Setting Up Camino

Getting started with a great Mac browser.

Setting Up Camino

 

How can I set Camino to be my default browser?

The second time Camino launches, it will ask you if you want to set Camino as your default web browser. To set Camino as your default browser as soon as you start using it, or if you choose not to set Camino as your default browser when asked on the second launch, you can change this setting by opening the Preferences and using the Default Web Browser drop-down menu in the General preference pane.

How can I customize the Camino toolbar?

You can choose the items that appear in the toolbar. For example, you can add a button which opens your home page or you can add a button that will open the Download Manager. You can also remove or rearrange the buttons on the toolbar.

  1. Choose Customize Toolbar… from the View menu.
  2. In the customization sheet that appears, drag any additional toolbar buttons you want to add (for example, the New Tab button) up over the toolbar and release the mouse to drop the item on the toolbar.
  3. If you want to change the locations of other items, just drag them around in the toolbar.
  4. To remove an item from the toolbar, simply drag it outside the toolbar and release the mouse button; the item will disappear in a “poof” of smoke.
  5. To return to the default toolbar, drag the default set (at the bottom of the customization sheet) to the window’s toolbar.
  6. Using the menu and check-box at the bottom of the sheet, you can also choose whether the toolbar is displayed as text and icons, icons only, text only, and full-size or small icons.
  7. When you have the toolbar customized to your liking, click the Done button to dismiss the customization sheet.

Where can I get a plug-in to display a certain media type?

Camino works with the plug-ins installed with Mac OS X that support QuickTime and Shockwave Flash, and it contains a bundled plug-in to support Java. Camino also works with plug-ins that conform to the Netscape standard plug-in archictecture, such as the Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Shockwave Player plug-in (named Shockwave for Director). If a particular media type does not display in Camino, you do not have a certain plug-in or the version that you have is outdated.

The following plug-ins are officially supported by Camino:

This list is not exhaustive, and other plugins not listed may work in Camino, enabling you to view additional media types. In addition, Camino contains built-in, cutting-edge SVG support, so no plug-in is necessary to view Scalable Vector Graphics content.

Windows Media Player for Macintosh and its plug-in have been discontinued by Microsoft and are not supported for use with Camino; use the Flip4Mac WMV QuickTime component instead.

Certain plug-ins are not available in Universal format; if you have an Intel-based Mac, you must run Camino under Rosetta in order to use those plug-ins.

How can I prevent website text from being too small?

If you dislike reading very small text, you can prevent text on web pages from being displayed in small font sizes.

  1. Choose Preferences… from the Camino application menu and open the Appearance preference pane, then select the Fonts tab.
  2. Choose the regional language group whose minimum font size you wish to set (for example, Western European or Simplified Chinese) from the Choose fonts for: drop-down menu. (If you regularly read pages from several regional language groups, you will have to repeat the following steps for each language group.)
  3. Select the Advanced… button and a sheet will open.
  4. To prevent web pages from displaying text smaller than a certain size, set the Minimum font size to the smallest size you can read comfortably.
  5. Click the Done button when finished.

Some web pages may not display correctly if you select this option. This setting does not affect the size of text in displayed as images on web pages nor does it affect text in Camino’s user interface.

You can also increase or decrease the font size of text on a page-by-page basis either by using the optional toolbar buttons for Bigger Text and Smaller Text or by using the keyboard shortcuts ⌘= to increase or ⌘- to decrease font size.

Controlling the behavior of links from other applications

If Camino is your default web browser, web pages open in Camino when you click on links in other applications, such as Mail or iChat, or when you double-click the icons of Web Location (.webloc) files. You can select whether pages open in a new window or open in a new tab in the frontmost window. However, if the page in question is already open, Camino will reload the page and bring its tab or window to the front instead of opening a new tab or window.

Choose Preferences… from the Camino application menu and open the Tabs preference pane. You can then select the option you prefer, as well as set other tab-related preferences. For more information on these options, see our Documentation on tabbed browsing.

How can I disable common annoyances on web pages?

To disable annoying behaviors of many web pages — such as pop-up windows, animated images, or advertising — see our Documentation on blocking annoyances.

Determining which language a website should use to display content

Some websites can display web pages in different languages depending on the settings in a user’s browser (for example, the Personal Web Sharing built into Mac OS X does this with its default home pages). Camino automatically determines this setting, known as the “accept-language”, by reading the list of languages in the International preference pane of the System Preferences (Camino Multilingual also uses this list to determine which language to use for Camino’s user interface). If the list of languages is “English”, “Français”, and “Español”, Camino will tell websites that use the “accept-language” to display content in English, if available, then French, and, if neither English nor French versions of available, in Spanish. To add new languages to the list, press the Edit… button; to change the order of the languages, simply drag them within the list. Camino checks the list for changes on every launch, so the “accept-language” setting is always current.

Camino’s automatic determination of the “accept-language” setting based on the list from the System Preferences will be sufficient in most cases. In some instances, however — to work around Mac OS X bugs, or where a user’s first language may not appear in the list of languages or is not fully supported by Mac OS X — a user may need to override Camino’s automatic determnination. For example, some versions of Mac OS X have a bug where Software Update will not function if certain “less-common” languages are set as the first language in the list in the International preference pane. In order for Camino to tell websites that language is a user’s preferred language and not break Software Update, “English” should remain at the top of the list and Camino’s automatic determination must be disabled. To do so, change one of Camino’s hidden preferences while Camino is not running by adding the following line to user.js:

user_pref("camino.accept_languages", "ab-cd,ef,gh,ij-kl");

(Here ab-cd, ef, gh, and ij-kl are languages or regional variants listed in the order a user would prefer, if a website supports the “accept-language” setting and can send content in multiple languages.)

Due to a bug in Mac OS X 10.3.x, Norwegian users of Camino will need to manually set their “accept-language” string manually in all cases. To set the accept-language string, add user_pref("camino.accept_languages", "nb,nn,no,en"); to the user.js file, where the languages are listed in the order of user preference. (In this example, the user prefers Bokmål first, then Nynorsk, then generic Norwegian, and then English if none of the other three languages are available.)

Apple fixed this bug in Mac OS X 10.4, so no work-arounds are necessary when using that version of Mac OS X.

Some web pages aren’t working; what’s wrong?

If features of web pages don’t seem to work, you may have turned off Java, JavaScript, plug-ins, or prevented sites from changing, moving, or resizing windows. You may have also set Camino to block pop-up windows, or you may be blocking cookies on a site which requires them.

Setting a minimum font size or enabling Always use my page and link colors can break poorly-designed websites. Other Camino features, such as Block web advertising or Block Flash animations may cause some sites not to work or to display incorrectly.

For instructions on enabling Java, JavaScript, plug-ins, web advertising, Flash animations, and pop-up windows, see our Documentation on blocking common annoyances. For instructions on temporarily allowing cookies in order to access a website, see our Documentation on cookies.

If you have tried changing these settings and the page still does not work, you might want to file a bug report.

Other Documents

If there are any questions, tutorials, or preferences that would be helpful if they were explained in these pages, don’t hesitate to contact us, and we will add them as necessary.