As long as we're talking about middlemousing, Firefox, like most Linux applications, has a wonderful shortcut for scrolling that you probably won't discover except by accident. When you're on a long page, middle-clicking in a scrollbar's "trough" scrolls straight there, no waiting. Want to look for a comment you remember seeing about two-thirds of the way down the page, but the page is slow to scroll? No problem: just move the mouse to where you want to be on the scrollbar, middle-click and the page scrolls right there. It's also a fast way to get to the top or bottom of a page without searching for the Home or End keys.

The preference that enables this is middlemouse.scrollbarPosition, and it even works on other platforms, though you'll have to restart the browser after changing it.

That's all for now! But I'll have more Linux-friendly Firefox tips in the next installment ... plus some handy settings you may want on all platforms.

References

Akkana Peck is a freelance programmer whose credits include a tour as a Mozilla developer. She's also the author of Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional.

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