The open-source browser’s newest feature lets you pop out a page – or part of a page – into its own mini window. See why this is incredibly cool.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
By Jack Wallen<\/p>\n\n\n\n The developers at Mozilla are always hard at work to make Firefox the most useful browser on the market. To that end, they\u2019ve added a new feature (still in beta), called Mini Window. I started using Mini Window as soon as it appeared in Firefox Nightly, and I\u2019ve been very happy with how it performs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea behind the Firefox Mini Window feature is simple: allow users to move a currently open tab (or a section of a tab) into a separate mini window. Think of it as moving a tab from one window to what appears like a web app. Essentially, I can move a page (or section) into what looks like a browser window, minus the browser bits. At first blush, there\u2019s no address bar, controls, scroll bar, or anything else that would normally be associated with Firefox. The Mini Window appears to be a web app, without having to actually create it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, when I hover my cursor inside the Mini Window, I do see the address bar, the back\/foward\/reload buttons, and the window close button\u2013 and that\u2019s it. The browser gets out of your way, so the only thing I see is the content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On top of that (pun intended), the Mini Window stays on top of other Firefox windows, so I can have that popped-out content always in focus while I work on other things. This feature comes in handy when I\u2019m working with limited display space (say, on a laptop) and need to reference a page while working on another. For multitasking, it comes in very handy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using the Firefox Mini Window feature is quite simple, but until the feature comes out of beta, it can only be found in Firefox Nightly<\/a>. I\u2019ve been using Nightly as my default browser<\/a> on both Linux and MacOS for some time now and have yet to run into a problem (YMMV).<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those who don\u2019t want to risk using a potentially less-than-stable alpha version of Firefox, know that the Mini Window feature is slated to move to stable on November 10. Update Firefox on that day and can start enjoying the feature without upgrading to Nightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until then, you can test Mini Window by installing Firefox Nightly, which can run alongside the stable Firefox release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once I installed Nightly, there was nothing more to do. I didn\u2019t have to enable Mini Window, as it\u2019s already there. I simply had to right-click on an open tab and select Move Tab > Move to Mini Window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once I did that, the mini window popped out and hovered over Firefox. If I hovered my cursor over the mini window, the address bar and title bar for the window appeared, so I could drag the pop-up to wherever I needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I could also open a specific section of a tab in a Mini Window. To do that, I highlighted the section in question, right-clicked the section, and then clicked Move Section to Mini Window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s say I\u2019m writing a paper on Linux and need to read a particular article for background information. I could have my document open in the main window, and then open the article in question in a Mini Window. I could then reference the article without having to click back and forth between them \u2014 even when working on a smaller display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/miniwinhero.jpg?w=864\")
ZDNET\u2019s key takeaways<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nWhat is the Mini Window feature?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How do you use Mini Window?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Firefox](\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/miniwin1.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Firefox](\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/miniwin2.png?w=864\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhen would you use Mini Window?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Firefox](\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/miniwin3.jpg?w=864\")
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