Version 2.2 of Metafilthy released. May 19, 2005 10:33 AM   Subscribe

Version 2.2 of MetaFilthy, the Firefox extension for MetaFilter, has been released.
posted by orthogonality to MetaFilter-Related at 10:33 AM (54 comments total)

Here's a link.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:38 AM on May 19, 2005


MetaFilthy remembers your last-read comment in each thread, optionally putting a horizontal rule before it and scrolling your browser to tat comment. If a thread is arrived at by following a link with an anchor (that is, a link to a particular comment, or the front pages' "(N new comments)" link) or via browser "back", the scrolling won't take place.

If you right-click on a comment (or the FPP text) and select MetaFilthy from the context menu, MetaFilthy will copy the comment to the edit box, putting it in quotations and italics, changing any italics within the quoted text to non-italics, and prefacing it with the commenter's username and a back-link to the comment, e.g.:

orthogonality posted "Version 2.2 of MetaFilthy, the Firefox extension for MetaFilter, has been released."

If a portion of a comment is selected in browser, right-clicking and selecting MetaFilthy will quote only the portion selected.
posted by orthogonality at 10:41 AM on May 19, 2005


i don't know much about firefox. i have just downloaded a .xpi file. how do i get it to work? sorry if i've missed something obvious.
posted by andrew cooke at 10:46 AM on May 19, 2005


I've been playing with greasemonkey the past couple days and I'm curious how metafilthy does its thing. You must be storing data on the browser end to remember last read comment, right? Does it store those values in files? I wasn't aware that browser extensions could write to the filesystem like that.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:48 AM on May 19, 2005


andrew, you just have to open the .xpi file in FF using "Open File...". It'll install itself after that.
posted by LairBob at 10:50 AM on May 19, 2005


andrew cooke: click Tools | Extensions then drag & drop the XPI file onto the extensions window.
posted by turbodog at 10:51 AM on May 19, 2005


andrew cooke writes "i don't know much about firefox. i have just downloaded a .xpi file. how do i get it to work? sorry if i've missed something obvious."


Open up an explorer/finder window , and drag the .xpi file into Firefox. Firefox will then complain that it isn't allowed to load software from your local hard drive. Click the complaint allow this. Then drag the file a second time. Tis time, Firefox will ask if you want to install it, after making your wait two seconds. Click "yes". After the extension window comes up, close it and all other Firefox windows. when you restart Firefox, MetaFilthy should be installed.

Go to the menu item Tools|Extensions, then click on MetaFilthy to set up your preferences.
posted by orthogonality at 10:52 AM on May 19, 2005


Really love the fact that it works in background tabs, now--that was one of the biggest frustrations I had had with it before. (So thanks to bugbread, too, I guess.)

Not to ask for more right after a solid update, but since we're talking about new features, what would it take to make the "most recent" comment tracking could persist across sessions? Right now, the divider bar will track the most recent comment I've read for as long as a given tab is open, but if I close the tab and come back to the thread later, it resets to the first comment (and then the very last).

I understand that this might go beyond the basic capabilities of greasemonkey...I'm assuming that it's probably a basic limitation of the GM session environment, and not just something that you implement or not. More just want to understand how it works.

Thanks!
posted by LairBob at 10:55 AM on May 19, 2005


thanks (turned out dragging it in was enough, with no warnings apart from having to restart, but i'm using some strange beta with svg support).
posted by andrew cooke at 11:00 AM on May 19, 2005


mathowie writes "I've been playing with greasemonkey the past couple days and I'm curious how metafilthy does its thing. You must be storing data on the browser end to remember last read comment, right? Does it store those values in files? I wasn't aware that browser extensions could write to the filesystem like that."


Yeah, it stores the values in a file, as JavaScript (similar to how prefs.js file works). The file lives in MetaFilthy's chrome directory, with the user's Firefox profile directoty, and is claled "metafilthy.read.comments". Browser extensions can write to the file system, although it's a bit arcane: look at MetaFilthy source for some helpful utility functions.

Greasemonkey scripts, on the other hand, cannot write to the filesystem, because the scripts are injected into the html page as a <script> -- as far as the browser can tell, the user script is a java script that came with the page.

It's theoretically possible to allow certain urls filesystem permissions, but I couldn't get it to work, so to allow GreaseMonkey scripts to write files, I just hacked GreaseMonkey. Now my GreaseMonkey scripts run with GreaseMonkey's permissions, which makes them as dangerous as any extension.

