user.js doesn't work

[kj]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I have a file called user.js in my Mozilla (or Firefox) directory,
and this file contains the following code:

user_pref("browser.throbber.url", "http://news.google.com/");

function foo() {
alert("foo");
}

And yet, when I start Mozilla (or Firefox), and look at the listing
from about:config, I see that browser.throbber.url is still set to
the default value (e.g. http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/start),
not the value I set it to in user.js. Similarly, if I type the
following in the location bar:

javascript:foo()

I get the error "Error: foo is not defined" in the JavaScript
console. I've tried this both on Windows and on Linux. On Windows,
the user.js file is in

Documents and Settings > yourstruly > Application Data

Mozilla > Firefox > Profiles > default###

and the one on Linux it is in

~/.mozilla/yourstruly/###.slt

What am I doing wrong?

kj

--
NOTE: In my address everything before the first period is backwards;
and the last period, and everything after it, should be discarded.

[Grant Wagner]

kj wrote:

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I have a file called user.js in my Mozilla (or Firefox) directory,
and this file contains the following code:

user_pref("browser.throbber.url", "http://news.google.com/");

function foo() {
alert("foo");
}

And yet, when I start Mozilla (or Firefox), and look at the listing
from about:config, I see that browser.throbber.url is still set to
the default value (e.g. http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/start),
not the value I set it to in user.js. Similarly, if I type the
following in the location bar:

javascript:foo()

I get the error "Error: foo is not defined" in the JavaScript
console. I've tried this both on Windows and on Linux. On Windows,
the user.js file is in

Documents and Settings > yourstruly > Application Data

> Mozilla > Firefox > Profiles > default###

and the one on Linux it is in

~/.mozilla/yourstruly/###.slt

What am I doing wrong?

kj

prefs.js seems to be the file that contains the customized values, not
user.js. I've seen all sorts of references to "user.js" on the Web, but all
_my_ customized about:config values are coming from prefs.js, not user.js.
*Maybe* user.js in the "chrome" directory under the profile would do what
you want, I can't be bothered testing it when changes to prefs.js do what I
want.

As for why your custom function isn't working, I have no idea. My guess is
it's a scope issue. The contents of prefs.js do not execute in the same
namespace/scope as regular scripts in the browser. If prefs.js were in the
same namespace/scope, you could run "javascript:user_pref(...)" in the
Address Bar, which I just tested, and does not work.

--
Grant Wagner <gw*****@agricoreunited.com>
comp.lang.javascript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq