Recently, I wrote about Greasemonkey user scripts. Today, I am writing about Stylish, which is another Firefox add-on for finding and using scripts to restyle your favorite websites.
To install Stylish, go to add-ons for Firefox and search for Stylish. Once the results are displayed, click the ‘Add to Firefox’ button.
Once you restart Firefox, you will see a ‘S’ box in your status bar. From this box, you can Manage styles, Turn all styles off, Find styles for this site (which directs you to a new tab using userstyles.org, and displays styles available for the site you were on), Write new styles, and a list of the styles that are being used for the site you are on (once you install scripts for your favorite sites).
There are a couple of differences between Greasemonkey (which scripts JavaScript) and Stylish (which styles CSS). One is, once you install a userscript from Stylish, it immediately takes effect (no need to refresh your screen). Second, you manage your scripts from the same display as your Firefox extensions, plugins, and themes window. Third, you can edit your downloaded scripts from the Stylish window and preview your changes before saving (unlike Greasemonkey, which uses an external editor).
The following list is for the top Google scripts used in Stylish.
IGOOGLE SCRIPTS
iGoogle: Compact & Transparent top bar
This style removes a TON of padding and margins, allowing for more feeds and gadgets on your iGoogle homepage without scrolling. It reduces all headers and RSS links to be single-line only. It also removes the header and footer spacing. As a bonus, this style removes some of the header image, and makes the white bar at the top transparent. Because the text is white, it works best on dark themes.
http://userstyles.org/styles/8037
New iGoogle – Hide The Sidebar, etc.
This style hides the side bar and a couple other annoying things in the new iGoogle.
http://userstyles.org/styles/11373
GMAIL SCRIPTS
Gmail – Simple Header
Removes the header and footer and leaves the search box at the top so that you can focus on using the keyboard shortcut.
http://userstyles.org/styles/19999
Gmail Ads-block and Full-width
This style removes ads and widens the message area of Gmail.
http://userstyles.org/styles/22317
Minimize Labels in Gmail
This style minimizes all labels in gmail to look only like a box. If you mouseover each box, it will expand to show you the name of the label. This greatly increases the amount of space for text in your inbox, especially for emails with many tags on them. The ad sidebar is shrunk down to save space, hovering over it will give you access to the options such as print, new document, and new window.
http://userstyles.org/styles/19588
GOOGLE CALENDAR SCRIPT
Helvetical – Google Calendar User Style
A user style based on Helvetireader by Jon Hicks
Has coloured ‘Other Calendars’ and support for https:// hosted calendars.
Color coded events in the ‘Months’ section, along with RSVP coloring and line-throughs.
http://userstyles.org/styles/20669
GOOGLE DOCS SCRIPT
Google Docs – Mac OS X Leopard Theme
Transform Google Docs into a Mac OS X Leopard app. The buttons are modeled after the leopard Finder toolbar buttons, as are the toolbars. All menus and contextual (right-click) menus are themed to look like the native Mac OS X menus. This theme also styles Google Docs’ DHTML windows to match the actual window chrome from OS X, adding shadows, status bars, lighting and cursor modifications to complete the effect – the two types of windows should look identical after enabling this theme.
http://userstyles.org/styles/22994
GOOGLE MAPS SCRIPT
Google Maps – Minimal
This is a full screen view of Google Maps. To view the sidebar, move your mouse to left side to show sidebar
.
http://userstyles.org/styles/3520
YOUTUBE SCRIPTS
YouTube – Clean
This style removes all the “crap” on youtube for a more user friendly experience.
http://userstyles.org/styles/23215
YouTube Cleaned Up
Gets right of the footer, copyright, google ads, big frontpage ad, side announcement box, “may not be suitable for minors” warning, and other annoyances.
http://userstyles.org/styles/12702
GOOGLE BOOKMARKS AND HISTORY SCRIPT
Google Bookmarks & History – Simple Header
Simplify Google Bookmarks and Google Web History.
http://userstyles.org/styles/20001
GOOGLE GROUPS SCRIPT
Usable Google Groups ! Ads & Footer
Great font, remove Ads and Footer
http://userstyles.org/styles/3724
GOOGLE NEWS SCRIPT
Helvetinews – Google News
Inspired by Jon Hicks’s Helvetireader (http://helvetireader.com/) and Ad Taylor’s Helvetical (http://www.iamadtaylor.com/helvetical/), this is a Google News user style in the same vein.
*note that this doesn’t restyle Google News Archive pages, because the html for the archive is oddly not marked-up with any ids or classes.
http://userstyles.org/styles/20830
GOOGLE NOTEBOOK SCRIPTS
Google Notebook
This style simplifies the Google Notebook interface to a more minimalistic one removing a lot of the unnecessary bars and other content.
http://userstyles.org/styles/17400
Google Notebook full width
The public view of the Google Notebook is 800px width. This style removes the limitation.
http://userstyles.org/styles/7383
I like many things about the add-on Stylish and think you will too. It’s easy to use and adapt to. If you use Stylish and have add-ons you’d like to share, leave a comment and share the wealth with our fellow readers. If you liked this article, please leave a comment.
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