This is the native way to do in Firefox on cross-platform.
User can open preferences in Firefox using Alt+Home, which is one of the built-in keyboard shortcuts, provided the homepage is set with custom URL. There are three steps as follows.
- Go to Edit > Preferences (or Tools > Options) in Firefox
- Under Home - New Windows and Tabs, change Homepage and new windows from "Firefox Home (default)" to "Custom URLs..." and a text field will appear unde the newly selected option
- In the text field, copy-paste or type
about:preferences
and close the tab to finish.
As a result, Firefox can now open the preferences using keyboard shortcut.
That will work, but probably not good enough as it is. User who wants to have more control should take note of known behaviours of homepage in Firefox and the workarounds as follows.
Firefox behaviour 1: When homepage is set, Firefox will also open the homepage in each new window; this may not be desired by some users. Hence three more steps for a better user experience as follows.
- Open the hidden configuration (in the location bar, type
about:config
and press Enter, then under the disclaimer text, click I accept the risk! to confirm)
- In the input field of Search, type the keyword
browser.startup.page
- Look for the entry
browser.startup.page
and double-click the row to change the integer value from 1
(default) to 0
and click OK to finish.
The integer value has been documented on MozillaZine Knowledge Base as follows.
Name: browser.startup.page
Type: Integer
Meaning of value: Page to open on browser startup
0: Blank
1 (default): Home (a.k.a. browser.startup.homepage)
2: Last (works in Firefox 2 and above)
As a result, Firefox will open a blank page in a new window instead of homepage.
That means user will have the control: Open the homepage only when needed by using keyboard shortcut or home button on the toolbar. The integer value is subject to changes: If homepage is reverted to default and later changed to custom URL again, then user must do additional steps again as well.
Firefox behaviour 2: Unlike the preferences menu and button on toolbar, Firefox will open the preferences that has been set as homepage in the current tab. To open preferences in a new tab instead, use one of the suggested methods as follows.
Easy: Do a middle-click on the home button on toolbar, or
Flexible: Create a new bookmark with location about:preferences
and a unique keyword (I use a single character n
, which is the access key for preferences in Firefox on Linux), then save it in any folder under All Bookmarks. In the current tab, type the keyword (for example, n
) and press Alt+Enter.
Either way will open the preferences in a new tab and switch to the tab immediately.
Simplified: Use hidden configuration for less tedious setup. Experienced users can modify browser.startup.homepage
with appropriate string value and browser.startup.page
with appropriate integer value to set custom URL and change default behaviour at one place instead of steps above.
TL;DR Use homepage with custom URL to open the preferences, which make use of the built-in keyboard shortcut. Extensions might not help, given that Firefox Quantum add-ons are limited by design.
On Windows there is the usual keyboard menu navigation: alt+letter. On my french Firefox, it would be Alt-O-O ("Outils" -> "Options"). Of course not portable (depends on language, and maybe also on OS). – None – 2019-05-27T15:10:07.340
If you display the Firefox menu bar, every function that has an internal shortcut shows the shortcut in the menu. Preferences is under the Edit menu, and it doesn't have an internal shortcut. However, you could use any keyboard hotkey utility to create one. – fixer1234 – 2019-05-28T00:12:32.603