If you email me, I'll send you the hacked GreaseMonkey file that makes this possible (I'd prefer not to post it, as I don't want to see dangerous versions of GreaseMonkey floating around the web).
posted by orthogonality at 11:02 AM on May 19, 2005


every time i open a window in a new tab (by middle-clicking), i get a popup saying:
Exception in metafilthyProgressListener.onLocationChange
TypeError: content.document has no properties
(that's copied by hand, since cut+paste doesn't seem to work for popups).

and the post box is kinda wide. maybe that's a feature?
posted by andrew cooke at 11:04 AM on May 19, 2005


LairBob writes "Not to ask for more right after a solid update, but since we're talking about new features, what would it take to make the 'most recent' comment tracking could persist across sessions"

It's supposed to persist across session. It writes a file when Firefox closes down. But if Firefox doesn't close down normally, file is not written. This is probably the sort of thing you should approach the author directly with, via the email listed on his site, so he can go through debugging it with you.


andrew cooke writes "and the post box is kinda wide. maybe that's a feature?"

The wide post box is a feature, which you can turn off in MetaFilthy's preferences. The exception is a problem, you also should contact the author directly on that.
posted by orthogonality at 11:06 AM on May 19, 2005


orthogonality writes "If you right-click on a comment (or the FPP text) and select MetaFilthy from the context menu, MetaFilthy will copy the comment to the edit box, putting it in quotations and italics, changing any italics within the quoted text to non-italics, and prefacing it with the commenter's username and a back-link to the comment,

I really like this - looks so much more polished than just using italics. Thanks.
posted by iconomy at 11:09 AM on May 19, 2005


Yeah, it stores the values in a file, as JavaScript (similar to howprefs.js file works). The file lives in MetaFilthy's chrome directory,with the user's Firefox profile directoty, and is claled"metafilthy.read.comments".

Hmm. I wonder if I could be dumping last read comment IDs to cookies instead of storing in the DB, so that I could offer similar functionality to every member here, regardless of browser.

I figured it would entail storing hundreds of values in cookies though. How big do the metafilthy js files get?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:13 AM on May 19, 2005


orthogonality writes "But if Firefox doesn't close down normally, file is not written."

That would make sense. As soon as I posted the comment, it occurred to me that it does work a lot of time, but I also know that it definitely does _not_ retain the info across sessions for some threads, on a pretty regular basis. It's certainly a common little annoyance that I load up a previous thread, and MetaFilthy doesn't know where the latest comment is. (I don't _think_ it's just when FF crashes, but it's probably some kind of glitch in the info getting written out to the file.)
posted by LairBob at 11:20 AM on May 19, 2005


mathowie writes "I figured it would entail storing hundreds of values in cookies though. How big do the metafilthy js files get?"

Big, but not that big, because only 100 threads per sub-domain are stored.

But if you wanted to doi this on the server, I'd say the simplest way is to do it in the database, not in the cookies.

You'd add a user_thread table:
user_id, thread_id, last_read_comment_id

and insert/update last_read_comment_id by
select id from comments where thread_id = @thread_id having max( date_stamp) 
when you fetched the thread's page for each user. (This would work on sybase, I've have to test it for other databases, as having clause implementations are always weird.)

This would give you one row per thread per (reading) user, but disk space is cheap, and you'd only need three ints per row anyway (well, four, as you'd have a synthetic key for each row).
posted by orthogonality at 11:25 AM on May 19, 2005


LairBob writes "(I don't _think_ it's just when FF crashes, but it's probably some kind of glitch in the info getting written out to the file.)"

Yeah, but the idea of writing the whole damn file with each thread view is ugly too. Talk to the author via email, see what he thinks.
posted by orthogonality at 11:26 AM on May 19, 2005


orthogonality writes "the idea of writing the whole damn file with each thread view is ugly too"

Oh, sure...I wasn't trying to argue that it should necessarily be done that way, just that it's still a pretty pervasive issue for me.
posted by LairBob at 11:30 AM on May 19, 2005


This would give you one row per thread per (reading) user, but disk space is cheap

Yeah, but the downside is that every page view by a member requires writing a line to the db. The database is optimized for reads, not writes at the moment.

I figured pushing it to the client side would alleviate all that.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:43 AM on May 19, 2005


mathowie writes "Yeah, but the downside is that every page view by a member requires writing a line to the db. The database is optimized for reads, not writes at the moment."

