Setting Compact Mode in FF 91.0

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I am Win10/Pro, v21H1 and use FF 91.0

The default for browser.compactmode.show is false in FF 91.0. but you can change it to true.

When browser.compactmode.show is true, compact mode is supposed to reduce the spacing and extra space between toolbars and other UI elements.

I have followed the directions at askvg.com / tip-restore-compact-mode-density-option-in-firefox-customize-window (URL will not post)
At about:config, I set browser.compactmode.show to true.

As a result, brower.uidensity automatically becomes set to 1 (for compact mode).

After changing the switch to true I closed Firefox, waited a minute and then reopened. I have also tried shutting down Windows and RESTARTING.

I still do not see any change in the compactness/density of the spacing. Is this supposed to just affect spacing between toolbars? Or does it also affect spacing between bookmarks in the Bookmark Toolbar. If there is supposed to be some effect somewhere, I do not see any. What have I not done correctly?

browser.compactmode.show is true

browser.compactmode.show is false

In addition, I do not see any change in the Customize Toolbar option. It looks like this:

It’s supposed to look like this, when the compact mode is restored:

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You are okay, it was Mozilla’s decision to remove the compact display density from Firefox because based on telemetry data.

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anonymous wrote:

You are okay, it was Mozilla’s decision to remove the compact display density from Firefox because based on telemetry data.

So they say, but they’ve been deleting features with wild abandon for years, and they’re very much aware that much of their remaining user base is the power-user types that used to be their bread and butter, and that kind of user typically turns off telemetry. They know this, but either out of spite or pure stubbornness, they are keeping to the same “be Chrome” strategy (where they delete any feature Chrome does not have) that they’ve been pursuing over the same period of time they lost 95% of their user base.

If I was trying to destroy Firefox from within, I can’t think of a better plan than the one they’ve been using.

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These two configuration options are live, so you you do not have to close Firefox and you can really see if there is any change.

After testing the tabs and toolbars did change to a little more densely compact layout in version 90, this subtlety may be why it hard to tell if anything happened for you.

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Here they are side by side. I do NOT see any difference in the spacing between toolbars nor in the spacing in the tabs, whether the preference is ‘true’ or ‘false’

In reply to Ascaris (#2383380-below), I had not been using the Proton “compact (not supported)” pref before, but it’s clear that although the “browser.compactmode.show” preference is present, toggling it doesn’t do anything.

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I was toggling the brower.uidensity setting and it matched the animation in post #2383432, of course now it looks like everybody will have to do with altering the user style sheets.

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If you go to the Customize Toolbar… menu in Firefox, the popup you see from the UI Density option should change the look of things instantly on screen as you change the options, so you can see if there is any movement. The change in my Firefox is quite noticeable, though I am using Aris-T2’s custom stylesheets to undo as much of Mozilla’s “vision” as I can.

I just did some poking around in about:config, and it’s come to pass– it is no longer possible to turn off the horrible Proton UI using a pref. Even the Proton “compact (not supported)” mode is not as compact as older Firefox versions. If you were using the pref before, this is probably why things are not working as you expect. The pref is still present in the about:config listing, but it doesn’t appear to do anything. On my other PC, which hasn’t been updated to FF 91 yet, the pref works fine.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Perhaps the horizontal ‘spacing’ is not meant to be changed, only the vertical ‘spacing’.
Are you also wanting the ‘compact’ view as shown in the ‘[Tip] Restore “Compact Mode” Density Option in Firefox Customize Window’ page – https://www.askvg.com/tip-restore-compact-mode-density-option-in-firefox-customize-window/ ?
It appears like that because the FF Browser Window has been made horizontally smaller for clarity and to fit within the webpage spacing. The changed ‘compacted view’ is a consequence of changing that Window size.

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Your live screenshots have explained it completely!! And my window had not been expanded enough vertically to show the buttons/boxes at the bottom. Thanks for your help!

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I saw changes in the icon size/spacing on the nav/URL bar in the animated image from @Moonshine as well as vertical changes.

