Firefox4: Change Minimum Tab Width [Quick Tip]

In Firefox 3.x, there used to be an option in about:config called "browser.tabs.tabMinWidth" which you could change to specify the minimum tab width. And changing that to "0" would allow you to have all the tabs visible at all time, without having to scroll through them.

There's no such option in Firefox 4 but luckily you can still change the minimum tab size this with some CSS you can paste in your "userChrome.css" file or by using Stylish.

A. Change the minimum / maximum tab width in Firefox 4 without any extension: open Nautilus and navigate to /home/YOUR_USERNAME/.mozilla/firefox/yourprofile.default/chrome - if the "chrome" folder doesn't exists, create it and if you don't have a file called "userChrome.css" inside this folder, also create this.

Then copy/paste the following code in the "userChrome.css" file:

.tabbrowser-tab[fadein]:not([pinned]) {
   min-width: 0px !important;
   max-width: 140px !important;
}

Save it and restart Firefox 4. You can of course change the maximum or minimum tab size in the code above.

Note:
- if you've previously used Firefox 3.x, the folder name may be "firefox-4.0" instead of "firefox".


B. Change the maximum / minimum Firefox 4 tab width using Stylish

This might be easier to use for some of you: install Stylish Firefox addon, then open the Firefox4 addons tab, head over to "User styles", in the top left corner click "Write new user style", under: "Name" enter whatever you want and for the body enter this:

.tabbrowser-tab[fadein]:not([pinned]) {
   min-width: 0px !important;
   max-width: 140px !important;
}

Then click save and that's it. There's no need to restart Firefox 4 - the changes should be applied immediately.

[userChrome.css code thanks to beta.beantin.se]