Pimp Your Firefox: 9 Crucial Add-ons for Freelance Writers
SkellieLast week our web developing and designing readers had their Firefoxes pimped with 12 essential extensions. This week we’ll be unlocking Firefox’s web writer capabilities with a set of 9 crucial extensions for freelance writers.
From gaining complete control of your text to keeping your work safe and sound, all the essentials are here. No filler. Just really good tools.
- Copy Plain Text
This extension gives you complete control over rich text by stripping it plain. Perfect for research or quoting other sources without links and formatting you don’t want or need. - Split Browser
Pasting from one tab to another can be cumbersome. This extension makes the process a breeze by splitting your browser window into two (or three, or four) panels, allowing for instant copying and pasting between pages. - Resizable Text Area
This extension makes text input areas flexible by allowing you to resize them as you like. Give your writing the room it needs to breathe. - AutoCopy
Clever little time-saver which automatically adds text to the clip-board as soon as you select it. - ScrapBook
When gathering research for an article you’ll often find yourself cutting and saving snippets of text from various websites. ScrapBook is a simple, bookmarks-style interface designed to make this process quick and painless. - Signature
Every web writer finds themselves re-using certain snippets of text again and again — whether it’s your byline or the HTML code you use for that image in every article. Signature allows you to save these snippets and access them at any time via the right-click menu. Lovely. - Dictionary Search
Search Dictionary.com from the Firefox search bar. Great for answering that perennial question: does the word I’m using mean what I think it means, or am I about to embarrass myself? - Zotero
For more in-depth research work this extension is a slick and powerful way to track sources, references and citations. Also includes refined note-taking capabilities. - Text Area Word Counter
An extension for freelance web writers by, arguably, one of the best: Gina Trapani. Instantly retrieve the word count of text in any web form. Perfect for paid bloggers with a word quota to meet.
What would you add to the list?
Pristine
December 31st, 2007
Diigo is definitely at the top of my list. You can highlight and add sticky notes to pages. The reason I prefer this to other tools is because it’s functional and more importantly, the highlighting doesn’t intrude on the readability of the page.
Grove
December 31st, 2007
Hyperwords: http://www.hyperwords.net/
very valuable research tool
Loren
December 31st, 2007
I have been using Google Notebook
http://www.google.com/notebook/
It sits in the firefox tray in the lower right hand corner, and is ready to spring to action whenever needed. I use it when researching online all the time. Of course you need a google account, but everyone should probably have one anyways.
Have a happy new year!
Ed Sutherland
December 31st, 2007
As an editor, the plain text add-on is tops. I can’t recall how much time I’ve devoted to wading through Word formatting in order to reach the text. A couple others that should be added to the list (or created if they don’t exist) are FF currency and temperature converters.
Robert Janelle
December 31st, 2007
Some cool stuff I didn’t even know about in here, like Signature and Split Browser.
My choice for note-taking though is the Google Notebook extension, mainly because it gives me a unified repository of notes that I can even access from my cellphone.
Mark H. Abucayon
January 1st, 2008
wow- this is very helpful links for adding new add-ons in my firefox. this is great, there are some stuff I didnt even heared yet. this helps me a lot.
theneemies
January 1st, 2008
And for designers/developers, the superb Firebug plugin.
Anthony
January 1st, 2008
Sweet. I’ve just installed the dictionary and thesaurus add-ons for the search bar.
Skellie
January 2nd, 2008
Hi guys, thanks for the reactions :). I’m just loving Signature at the moment… it saves me a few minutes every time I write a post, which is really going to add up over time.
Hank
January 2nd, 2008
Thanks for the heads-up. These are really useful.
Happy New Year
Hank
Skellie
January 3rd, 2008
@ Hank: Happy New Year to you too — I’m glad you got some use out of them :).
zackery moore
January 3rd, 2008
My favorite is the split-screens….. Wooo. I’m doing it right now…….
ZM
.
January 4th, 2008
You can use any search box by right clicking it and adding a keyword for it, and you don’t need an add on to do it, but your comment on the dictionary search is so true lol
Günter Zöchbauer
January 4th, 2008
I didn’t know Resizable Text Area, but I’m sure it will be my favorite soon
mo
January 5th, 2008
thank you, this article has been very useful
Goman
January 5th, 2008
I would consider Aardvark worth repeating. It’s usually referred to as an additional tool when using Scrapbook.
Both Diigo and Clipmarks are simpler though for being online (hence less problems with portability/accessibility). What Diigo lacks over Scrapbook is made up by it’s e-mail sending and blog significant features. In addition, Diigo has a feature called Webslides, synchs with delicious and several other social bookmarking sites and has a Diigolet button that works in Safari, Opera and IE. The button though doesn’t synch with other social bookmarking sites as far as I know.
Speaking of Opera, I do think the abilities of the browser warrant the OperaView Firefox extension to be included here. It is an extension which allows the page to quickly be opened into Opera without having to copy the url and paste it into the address bar. (though Opera makes this easy by having paste and go natively)
This cuts down on the above lists since many of the tasks are transferred to Opera which is both lighter and doesn’t require extensions.
1. Copy Plain Text - I think Opera still does this by default which leaves Firefox for the times when you want to copy something which includes formatting.
2. Split Browser - Opera’s a MDI browser so there shouldn’t be any problems doing this.
3. AutoCopy - This is the major reason why I think OperaView should be included. Despite the additional options to turn autcopy on/off, I find autocopying to remain cumbersome. Opera doesn’t have autocopying however it has this thing called copy to note which solves the autocopying problem by copying the text into Opera’s Notes Panel. It isn’t the same as time saving the action however it does give a good overview of the multiple copies before pasting it into some place else or it allows the user to organize it, leave it alone, close the browser, come back and then paste the bunch of snippets.
Autocopying at least for me, is something which I have never found much use for and has been something I used when I remained ignorant of clipboard managers (at least for Windows, haven’t found any clipboard managers for Linux which can save snippets into folders besides Opera)
Note that there are notebook extensions for Firefox like Google Notebooks/Zotero that can substitute for this feature.
4. Signature - Haven’t tried it though it does sound alot like how Opera works with it’s insert note feature.
5. Dictionary Search - Similar to Firefox’s with the exception that it’s pre-installed in Opera. The advantage with Opera is that you get an address bar by pressing F2 which makes it easier to get rid of the search box and the address bar when searching.
I would also include the Speed Dial firefox extension (again, available in Opera) and add Onelook.com (preferred site over Dictionary.com) and Thesaurus.com as an alternative for those who prefer clicking to the main pages rather than typing on a search box. Other optional ones I’d insert would be Critique Checker and Cliche Finder. This one: http://cliche.theinfo.org/
Brian
January 14th, 2008
Cool list, thanks! There is a few on the list that I wasn’t aware of.
clarjon1
January 17th, 2008
Great tips!
RE: #4, the copy on select, Linux does that already, just select, move to the other app, and press the middle mouse button (or buttons one and two simultaneously if you don’t have such a beast), and there you go.
The copy plain text was a wonderful addition to my addon list, thanks!
Regarding the split browser addon, do you know if there is a detach this tab type thing for firefox? I know some browsers, like KDE’s konqueror, has it, so…
greeeni
January 20th, 2008
I’m using a TiddlyWiki file /or hosted @ tiddlyspot.com in a Permatab - best notebook/research tool!
June 19th, 2008
, , http://www.effcom.ru.