Loading ...Tweaking the Quick Find bar
Published: November 8th, 2006
Jan, asked in the comments how to change the Quick Find bar latency, that is, the time the bar remains visible after you stop typing. Specially after restoring the bar buttons (Next, Previous, Highlight) it makes sense to add some more time to be able to comformtably grab the mouse and press the appropriate buttons.
In about:config look for accessibility.typeaheadfind.timeout and set it to the number of milliseconds you want it to remain visible. By default it is set to 5000 (5 seconds), so you may want to try 8000 or 9000.
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April 6th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
hi Is there a way to restrict firefox 2 to max number of tabs it can have anytime. Beyond the reach of max maybe warn or an option to not allow new tabs until some of them are close.
thanks
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June 27th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Firefox Quick Find pops up whenever I start entering my password into my Credit Union’s new secure authentication scheme. Only the first character’s ‘*’ appears in the password field and additional characters only populate the Quick Find field. I basically have to use the scrambled keypad to enter my password.
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July 18th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
It’s not directly related, but I have a similar problem with unintentional activation of Quickfind. I have the cursor in a text box and when I start typing it activates the quickfind. Obviously this doesn’t happen all the time, but I want it to stop. I am trying to find an initiator for it, and I do not even have a consistent work-around for it. I just switch aps or tabs and then try again until it works (esc does not work in this situation). I do have the “Search for text when I start typing” enabled and I’m using Firefox 2.0.0.5 with OS X 10.4.10
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August 13th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Yup, add me to the list of disgruntled people annoyed by this feature - REMOVE IT, IT’S USELESS!!! If I want to find something, I’ll use ctrl F, like I always have. Every time I type a web address, I don’t want everything after ‘http:’ to appear in the quick find field - I just want to be able to type my text.
Any shortcut that uses a single, common keystroke is terrible software engineering, and whoever thought it was a good idea should be taken out the back and ‘dealt with’ accordingly…
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August 14th, 2007 at 2:44 am
OK, I found an answer: Quick Find can be turned off but you would think the way it’s hidden that Mozilla didn’t want you to find it. Go to Tools, Options, Advanced, General, and uncheck “Search for text when I start typing.”
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August 14th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Sorry Paul, but it’s already turned off. I don’t know how or why, but that bug only happens sometimes… I guess maybe that checkbox gets checked by some weird combination on keystrokes or something??? And then for no reason it turns itself off again…
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January 11th, 2008 at 6:39 am
Removal fix in four steps:
1. Type about:config into the Firefox address bar and hit the Enter key (or press the “Go” button). This will take you to a special advanced configuration screen.
2. Your cursor should already be blinking happily in the “Filter” text box. If not, click in that text box and type “typeahead” to narrow the options down to only those relating to the Find-As-You-Type feature.
3. Check the line that begins with accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart. This controls whether the browser will start searching text on a web page as soon as you begin typing, without having to first invoke the “Find” dialog by pressing Control–F or typing a forward-slash. I had disabled this feature in the Firefox options, but for some reason this value was set to “true.”
4. If accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart has a value of “true” on your machine and you’re experiencing the same bug I was, try double-clicking that row in the about:config interface. This will set it’s value to “false,” which solved the problem for me.
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January 16th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I am a beta tester for Avira Antivirus and on the beta forum site, I am unable in Fx 2 to type a reply to a post or start a new thread because this ridiculous quick find thing starts up and all keystrokes are put in it. I cannot type in the reply box at all. I also cannot with the quick find open copypaste. It just happened again here. I cannot use a slash mark between copypaste as that will start quickfind. I cannot use a contraction as that will start quickfind. I am basically crippled now and cannot use Fx 2 at all. I have no problems with this junk on Fx 1.5 which I use on my host machine. I will have to get rid of Fx 2…no big loss as it is not nearly as good a browser as 1.5 but this is ridiculous that you would have some stupid “quickfind” (what ever that is) popping up stopping folks from using the browser.
When this wierd quick find thing (I have no idea what it is for and don ot want to know) pops up, then I lose everything in the text box! The page convulses and flips and I have had to type this in Word and then paste it here. I cannot (no contraction remember..it sets it off) use Fx at all with this crazy thing and Fx has been my default browser from Phoenix but now it is actually worse than IE with all the junk like this that has ruined it.
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