Greasemonkey Hacks/Getting Started
< Greasemonkey Hacks
Greasemonkey Hacks
Foreword
Credits
Preface
Chapter 1: Getting Started
Chapter 2: Linkmania!
Chapter 3: Beautifying the Web
Chapter 4: Web Forms
Chapter 5: Developer Tools
Chapter 6: Search
Chapter 7: Web Mail
Chapter 8: Accessibility
Chapter 9: Taking Back the Browser
Chapter 10: Syndication
Chapter 11: Site Integration
Chapter 12: Those Not Included in This Classification
Colophon
Contents [hide]
1 Hacks 1–12: Introduction
2 Install a User Script
2.1 Installing from the Context Menu
2.2 Installing from the Tools Menu
2.3 Editing Greasemonkey's Configuration Files
3 Provide a Default Configuration
3.1 The Code
3.2 Wrapper
3.3 Name
3.4 Namespace
3.5 Description
3.6 URL Directives
4 Master the @include and @exclude Directives
4.1 Matching with or Without the www. Prefix
4.2 Matching All Subdomains of a Site
4.3 Matching Different Top-Level Domains of a Site
4.4 Deciding Between * and http://*
5 Prevent a User Script from Executing
5.1 Disabling a User Script Without Uninstalling It
5.2 Disabling All User Scripts
5.3 Disabling a User Script by Removing All Included Pages
5.4 Disabling a User Script by Excluding All Pages
5.5 Disabling a User Script by Editing config.xml
5.6 Uninstalling a User Script
6 Configure a User Script
6.1 Inline
6.2 During Installation
6.3 After Installation
6.4 Editing Configuration Files
7 Add or Remove Content on a Page
7.1 Adding an Element
7.2 Removing an Element
7.3 Inserting an Element
7.4 Replacing an Element
7.5 Modifying an Element's Attributes
8 Alter a Page's Style
8.1 Adding a Global Style
8.2 Inserting or Removing a Single Style
8.3 Modifying an Element's Style
9 Master XPath Expressions
9.1 Basic Syntax
9.2 Examples
10 Develop a User Script "Live"
10.1 Setting Up File Associations
10.1.1 On Mac OS X.
10.1.2 On Windows.
10.2 The "Live Editing" Development Cycle
11 Debug a User Script
11.1 Check Error Messages
11.2 Log Errors
11.3 Find Page Elements
11.4 Test JavaScript Code Interactively
12 Embed Graphics in a User Script
12.1 The Code
12.2 Running the Hack
13 Avoid Common Pitfalls
13.1 Security Hole #1: Source Code Leakage
13.2 Security Hole #2: API Leakage
13.3 Security Hole #3: Local File Access
13.4 Redesigning from the Ground Up
13.5 Going Deeper
13.6 Pitfall #1: Auto-eval Strings
13.7 Pitfall #2: Event Handlers
13.8 Pitfall #3: Named Forms and Form Elements
13.9 Pitfall #4: Custom Properties
13.10 Pitfall #5: Iterating Collections
13.11 Pitfall #6: scrollIntoView
13.12 Pitfall #7: location
13.13 Pitfall #8: Calling Remote Page Scripts
13.14 Pitfall #9: watch
13.15 Pitfall #10: style
13.16 Conclusion
Hacks 1–12: Introduction
The first thing you need to do to get started with Greasemonkey is install it. Open Firefox and go to http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org. Click the Install Greasemonkey link. Firefox will warn you that it prevented this site from installing software, as shown in Figure 1-1.
Figure 1-1. Firefox, requiring you to whitelist sites to install extensions
Click the Edit Options button to bring up the Allowed Sites dialog, as shown in Figure 1-2.
Figure 1-2. Allowed Sites dialog
Click the Allow button to add the Greasemonkey site to your list of allowed sites; then click OK to dismiss the dialog. Now, click the Install Greasemonkey link again, and Firefox will pop up the Software Installation dialog, as shown in Figure 1-3.
Figure 1-3. Software Installation dialog
Click Install Now to begin the installation process. After it downloads, quit Firefox and relaunch it to finish installing Greasemonkey.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get right to it.
Install a User Script
Greasemonkey won't do anything until you start installing user scripts to customize specific web pages.
A Greasemonkey user script is a single file, written in JavaScript, that customizes one or more web pages. So, before Greasemonkey can start working for you, you need to install a user script.
Tip
Many user scripts are available at the Greasemo