Subtile

Customizable Firefox toolbar menu extension

Frequently Asked Questions



What is Subtile ?

Subtile is a Firefox extension that provides generic support for toolbar menus.

Menu content can be easily created using remote data sources with support for an alerting system.

How much does it cost ?

It's free.

What platform do I need to run Subtile ?

You can use the Subtile extension from any Linux, Windows and MacOS-X platform

What version of Firefox do I need to run Subtile ?

Subtile works on Firefox 1.5 and 2.0.

What is the last version of Subtile extension ?

1.1

How do I install Subtile ?

Visit this link

How do I uninstall Subtile ?

Go to the menu Tools/Add-ons. In the dialog box, choose Subtile and click Uninstall. Restart Firefox to complete the uninstallation.

How do I use Subtile ?

Check-out the user documentation

How do I create my own subtiles ?

Check-out the designer documentation

What about my privacy ?

Subtile does not export any confidential data out of your computer.

However, you must know that the extension sends periodically to the www.subtile.net site the list of the subtile menus you are currently using. The exported data consist of the id of each subtile, along with its source url. This is used to monitor the most popular subtiles to help other users choosing the best subtiles.

I installed Subtile but I don't see the icon in the toolbar nor in the toolbar palette. How do i fix it ?

First, make sure the extension is really installed and the browser has been fully restarted. Go to menu Tools/Add-ons, you should see the Subtile entry in the window, without any special mention.

Second, look again if you didn't miss the icon in the toolbar or in the palette.

Ok, at this point this is really a problem. This has been reported very rarely but it seems that it may happen.

Locate the Firefox profile directory:

  • Windows XP/2000: C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxx
  • Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxx
  • Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxx

With a text editor, edit the file localstore.rdf

Find and remove the string subtile_toolbaritem and the following comma character.

Save the file.

Restart Firefox, the icon should now be in the toolbar palette (View/Toolbars/Customize)

How do I debug the subtile I am developing ?

If you consider yourself as an advanced computer user, you can setup your configuration to get logs on events happening in the Subtile extension. In particular, it helps finding out when a remote data source cannot be downloaded or parsed.

First you need to modify the Firefox preferences. Load the url about:config and create a boolean preference with name browser.dom.window.dump.enabled and value true.

Change value of the preference subtile.log-level: 1=lowest verbosity, 6=highest verbosity.

Restart Firefox from a shell. On Windows start the browser with option -console.

You should get now in the console some traces during the execution. Please note that these are debug traces and some messages may appear a bit cryptic.