scripts posts

Filed under: Utilities, Web services, Browsers

Greasemonkey to Firefox add-on converter: why bother?

by Jay Hathaway Sep 2nd 2009

Firefox users love their extensions, and Greasemonkey is one of the coolest. The ability to run Userscripts that change the appearance of virtually any webpage is some powerful stuff.

But what if you want to install all those userscripts as separate add-ons? Well, there's a userscript-to-xpi converter that – Wait a minute.

Why the heck would you want to install your userscripts that way? Loading up Greasemonkey is a lot faster than individually converting your scripts, and it also gives you access to any preferences that might come with them. Converting them to extensions seems like it would bog down your add-ons list, on top of being a royal pain the butt.

If you still want to go through with it, for some reason, the converter is an easy web form and seems to work pretty well.

[via gHacks]

Tags: add-ons, extensions, firefox, greasemonkey, scripts, userscripts, xpi

Filed under: Google, Browsers

Google Chrome will eventually support add-ons and user scripts

by Brad Linder Sep 19th 2008

There are plenty of things that set Google Chrome apart from Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer. It uses a different rendering engine. It places tabs at the very top of the screen, not under the location bar. It has a single location/search bar. And each browser tab is treated as a separate process by your operating system. Another thing that separates Chrome from the competition? It's not as extendable... yet.

You can install add-ons for web browsers like Firefox that do everything from turn the browser into an FTP client to provide email notifications. And there are user scripts that will let you change the way you interact with web pages. Google Chrome doesn't currently support either type of extensions. But it will.

At the Web 2.0 Expo in New York, Google's Ojan Vafai indicated that Chrome wll support both eventually. But first, the developers want to make sure that add-ons don't cause the browser to become unstable. Firefox add-ons, for example, can bog down the application, making it take longer to launch and more likely to crash.

While you're waiting for Google to figure things out, there are always workarounds that let you install user scripts or block ads in Chrome.

Tags: add-ons, extensions, google-chrome, scripts, userscripts

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Mozilla, Freeware

Greasemonkey in Firefox 3

by Todd Ritter Jun 9th 2008

While Greasemonkey, the popular extension for changing the way websites display, might not be currently available via the Firefox 3 addons manager or the Mozilla addons website, you can indeed install a working version from the developer's site. We installed the greasemonkey-0.8.20080609.0.xpi into Firefox 3 RC2 on Mac OS 10.5, and our scripts worked like a charm.

In case you're new to the Greasemonkey realm, here are three scripts to get you going:

Gmail 2.0 Multiple HTML Signatures - allows you to maintain a set of HTML signatures for Gmail that are automatically changed when you select different "From" addresses in your compose mail window. Alternatively, you could use a bookmarklet.
Digg Add Mirrors - adds links to Coral Cache, Duggmirror, Duggback, and Google Cache to Digg stories.
Image Host Redirector - redirects image links directly to image instead of intermediate image host page.

[via gHacks]

Tags: addons, extenstions, firefox, greasemonkey, script, scripts

Filed under: Developer, Utilities, Mozilla

Easily convert Greasemonkey scripts into Firefox extensions

by Simon Kerbel Feb 5th 2008

User Script Compiler is a tool that creates a Firefox extension from a Greasemonkey script. So why would you want to do that? The answer is simple: for the mass majority of Firefox users that fear associating anything called "Greasemonkey" with their computers, and who panic at the mention of "scripts."

Intrepid techies such as Gina Tripani of Lifehacker have worked to make Greasemonkey scripts more digestible (her Better Gmail is a selection of scripts wrapped in a simple Firefox extension). Now, with the User Script Compiler, there is a way for all users to easily convert Greasemonkey scripts into the one-click simplicity of a Firefox extension, with no programming experience required.

Converting a Greasemonkey script into a Firefox extension does take a bit of legwork--but we're confident all you Download Squad readers could do this in your sleep.

First, you'll need to track down your installed scripts. They're in your Firefox profile, under the "gm_scripts" sub-folder. Or, if you'd prefer, you can skip the search and download any script from the online script repository.

Next, you need to change the file extension from .js (Javascript) to .txt (plain text). After you've changed the extension, double-click the file to view the code. Copy and paste the code into the User Script Compiler and hit "Generate."

Voila! Your new Firefox extension (.xpi) is complete. To install in Firefox, simply drag the new extension onto the Firefox interface and follow the prompts.

[via makeuseof.com]

Tags: firefox, greasemonkey, scripts, user script compiler, UserScriptCompiler

Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Podcasting, Web services, Freeware

CuePrompter - Your Online Teleprompter

by Emily Price Jan 20th 2008

Whether you're recording a podcast, a Squadcast, or anything in between it can sometimes be difficult to remember what you were trying to say once a video camera starts rolling. CuePrompter is free online teleprompter service that allows you to turn your computers web browser into a teleprompter of sorts and keep yourself on track while you're recording your next masterpiece.

