Ideas for BOINC related Firefox Search Plugins

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Profile Lee Carre
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Message 259259 - Posted: 8 Mar 2006, 22:01:44 UTC - in response to Message 259054.  
Last modified: 8 Mar 2006, 22:02:47 UTC

If you use a lot of Mycroft search engines, there is a new extension that is very useful. Search Engine Ordering. You can alphabetize your search engines, drag and drop order, and right click to delete a search engine. Very slick. :)

thanks for the tip, i didn't know about that one, much prefer it to seachpluginhacks

about your link, i admire that you respect web standards, but when posting here you don't need to use & in your URLs, it's converted automatically, so just enter & (copy & paste the URL as it is)

actually * should be used in URLs anyway, it's only when encoded into HTML that they should be changed, but that should be handled by whatever method the HTML is generated, if that method is you, then good, but if that method is a big of software, then the software should handle it (and the BOINC fora do)
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Message 259260 - Posted: 8 Mar 2006, 22:04:16 UTC - in response to Message 259110.  
Last modified: 8 Mar 2006, 22:05:02 UTC

I wonder if any of you guys might help me with a Firefox extention problem.
Nightly Tester Tools may be able to get them to work. After you install it you get the option to repair extensions that are not compatible.
Thanks for this tip, Stokeybob! It may very well be a valuable tool, but in this particular situation it doesn't help because it's also an extention and it just adds to the install queue... I also tried to reorder the queue by putting the broken extentions to the bottom, but that didn't work either... Se picture below.



I think I'll have to uninstall, cleanup and reinstall Firefox to fix this - unless somebody has a last minute tip of editing a file or something to get these out of the queue.

But it bothers me to think about that this thing can happen again with extentions in the future... I can be restrictive with what I install of course, but then again there's no guarantee the few I select will be OK either. Plus, extentions is one of the reasons I use Firefox and it'll be less useful without them.
try uninstalling the offending extension, then reinstalling it after when everything else is working

are you sure that firefox is actually exiting properly (does firefox.exe appear in task manager?)
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Message 259261 - Posted: 8 Mar 2006, 22:06:56 UTC - in response to Message 256175.  
Last modified: 8 Mar 2006, 22:07:12 UTC

I've been monitoring my various installations of firefox to see if they auto-update search engine plugins

so far none of them seem to have done it automatically, even thou the option is set to do so in the options
right, i think there's something wrong with firefox, it doesn't seem to update plugins at all, so to get the new versions please visit Mycroft again
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Message 259272 - Posted: 8 Mar 2006, 22:27:41 UTC - in response to Message 259259.  

thanks for the tip, i didn't know about that one, much prefer it to seachpluginhacks

Yes, it just came out on the 4th, so it's pretty new. I used to use searchpluginhacks, but I like SEO much better as well.

about your link, i admire that you respect web standards, but when posting here you don't need to use & in your URLs, it's converted automatically, so just enter & (copy & paste the URL as it is)

That is the URL. I use the Make Link extension to compose my forum links. The URL it puts in the link is what I see in the URL bar. I edited this one for you though.
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Message 259301 - Posted: 8 Mar 2006, 23:13:31 UTC - in response to Message 259272.  

about your link, i admire that you respect web standards, but when posting here you don't need to use & in your URLs, it's converted automatically, so just enter & (copy & paste the URL as it is)
That is the URL. I use the Make Link extension to compose my forum links. The URL it puts in the link is what I see in the URL bar. I edited this one for you though.


hmm, it can't be a URL query that uses & instead of just & would fail i think (could be wrong)

so either the place where you got the URL from is posting incorrect links
or that extension is broken (maybe it assumes that it needs to use &)

either way, you end up posting invalid URLs

luckilly firefox (at least) recovers and replaces it with the correct URL when entered in the location bar
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Message 259345 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 0:30:23 UTC - in response to Message 259260.  
Last modified: 9 Mar 2006, 0:31:49 UTC

try uninstalling the offending extension
Tried that.
are you sure that firefox is actually exiting properly (does firefox.exe appear in task manager?)
Yes, it's exited properly (no, it doesn't appear in Task Manager).
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Message 259350 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 0:49:16 UTC - in response to Message 259345.  

try uninstalling the offending extension
Tried that.
are you sure that firefox is actually exiting properly (does firefox.exe appear in task manager?)
Yes, it's exited properly (no, it doesn't appear in Task Manager).
ok then, erm...

try making a new profile and seeing if the same happens, maybe your profile is messed up somehow
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Message 259360 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 1:16:30 UTC - in response to Message 259301.  

hmm, it can't be a URL query that uses & instead of just & would fail i think (could be wrong)

so either the place where you got the URL from is posting incorrect links
or that extension is broken (maybe it assumes that it needs to use &)

either way, you end up posting invalid URLs

The plugin was adding encoding & instead of & on BBCode links. I just updated the plugin and it no longer does that.

