Access This!

Page Zoom Buttons is an add-on for Firefox that allows you to control the full page zoom feature that is in Firefox 3. Toolbar buttons are provided to zoom in, zoom out, and reset a web page back to its default view instantly. You can choose to use a single button for all 3 zoom functions which saves toolbar space, or you can use individual buttons.
You can also use Page Zoom Buttons with Firefox 3 zoom support to zoom in and out of photos, graphics, and various documents that you may have on your computer locally and offline.

Page Zoom Buttons 1.1 for Firefox has just been released and it includes some great improvements. To increase usability and provide more options, 3 new buttons have been added.

Zoom button

The Zoom button allows you to zoom in, zoom out, and reset the zoom from a single toolbar button by either clicking or scrolling on the Zoom button.

Click Zoom button

The Click Zoom button allows you to zoom in, zoom out, and reset zoom from a single toolbar button by clicking on the Click Zoom button.

Scroll Zoom button

The Scroll Zoom button allows you to zoom in, zoom out, and reset zoom from a single toolbar button by scrolling the mouse wheel over the Scroll Zoom button.

Individual buttons

3 individual page zoom buttons are still provided to zoom in, zoom out, and reset zoom.

Other Updates-
Now compatible with Firefox 3 Beta 5 - 3.0pre.
(still compatible with 2.0x but only the text is zoomed)
New Options, About, and Credits windows.
New landing page for post installation

Install Options-
Install from AccessFirefox.org
Due to changes in the way that Firefox 3 handles add-ons, automatic updates for add-ons are not available if installed from sites other than AMO unless the developer(s) wants to shell out $. AccessFirefox.org is a non-profit public benefit site so chances are slim to none that we’ll be putting out money to provide a free add-on.

Install from the Firefox Add-ons site (recommended)
Choosing this option ensures that you will receive updates to Page Zoom Buttons as they are released (login is required). Please take the time to rate and/or review Page Zoom Buttons so that it can be moved to the public add-ons sections for more people to benefit from.

Download Page Zoom Buttons
Download the Page Zoom Buttons xpi file from Access Firefox to install it manually. Automatic updates are not available with this method.

Page Zoom Buttons is a collaborative effort from volunteers of the Access Firefox Project.
Special thanks to developers Michael Buckley and Lou Cypher for their awesome work on Page Zoom Buttons.

It seems that more and more people are using Firefox 3 betas and nightly builds. Firefox 3 truly is an amazing program that is surely the best Firefox yet and I guess that a lot us just can’t wait to dig and use it. My favorite feature so far has to be full page zoom.
Firefox 3 has full page zoom capabilities that will zoom both the text and images on a web page or local files offline such as images, graphics, and documents.
There are several ways to zoom pages in Firefox 3.
Keyboard Shortcut -
Ctrl and “+” or “-” (Ctrl and “0″ to reset) (Cmd on Mac)
Mouse Wheel -
Ctrl and scroll withn the mouse wheel (Ctrl and “0″ to reset) (Cmd on Mac)
Toolbar Buttons (add-on) -
Zoom In, Zoom Out, Reset

You have the option to zoom both text and images, or just text.
To access the page zoom options go to View > Zoom and make your selection.
Your choices will carry over from page to page and tab to tab.

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Page Zoom Screen Shots

Web page default view

Web page zoomed in

Web page default view

Web page zoomed in

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Page Zoom Buttons

Exclusively from AccessFirefox.org, Page Zoom Buttons is an add-on for Firefox that gives you control over the full page zoom feature in Firefox 3. Works in Firefox 3 beta 4 - Firefox 3.0b5pre. Buttons will work in Firefox 2 to enlarge/decrease text size only.
Update
New version available
Get Page Zoom Buttons

I Like Eye Candy

From the beginning, I always wanted to be sure that Access Firefox was easy to navigate and that the main focus was put on the content that I was presenting and wanted people to have interest in so I would for the most part suppress the design and graphics and make it compliment the content not steal away focus. That seemed to work pretty well but I felt that the site was too dry looking and lacked character and energy. From what I’ve seen over the past 9+ years on the Internet, accessibility has always been presented without much flare. Why is that? I have a visual impairment and I love eye candy so I’ve created new full color graphics including cool new icons for the home page and have begun a minor revamp to the entire site.

I really enjoy the CSS layout that Michael Buckley wrote for Access Firefox so that is staying intact but some elements have been changed such as the hover and active background colors stand out more and appear to be more animated now. Also a lot of content has been rearranged, added, removed, cleaned up.
They’ll always be some sort of tweaking going on to the site whether it is design related, content updates needed, washing the windows, taking out the trash etc. Feel free to pitch in.
Check out the latest updates to AccessFirefox.org’s home page.

Firefox 3 Accessibility Features Page

Frank Hecker and Marco Zehe put together a great Firefox 3 accessibility features brochure for the upcoming CSUN conference. I contacted Mr. Hecker with a request to be able to use the content in the brochure and he has kindly released his and Marco’s work under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.
That content is now available on Access Firefox as the Firefox 3 Accessibility Features page and it is also available for download in PDF or ODT formats. It is a listing of some of the new accessibility features and options that have already been implemented into Firefox 3 beta 4. The page will continue to be updated as needed and it will eventually be merged with the current Firefox accessibility features page.
View the Firefox 3 Accessibility Features Page

Thanks for reading
Ken

Michael Buckley Access Firefox’s code guru and I have just completed revamping the Site Settings page on Access Firefox. We’ve added several cool new features to it that I believe visitors will appreciate. The Site Settings page is where visitors to AccessFirefox.org go to customize the site to meet thier needs. The choices that they make on that page persist throughout the entire site and remain persistant should they return.