Did you try changing the options in the customize view and seeing if there was any visible change as in the animation? I tried toggling that back and forth, and it didn’t change anything with the UI. That just makes the option Compact (Not Supported) appear in the menu or not.

Originally Mozilla tried to remove the compact option completely, but that was such an unpopular idea that enough people complained as to get their attention before they made the change (at which point the change is irreversible)… but they couldn’t just put it back in and admit they were wrong. No, they had to hide it behind a pref, then mark it with (not supported) just to make extra sure those users who had asked for it knew how Mozilla felt about it.

This is an illustration of  everything that is wrong with Mozilla in a nutshell… they consider themselves right and justified (by whatever twisted logic they can muster) in lopping off every feature they can, and they think the users are wrong if they tell Mozilla they don’t like it. In this case, I have no doubt that Mozilla still plans to remove compact mode, as they do with every feature that’s pointlessly hidden behind a pref.

The normal course of affairs is that Mozilla discusses a proposed change on their own bug tracker, where the vast majority of Firefox users are not aware of it, and when they decide to remove something, the Firefox user finds out when the next version arrives. If they try to complain about the change at that point, they’re told “No, sorry, you should have brought it up when we were discussing it.” Not that it would have mattered, of course; many times people have brought it up when they were discussing it, and in nearly every case, the change happens anyway. That’s what makes this one remarkable– there must have been a lot of opposition to get Mozilla to grudgingly bring back the option. For how long, one can only guess.

Mozilla is a company that acts as if those who use its products are an inconvenience, if not actually a contemptible burden. Firefox users keep getting in the way of the “perfect” browser Mozilla wants to create, and it seems that the wish is to drive them (us) all away so that they can create their perfect, unusable browser without any opposition at all. Its lack of market share would not be any concern, as it would just mean there was no one to get in the way of all of that perfection they want to put into it. It’s a very bizarre situation that has evolved, and as a Firefox user against all odds (and against all of Mozilla’s efforts), I sincerely hope it changes before Mozilla is no more. I’ve been hoping that for years, though.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
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Ascaris wrote:

Did you try changing the options in the customize view and seeing if there was any visible change as in the animation? I tried toggling that back and forth, and it didn’t change anything with the UI. That just makes the option Compact (Not Supported) appear in the menu or not.

Changing the options in the “customize” view produced a visible change, just like the animation.  Unlike your situation, toggling back and forth didn’t make the option “Compact (Not Supported)” appear or disappear; it stayed there, no matter the toggling.

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Lars220

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No, I didn’t mean that the option immediately disappears when you change the pref, only that the function of the pref is to get rid of the option (and not to set the option). I thought you were saying that you were trying to get the compact mode enabled by using the pref that enables the option (as opposed to enabling the option and then using it).

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Just for information, the AskVG website has a new article:
[Tip] New Working Method to Restore Classic Theme and UI in Firefox 91 and Later Versions = Last updated on August 13, 2021 by VG

“This article contains a new working method to disable new Proton UI and restore old classic theme and UI in Firefox 91 and later versions. If you upgraded to new version of Mozilla Firefox web browser such as version 91.0 or later, you might have immediately noticed that old methods or workarounds (about:config) to restore classic theme and UI in Firefox no longer work.”

I am still on Firefox 90.0.2 and will NOT update to FF 91 until these issues are sorted out because I am sick and tired of Mozilla ruining Firefox. I have previously done a lot of about:config mods to get rid of new Proton UI, and am currently happy the way it is. Mozilla – Stop changing Firefox! The AskVG solution is a little more complicated than just modifying some about:config settings, so I will wait awhile. Good information from AskVG Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) as always. Now we need to use some CSS code to modify a userChrome.css file in our Profile folder in AppData. Oh man, I am getting tired of having to “fix” Firefox after these constant updates. I do like my secondary backup browser Brave, but I have been with Firefox from practically the beginning. We will see how this turns out.
P.S. do not forget this website in case we need to install an older version of Firefox:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-firefox

Amazing Truths Revealed: Link to Simply Magnificent AskWoody Knowledge Bases

1 user thanked author for this post.

