Code snippets

Shortcut to document.getElementById

function $(id) {
  return document.getElementById(id);
}

Example usage:

$("header").innerHTML = "Halloa!";

XPath helper

Run a particular XPath expression p against the context node context (or the document, if not provided).

Returns the results as an array.

function $x(p, context) {
  if (!context) context = document;
  var i, arr = [], xpr = document.evaluate(p, context, null, XPathResult.UNORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null);
  for (i = 0; item = xpr.snapshotItem(i); i++) arr.push(item);
  return arr;
}

Example usage (with Array.forEach):

var i, paragraphs = $x("//p");
paragraphs.forEach(function(paragraph) {  // Loop over every paragraph
  paragraph.innerHTML = "Halloa!";
});

Conditional logging

Used to easily toggle sending debug messages to the console. Passes all arguments on to console.log, but only if console is defined (for backward compatibility) and DEBUG is true.

Code and example usage:

const DEBUG = true;

var links = document.links;
debug("Links: %o", links);

function debug() {
  if (DEBUG && console) {
    console.log.apply(this, arguments);
  }
}

DOM node manipulation

Use .innerHTML to create DOM structure

The non W3 standard setter function .innerHTML can be used to concisely create DOM structure in trivial userscripts. The following is a complete branding script to show that Greasemonkey has run on a host.

host = document.location.host;
dummyDiv = document.createElement('div');
dummyDiv.innerHTML = '<div><span style="color: red">Greased: ' + host + '</span></div>';
document.body.insertBefore(dummyDiv.firstChild, document.body.firstChild);

Note above that dummyDiv is only needed as a holder for its .firstChild.

Here is a helper function that reuses the dummyDiv:

function firstNodeOf(html){
 firstNodeOf.dummyDiv.innerHTML = html;
 return firstNodeOf.dummyDiv.firstChild;
 }
firstNodeOf.dummyDiv = documentCreateElement('div');

With this helper, one can write the following trivial script:

document.body.appendChild(firstNodeOf('<div><span style="color: red">END OF PAGE</span></div>');

STRONGLY NOTE: .innerHTML seems to be sensitive to document.contentType. When the type is text/plain the .innerHTML setter does not parse its argument into DOM nodes, but instead returns #text nodes. The setter seems to work fine for types such as text/html or application/xhtml+xml but where and how it works is undocumented.

Advantages: Concise and and probably more efficient than any hand coded approach.

Disadvantages: Other than the text/plain probem, .innerHTML is not a W3 standard and many people don't like non-standard code.

Upshot: Until ECMAScript for XML (E4X) becomes availble in user scripts, this is a useful hack for non text/plain pages.

Notes

• .innerHTML cannot be used to create parts of a TABLE. E.g.

tab = firstNodeOf('<table><tr><td> ... </td></tr></table>'); // WORKS
tr  = firstNodeOf('<tr><td> ... </td></tr>');                // DOESN'T WORK
td  = firstNodeOf('<td> ... </td>');                         // DOESN'T WORK 
td.innerHTML = ' ... ';                                      // WORKS

So, if a script builds a table from a HTML string, it has to be done as a whole rather than in parts.

Build a DOM node with attributes

Creates a new DOM node with the given attributes.

function createElement(type, attributes){
 var node = document.createElement(type);
 for (var attr in attributes){
  node.setAttribute(attr, attributes[attr]);
 }
 return node;
}

Example usage:

link = createElement('link', {rel: 'stylesheet', type: 'text/css', href: basedir + 'style.css'});

Remove DOM node

function remove(element) {
    element.parentNode.removeChild(element);
}

Insert node after node

function insertAfter(newNode, node) {
  return node.parentNode.insertBefore(newNode, node.nextSibling);
}

This works because even if node is the last node, nextSibling returns null so insertBefore puts the new node at the end.

