Electric Development Blog

The End is here.

2006-04-13T15:19:00.000+02:00

OK I was right, I didn't have the motivation to keep writing here. Anway, I'll be keeping the site here for all of you who want to download my scripts.

Thanks for now, I'll be back, somewhere, sometime.

That's all folks?

2006-01-30T22:26:00.000+01:00

One of my faithful readers asked me the other day if I already quit blogging (after all, it's been a loong silence :). I told him - as a rule - I never quit, but I usually take long breaks.

Anyway, I'll still be here for a while, and even though I haven't spat out any new user scripts lately, I did learn a thing or two, and that's what I'll be sharing with you in the weeks to come.

AutoTOC fame

2005-11-27T14:56:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I received a copy of Mark Pilgrim's "Greasemonkey Hacks" in the mail - and it didn't take me long to find Hack #71 "Add a Table of Contents to Long Pages" a.k.a AutoTOC. Woho! :) Mine! Precioussss! (OK I must admit - it's a been a long time since I've seen my source code printed on paper... I'm guessing the high school assignments back in 95?? :)

The interesting part is the period of time from when I knew nothing about Greasemonkey, until Pilgrim contacted me and asked me if I would contribute the script to his book. It took less than two weeks. Fair enough, we're not talking about cure to cancer or a Microsoft Office-competitor, but still... two weeks!! Vive la revolution!

I didn't ask Mark how he found the script, but I'm guessing he found it through Jeremy Dunck's wiki (most people did at the time - and still do). Others tend to find the script through my Technorati tags or through user script portals like userscripts.org and userjs.org.

The point is - I've been blown away before - about how quickly information and tools spread in this relatively new age of blogs, RSS and wikis... and then it happened to me.

Anyway, thanks to Mark for recognising the script (even though he forgot to include my name in the Contributors section ;)). Also, thanks to all of you (my 3 loyal readers and AutoTOC power users) for your kind suggestions, comments (and error reports).

New Release: AutoTOC 1.6

2005-11-22T10:35:00.000+01:00

AutoTOC has reached version 1.6, and should be more compatible than ever, it is tested on Firefox 1.0, Firefox 1.5, Opera8 and Opera9.

Featuring:
- Flash active heading
- Moved close button to the left, looks a bit better now

Misc tech:
- Fixed bug in cookie handling
- Opera choked on the treewalker, so we've changed to XPath instead

Get it here: http://www.runeskaug.com/greasemonkey/autotoc.user.js

A bookmarklet version will appear in the next few days. Thanks.

Update: To install the Bookmarklet version; drag the following link to your bookmarks or toolbar: TOC it!

Tags: user scripts, greasemonkey, opera, firefox, html, bookmarklet.

Coming soon, more posts...

2005-11-09T07:59:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone, I'm sure you missed me and, no less, my faboulous user scripts. The last couple of months have been pretty hectic, but thhings seem to be calming down a bit now. I've been getting comments about upgrading my scripts to Firefox 1.5 compability, and I'll try to do that as soon as possible. I also got some comments from Tarquin at userjs.org about AutoTOC performance, and I'll sort that out as well. OK just thought you ought to know... See you later!

Electric Resizer 1.0

2005-08-11T09:22:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone! I'm back after a short break, holidays, real life, that kind of things. Let's launch August with ... a curiosity ...a bit pre-Flickr, but still a piece of Windows software.... Electric Resizer. The Resizer does excactly what you think it does. It resizes pictures. Or to be more precise, it downsizes them. Define your maximum width and height, and it automagically scans the selected folder for pictures and outputs them in a web page friendly format. Could potentially save you hours of hard work. :)

Download the setup file here: ResizerSetup.exe

User script: CibLines

2005-07-25T15:47:00.000+02:00

Another day, another script.

My first two user scripts/greasemonkey scripts I made were named AutoTOC and Bloglines HAI. So this time I thought I should be doing something that started with a C. So. My third script (and probably the third best one so far...):

CibLines ... aka Comments in Bloglines.

The usual picture (1000 words).

(Not very cleverly named, this one - either.) Anyway - CiBLines is a simple script that works like this: When you click the Comments link, it creates a small window (iframe) just below the "Comments" link in Bloglines, containing all comments to a post.

The script only applies to blogs where the RSS contains a comment link. Unlike my own Blogger blog. Shame on it.

The usual disclaimers apply (it may not work at all, it may not work as you wish...).
Please send me comments, suggestions etc. below - in the comments field.

