Full Page Zoom in Firefox 3
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.
Page Zoom Screen Shots
Web page default view
Web page zoomed in
Web page default view
Web page zoomed in
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
AFx Updates
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
Cool New Features
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.
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
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
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
