Maximize Vertical Screenspace...

Hi All,

Here are a few tips for maximizing vertical screenspace on the AAO (or on any netbook or notebook for that matter). Since the vertical screen doesn't have much room, it is especially rewarding to yield some more vertical space.

1) Move your desktop taskbar to the left or right side, instead of the top and/or bottom. I use KDE and this is simple to do. But you can likely do this with MOST desktop environments - even Windows (although I am not sure about gnome).
2) Firefox - Under view menu, uncheck "Status Bar". Also, under view, toolbars, uncheck "bookmarks". (Using the dropdown menu or bookmarks side-bar if you need.) Also, if you right click on your navigation toolbar and then Customize, you can actually move your main buttons to the same bar as your menus. Arrange as you like. I have all my buttons and my search-bar on my menu-bar, and only leave my address bar on the "navigation bar" so I can turn this off for normal browsing, and turn it on when I need to copy a URL. Oh, and don't forget to click on "small icons" when you are customizing your toolbars.
3) Misc. Software - OpenOffice and MOST other software will allow you to drag and drop toolbars from horizontal alignment to vertical alignment. If you align them vertically, side-by-side (or one on the left, one on the right), you will yield more vertical space for viewing/editing your present document.

I use this technique a lot, and it is REALLY helpful, ESPECIALLY on "netbook" screens.

Reply with some of your ideas or your experiences after trying.

D.

 

For firefox, I achieve the menu-bar effect slightly differently - an add-on called Personal Menu, which reduces the menus to a single button. You can then have a single row of buttons and address bar. This blog entry has some good refinements, like hiding the fwd/back/stop buttons unless they're usable. The tab loading bar from Tab Mix Plus replaces the loading bar in the status bar. The only thing I miss about the status bar is seeing what url a link gives.
On a slightly different tact, No Squint gives persistent zoom settings for websites (hand for the small screen). If you use google services like igoogle, mail, reader, calendar etc, there are greasemonkey scripts which strip off unnecessary elements.
I'd also recommend fastdial, for an nice alternative to bookmarks, but it jumped the shark a couple of days ago, and I wouldn't wish the current version on anyone.