Pimp Out your Firefox with A 9 Window Speed Dial and Maximize your home page by 100%.

Transform Your Firefox Browser From Drab to sheek

Love it or hate it the Speed Dial trumps any single homepage you could ever set as default on a Web browser. However Firefox default Speed Dial options are very limited at best,but do not despair as I have the best Speed Dial that will have your homepage becoming the talk of the town in a manner of speaking or the most welcoming thing as you launch your browser for the day.This Dial will get you where you want, when you want, without the hassle of typing overly long URLs over and over again, simply set it and forget it after the initial setup.

The Browser Add-on 

The Speed Dial Add-on we will be using in today's tutorial is called:

Speed Dial Version 0.9.6.15

Yes I know its a little Anticlimactic as its called: Speed Dial surprise!!! and at the time of writing this article its at version: 0.9.6.15 and still going strong.You can get this Dial here.

Go ahead and install the add-on from the link you know you want to.

Customizing the Speed dial Add-on

After Instillation by default the dials will be blank as seen below and individually numbered:

Blank/Empty Dials

To add a webpage simply left click and the following windows will popup:

Dial Customization Window

In the option: location place the website you want to add to the dial e.g. Google.com, reddit.com etc., if you choose to you can specify the image to be shown in the dial with the:Make image from option, do this by browsing to the desired picture you want to use after checking the: Make image from option. If you want the image to be taken live from the page then leave this option as is. The title of the website can be left as dynamic unless you want to give it a custom name. To have the preview windows change as the website changes change the Refresh option to periodically or if you want to save on bandwidth just leave it at Never and you can manually refresh as you desire.If you know and trust the website then allow the Enable JavaScript Feature, for security reasons only enable this for website you totally trust or those not previewing well because of there Java Content. The Action button will pre-load the dial with a number of options such as a weather dial or plugins dial links.
When you are satisfied click OK and allow the page to load the predefined settings, congrats you have loaded your first custom dial: take a bow.

You may go ahead and load all the dials as you wish.

Maximize Your Dial Arrangement

You may categorize your favorite webpages by categorizing them on the speed dial:

My custom Categories

To do the above simply:

1. Place the cursor on the one group that available in your dial currently, for example in mine I would place it on any of the above e.g. Favorites and right click and choose the Add group option (You can also edit any pre-existing group by using edit).

2. The following window will appear for adding a group:

Add Group options.

3. Give the Group a title based on the websites you want to place in them, if you wish to spice things up choose a custom color by checking the: Use  custom colors box. Simply click on the background color preview and adjust the sliders until you get a desired color:

You may select OK now (or) proceed to adding a custom wallpaper behind the Speed dials, this can be set per group, if you want a solid color just press OK now and leave it as is, but if like me Readers you want a flashy background proceed to Step 4:

4. To add a custom wallpaper simply select Additional Style Options from the Add Groups Menu:

Check the use background image box and browse for any wallpaper that would fit your desktop screen normally. If you need the best wallpapers source then check out: Alphacoders. You can set the centering and positioning option or just leave them as they are. For small pics on bigger backgrounds use the repeat background option.

When you are finished click on OK and see your work. You can add more dials and websites as you wish and customize the wallpaper on each dial tab.

Changing the Drab default theme of fire fox:

To change the theme of Firefox simply go here or:
1. Go to the Firefox logo in the upper right hand corner of the screen and click on the drop down arrow.
2. Select Add-ons and choose the Get Add-ons Option.
3. In the lower right hand corner there is a list of featured themes.

You can preview themes before installing them by Resting your cursor over them and clicking ADD when you find one you like.

Tips

• To clear a pre-loaded dial or one that you want to change right click on the preview window and select clear.

• To refresh or change a dials address simply rest the cursor over the dial and a refresh icon will appear, the gear icon is to change the website address or the initial edit dial options.

• You may drag and drop one dial on another to change there positions, this apply from tab to tab as well, simply drag and rest over a tab and it will switch.

• Right click on any Tab and you will have the option of opening all windows in a new tab, this is very useful if you have a default favorite website pages you visit everyday.The options is also there to refresh all dials and to add or remove groups.

• To allow the speed dial to load in blank new pages or Tabs simply right click on any black space around the dial windows or where you can see the wallpaper and select: Speed Dial Options:

Options to check

Check the options as seen above and select OK.

Gallery of the Finished Look:

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So that's it you are finished and you should be able to fully organised and customize your websites and the way they appear on the dial to your own personal style. I encourage you to ask a question or leave a comment sharing is caring.

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