Hmm. The thing is, if I saw metaFilter giving me hundreds of cokies, I'd strat worrying. (I've already run into problems where I have some but not all cookies, and have had to clear them all out to avoid CFQuery error screens.)
posted by orthogonality at 11:50 AM on May 19, 2005


Could you set the cookies to expire after just a couple of days? How often do people go back to threads once they have dropped off of the front page? That should keep the number of cookies for the average user to less than fifty or so, I would think...
posted by Roger Dodger at 11:59 AM on May 19, 2005


Cool, it knows which section of MeFi I'm looking at!

Now if it could only track last read comments across multiple computers...
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:01 PM on May 19, 2005


The horizontal rule is across the entire page in the grey but not in the blue. Or maybe I fiddled with something? Hrm.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:08 PM on May 19, 2005


robocop is bleeding writes " Now if it could only track last read comments across multiple computers.."

Copy the metafilthy.read.coments file from your Firefox profile directory on one computer to your profile directory on another computer, after shutting Firefox down.


robocop is bleeding writes "The horizontal rule is across the entire page in the grey but not in the blue. Or maybe I fiddled with something? Hrm."

No, the blue threads have a different structure than the grey and green. (On the gray and green, each comment is in its own div, and all those divs are nested in another div; on the blue, all comments are in one div). MetaFilthy could, but doesn't, compensate for that. I suspect the author was expecting the site update, and didn't want to waste time compensating for something that would soon be changed anyway.
posted by orthogonality at 12:26 PM on May 19, 2005


I can't get the file to open:

"To open this file windows needs to know what program created it . . ."
posted by Juicylicious at 12:48 PM on May 19, 2005


Drag that file and drop it into your browser Juicylicious. Then restart Firefox.
posted by peacay at 1:05 PM on May 19, 2005


Yeah it's a file you open with Firefox.
posted by scarabic at 1:22 PM on May 19, 2005


scarabic are you in need of a holiday?
It took me a while last week to work it out. Some of us are hypotechnic.
posted by peacay at 2:19 PM on May 19, 2005


(orthogonality had already explained how to use the file earlier in the thread)
posted by andrew cooke at 2:21 PM on May 19, 2005


This is a test to attempt to break MetaFilthy. If it works, MetaFilthy will find the wrong last-read comment.
posted by orthogonality at 3:13 PM on May 19, 2005


I sill don't like the feel of Firefox. Want to port it to Maxthon as a plugin? No? Ah well, my loss, I guess.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:29 PM on May 19, 2005


want to port Maxthon to OSX?
posted by matteo at 5:47 PM on May 19, 2005


Does MetaFilthy display any deleted comments it finds, or just note that there were any?
posted by iconomy at 5:53 PM on May 19, 2005


Would instaling M'Filthy have trashed re-set all my cookies? I found I had to re-login to MetaFilter and Flickr after I installed....
posted by mmahaffie at 5:53 PM on May 19, 2005


iconomy writes "Does MetaFilthy display any deleted comments it finds, or just note that there were any?"

It just notes them, and only if the (now deleted) comment was present during one of your prior views of the thread. The notation looks like this:

Deleted comment by username




mmahaffie writes "Would installing M'Filthy have trashed re-set all my cookies? I found I had to re-login to MetaFilter and Flickr after I installed...."

No, but if you have Firefox set to make all cookies session cookies, as I do, closing Firefox in order to install MetaFilthy would flush the cookies. But MetaFilthy doesn't itself do anything with cookies.
posted by orthogonality at 8:11 PM on May 19, 2005


LairBob : "Really love the fact that it works in background tabs, now--that was one of the biggest frustrations I had had with it before. (So thanks to bugbread, too, I guess.)"

Er, all I did was provide feedback...but how'd you know that?

mathowie : "How big do the metafilthy js files get?"

The JS file on my home computer is about 560 KB, and that's with moderate use (my extensive use is on my work computer, which I can't check now. Yes, I look at Mefi more at work than I do at my own home). On my newly installed system, it's about 200 KB, so it appears that it starts big and grows slowly. I suspect with even amazing use it wouldn't exceed 1 MB.
posted by Bugbread at 8:20 PM on May 19, 2005


bugbread writes "Er, all I did was provide feedback...but how'd you know that?"

I saw it too: when MetaFilthy asked if I wanted want to download the newer version, it credited you. Then it got updated again and it mentioned Andrew Cooke, too.