Using CuePrompter is pretty easy: all you need to do is copy and paste your script in a box on the site and then "Start Prompter." CuePrompter then launches in a new window with you text and you're a play button away from teleprompter bliss. You can customize CuePrompter for your needs by choosing between a small screen size (good if you're using your computers webcam) or a big screen size (good if you've got a camcorder set up across the room) as well as a small or big font size depending on your situation and eyesight capabilities. The prompter has nine different speeds, can be made full-screen, viewed in normal or mirrored mode, and can be played backwards.

Each prompter session is limited to 2000 characters and requires you to be running MS Internet Explorer 5.0 or above and MS Windows XP, 2000, or 2003 to work properly. We tested it out using Firefox on a Mac and only ran into problems using the mirror and full-screen mode. CuePrompter also seemed to have some minor issue translating apostrophes. One thing that definitely makes CuePrompter different than regular prompters however is you have no way to really control the prompter once its started beyond simple starting and stopping, so once you start CuePrompter you better be ready to go.

[via EmilyChang]

Tags: podcast, prompter, scripts, teleprompter, video

Filed under: E-mail, Google, Browser Tips

Better Gmail 2 Firefox add-on works with new Gmail

by Brad Linder Nov 8th 2007

There's good new and bad news in the fact that Google is rolling out an updated version of Gmail. On the one hand, pages load quicker and there's an advanced contact manager. On the other hand, many of your favorite Firefox extensions for tweaking Gmail may have stopped working.

For a while now, personal productivity site Lifehacker has been rolling up some of the best Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail into a package called Better Gmail. And Google went ahead and broke pretty much every single one of those scripts with its new version.

Now Lifehacker has released the initial version of Better Gmail 2. It doesn't have all the features of Better Gmail 1. In fact, right now there are only about 6 options, compared with more than 25 in the old version of Better Gmail. But considering the fact that most users are just starting to see the new Gmail interface, we suspect it will take a little while before the Greasemonkey coders get around to making all of their hacks "newer version" compatible. In the meantime, Lifehacker promises to continue updating both the Better Gmail 1 and Better Gmail 2 packages until Google eliminates the "older version" option. Then all development will be on Better Gmail 2.

Tags: add-ons, better-gmail, better-gmail-2, extensions, firefox, gmail, greasemonkey, lifehacker, scripts

Filed under: Design, Developer, Blogging, Web services, Social Software

Greasemonkey script to "fix" Digg comment threading

by Grant Robertson Jun 22nd 2007

Fed up with Digg's recent comment system changes? You're not alone. Digg's new "threaded" comment system, which collapses the replies in a mess of Ajax slickness, has irritated quite a few previously happy Digg users.

This Greasemonkey script does its dead-level best to put Digg back the way it was, by automatically expanding all the threaded comments left on each story's detail view.

We're ambivalent on the issue. Sure, you have to click more to read all the comments on a particular story -- although, most times, god only knows why you'd want to -- it does prevent the "reply to first post" mess which inevitably contains a few links to things that are only partially related.

[via Digg (natch!)]

Tags: digg, greasemonkey, scripts, userscripts

Filed under: Windows, Freeware, Browser Tips

Run some Greasemonkey scripts with Internet Explorer 6

by Brad Linder Apr 25th 2007

Odds are if you know what Greasemonkey is, you're not run running Internet Explorer, or at least not Internet Explorer 6. But if for some reason you're using IE6 and want the ability to run scripts that change the appearance of web pages on your browser, you might want to check out Turnabout.

The program comes loaded with a couple of useful scripts, including Ad Blocker for hiding ads on web sites, Book Burro for comparison shopping when looking at books, and Bug Me Not for skipping the registration process on certain websites.

You can also use Turnabout to run a number of other scripts although there's no guarantee that they'll work with Internet Explorer.

[via Hackszine]

Tags: greasemonkey, scripts, turnabout, user scripts, UserScripts

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity

Better Gmail Firefox add-on

by David Chartier Apr 20th 2007

Gmail could very well be one of the most hackable web services of all time. One only needs to check our Gmail tag to see what tools are available for enhancing one's experience, and now we have a slick new cross-platform Firefox add-on to link to from our friends at Lifehacker: Better Gmail. As its name suggests, Better Gmail rounds up a number of popular Greasemonkey scripts and other extras into a handy management UI, complete with links to homepages if you need to find out more about any of the included extras. As you can see, this add-on packs a wallop, including many of our old (and new) favorites such as the Macros script (for many more keyboard shortcuts Gmail should really have in the first place), an Unlabelled label hack and a Filter Assistant which brings that handy email client functionality of building filters from a currently selected message. Of course, one could run out and find all these scripts on their own, but Better Gmail takes the clicking out of that process and wraps all this great stuff into one handy extension, complete with the ability to disable it all in one fell swoop in case you need to get back to Gmail's basics.

