Restore the Firefox Bookmarks Star Button in the address bar

[humble3d]

Restore the Firefox Bookmarks Star Button in the address bar


Firefox users who are using a stable, beta or aurora channel version of the web browser do not necessarily know that a major layout and functionality change is coming to Firefox in the next months.

Australis, that is the name of the new interface, will ship in Firefox 29. I have talked about it before here on Ghacks, the implications that it has, and how you can restore some of the functionality when it comes along.

What you may notice right away for example are the curved tabs, that the Firefox menu and the add-on bar are gone, and that several browser elements have been merged together.

The bookmarks star, displayed on the right end of the address bar in older versions of Firefox, has been merged with the bookmarks folder icon.

The new double-purpose icon is displayed in the main toolbar on the right of the address bar.

If you do not like that, for instance because you are not using the bookmarks menu icon at all, then you may want to change how this is handled (if you are using the bookmarks toolbar, you probably do not use the bookmarks menu icon as well for example).

Sadly, there is no way to restore the original bookmark icon so that it is displayed in Firefox's address bar again. More precisely, there is no native option, no switch, no preference, that you can use to do so.

The Firefox add-on Star-Button in Urlbar comes to the rescue. It restores the original functionality, which means that the bookmarks star button is displayed in the browser's address bar once again after installation and restart of the browser.

It functions exactly like before: you can click on it to create a new bookmark or to edit existing ones, or use it as an indicator whether bookmarks are saved already or not for the page you are on.

Note: If you are using the bookmarks menu as well, you need to install another extension to bring it back as well as Firefox does not offer a single bookmarks menu icon anymore.

You can install the Classic Theme Restorer extension for that, or the Classic Bookmarks Button add-on.

I had some troubles getting it to work properly the first time I installed it. Apparently, the native merged bookmarks button needs to be displayed before you start the installation. It is then removed in the process, and the bookmarks star button should work just fine from that moment on.

To do so, select to customize the screen and move it back to the main toolbar if it is not displayed there anymore.

_http://www.ghacks.net/2013/12/23/restore-firefox-bookmarks-star-button-address-bar/?