User:Joeytwiddle

GrimeApe - an HTTP Proxy acting like Greasemonkey

I recently wrote an emulation of Greasemonkey in a proxy, so that userscripts would run in Konqueror. It's called GrimeApe and can be found at http://hwi.ath.cx/

Suggestions for Greasemonkey development

Library Userscripts and Dependencies

It could be useful to have an extra meta tag:

The loadlib meta would cause Greasemonkey to load the specified script from the user's gm_scripts/ folder before running the userscript which contained the meta.

This would allow us to define a library script of common functions which we can re-use in any of our userscripts, simply by adding the meta. These library scripts are always loaded from a trusted source, they are local userscripts which do nothing when run alone.

Sounds like a good start to a feature request in case the sandbox isn't ever expanded... you may wish to enter an enhancement ticket at http://greasemonkey.devjavu.com/newticket with this instead of the wiki talk pages. It will get the proper attention there. Marti 04:46, 7 June 2009 (EDT)

Thanks Marti, I see that is where the development discussion is. The greasemonkey-dev mailing list looks a bit overwhelmed by what look to me like user questions!

Regarding LibraryUserscripts, I should still think about other ways to do it. I saw there is a Google project that offers some extra functionality for Greasemonkey scripting of Google Groups data (or was it Google Reader?). I don't know how this is delivered, maybe it is an object they supply in the DOM for all browsers.

It just occurred to me that one existing way of making a library userscript would be to have it create an Object full of useful functions, and embed it in the DOM. Any userscripts which execute later could reference the object to make use of those functions. Unfortunately this raises security issues since untrusted scripts can access that globally visible object too. (Maybe we can force our library to drop GM internals from our scope, using fn.toString() for example.) We would somehow need to ensure the library scripts run first, and that they run on all pages where one of their dependent scripts will run.

Immediate loading of enabled script

When we bring up the monkey's menu to turn on a script which was un-checked (disabled), we then have to reload the page, for it to be applied. Why?! Since userscripts are not run until after the page has loaded, couldn't GM run the activated script immediately, without the need for a page refresh?

(You don't necessarily need a full Reload. Navigating to the current page via a link or by URL bar -> Enter should be enough. However I tend to naturally hit Ctrl+R or the Reload icon, although this causes a full reload which is significantly slower.)

[This could be seen as using a Userscript more like a Bookmarklet. It can work over a large range of websites, but we usually prefer it disabled. Occasionally we want to enable it for one page, or for a while during a browsing session.]

GM_clearStyle

It is common that you want your userscript to add some floating menus or windows on top of the page. Unfortunately these will often inherit CSS rules from the page, and your added elements can end up with strange colours and alignment. It would be handy to break out of page style settings and create elements using a default empty stylesheet. How might this be possible? Can we literally move to a fresh CSS namespace? Or do we need something like this?

Tracking Installed Scripts Source URL (and updates)

I often want to visit the homepage of a script I have installed, but the author didn't include it. I would like Greasemonkey to make a record of the update URL and the homepage of a script when I install it. We could insert the meta tags if they were not included by the author, or inaccurate. There are update scripts which try to track scripts, but shouldn't it be supported?

What is Namespace good for?

Finally a thought on logging and @namespace. The only standard I have really seen @namespace used for is to provide the homepage of the script or the author in @namespace. Should this be officially declared as the intention of @namespace? And since these URLs are often long, does it really make sense to make them part of the headers of log messages? Wouldn't just the name of the script be more appropriate when reading the log?

Contra Development

I'm actually quite happy that Greasemonkey has kept its API small, this can accommodate wider compatibility. I think any additions to the API should be discussed over time by developers and users. I was wondering whether the developers were intending to extend Greasemonkey in the future, or have decided to keep it small and tidy, and leave the addition of features (aka bloat) to other projects.