mediaconverter.org/

tools

Online tools

Description	Notes	Link
See website in a different browser	Want to see how a page looks like in Safari, Internet Explorer, or Opera? This website will offer many different browsers to see from	http://browsershots.org/
Make graphs	Make line, pie, bar, or coordinate graphs, even in svg	http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/
History archive	Like the history tab on Wikipedia? You can see past versions of any website with this	http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Screen casting	Screen cast with a Firefox addon, Capture Fox. Captures the entire screen output but has low frame rate	https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8090
File hosting	Upload files onto this host. Possible to share with others	http://www.filefactory.com/
Image Optimizer	Decrease file size of images and increase page load speeds without losing quality	http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/imageoptimizer/index.php
Checks to see if a website is down	Sometimes you can't load a page because there's a problem with you, or sometimes a problem with the webserver. This will tell you.	http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/