Example usage:

var link = document.getElementById("the_link");
var icon = document.createElement("img");
icon.src = "…";
insertAfter(icon, link);

Hijacking browser properties

Sometimes you want to cook your own browser constants, for instance change the value of navigator.userAgent. Getters are good for that:

var real = window.navigator.userAgent;
var lie = function() { return real + " Macintosh"; };
unsafeWindow.navigator.__defineGetter__("userAgent", lie);

Extending the DOM with missing functions

Other times you might want to emulate proprietary functionality of another browser, for instance when a site uses such features:

var getter = function() { return this.textContent; };
var setter = function(t) { return this.textContent = t; };
unsafeWindow.HTMLElement.prototype.__defineGetter__("innerText", getter);
unsafeWindow.HTMLElement.prototype.__defineSetter__("innerText", setter);

Advanced createElement for creating hierarchies of elements

Creates an element with attributes as well as child elements with their own attributes and children. Function should be called with arguments in the form of the following hash (note that "child1", "child2" should be hashes of the same structure): createEl({n: nodename, a: {attr1: val, attr2: val}, c: [child1, child2], evl: {type: eventlistener_type, f: eventlistener_function, bubble: bool}}, appendTo)

function createEl(elObj, parent) {
  var el;
  if (typeof elObj == 'string') {
     el = document.createTextNode(elObj);
  }
  else {
     el = document.createElement(elObj.n);
     if (elObj.a) {
        attributes = elObj.a;
        for (var key in attributes) {
           if (key.charAt(0) == '@')
              el.setAttribute(key.substring(1), attributes[key]);
           else 
              el[key] = attributes[key];
        }
     }
     if (elObj.evl) {
        el.addEventListener(elObj.evl.type, elObj.evl.f, elObj.evl.bubble);
     }
     if (elObj.c) {
        elObj.c.forEach(function (v, i, a) { createEl(v, el); });
     }
  }
  if (parent)
     parent.appendChild(el);
  return el;
}

Example usage:

   createEl({n: 'ol', a: {'@class': 'some_list', '@id': 'my_list'}, c: [
   {n: 'li', a: {textContent: 'first point'}, evl: {type: 'click', f: function() {alert('first point');}, bubble: true}},
   {n: 'li', a: {textContent: 'second point'}},
   {n: 'li', a: {textContent: 'third point'}}
   ]}, document.body);

GET an URL with callback function

Retrieves url using HTTP GET, then calls the function cb with the response text as its single argument.

function get(url, cb) {
  GM_xmlhttpRequest({
    method: "GET",
     url: url,
     onload: function(xhr) { cb(xhr.responseText); }
  });
}

Example usage:

function inform(text) {
  alert("The HTML of the page: " + text);
}
 
get("http://www.google.com", inform);

RegExp escape string

Escapes regexp meta characters in a string.

function escapeRegexp(s) {
  return s.replace(/([.*+?^${}()|[\]\/\\])/g, '\\$1');
}

Example usage:

var re = new RegExp("^" + escapeRegexp("fo*bar") + "$");
"fo*bar".match(re);  // Matches
"foobar".match(re);  // Doesn't match

!important Style

Appends !important to each rule then adds the CSS to the page letting you override the default formatting.

 function addStyle(css) {
   GM_addStyle(css.replace(/;/g,' !important;'));
 }

Example usage:

 addStyle('a {text-decoration:none;}');

Make menu toggle

A common pattern is to register a menu command that toggles some script variable that is persisted using GM_get/setValue. This function abstracts that functionality.

function makeMenuToggle(key, defaultValue, toggleOn, toggleOff, prefix) {
  // Load current value into variable
  window[key] = GM_getValue(key, defaultValue);
  // Add menu toggle
  GM_registerMenuCommand((prefix ? prefix+": " : "") + (window[key] ? toggleOff : toggleOn), function() {
    GM_setValue(key, !window[key]);
    location.reload();
  });
}

The first argument is the key used with GM_get/setValue and is also the variable which will hold the current value. The second argument is the default value.

The third and fourth arguments are the text to be displayed in the menu for toggling on and toggling off, respectively. The fifth argument is an optional prefix for those menu items.

Only one menu command is added, that will toggle the option.

