« It's Me, or Not... | Main | GCJ - Compile Java into Native Machine Code »
June 08, 2005
Greasemonkey - Take Control of Your Web Experience
Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to embed DHTML in any web page. For instance, If I type:
javascript:document.images[0].style.display = "none"; void 0;
in the address bar while at http://www.chuckcaplan.com, my most recent mobile photo will disappear (Thanks to fellow Duquesne alumn Ben Schmaus for this example). Taking this a step further, a script could be written to remove the ads from Yahoo! Mail or to do any number of things to enhance your web experience. I personally like some of the scripts written for IMDB.
For my first Greasemonkey script, I stole followed a suggestion by Justin Curtis to remove the ads MapQuest puts on the page when you print directions. The script can be found here. To use this script:
- Install Firefox
- Install Greasemonkey
- Install my User Script by going here and then going to Tools --> Install User Script
People have written scripts much more complicated than that, some using regular expressions to search for text and some using XPath to search for certain parts of an HTML page. An excellent place to find Greasemonkey scripts is here.
I encourage you to take a look at this technology and start writing scripts to make your surfing more enjoyable. If you come up with anything interesting, let me know.
Posted by Chuck at June 8, 2005 09:43 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.chuckcaplan.com/blog/mt-tb.cgi/22