Website:Migrating from Firefox

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Trying Camino?

We're aware that switching browsers can be a disruptive, perhaps painful experience, so this page is designed to point out some common differences and help Camino feel right at home on your desktop and in your Dock.

Please note: any third-party utilities listed here are for informational purposes only; the Camino Project does not maintain or endorse any third-party utilities.

Migrating Your Firefox Profile

Importing Bookmarks

Camino can import your Firefox bookmarks. Simply choose Import Bookmarks… from Camino's File menu and select Firefox from the drop-down menu in the window that appears. For more information on importing and working with bookmarks, see Camino : Documentation : Bookmarks.

History

Camino and Firefox share the same history file format, so you can copy history.dat from your Firefox profile into your Camino profile. Your Firefox profile is located in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/profilename/ (where ~ is your Home folder and profilename is the name of your Firefox profile, which is often a string of random characters), and your Camino profile is located in ~/Library/Application Support/Camino/.

Cookies, Cookie Permissions and Blocked Servers

If you have a collection of cookies, cookie permissions (whether a site can set a cookie, or if the cookie should expire on quit, etc.) or other "blocked server" options, you can copy cookies.txt and hostperm.1 from your Firefox profile into your Camino profile.

Custom Styles

If you have defined a set of custom styles in userContent.css, you can copy that file from your Firefox profile to your Camino profile.

Preferences

While Camino and Firefox share some preferences and it is possible to copy your Firefox preferences file to your Camino profile, we strongly recommend against doing so. Most significant preferences are not shared, and some Firefox preferences may cause Camino to work improperly.

Other Files

Camino saves passwords in the Mac OS X Keychain, while Firefox stores passwords in its own proprietary database, and there is currently no way to import these.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Because Camino is a Mac-only browser, its keyboard shortcuts tend to be more in harmony with Mac OS X than Firefox, which seems to favor keyboard shortcuts that make more sense to Windows users.

A full list of Camino's keyboard shortcuts can be found in Camino : Documentation : Keyboard Shortcuts, but some of the most significant are listed below:

  • Search the Web… - Command-Shift-F
  • Show History - Command-Y
  • View Source - Command-Option-V

If you would prefer to use some other keystroke for a certain menu option, you can use the standard Mac OS X method of customizing keyboard shortcuts, the "Keyboard & Mouse" pane of the System Preferences.

  • First, quit Camino if it is running.
  • Open System Preferences.
  • Choose the "Keyboard & Mouse" pane.
  • Select the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab.
  • Press the "+" button at the bottom of that tab.
  • In the "Applications" drop-down menu, choose "Camino".
  • In the "Menu Title" field, type the exact name of the menu item you want to change, and in the "Keyboard Shortcut" field, type the new shortcut you want that menu item to have. Hit OK to save the new shortcut.
  • You may now relaunch Camino.

Alternate Behaviors

sort/order these when all written

Bookmarks bar is a toolbar

Find-As-You-Type

Camino supports searching as you type (FAYT), but you must press the forward slash ( / ) key to activate FAYT mode. FAYT search information appears in the status bar. For more information about customizing FAYT, see the Hidden Preferences page.

Adding Search Engines

(heh)

Context Menus

Context menus in Camino, like in other Mac apps, are activated by holding down the control key while clicking, or by right-clicking with a multi-button mouse. (This is how Mac apps have behaved since 1998.) The only exception to this rule is the "session history menus" on the Back and Forward toolbar buttons; clicking and holding these buttons will bring up a menu with the pages in the forward or backward history.

Location Bar Search

Camino's default behavior for non-URLs entered in the location bar is to construct a URL; e.g., if you type mikepinkerton in the location bar and hit return, Camino will visit http://www.mikepinkerton.com.

In Firefox the default behavior in this case is to run a search using Google’s "I’m Feeling Lucky" search. If you are fond of this behavior, you can configure Camino to mimic Firefox by setting the appropriate Hidden Preferences: set keyword.enabled to true and set keyword.URL to http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&q=.

Form Fill

Camino is capable of filling in non-password forms on websites using information from your "Me" card in Address Book. To fill in web forms, choose Fill Form from the Edit menu (or use the corresponding keyboard shortcut, or add the optional "Fill Form" toolbar button to your toolbar).

Extending Camino

Because Camino is developed using native Mac OS X technologies and toolkits, it is not as easily (or as infinitely) customizable as Firefox. However, most popular Firefox extensions have Camino analogues, and many Firefox features are already present in Camino but not enabled by default (see the Camino : Support : Hidden Preferences page for more about the latter).

PimpMyCamino (run by Jon Hicks, of PimpMySafari fame and creator of the Firefox icon, and Camino theme wizard David Feare) is your one-stop shop for Camino add-ons including preference panes, themes, and other software.

A few popular Firefox extensions and their Camino analogues are listed below, but be sure to visit PimpMyCamino to see the ever-expanding world of third-party Camino add-ons.

If you're interested in developing Camino preference panes, there is an initial bit of documentation in the Camino Wiki.




  • hidden prefs page
  • PMC
    • shout-out to a few that mimic popular Fx extensions / features?
      (CamiStyle = Stylish; CamiBlock = FlashBlock & Adblock; Geekmonkey = GreaseMonkey; MODi = DOMi)
      A lot migrating Firefox users miss keyword.enabled - either link hidden pref or MoreCamino
    • themes
  • prefPane docs