Stay-Open Menu -- Firefox Extension

Stay-Open Menu is a extension created for Firefox® which facilitates opening multiple tabs from the Bookmarks Menu and various other bookmark/history/tab related dropdown menus. It keeps the menu open when middle-clicking (optionally ctrl-clicking) and is especially handy for RSS feed (Live Bookmark) items.

Stay-Open Menu works with Firefox 3.0 and newer; it is not compatible with older Firefox versions. For use with Firefox 2, you might want to try the no longer maintained middleclicknocollapse extension currently hosted at remarqs.net. I am in no way associated with middleclicknocollapse or it's author, but I have used it in the past and it worked fine for me.

If you are looking for Firefox 3, click the button to the left, to visit the mozilla site to download it.

Usage Notes

• Middle-clicking each bookmarked item in the Bookmarks Menu will open it in a tab, while leaving the menu open for further selections. (Left-click the desired menu to open it, find the items you wish to open, then middle-click each desired item to open it in a tab.) If you are using Stay-Open Menu 1.5 and have turned on the autoclosing option, just move the mouse away from the menu when you are done making selections. Otherwise, click somewhere outside the menu (or press ESC) to close the menu.
• Also works in the same way with the Bookmarks Toolbar and the History Menu.
• Middle-clicking a bookmarks folder will open all contained bookmarks in tabs and leave the menu open.
• Middle-clicking "Open All in Tabs" and "Open (Feed Name)" also leave the menu open.
• Also works on the Smart Location Bar (aka awesomebar) dropdown list (Added in version 1.4)
• Option to use Ctrl-click (Meta-click on Mac) in addition to middle-click (see below). Handy for laptop computers and those who have set their middle-mouse button system-wide to another function instead of the default 'middle-click'. (Added in version 1.4)
• Option to automatically close when mouse moves off menu, after any stay-open click.Also great for when you only wanted to middle-click one item! (Added in version 1.5)
• Works with Toolbar Buttons Bookmarks Menu Button (Added in version 1.5), Toolbar Buttons "Toolbar Bookmark Menu" (Added in version 1.5.4) and Bookmarks Menu Tool Button (Added in version 1.5.4)
• Option to keep menu open with left-click. (Ctrl-click must be enabled in order to enable left-click.) The left-click option is mainly intended for when another extension is being used to cause bookmarks to open new tabs. (Extensions with this option include Tab Mix Plus and Tab Kit.) Otherwise, the left-clicked items overwrite each other in the same tab, not usually the desired behavior. For this reason, (non-Ctrl) left-clicking does not cause the Smart Location Bar dropdown to stay open. (Added in version 1.5.2)
• New!  Added in version 1.5.3: 'All tabs' Menu stays open when middle-clicking items.
• New!  Added in version 1.5.3: Option to keep menu open for multiple selections on the 'Permissions' subitem added by Tab Mix Plus (TMP) to the tab contextmenu (only applicable if TMP is installed and its 'Permissions' option is enabled). Enable via Tools > Add-ons > Stay-Open Menu > Options. Left-click TMP's permissions items to use feature.
• New!  Added in version 1.5.4: Option to redisplay the menu after using 'right-click > Properties' on a bookmark to view/edit it's properties. Enable via Tools > Add-ons > Extensions Tab > Stay-Open Menu > Options.
• New!  Added in version 1.5.4 (Window/Linux only): Option to remove 'Subscribe to This Page' items from the Bookmarks Menu. (Workaround for bug when used with Firefox versions prior to 3.7.) When enabled, pages can still be subscribed to, by clicking the orange RSS icon in the address bar. (Mac users will need to wait for Firefox 3.7 where bug no longer occurs.)
• The Bookmarks Sidebar stays open by default even without this extension, but I prefer the Bookmarks Menu because I like the way the folders automatically open when hovered.
• More details on version-specific changes below and at versions page at AMO.

Notes on the Boox-related feature (added in 1.5.1)

• Feature implemented only when used with Boox versions 2.0 - 2.6 (prevents possible severe issues with untested versions).
• Option must be enabled via Tools > Add-ons > Stay-Open Menu > Options.
• Menu stays open when clicking the "Mark as read" context-menu items added by the Boox extension.
• 'Mark as Read' and 'Open unread items' (normal menu items in Boox 2.5) also keep menu open (via middle-click, etc.)
• When all items in the folder (feed) have been 'read', that popup (list of those items) will be closed.
• Thanks to Joliclic (author of Boox) for providing a patch to update Boox-related features from Stay-Open Menu 1.5.1 to also work with Boox 2.5 (and for reporting bugs and general helpfulness as well).

Details of how Stay-Open Menu works on Smart Location Bar

• Middle-click as many items as you'd like before closing the dropdown list. Each item gets opened in a new background tab. When you exit the dropdown, focus switches to appropriate tab. (Switching immediately would likely be preferable; unfortunately, I know of no way to implement that behavior.)
• You can exit dropdown via the autoclosing feature, if enabled (version 1.5 only), or by clicking outside the dropdown/location bar, pressing ESC, or left-clicking an item in the list. If you exit via left-clicking, that item loads in the current tab, and that current tab remains in the foreground.
• Ctrl-click (if enabled) will also work on the Smart Location Bar.
• This enhancement only applies to the new "awesomebar" dropdown which is used by default with Firefox 3.

Known Issues

Bug: Depending upon the presence/absence/number of rss feeds available on the website in the tab, one or more 'Subscrible to This Page' items may appear/disappear on the Bookmarks Menu. These may be added/removed by Firefox itself (or another extension). If this occurs while Stay-Open Menu has kept the menu open, the hilite gets out of sync with the mouse pointer. An option to always hide these items (on Windows/Linux) has been added to Stay-Open Menu 1.5.4 which prevents the bug's occurrence. In Firefox 4.0 , there is only one such item that gets changed/grayed as appropriate.

Bug: The 'All tabs' menu should also stay open for Ctrl-click. I've not yet found any way to implement that. Considering the multiple methods of finding/handling tabs in Firefox 4.0, the All tabs menu functionality added by Stay-Open Menu may eventually be dropped entirely.

Bug: If Ctrl-clk option is turned off, Ctrl-clk on a folder should not keep menu open. (Low priority; should be fixed eventually.)

Incompatibility: If you have installed the Show Keywords extension, there is a conflict that causes multiple selections from the Smart Location Bar, to not work correctly (the dropdown will not stay open). Because Firefox 3.5 has Show Keywords functionality built-in, I recommend uninstalling (or disabling) the 'Show Keywords' extension, if you are using Firefox 3.5 or later, to avoid the conflict.

Incompatibility (minor): Personal Menu extension also has a keep open on middle-click feature. If you wish to use both extensions together (for Stay-Open Menu's additional capabilities), keep the option in Personal Menu (Miscellaneous Tab) 'Close menu after middle-clicking bookmarks' turned ON (checked). This prevents a conflict which causes middle-clicking a bookmarks folder to have no effect. (It should open all bookmarks in the folder in new tabs.)

Note: Some other extensions that Stay-Open Menu has previously added support for (see above), do not (as of release date of 1.5.5) work properly with Firefox 4 (even without Stay-Open Menu installed) and thus could not be tested to determine whether Stay-Open Menu still properly supports them. Also note that Firefox 4 includes a "Bookmarks Menu Button" by default (preventing the necessity of support for those added by other extensions).

Visit addons.mozilla.org to Install Stay-Open Menu

View another extension by same author