Example usage:

makeMenuToggle("linkify_emails", true, "Include e-mail addresses", "Exclude e-mail addresses", "Linkify");

if (linkify_emails)
  process_emails_too();

Note that after changing the value, the page is reloaded so that the script runs again with the changed options. This is not recommended if the user might have unsaved input on the page in question. In such a case, consider adding a prompt or re-running some method instead.

Serialize/deserialize for GM_getValue

Used to store and retrieve multiple values (typically as a serialized hash) in a single GM_getValue slot.

function deserialize(name, def) {
  return eval(GM_getValue(name, (def || '({})')));
}

function serialize(name, val) {
  GM_setValue(name, uneval(val));
}

Example usage:

var settings = {a: 1, b: 2, c: 3};
serialize('test', settings);
var _settings = deserialize('test');
// now "settings == _settings" should be true

make an array persistent in globalStorage

DOM:Storage is available in Firefox 2.0 and up.

 /**
   Makes an given Array persistent in the globalStorage Object. It will not work
   with arrays that get additional mutator functions after it was made persistent.

   @param {String} name - name of the property of this that is the Array
   @param {String} domain - domain parameter of globalStorage
   @param {Array{String, String, ...}} add_mutator - additional non standard (Javascript 1.7) functions
 */
 function makeArrayPersistent(_name, _domain, _add_mutator){
   //workaround for scripts that work on pages stored on file://
   var domain = _domain || ".localdomain";

   //if the array is not defined yet we define it and fill it
   //with values stored in globalStorage
   if(!this[_name]){
     var evalStr = String(globalStorage[domain][_name]);
     this[_name] = eval(evalStr);
   //if it is defined allready we store it in globalStorage
   }else{
     globalStorage[domain][_name] = uneval(this[_name]);
   }

   //Watch will intercept asignments to this[_name] and store the new array in
   //globalStorage. The original array in globalStorage is discarded.
   this.watch(_name, function(_prop, _oldVal, _newVal){
     globalStorage[domain][_name] = uneval(_newVal);
     return _newVal;
   });

   //see a few lines below
   ["push", "pop", "reverse", "shift", "sort", "splice", "unshift"].forEach(function(_f){
     makeMutatorFunctionGlobal(_f);
   });

   //you can supply additional functions that will be wrapped
   if(_add_mutator)
     _add_mutator.forEach(function(_f){
     makeMutatorFunctionGlobal(_f);
   });

   //member functions that alter the array itself are wrapped. The wrapper will
   //call the mutator function and store the altered array in globalStorage
   function makeMutatorFunctionGlobal(_f){
     this[_name][_f] = function(){
       var f = this[_name][_f];
       return function(){
         var retVal;
         retVal = f.apply(this, arguments);
         globalStorage[domain].trolls = uneval(this);
         return retVal;
       }
     }();
   }
 }

Example Usage

We create an array in window.

 var a = [1,4,3,2];

The following would not work:

 function baz(){
   var b;
   makeArrayPersistent("b", "somewhere.org");
 }

We cant keep track of variables that that are not kept track of by Javascript itself.

 makeArrayPersistent("a", "somewhere.org");

We have to supply the variables name due to watch. this["a"] equals this.a in our case. If you want to store an object in a different scope you can use makeArrayPersistent.call(some.object, "a", "somewhere.org"); . The domain has to match the domain of the site where your script is injected too. Read up on globalObject for details.

 this.a.push(5);

Now a equals [1,4,3,2,5]. It is stored in globalObject that way.

 this.a.sort();

And now it's [1,2,3,4,5], stored again.

 delete this.a;

Now the array does not exist in this anymore. But it is kept in globalObject. In the next line a will be defined in this and filled from globalObject.

 makeArrayPersistent("a", "dexhome.homelinux.org");

And this.a equals [1,2,3,4,5] again.

If the user of your script got the same page open in two tabs the two scripts will start to fight over globalStorage and you will lose data. You have to alter makeMutatorFunctionGlobal with some meaningfull logic to counter this. The idea is to retrieve the array from globalStorage, combine it with the local copy and run the wrapped mutator function. Afterward it's stored in globalStorage again.