|
|
|
Grease monkey
ARE you bored of the way the websites look and behave? Wish you could change a few things in them or do some tweaking? Stop searching around because Greasemonkey can help you. This is one of the most popular extensions of Firefox which does little by itself but allows developers to create scripts to modify the way webpages function and to provide them with some added functionalities.
But first of all, you need the Firefox web browser. Next, you need to download the Greasemonkey extension from greasemonkey.mozdev.org. Then restart the browser, go to the tools menu and verify Greasemonkey.
There are a number of sites offering Greasemonkey scripts and installing them is fairly easy; just click on a desired script name and a dialog box is displayed with a brief introduction of the website. To start, check out the Check Range script, which solves the problem of the check marking of individual checkboxes against emails. While deleting them from a long list, “Select All” is not an option because one or two mails have to be retained. Now with this script enabled, check the first item, press shift and select the last item; it results in the automatic checking of all emails in between. It works with Gmail or Yahoo! and for those who use Yahoo! Mail extensively, a time-saving script is the Yahoo! mail attachment download link. Normally, when an email has an attachment, three links are displayed: “preview”, “scan and save to computer” and “save to Yahoo! briefcase”. But with this script enabled, a “download” link is added which allows direct download without opening another window or waiting for a scan.
Another neat script is Linkify which automatically converts text into URLs, thus saving the time spent in copying and pasting an address written in a web page. One doesn’t have to copy-paste an address in an email client because they appear automatically.
One of the most practical and useful scripts available for Greasemonkey users is the “auto save form”. But in case the script is enabled and the browser window crashes or closes before the user can press the “save or update button”, it displays the “repopulate form” button. Try it out, for example, on the Yahoo! Mail preferences settings page: go to Options>General Preferences, change the form name and close the tab without pressing save. Then open this page again to see a red repopulate form button at the top-right corner of the page.
For the security-conscious, there’s a script called Gone Phishing. Suppose a prankster sets up a website asking users to visit http://real-site-name.com but this apparently real link is, in fact, linked to http://fake-site.com so that when the user clicks the link, the fraudulent site is loaded. However, with Gone Phishing enabled, the browser always displays the real link no matter what the apparent text is, and when there’s a difference in text and its real link, such links are shown with a yellow background with three trailing asterisks as a warning sign. Monkeyspaw is there for those who would like to get in-depth detail of the site they are visiting, for example, IP info, DNS. It adds check boxes at the bottom of the page and a single click creates overlay boxes with information fetched through several sites. This is a real time-saver. To browse more scripts organised by categories, userscripts.org is one of the best sites. It lists scripts grouped by websites that they alter. Among these, you will find loads of tweaks for popular sites such as YouTube, D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S., Yahoo! and Gmail.
Managing scripts
Note that a brown monkey face appears in the status bar of Firefox, showing Greasemonkey. Clicking it once enables and disables the extension; it is shown with a different colour monkey face when you right-click this icon and select “Manage user scripts,” or through Tools>Greasemonkey. This opens up a script panel which shows installed scripts. Here, scripts can be individually edited, enabled and disabled and the sites on which they are applicable can be viewed. For example, the Linkify script runs on all pages, therefore it shows “*” by default. The “included and excluded pages” list can be edited as well but you must refresh the page in order to apply a newly installed script.
This innovative script-enabled approach toward client-side customisation proves that Firefox is popular not only for security but also for its ability to allow the netizen communities to participate in web functionality enhancements through plug-in and extension development. Greasemonkey has taken the idea a step further by creating an extension that allows users to contribute their scripts. So by learning a bit of Java scripting and consulting free online resources, you can write your own scripts too.
Writer’s email: arbil@cyber.net.pk
|
|
|
|
