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First tab in new window always ignores zoom preferences

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by rileymcw

rileymcw
rileymcw
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Firefox 78.5.0esr running on an Ubuntu 18.04.

I'm using a mozilla.cfg file and lockPref to set certain settings. The most important to our current issue are zoom.minPercent, zoom.maxPercent, and toolkit.zoomManager.zoomValues which we have set to 175, 175, and 1.75 respectively. Our intent is to have every tab and page opened in Firefox be viewed by default at 175% zoom (running on a small, high-res screen). The behavior we're currently observing is that when Firefox launches, the first tab has no zoom settings applied but all new tabs do have the 175% zoom applied. I observed an error at launch which appears to be related - see attached "viewZoomOverlay_error.PNG".

I have also attached two images, "firefox_tab_launch.PNG" and "firefox_tab_new.PNG" which show the first tab without zoom settings and the new tab with zoom settings. These screenshots were taken using 78.5.0esr on a Windows 10 device but the behavior is identical on the Ubuntu 18.04 device.

One other thing is that this behavior is also observed in Firefox 84.0.1 on Windows so I don't believe it's version specific. All I can figure is the first tab opened on launch somehow ignores the mozilla.cfg and prefs settings, there is another setting we can change to get the desired behavior, or that error I observed is causing the settings to not apply to the first tab. Any assistance and/or suggestions are appreciated and if I've missed another similar or duplicate bug reports, forum questions, or other related pieces of information please point them out. Thanks!

Additional notes: - We are aware of the layout.css.devPixelsPerPx pref which could be set to 1.75. This has the same effect for page content but also zooms the toolbar and UI elements. At this time we'd prefer to only zoom the page content. However, this setting does seem to apply consistently to the first tab at launch unlike the zoom.(etc) settings which is interesting. - I have seen a lot of suggestions on forums to use an Add-On to allow setting/managing a default zoom value. For our system this is not desirable.

Firefox 78.5.0esr running on an Ubuntu 18.04. I'm using a mozilla.cfg file and lockPref to set certain settings. The most important to our current issue are zoom.minPercent, zoom.maxPercent, and toolkit.zoomManager.zoomValues which we have set to 175, 175, and 1.75 respectively. Our intent is to have every tab and page opened in Firefox be viewed by default at 175% zoom (running on a small, high-res screen). The behavior we're currently observing is that when Firefox launches, the first tab has no zoom settings applied but all new tabs do have the 175% zoom applied. I observed an error at launch which appears to be related - see attached "viewZoomOverlay_error.PNG". I have also attached two images, "firefox_tab_launch.PNG" and "firefox_tab_new.PNG" which show the first tab without zoom settings and the new tab with zoom settings. These screenshots were taken using 78.5.0esr on a Windows 10 device but the behavior is identical on the Ubuntu 18.04 device. One other thing is that this behavior is also observed in Firefox 84.0.1 on Windows so I don't believe it's version specific. All I can figure is the first tab opened on launch somehow ignores the mozilla.cfg and prefs settings, there is another setting we can change to get the desired behavior, or that error I observed is causing the settings to not apply to the first tab. Any assistance and/or suggestions are appreciated and if I've missed another similar or duplicate bug reports, forum questions, or other related pieces of information please point them out. Thanks! Additional notes: - We are aware of the layout.css.devPixelsPerPx pref which could be set to 1.75. This has the same effect for page content but also zooms the toolbar and UI elements. At this time we'd prefer to only zoom the page content. However, this setting does seem to apply consistently to the first tab at launch unlike the zoom.(etc) settings which is interesting. - I have seen a lot of suggestions on forums to use an Add-On to allow setting/managing a default zoom value. For our system this is not desirable.
Attached screenshots

Modified by rileymcw

All Replies (5)

FredMcD
FredMcD
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This might do the job better.: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nosquint-plus/

rileymcw
rileymcw Question owner
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FredMcD said
This might do the job better.: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nosquint-plus/

Recent reviews for this add-on seem to suggest it is no longer working for newer versions of Firefox. However, the bigger issue is that with the disabling of add-on sideloading add-on's are unusable for our use case. We would need to be able to drop the .xpi file into a directory as part of an imaging process and have it work with no further interaction from the user with zoom settings pre-configured. I don't believe this is possible as it seems the only way to install add-ons now is manually through addons.mozilla.org or by using the "Install Add-On from File" button in the browser. Both of these require the user to interact with the browser and install the add-on.

Is there a way to do this?

Modified by rileymcw

FredMcD
FredMcD
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Add-on questions should be posted in the add-ons forum; https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/c/add-ons

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Does it has effect if you set the default zoom in Options/Preferences if you haven't done this yet?

Firefox has a Zoom section in Options/Preferences to set the default zoom level for webpages.

  • Options/Preferences -> General -> Language and Appearance -> Zoom
rileymcw
rileymcw Question owner
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cor-el said
Does it has effect if you set the default zoom in Options/Preferences if you haven't done this yet? Firefox has a Zoom section in Options/Preferences to set the default zoom level for webpages.
  • Options/Preferences -> General -> Language and Appearance -> Zoom

Unfortunately using the zoom preferences in the way we are (setting them to only 175% zoom) appears to remove the default zoom setting. The drop down where it should be is there but is blank with no options. I think what we'll end up doing is setting the "layout.css.devPixelsPerPx" to 1.75 and verifying the additional UI scaling doesn't create additional problems. I'm not sure why the behavior we've observed exists or why a "zoom.default" preference configurable in mozilla.cfg doesn't/can't exist but so be it.

Thank you both for your responses and assistance.