Better Gmail is of course provided for free here.

Tags: add ons, add-on, AddOns, better gmail, BetterGmail, gmail, greasemonkey, lifehacker, macros, plugin, plugins, script, scripts

Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Social Software

Google Calendar ToDo list Greasemonkey script

by David Chartier Apr 13th 2007

Why Google hasn't built something as fundamental as a todo manager into Google Calendar is beyond us, but now you have one more option for tasks on in gCal. While we've previously seen hidden code lead to speculation that todos were (finally) coming, as well as Remember the Milk integration, a new Greasemonkey script brings its own todo list to Google Calendar with an interesting twist. As you can see, this script from Google Operating System gives you a basic todo list without anything like alarms or filing in different calendars. The advantage here, however, is that the script saves todos as events in your calendar, which means you can get to these todos from any computer on which you install the script.

Check out Google Operating System's post for more details, or simply install the script to hit the ground running.

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: calendar, google, google calendar, GoogleCalendar, greasemonkey, script, scripts, todo, todo list, TodoList

Filed under: Design, Internet, Web services, Social Software

Userscripts.org redesigns

by David Chartier Feb 23rd 2007

Userscripts.org is a useful repository of scripts for Greasemonkey, the killer Firefox add-on that allows you to augment the way some sites look or function. I've used the site for some time now, but was always a little irked at its not-so-intuitive design. As you can see, the new design offers a breath of fresh air, with a much cleaner and more streamlined experience, though it isn't quite a major feature update just yet. This post in their forums announces the new site and their intentions, while the roadmap at the bottom of their wiki reveals a bit more about what's to come.

Individual script pages look good in this new format, with a clear description column and a sidebar containing all the pertinent metadata and tags. A big black "Install this script" button replaces the old, hard-to-find HTML link of the previous design, and I particularly like the link at the bottom of the content column to contributors who helped out with the script.

All things considered, I think this is a successful redesign that should bring the site more credibility and attention from both Greasemonkey script writers and users. I'll be interested to see how those new features roll into the site in the coming weeks and months.

Tags: design, greasemonkey, re-design, redesign, script, scripts, userscripts, userscripts.org

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Web services, Google, Open Source, Unix

Gmail Greasemonkey script updates, now with Google Code goodness

by David Chartier Jan 2nd 2007

Mihai Parparita, avid Googler and Greasemonkey script peddler extraordinaire, has been blogging a few updates to the fantastic Gmail scripts he's had a hand in. Mihai has made changes and added a few features recently, but also points to a Google Group where users have been trading their own mods to the scripts.

Most notably, the new features in Mihai's 'official' Gmail Macros script include:

b: Remove label
z: Mark unread
o: Expand/collapse all messages in a conversation
shift-x + a/n/r/u/s/t: Select all/none/read/unread/starred/unstarred
h: Show help (reference for built-in and the script's keyboard shortcuts)
Saved searches can now be selected using the 'g' label selector

Finally, to make the scripts more accessible (and possibly open source-able), Mihai has moved the scripts he's had a hand in to a Google Code repository. He's also considering opening up the 'project' so others can commit changes, though users can simply watch changes in the RSS feed for now.

Tags: gmail, greasemonkey, script, scripts

Filed under: Internet, News, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, Productivity, Web services, Google, Freeware, Social Software, Unix

Greaseonkey script adds a pseudo-search box to Google Reader

by David Chartier Oct 16th 2006

Continuing the buzz surrounding the new Google Reader, 3rd party Greasemonkey scripts are cropping up that either modify or add much-requested features (like integrating it with Gmail). At the top of this request list (or at least near it) is search - after all, it is a Google product. Unfortunately, the Reader team's own Mihai Parparita has explained in the product's Google Group that search is a bit tricky right now - but they're working on it.

While you wait though, why not add at least some basic search functionality with this Greasemonkey script? Be warned though, as by 'basic' I mean 'it can only search a single feed you're reading, or all blogs across the blogosphere, via Google's Blog Search.' For now, it can't search multiple blogs (a limit of the Blog Search engine itself) or folders of feeds in Reader, but hey - it's a start. On the plus side, the author is open to suggestions if anyone knows of an engine better suited to the task of searching multiple sites at once, so throw your two cents in if you want to make the only Google Reader search that much better.

Tags: blog, blog search, blogs, BlogSearch, feed, feeds, google, google reader, GoogleReader, greader, greasemonkey, script, scripts, search

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