Create a Permanent, Icon only GMail tab in FireFox
PaulSpoerry | August 23, 2009
Yes, I’ll admit it… I *heart* GMail and FireFox; I use them everyday. I wish that GMail didn’t take up a full blown tab in FireFox tho (especially when on the netbook where screen real estate is precious!) You can permanently affix the Gmail (and Reader) tab in your tab bar, reduce it to show the tab favicon only, and display the number of unread items in each using a collection of Firefox add-ons (of course you can… that’s why we LOVE FireFox). See what it looks like in the image above: the Gmail and Reader tabs are on the far left, icon-only, with unread item counts–19 unread messages and 1k+ unread items (yikes!)–on the icons themselves.
To reproduce this setup in your own copy of Firefox, you’ll need four Firefox add-ons which Gina Trapani has put all together in a single collection. Install all the add-ons in the Icon-Only Perma-Tabs for Gmail and Google Reader collection. Restart Firefox.
Then, in Better Gmail 2, make sure “Unread Message Count in Favicon” is checked. In Better GReader, make sure “Show Unread Count in Favicon” is checked. Open Gmail and Google Reader in new tabs. Right-click on those tabs, and choose “Faviconize tab.” Then, to make them permanent (i.e., open automatically every time you launch Firefox), right-click again and choose “Permatabs->Permanent Tab.” Once you’re done, whenever you launch Firefox or even hit “Close All Tabs,” your icon-only perma-tabs containing Gmail and GReader will persist.
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