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In Firefox Developer Edition, I'd like the title bar to change to the menu bar on hover. I've seen advice you can do this by setting the option "ui.use_unity_menubar" to true in about:config, but that didn't work.

I've done a manual install of Firefox Developer Edition instead of using the PPA since I want the install to be side-by-side with current Firefox install - as described here: https://askubuntu.com/a/548005/428453

Also described in that link; the unity global menu will not be installed (by default) if doing a Firefox DE manual install... but it doesn't say how to install it.

How can I install/enable the Unity global menu?

Community
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jibbers42
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1 Answers1

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I... kind of have a solution, but it's at a compromise. Read the whole answer first.

(Note that if you manually installed Firefox developer edition to /usr/lib/firefox like I did, you need to back it up as it will be replaced. Also back up your ~/.mozilla folder in case the following fails and wipes your .mozilla folder.)

So first, add the Firefox beta ppa with sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next

Install Firefox beta with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade firefox

Now run firefox -P and your developer edition profile should still be there. Select it and open Firefox. You'll have the latest beta on the ppa, as you can see with "about Firefox," and you'll also have your developer tools and global menubar.

HOWEVER, I'm pretty sure none of the tools specific to developer edition will update. Only the base browser will. Correction: there aren't tools specific to developer edition that beta doesn't already have. By upgrading to beta, you aren't losing anything; it's just more troublesome than keeping developer edition.

I immediately went back to my manual install with no global menu (and also a super annoying bug where the url bar doesn't autofocus on new tab) when I figured this out, so you may not want to follow these steps. But if you really want the global menu fixed now and also are fine with the current state of all the developer tools, this may be worth it. See above.

Otherwise, I guess you'll be waiting with me for Mozilla to patch this bug. Bug resolved as wontfix since it's a lot of trouble and Unity is dying anyway.

Sucks that the only answer to this is to scrap developer edition and install the beta ppa (which has the Unity integration, of course) but that's all I've got.

imyxh
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  • Well, I lost all hope after Unity's death was announced. Also considering this is the only answer after a year, I'm going to give you the accept :) (but I think I'll also not apply this solution due to the drawbacks) Thanks! – jibbers42 Jul 04 '17 at 19:15
  • You're welcome! By the way, this post is actually a bit misleading. I thought that developer edition had a bunch of tools that beta didn't, but after I posted this answer I learned that dev edition is basically the standard release with updates to devtools from beta. So I guess there really is no drawback to upgrading to beta and keeping the profile. (Unless you really like the different icon or something.) – imyxh Jul 06 '17 at 02:30