VBForums FireFox Extension Alpha 1 is here! (update Aug 16)

[Cander]

As I mentioned couple months ago, I wanted to work on a Firefox extension to add quick and easy functionality to VBForums like the Right click functions that only works in IE that many of you have seen before, but this time for Firefox. This finally working alpha version give you right click functions to Bold, Code, and Quote selected text.

More will certainly follow now that I finally got the basics workin. Just open this file with firefox and restart Firefox.



If you have anything to report on it, let me know. Suggestions for other features is welcome,

Note that since xpi is not a valid upload extension here, I have renamed it .zip. Download and rename it to .xpi

This is working in Firefox .9.3

Edit Aug 16th: Added highlight tagging now thanks to NoteMe

[Xcoder]

what kind of new functionalities?

[Cander]

Its an updated version of this

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...0&pagenumber=1

but for firefox as that old one was IE only.

[techgnome]

Once I got it downloaded and installed, it works like a charm. Any chance you might be willing to share the code? I'd like to have a crack at setting something up for a web-app I use....

TG

[Cander]

You got the code. The xpi is just a zip file. Then just extract the jar file in the chrome directory which is also just a zip file. The bulk of the code is in the content directory.

[NoteMe]

I am glad to report that version 0.0.1 is working in FF 0.8 too...

And I can see that there is an icon and tree sub menues too it...

gjkdsgjkfsjgkes

tsdhtdsjsjy6

j6tsj5tjt

all three tests went well...



PS Is there any short cuts yet?

[Cander]

Not yet. Didnt even think about it at the time. But will start adding those in next release.

[visualAd]

Genius

Is this Firfox extension programming easy or hard?

[Cander]

easy. It just uses javascript and xul. XUL is just another HTML type markup language.

[NoteMe]

I must say that I love you for doing this...just tell me if you need any help...

Kind regarsds a Muppet..

[Cander]

[Cander]

Color picker dialog work in progress:

[SLH]

Ok. Who are you, and what have you done with our rude Cander?!?


Nice work!!

[dglienna]

Ilearnedsomethinggood!

[NoteMe]

Originally posted by Cander
Color picker dialog work in progress:

I would never have thought about that....is that some sort of standard controll or do you build it from scratch? What about having one like in PSP where there is all the colors, and not just 30 or so boxes with colors...???

[Cander]

Its an XUL widget. You cant have a million color picker. Choice are gray scale and web safe colors.

Having some problems with the color picker widget, as usual. Doesnt work like advertised, just like alot of stuff in XUL.

I SHOULD be able to use the onclick event to get the choosen color with colorpicker.getAttribute('color'), but it doesnt get any value at all. It works if I set type to button, which gives you a button, that when you click, the color swatch drops down. But Id rather have the swatch type fully visible. So gotta do some more research.

Hoping to get color picking and gradiant working today.

[wossname]

Cander, what dev tools did you use to construct these extensions? How do you compile / make it compatible.

I wanna make an extension now and I need to know where to start.

Rude work sir.

[Cander]

Any text editor. All it is is XML style syntax and Javascript.

To compile, you just compress the files to zip. The core code content is zipped to a .jar file, and then the .jar and install files are zipped to a .xpi file. Just plain old winzip is used. No special compiler is needed.

The XML syntax stuff is XUL and RDF, which you can learn about at www.xulplanet.com

[wossname]

Oh, so any fool can do it then. I only write programs if it makes me look intelligerent and cool.

[Cander]

Well not any fool. Mendhak couldnt do it! har har

[wossname]

[vbNeo]

This kicks ass, good work :D

This kicks ass, good work

This kicks ass, good work

[Cander]

Small update

Added Code From Clipboard option that will take data from the clipboard at put the code tags around it.

[visualAd]

Would it be possible to have it check the user CP and display a little icon when you get replies to threads. I think the gMail extension does something similar when you get new mail.

[Cander]

Hmm. Not sure. I kind of doubt it. I dont see any feasible way to do that. Checking an email box is different, because you can easily just store the date/time of the last email you got, but on a board, I would have to constantly store every post you have made then search each one if it has replies.

