Firefox Customization for Meilix

Meilix a lightweight operating system can be easily customized. This article talks about the way one must proceed to customize the configuration of Firefox of Meilix or on its own Linux distro and how to copy the configuration file of Firefox directly to the home folder of the user.
Meilix script contains a pref.js file which is responsible for providing the configuration. This file contains various function through which one can edit them according to its need to get the required configuration of its need.

Let’s see an example:

user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=partner-pub-6065445074637525:8941524350");

This line is used to set the browser startup page and it can be edited according to user choice to find the same page whenever he starts his Firefox.

There are several lines too which can be edited to make the required changes.

How does this work?

This is the Mozilla User Preference file and should be placed in the location /home/user_name/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/prefs.js. It actually controls the attributes of Firefox preference and set the command from here to change it.

How to use it?

One can directly go and edit it according to the choice to use it.

How meilix script uses it to change the user preference?

As we can see that .mozilla folder should be under the home directory, therefore we copy the .mozilla to the the skel folder, so that it gets automatically copied to the home location and we would be able to use.
There is also a shell script which comes in handy to implement the browser startup page and the script even copies the configuration file.

1.#!/bin/bash

2.# firefox
3.# http://askubuntu.com/questions/73474/how-to-install-firefox-addon-from-command-line-in-scripts
4.for user_name in `ls /home/`
5.do
  6.preferences_file="`echo /home/$user_name/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/prefs.js`"
  7.if [ -f "$preferences_file" ]
  8.then
    9.echo "user_pref(\"browser.startup.homepage\", \"https://google.com/\");" >> $preferences_file
  10.fi
11.done

This file is taken from here. And it used in Meilix to run the script to set the default startup page in Firefox. This will be taken input from the user end from the Meilix Generator webapp and it will change the line 9 url according to the input given by the user.
On line 3, *.default will set automatically by the script itself, it generated randomly.
After that, the script will copy the prefs.js in its location and it will implement the changes.

Links to follow:

Firefox-preference guide
Firefox-editing-configuration

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FOSSASIA Hack Trip to 32C3 Chaos Communication Congress

From December 27-30 the 32C3 Chaos Communication Congress took place in Hamburg, Germany. Members of the FOSSASIA community met at the event to learn about the latest OpenTech hacks. We used the opportunity to work with mentors on our coding program for kids. See photos from our gathering here.


Get together at 32C3 Hamburg

Mitch Altman at Chaos Communication Congress 32C3 with Hong Phuc Dang from FOSSASIAHong Phuc Dang meeting Mitch Altman (Twitter)

FOSSASIA Mentors Michael Christen (Yacy), Jan Suhr (Nitrokey), Hong Phuc DangMeetup with FOSSASIA mentors and supporters from Europe Michael Christen (Yacy.net/loklak), Jan Suhr (Nitrokey), Hong Phuc Dang (FOSSASIA), Anna (Mozilla)

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UNESCO Youth Mobile Workshop in Paris with FOSSASIA

The 1st YouthMobile Experts Meeting took place at the UNESCO headquarters on 19th and 20th March 2014 with participation of FOSSASIA. UNESCO has conducted a global search for the best, existing mobile applications training initiatives with openly-licensed training materials, and invited a selected group of training providers and app development tools makers.

Objectives of the Meeting:
1. Facilitate the sharing of best-practices between the training providers; and
2. Further select the best providers to enter into partnerships for up-scaling and integration into teaching and learning environments.

I had the chance to meet David Ascher and Geoffrey MacDougall from Mozilla and Bobby Richter the developer of Mozilla Appmaker. Andrew F. Mckinney is the manager and developer of MIT App Inventor.

The UNESCO seeks to extensively promote very high-quality, multi-lingual, comprehensive training materials for developing mobile apps. Openly-licensed, the training materials identified will allow for adaptations including translation, localization, and innovations. The YouthMobile experts meeting is part of UNESCO’s contribution to the 2014 celebrations for Open Education Week.

 

Organisations and Presentations

 mlab m:Lab East Africa / eMobilis Kenya Presentation   |      Video
 nairobidevschool-alpha Nairobi Dev School Kenya Presentation
 mash-logo_85h The MASH Project India Presentation
 fossasia_logo_85h FOSSASIA Vietnam Presentation
 Technovation Technovation USA Presentation
 AppsForGood Apps For Good England Presentation
 esprit Esprit Tunisia Presentation
alldevcamp-logo-alpha AllDevCamp Cote d’Ivoire Presentation
appmaker_wordmark_black Mozilla / Appmaker USA Presentation
 orange Orange France Presentation
 appinventor MIT App Inventor Project USA Presentation
 fossfa-logo_85h FOSSFA  France Presentation
 intel Intel Software Academic Program France Presentation
 
UNESCO-logo

UNESCO guest speaker    Irmgarda Kasinskaite

UNESCO guest speaker    Maria Kypriotou

France Presentation

 

Links

UNESCO Youth Mobile Program http://en.unesco.org/youthmobile

Youth Mobile http://www.youthmobile.org

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