WCHS

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Lars220 wrote:

I am still on Firefox 90.0.2 and will NOT update to FF 91 until these issues are sorted out because I am sick and tired of Mozilla ruining Firefox.

It does seem to be their mission in life, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, I do not think things will ever be more sorted than they are now. It’s a done deal. You can keep using an older Firefox, but even if you ignore the security implications, it’s just going to get more and more out of date as time passes. When Mozilla removed the defining feature of Firefox (the powerful XUL addons) in favor of weak Chrome-style addons, it was no longer possible to correct their mistakes with addons, since this latest mistake took that ability away. I moved to Waterfox, now Waterfox Classic, to be able to keep using the things I liked.

I no longer use Waterfox Classic. It’s not because I want some neat new feature Mozilla has introduced… it’s that Waterfox Classic became less and less usable over time, as it was stuck in time, forever with the feature set of Firefox 56, and the web moved on. At first, the failures to work were the effect of useragent sniffing scripts that would selectively deny functionality to my browser based on the faulty assumption that it was a badly out of date Firefox, but spoofing the useragent takes care of that easily.

Over time, the sites began to fail independently of the useragent string. The only fix was to stop using those sites, or to stop using Waterfox Classic.

Fortunately, the author of Classic Theme Restorer ported many of the internal bits of that addon over to post-Quantum Firefox, in the form of custom stylesheets that can be placed in the chrome folder in the Firefox profile (which has nothing to do with Google Chrome. The folder has been called that since before there was such a thing as Google Chrome). It’s much less convenient and annoying, but that’s wholly on Mozilla’s head.

The only reason I still use Firefox is that I have been able to revert most of their changes in that way (meaning that I find and use tools written by others, mainly, as in the example above. I don’t mean to claim credit for actually authoring the things that do the actual work). They’re like a bucking bronco, trying to throw me off, and I just cling tenaciously and refuse to let go.

This has been going on for at least eight years, since Mozilla brought out the Chrome-clone Australis interface. I got rid of that with Classic Theme Restorer. They got rid of the status bar. I put it back with Status-4-Evar. And so on, and so on.

At some point, though, they will win… they will lop off some thing I can’t revert, and that I won’t do without. And at that point, my 25 year history of using only Netscape and related browsers will come to a close.

 

 

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XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Charlie

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OK, we’re beginning to get off topic. I created this topic so as not to interfere with the Firefox and Firefox ESR Updates and to ask specifically about Compact Mode in v91.0

Not that I “own” this topic, but maybe there needs to be a new topic where users can say what they want about how FF has gone down the wrong track.

The purpose of THIS topic was to ask for help in getting compact mode to work.

The @Lars220 post is useful in that it has a link to a new AskVG article, for users who are interested in ‘fixing’ some aspect of the new FF.

If you are interested in offering ‘fixes’ that’s fine. But, no more treatises about how FF has lost its mojo, please.

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[Bob99]

I just updated to 91.0 yesterday, and I immediately noticed that with Proton disabled, I no longer had any checks in any of the square check boxes within the about:preferences pages. The only things that were “checked” were the circles that you can click on for choices. This made it impossible to see just which items were checked and un-checked. Clicking on the square check boxes appeared to do nothing at all. This behavior was exhibited in both a regularly installed version of FF91 and in a portable edition of FF91 as well on two different computers.

It became trial and error, until I found the long-forgotten preference dealing with Proton of “browser.proton.enabled”. Once I double clicked that to enable Proton, I could once again see which check boxes were marked and which ones weren’t. This setting in about:config has so far persisted through several closings and restarts of Firefox 91.

So, unless this is an unintended bug that Mozilla will fix, looks like I’m getting used to the lighter-colored Proton interface instead of the light and dark mix that exists without enabling Proton.

My apologies if this post seems off topic to some, as it doesn’t directly deal with FF’s compact mode settings, but it does relate to @Lars220 ‘s post and @Ascaris ‘ response just above this post.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Bob99.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Bob99. Reason: Added off-topic apology

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