"The JS file on my home computer is about 560 KB"

It's way too grossly big, because it's actual javascript code, and rather conservatively/paranoidly written. Or at least that's my opinion, after opening it in a text editor.
posted by orthogonality at 8:30 PM on May 19, 2005


Is the font on the metafilthy page and (more importantly) the metafilthy options absurdly large for anyone else?

-ajb
posted by madajb at 3:00 AM on May 20, 2005


mmahaffie writes "Would instaling M'Filthy have trashed re-set all my cookies? I found I had to re-login to MetaFilter and Flickr after I installed...."

Same thing happened to me. All my cookies have vanished.
Which is going to suck, since I don't remember passwords...
posted by madajb at 3:06 AM on May 20, 2005


That happened to me with an earlier version of Metafilthy, which I promptly uninstalled again. I've just installed the latest version though and it hasn't happened... Yet. :: touches wood ::
posted by benzo8 at 5:17 AM on May 20, 2005


mentioned Andrew Cooke

oh, thanks. wish they'd sent me an email (i emailed in a bug report). i'll try it again.
posted by andrew cooke at 5:36 AM on May 20, 2005


Just a question: when I open the Metafilthy Options windows (Tools/Extensions/right-click MetaFilthy in the list/Options), the right pane does not scroll and is cut just bellow "Comment Tracking" (I don't see what is in this box). Is this my problem, a known bug or something else?
posted by nkyad at 8:30 AM on May 20, 2005


This is very nice. One question. What does the 'highlight' option on the context menu do?
posted by jikel_morten at 9:12 AM on May 20, 2005


YEE HAW! Thank you all! Metafilthy is god.
posted by indiebass at 9:17 AM on May 20, 2005


My 'highlight' question above must be a result of another extension...please ignore :)
posted by jikel_morten at 9:18 AM on May 20, 2005


MetaFilthy doesn't itself do anything with cookies

I'm having to re-login to everything! What a fucking pain! And no, I don't have it set to make them session cookies. I close FF all the time without this happening. Bleah.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:29 AM on May 20, 2005


People with problems with cookies should eport bugs to the author, specifying their Firefox version and OS.
posted by orthogonality at 9:32 AM on May 20, 2005


Thanks for the update. I've loved it since it first came out, and background loading is going to make me love it more.
posted by OmieWise at 10:34 AM on May 20, 2005


madajb : "Is the font on the metafilthy page and (more importantly) the metafilthy options absurdly large for anyone else?"

Yeah, me too. I figured it was just a personal preference of mine for smaller font, so I didn't say anything.

CunningLinguist : "I'm having to re-login to everything! What a fucking pain!"

Again, that appears to be a bug (hasn't happened to me, and I've uninstalled and reinstalled several versions in the course of feedbacking), so be angry, but don't be too angry. It wasn't designed to be that way. Let the author know the Firefox version and OS, and hopefully that problem can be bud-nipped.
posted by Bugbread at 6:08 PM on May 20, 2005


I have to say, i've been digging the Metafilthy, but i think i came across a bug... in one of the discussions I doubleposted, which i marked and Jessamyn promptly deleted. Every time I went back to that discussion, there was a metafilthy error and it couldn't find the last read comment and would just put it at the top. Was this just me, or is it a real bug? Still loving it otherwise...
posted by indiebass at 10:50 PM on May 20, 2005


LairBob writes "(I don't _think_ it's just when FF crashes, but it's probably some kind of glitch in the info getting written out to the file.)"

nkyad writes "Just a question: when I open the Metafilthy Options windows (Tools/Extensions/right-click MetaFilthy in the list/Options), the right pane does not scroll and is cut just bellow 'Comment Tracking' (I don't see what is in this box)"

indiebass writes "I have to say, i've been digging the Metafilthy, but i think i came across a bug..."


Version 2.2.3. AlexReynolds writes "Here's a link."
posted by orthogonality at 7:34 AM on May 21, 2005


jikel_morten writes "My 'highlight' question above must be a result of another extension...please ignore :)"

I just noticed the highlight option as well and I don't have a clue what other extension is producing it.
posted by sic at 5:35 PM on May 21, 2005


I suspect the "highlight" thing is not due to an extension, but appears in Firefox itself (perhaps since 1.0.2?)
posted by Bugbread at 9:07 PM on May 21, 2005


Version 2.2.4: Avoids browser crashes caused by a Firefox bug.
posted by orthogonality at 12:07 PM on May 28, 2005


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