Greasemonkey request January 27, 2017 7:32 AM   Subscribe

Hey, you folks who know how to do such things… Is it possible to create a Greasemonkey script that would strip everything from a thread except the external html links? After reading this AskMe, I was thinking for those short on time, it would be a pretty neat way to get a MeFi curated news feed. (obviously related to current political events, but I’m guessing this level of participation isn’t going away any time soon)
posted by slipthought to Feature Requests at 7:32 AM (20 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite

Or maybe I mean Bookmarklet?

Whatever works. Hopefully you know what I mean.
posted by slipthought at 7:45 AM on January 27, 2017


Not sure if this fits your needs, but: Metalinks. It doesn't actually strip the non-link content, but it does put a neat box on the sidebar containing all the links from the thread.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:56 AM on January 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


Not sure if this fits your needs, but: Metalinks. It doesn't actually strip the non-link content, but it does put a neat box on the sidebar containing all the links from the thread.

That sounds like it would do the job, but the page linked won't load.
posted by slipthought at 8:02 AM on January 27, 2017


Loads fine for me...
posted by tonycpsu at 8:03 AM on January 27, 2017


Oh, you mean the script itself. Yeah, userscripts.org went down a while back. Try here.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:04 AM on January 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


Yes, this is possible.
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:20 AM on January 27, 2017


While we're on the subject of Greasemonkey, my two scripts using Tapermonkey in Chrome have suddenly stopped working. (They are MeFi quote and MeFi deleted posts). Is this user error, an across the board systematic error or hard to tell from what I posted here?

I have made no changes to anything. I assume Chrome and Tapermonkey update themselves on a fairly regular basis.

Hope me!
posted by AugustWest at 1:24 PM on January 27, 2017


Hard to tell. If you've switched to HTTPS, it's possible that the @include lines in those scripts don't include the https URLs. If that's the case, simply editing those lines to something like this:


// @include http*://metafilter.com/*
// @include http*://*.metafilter.com/*


ought to fix things.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:28 PM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


I assume Chrome and Tapermonkey update themselves on a fairly regular basis.

try a manual update from settings:extensions if you haven't already
posted by poffin boffin at 2:28 PM on January 27, 2017


tonycpsu: "Hard to tell. If you've switched to HTTPS, it's possible that the @include lines in those scripts don't include the https URLs. If that's the case, simply editing those lines to something like this:


// @include http*://metafilter.com/*
// @include http*://*.metafilter.com/*


ought to fix things.
"

That is it. Thank you tonycpsu! By evidence above it is working. I had garaged my account after the election and when I came back I must have changed the settings to https. Much appreciated.

And thank you poffin boffin. I had tried manual update on the scripts. In fact I was hitting it a few times a day in the random hope it would suddenly work the same way my ex used to turn off an appliance that was broken and hope when she turned it back on a day later it would suddenly miraculously work.

Thank you both.
posted by AugustWest at 3:02 PM on January 27, 2017


for me it was manually updating tampermonkey itself and not the malfunctioning scripts which did the job. i'm not sure why tampermonkey isn't automatically updating itself in chrome but i've set myself a monthly reminder to do it for the future.
posted by poffin boffin at 3:17 PM on January 27, 2017


Tapermonkey

The day someone makes an addiction-help app with that name is when I quit the Internet
posted by sylvanshine at 11:25 PM on January 27, 2017


I'd assumed that Tapermonkey had something to do with Grateful Dead bootlegs.
posted by hippybear at 9:51 AM on January 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


> ought to fix things.

THANK YOU. And thank you, AugustWest, for bringing up this issue. The greasemonkey version of this script quit working a little while back and I couldn't quite figure out why and I didn't have the oomph to really think it through. Now it works again and whew!
posted by rtha at 1:27 PM on January 28, 2017


I cannot get Metalinks to work. :( I'm using Safari 10.0.2 and Tampermonkey.

Ah well, I'll keep trying.
posted by slipthought at 2:02 PM on January 28, 2017


hippybear: "I'd assumed that Tapermonkey had something to do with Grateful Dead bootlegs."

It may well have something to do with it. I happen to still have over 150 Maxell XL II cassettes of shows and now have a TB drive with pretty much every show out there. Of course, my favorite song is Wharf Rat. I guess I am a TaperMonkey (Owsley?).
posted by AugustWest at 5:50 PM on January 28, 2017


I love my Pearly Baker best, more than my wine.
posted by jenkinsEar at 7:35 PM on January 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


If one happens to be CLI-conversant and has lynx installed, you can do a plaintext dump that puts numbered footnotes next to linked items, and then lists all the links at the bottom of the file. Viz:

lynx -dump https://metatalk.metafilter.com/24323/Greasemonkey-request > metatalk.html

Will produce a file with a bunch of links at the bottom like:

Visible links
1. http://www.metafilter.com/opensearch.xml
2. http://metatalk.metafilter.com/24323/Greasemonkey-request/rss
3. http://feeds.feedburner.com/mefi/PopularPosts
4. http://feeds.feedburner.com/mefi/PopularComments
5. http://metatalk.metafilter.com/
6. https://login.metafilter.com/
7. http://www.metafilter.com/newuser.mefi
8. http://www.metafilter.com/
9. http://ask.metafilter.com/
10. http://fanfare.metafilter.com/


etc.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:49 PM on January 31, 2017


Bit late to this, but this bookmarklet mostly does what I think you're asking for. (Just make a new bookmark and copy that whole mess on line 3 in as the URL.)

It takes a few seconds on huge threads, and to be honest the end result doesn't seem that readable, but I've included the unminified source there if anyone wants to improve on my hacky javascript.
posted by lucidium at 1:34 PM on February 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Bravo, lucidium! That'll do just fine!

Hugs from me!

I'm not trying to be weird. The preview note told me people need hugs.
posted by slipthought at 10:11 AM on February 5, 2017


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