[visualAd]

The user cp displays the threads replied to most recently so it would only need to look there. If there are any threads, it will show the icon. It could check for any of "firstnew.gif" image as that appears when a subscribed thread has a new reply.

[Cander]

Ahh, ok subscribed threads. Yeah can probably do something like that.

[NoteMe]

I added some code for the [hl] tags....but I must have done something wrong...first of all, I could not uninstall the old extension....second of all I tried to disable it...then install the new one I made, but it was no hl thingy in the menu...

[Cander]

You shouldnt have to uninstall. Should overwrite the old version assuming you didnt change the GUID. As to why it didnt work? Uplaod the xpi and ill take a look and see if I can see the problem.

[NoteMe]

WEll I must admitt that I didn't look more then 2 minutes at the code...and changed two things......not sure if that is enough.,...but I got no errors...nothing happend...


I added these two lines:

<menupopup>
              <menuitem id="context-bold" label="Bold" oncommand="vbf.vbf('bold');"/>
              <menuitem id="context-code" label="Code" oncommand="vbf.vbf('code');"/>
              <menuitem id="context-paste" label="Quote Selection" oncommand="vbf.vbf('quote');"/>
         <menuitem id="context-paste" label="Highlight text" oncommand="vbf.vbf('highlight');"/>
           </menupopup>

[code]switch (myCommand){

case "quote":
vbf.insertAtCursor(theBox,"[quote ]" + str + "[/quote ]");
break;

case "bold":
vbf.insertAtCursor(theBox,"[b ]" + str + "[/ b]");
break;


case "code":
vbf.insertAtCursor(theBox,"

" + str + "[/ code]");
        break;

      case "highlight":
        vbf.insertAtCursor(theBox,"[hl ]" + str + "[ /hl]");
        break;
        
      default : alert("You did not pick an option");
    }

and here is the file....just rename it...and you know the drill...

[NoteMe]

heheh..talk about messed up tags..

[NoteMe]

Fixed them...some how......well at least added some spacing to them..

[Cander]

Thew problem is your packaging which is what I figured.

If you open the xpi, the vbf.jar should be in chrome directory, not vbforum/chrome, and the other 2 files shouldnt be in a sub directory at all. Also in the jar file, all the directories start with /vbf which the should not.

I find that winrar does a better job at creating the zips that winzip. So try winrar instead.

My process involves highlighting the content, locale, and skin folders and right click then Add to Archive(Winrar's contenxt menu addition). Then select the zip radio button and rename vbf.jar.

Then copy the jar file to the chrome directory, then highlight chrome directory, install.js, and install.rdf and Add to Archive again. selecting zip radio button and naming it to a xpi file.

[NoteMe]

**** **** ****...I must be the dumbest guy ever....I can't make this work...and now if I try to install it it says:

The extension was sucsesfully installed...then I press OK

thyn it says:

The extension was sucsesfully installed...then I press OK

then it says:

The extension was sucsesfully installed...then I press OK


I bet I have ****ed up FF good now...

[Cander]

Upload the latest xpi.

BTW about to update the official version with your highlight addition. Will replace the old one in above in a few seconds.

[NoteMe]

****..no......ehhee....well here it is...tried to install it agian...and now it said it was sucsessyully 4 times...wonder if I do it again..maybe I get 5 notifications...

[Cander]

Installed fine for me. did you close all running instances of firefox then reopen after installing?

[NoteMe]

Yeah I did....I think I ****ed it up......will try to restart my machine....I think something went wrong when I tried something earlier....hope I don't have to reinstall FF...

[Cander]

Well if you have to, goto

c:\documents and settings\<logged on user>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\default.***\extensions

And delete the files in there and the directory {47F7B08F-38B3-4909-B5B9-983F4B71824B}

[NoteMe]

Hehhee...A freaken reboot was all I needed....I think I know what went wrong...

After you told me I had zipped it up wrong...I deleted my files, then I tried to download your file, so I could start from scratch...but since you have a space in the file name, FF (at least 0.8) ****s up some times. If I am lucky it downloads it and cuts of the rest after the space...but this time I just hang...so I shut down FF, and tried again.....and then probably some of FFs prosesses was still hanging in WIn somewhere.....but now it works...