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Kill Images
Some people have no need for web page graphics so we give them the option to turn off all page graphics on all pages. Images can quickly and easily be turned back on by using the links provided in the site’s navigation menu. Despite the fact that we keep the web pages light on Access Firefox, this feature can also be useful for those with low bandwidth and/or poor Internet connections.

Access Firefox default state

Access Firefox with images turned off

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Site Settings Console
With the site settings console, visitors can customize Access Firefox by making a selection from several of the options in the drop down menus. Options included;

• Images on/off
• Text zoom settings (80%-200%)
• Text color (7 options)
• Link color (7 options)
• Background color (8 options)
• Text font (5 options)

Before customization with the site settings console

After customization with the site settings console

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Change Style Sheet
Finally, we’re providing alternative high and low contrast style sheets that visitors can apply to the site. They can also access the alternative style sheets from the View > Page Style menu in Firefox. It occured to me after the fact that I should have named them anything but style sheet 2, style sheet 3, etc. I’ll have to change that to be more descriptive. For now the style sheets carry the same layout as the default style sheet. In the future, we will offer totally different site style sheets perhaps those created by members from the Mozilla communities.

Access Firefox default style sheet

Alternative style sheet

Another alternative style sheet

No style sheet

Try the Site Settings Page

We’ve just finished adding some new pages to AccessFirefox.org that we hope will encourage people to help us to promote awareness of Firefox accessibility and Access Firefox.

The first section is a Bookmark Us page that allows visitors several options for bookmarking Access Firefox. Visitors can add the site to StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Google bookmarks, Facebook, and others.

Next we made a Tell a Friend page where visitors can e-mail a link to Access Firefox to a friend.

We also created a Link to Us section where we’ve provided simple copy and paste code for anyone to grab that will display one of two graphics, or a simple text link.

Finally we’re offering a link to the Access This! news feed.

Feel free to help out by using any of the new features.

Bookmark Us
Tell a Friend
Link to Us
News Feed

Thanks to Otto de Voogd and Michael Buckley for their help with the JS.

I’m very pleased to have discovered a mention of Access Firefox on download.com in their feature Top 11 Firefox themes. Peter Butler writes about HiVisGnome Jumbo and describes it “as part of the Access Firefox project” and provides a link to the site.
It is indeed true that Ed Hume created HiVisGnome Jumbo and HiVisGnome Big for Access Firefox per my request back in October of 2005 making them the very first Firefox themes created specifically for persons with disabilities.

Now the article goes back to November 29, 2007, but I just discovered it in my StatEye (free and open source web site traffic analysis software) report as a referring URL to AccessFirefox.org. Download.com is sending us visitors and we greatly appreciate that.

If you have a blog or web site, please help us out by mentioning AccessFirefox.org or by linking to the site via a button or text link. You’ll be promoting both Firefox and Firefox accessibility at the same time.
Feel free to hotlink to our promotional graphics that can found on the Helping Others page.
We’ve provided copy and paste code to make that easy for you.
Thanks for reading.

Ken

All in all I’m pretty happy with the design of Access Firefox that was created by Michael Buckley who is also responsible for the site’s coding. However I’ve never really been content with the Access Firefox logo that I created, but it’s been extremely difficult to come up with a logo that represents Firefox accessibility. For the original Access Firefox logo, I used the standard symbol for accessibility which is the white wheelchair graphic. The site will eventually provide content for different disabilities, but for now and currently, the content is mostly for persons with visual impairments so I went with the eye logo. I was fairly happy when I originally created it but it lacked depth and character and it had to be changed. Today I finished tweaking the eye logo. I feel that it now has more dimension to it and I’ll stick with this one until something better comes along and you can help with that.

Contact me if you have any ideas for a logo for Access Firefox that represents Firefox accessibility.
This is really tough because legally, we cannot use the Firefox logo as part of a logo of our own.
We can use the Firefox globe without the fox on it.
So maybe you have an idea that represents access to something like a key, an open door, something, see I’m stuck.
Ken

Foxiewire.com has justed started to rotate free ads for AccessFirefox.org. We are truly grateful for the help and support of Foxiewire and for the free exposure.

Foxiewire is a community run news site that contains the latest Mozilla products news.
Membership is free and all members can submit any Mozilla related news, and vote and comment on the posted news stories. As they put it, it’s “Your source for daily Mozilla news”.

The following graphic was created by Jamey Boje A.K.A. GraphicsGuru, and it is the current ad running to help to promote Access Firefox.
It’s definitely hip and eye catching and it has me thinking about getting a new logo for Access Firefox with GraphicsGuru’s help of course.

As chosen by Terri Mauro from About.com, Access Firefox was selected as site of the day for Wednesday January 16, 2008.

We are truly honored and grateful for the mention.
Thanks goes out to the AFx team, contributors, and supporters for their consistent involvement with the project. You guys rock!

Ken

Join the official Access Firefox group on SpreadFirefox.com to stay informed about the Access Firefox project. Feel free to post your ideas that can help to further promote Firefox accessibility through AccessFirefox.org.
You will need to first sign up as a member of SpreadFirefox.com.
Next, select the “groups” tab at the top of the page.
Click on “Join Group” next to Access Firefox.
See you there!

SpreadFirefox.com