Download here: http://runeskaug.com/greasemonkey/ciblines.user.js

Tags: greasemonkey, user scripts, bloglines.

AutoTOC Bookmarklet

2005-07-24T16:47:00.000+02:00

Thanks to an anonymous commenter, I decided to create a bookmarklet version of the AutoTOC script. Drag the following link to your linkbar, and press it when you want your TOC: TOC it!

(sorry, I only tested it for Firefox)

Tags: javascript, bookmarklet.

AutoTOC 1.4

2005-07-13T12:14:00.000+02:00

I just uploaded an updated version of the AutoTOC user script to my server (version 1.3). I have added a per-site, per-session cookie for the Hide behaviour, which means you don't have to hide the toc-bar more than once per site. This behaviour can easily be turned off by setting useCookie to false.

The updated version can be downloaded or installed directly from here: AutoTOC

Tags: greasemonkey, user scripts, autotoc.

Update 2005-07-20: Version 1.4. Disabled adding of menu item due to security restrictions in Greasemonkey. It is very important that you all upgrade to the latest version of Greasemonkey. (read more @ Greaseblog).

User script: AutoTOC

2005-07-12T10:36:00.000+02:00

Update 2005-12-01: Version 1.6 has been released, which fixes a few bugs, adds FF1.5 compatibility etc. See separate post here.

This user script (a.k.a. Greasemonkey script) creates a select box in the lower right corner of your screen (sort of a Start menu for your web page), containing quick-links to all headers (H1,H2,H3,H4) - an automagically created table of contents. It really helps navigating through long documents (with a certain amount of standard HTML tags), no matter how hard it used to be. Here, another 1000 words on the subject:

(hey - why didn't I think of that last year when I handed in those 3000-word essays ??)

The script should be working nicely in Firefox (with Greasemonkey installed) and Opera 8. For Firefox installation instructions, see previous post (except the part where you log into bloglines (c: ), for Opera installation instructions, see the official Opera User Script tutorial.

The script can be downloaded from here:
http://www.runeskaug.com/greasemonkey/autotoc.user.js

Update 2005-07-06: Made the script even more standards-friendly, thanks to the strict userjs.org moderators ;)

Update 2005-07-11: Version 1.1. Improved the tag scanning algorithm, and added a "Hide TOC" button (thanks to Julien for the suggestion) - which can be turned off by using setting in the script.

Tags: user scripts, greasemonkey, autotoc

User script: Bloglines HAI (Hide Archived Items)

2005-07-04T13:13:00.000+02:00

Oy! I'm back with an updated version of the Bloglines HAI Greasemonkey script (a.k.a. user script). The script modifies your Bloglines experience, so that your archived (a.k.a. bookmarked) news items are hidden from view unless explicitly asked for...

Installation instructions:

Install Firefox, if it isn't already installed.
Install the Greasemonkey extension, if it isn't already installed.
In Firefox, surf to http://www.runeskaug.com/greasemonkey/bloglines-hai.user.js
In Firefox, go Tools -> Install User Script...
In Firefox, surf to Bloglines.
If you have saved any items (By using the "Keep New" checkbox in the lower right corner of each item), they will be hidden by default. Show them by using the "... Archived" link as shown in the screenshot above.

Why you want it:

Because you're always in a hurry - you like to save some interesting items for later. Problem is, these items will always show up under your articles (or even worse - on top if you sort your items cronologically (as older articles tend to be ... older than the new ones... ;) - and slow down your reading.
If you show new and updated articles for all your feeds (in my case - "51 Feeds" - that's the top folder in the left-hand navigation tree), you will see new items only, not all the old ones you archived for some reason.
You may also want it for other reasons, please let me know in the comments.

Update 2005-07-07: Fixed a couple of bugs when reading "all blogs", the previous version totalled all blogs and put the same numbers on all blog headers. Also, renamed the script from HABI to HAI. ;)

Please leave a comment if you like the script - or have any suggestions - or if you hate it and want to give me money to stop making lame scripts ;)

Tags: user scripts, greasemonkey, bloglines

Starting off with a Greasemonkey script... Bloglines HABI!

2005-07-02T09:24:00.000+02:00

Hey'all,

I'll be coming back with more shortly, but for now ... the only content of this blog is a mention of my brand new Greasemonkey [read more there if you don't know what the heck I'm talking about...] script for Bloglines, which hides (and shows) your archived items (the ones you "Keep New"...)

Install from here: Bloglines HABI: Hide Archived Bloglines Items

Please, add your suggestions at any time!

Update: New post / version here.