Stay-Open Menu -- Firefox Extension

Stay-Open Menu is a extension created for Firefox® which facilitates opening multiple tabs from the Bookmarks Menu and various other bookmark/history/tab related dropdown menus. It keeps the menu open when middle-clicking (optionally ctrl-clicking) and is especially handy for RSS feed (Live Bookmark) items.

Usage Notes

• Middle-clicking each bookmarked item in the Bookmarks Menu will open it in a tab, while leaving the menu open for further selections. (Left-click the desired menu to open it, find the items you wish to open, then middle-click each desired item to open it in a tab.) If you have turned on the autoclosing option, just move the mouse away from the menu when you are done making selections. Otherwise, click somewhere outside the menu (or press ESC) to close the menu.
• Also works in the same way with the Bookmarks Toolbar and the History Menu.
• Middle-clicking a bookmarks folder will open all contained bookmarks in tabs and leave the menu open.
• Middle-clicking "Open All in Tabs" and "Open (Feed Name)" also leave the menu open.
• Also works on the Smart Location Bar (aka awesomebar) dropdown list
• Option to enable use of Ctrl-click (Meta-click on Mac) as an additional alternative to middle-click. Handy for laptop computers and those who have set their middle-mouse button system-wide to another function instead of the default 'middle-click'.
• Option to automatically close when mouse moves off menu, after any stay-open click.Also great for when you only wanted to middle-click one item!
• Works with Toolbar Buttons Bookmarks Menu Button Toolbar Buttons "Toolbar Bookmark Menu" and Bookmarks Menu Tool Button. Since Firefox 4 includes a "Bookmarks Menu Button" by default, a future version of Stay-Open Menu will likely drop support for these other buttons.
• Option to keep menu open with left-click. (Ctrl-click must be enabled in order to enable left-click.) The left-click option is mainly intended for when another extension is being used to cause bookmarks to open new tabs. (Extensions with this option include Tab Mix Plus and Tab Kit.) Otherwise, the left-clicked items overwrite each other in the same tab, not usually the desired behavior. For this reason, (non-Ctrl) left-clicking does not cause the Smart Location Bar dropdown to stay open. (Added in version 1.5.2)
• 'All tabs' Menu stays open when middle-clicking items.
• Option to keep menu open for multiple selections on the 'Permissions' subitem added by Tab Mix Plus (TMP) to the tab contextmenu (only applicable if TMP is installed and its 'Permissions' option is enabled). Enable via Tools > Add-ons > Stay-Open Menu > Options. Left-click TMP's permissions items to use feature.
• Option to redisplay the menu after using 'right-click > Properties' on a bookmark to view/edit it's properties. Enable via Tools > Add-ons > Extensions Tab > Stay-Open Menu > Options.
• Window/Linux only: Option to remove 'Subscribe to This Page' items from the Bookmarks Menu. (Workaround for bug when used with Firefox versions prior to 4.0.) When enabled, pages can still be subscribed to, by clicking the orange RSS icon in the address bar. (The RSS icon became an optional toolbar button in Firefox 4.)
• Note: The Bookmarks Sidebar stays open by default even without this extension, but I prefer the Bookmarks Menu because I like the way the folders automatically open when hovered.
• More details on version-specific changes below and at versions page at AMO.

Notes on the Boox-related feature

• Option must be enabled via Tools > Add-ons > Stay-Open Menu > Options.
• Menu stays open when clicking the "Mark as read" context-menu items added by the Boox extension.
• 'Mark as Read' and 'Open unread items' also keep menu open (via middle-click, etc.)
• When all items in the folder (feed) have been 'read', that popup (list of those items) will be closed.

Details of how Stay-Open Menu works on Smart Location Bar

• Middle-click as many items as you'd like before closing the dropdown list. Each item gets opened in a new background tab. When you exit the dropdown, focus switches to appropriate tab. (Switching immediately would likely be preferable; unfortunately, I know of no way to implement that behavior.)
• You can exit dropdown via the autoclosing feature, if enabled (version 1.5 only), or by clicking outside the dropdown/location bar, pressing ESC, or left-clicking an item in the list. If you exit via left-clicking, that item loads in the current tab, and that current tab remains in the foreground.
• Ctrl-click (if enabled) will also work on the Smart Location Bar.

Known Issues

Bug: Depending upon the presence/absence/number of rss feeds available on the website in the tab, one or more 'Subscrible to This Page' items may appear/disappear on the Bookmarks Menu. These may be added/removed by Firefox itself (or another extension). If this occurs while Stay-Open Menu has kept the menu open, the hilite gets out of sync with the mouse pointer. An option to always hide these items (on Windows/Linux) has been added to Stay-Open Menu which prevents the bug's occurrence. In Firefox 4+, there is only one such item that gets changed/grayed as appropriate.

Bug: The 'All tabs' menu should also stay open for Ctrl-click. Considering the multiple methods of finding/handling tabs in Firefox 4+, the All tabs menu functionality added by Stay-Open Menu will likely eventually be dropped entirely.

Bug: If Ctrl-clk option is turned off, Ctrl-clk on a folder should not keep menu open. (Low priority; should be fixed eventually.)

Bug: The auto-closing option may in some instances fail to close the menu. I've not been able to track down the source of this problem or reliably reproduce it. A simple workaround, is to run the mouse pointer over one of the still-open menus and then back off the menu (mouseover, mouseout). Alternatively you can just click outside the menu. A complete rewrite of the auto-closing feature is planned for a future version of Stay-Open Menu.

Incompatibility: If you have installed the Show Keywords extension, there is a conflict that causes multiple selections from the Smart Location Bar, to not work correctly (the dropdown will not stay open). Because Firefox 3.5+ has Show Keywords functionality built-in, I recommend uninstalling (or disabling) the 'Show Keywords' extension to avoid the conflict.

Possible Incompatibility: A conflict preventing Stay-Open Menu from working, has been reported to occur when all three of Stay-Open Menu, ColorfulTabs, and WOT add-ons are installed. I have not attempted to reproduce this and do not know if it applies to all users of the 3 add-ons together or whether it applies to current versions of the extensions.

Incompatibility (minor): Personal Menu extension also has a keep open on middle-click feature. If you wish to use both extensions together (for Stay-Open Menu's additional capabilities), keep the option in Personal Menu (Miscellaneous Tab) 'Close menu after middle-clicking bookmarks' turned ON (checked). This prevents a conflict which causes middle-clicking a bookmarks folder to have no effect. (It should open all bookmarks in the folder in new tabs.)

Visit addons.mozilla.org to Install Stay-Open Menu

View another extension by same author