However, the URLs work just fine with the & in the three browsers I have at my disposal. So the links are fine whether or not the plugin was inserting HTML style entities in the BBCode link or not...
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Message 259361 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 1:19:00 UTC - in response to Message 259360.  

However, the URLs work just fine with the & in the three browsers I have at my disposal. So the links are fine whether or not the plugin was inserting HTML style entities in the BBCode link or not...
only because they manage to recover from the error
i wouldn't rely on that thou, it's all about standards man
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Message 259449 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 6:56:33 UTC - in response to Message 259361.  

only because they manage to recover from the error
i wouldn't rely on that thou, it's all about standards man

Show me a web browser that doesn't understand HTML... ;)
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Message 259460 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 7:11:53 UTC - in response to Message 259449.  

only because they manage to recover from the error
i wouldn't rely on that thou, it's all about standards man

Show me a web browser that doesn't understand HTML... ;)
depends what you mean by HTML
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Message 259505 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 12:20:18 UTC - in response to Message 259350.  

try uninstalling the offending extension
Tried that.
are you sure that firefox is actually exiting properly (does firefox.exe appear in task manager?)
Yes, it's exited properly (no, it doesn't appear in Task Manager).
ok then, erm...

try making a new profile and seeing if the same happens, maybe your profile is messed up somehow
Profile?

Tried to restart in Safe Mode and reset option 1 and 3 on the start dialog there (see below), but didn't work either.


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Message 259615 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 18:36:17 UTC - in response to Message 259505.  

try making a new profile and seeing if the same happens, maybe your profile is messed up somehow
Profile?

Tried to restart in Safe Mode and reset option 1 and 3 on the start dialog there (see below), but didn't work either.

have a look at How To Manage Profiles for firefox

basically start run
firefox.exe -profilemanager
either from a command prompt, or using a shortcut

make a new profile, and do the do the same as you did with your existing profile, install the extensions etc.
the reason for using a new profile is so that if it gets messed up and you have to scrap it, it doesn't matter, you've got your old working one exactly as it was

if you get the same results with the new dummy profile then try different ways of installing, install extensions in a different order, try installing one at a time (restarting the fox after each single ext) to see if that helps

just have a fiddle really, you might get lucky

obviously someone who knows firefox better will probably have some better suggestions
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Message 259676 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 21:47:27 UTC - in response to Message 259615.  

try making a new profile
Profile?
have a look at How To Manage Profiles for firefox
Thanks for the tip. I'll use that to backup my profile. But I ended up with reinstalling Firefox from scratch, after uninstalling and manually cleaning up on disk. So the problem is solved now and I have successfully installed the extentions I wanted. An interesting fact is that the two offending extentions I had problems with, is actually from the install option "developer tools". ...so this means that when I upgraded from Firefox 1.07 to version 1.5, the install procedure failed to handle native extentions correctly(!) Maybe I got hold of an early version 1.5 - I don't remember. Anyway, it's fixed now.

About the extentions I managed to install, I'm very happy with Adblock and NoScript. Together, they make an extremely powerful blocker of unwanted material. And NoScript is also a security enhancer, of course.

I also find Tab Browser Preferences, Fasterfox and IE Tab great tools. The latter is very useful for those sites which is built only for Microsoft Internet Explorer. For instance Windows Update.
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Message 259682 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 21:56:19 UTC - in response to Message 259676.  

try making a new profile
Profile?
have a look at How To Manage Profiles for firefox
Thanks for the tip. I'll use that to backup my profile. But I ended up with reinstalling Firefox from scratch, after uninstalling and manually cleaning up on disk. So the problem is solved now and I have successfully installed the extentions I wanted. An interesting fact is that the two offending extentions I had problems with, is actually from the install option "developer tools". ...so this means that when I upgraded from Firefox 1.07 to version 1.5, the install procedure failed to handle native extentions correctly(!) Maybe I got hold of an early version 1.5 - I don't remember. Anyway, it's fixed now.
hmm, strange, i had no trouble going from 1.0.7 to 1.5
did you go 1.0.7 -> 1.5 -> 1.5.0.1, or straight to 1.5.0.1 ?

but yea, there are many uses for profiles, for example i use sessionsaver to save my session, it does it so well :)
but if i just want to do something quickly, i don't want to load a few hundred tabs lol, so i use a blank profile to do what i need, leaving my other profile exactly as it was
yes i know you can save/restore different sessions with SS, but i find it's not totally reliable, and i have it set to restore my session at startup anyway, so using another profile (copied settings & extensions but without saved session) is so much quicker

About the extentions I managed to install, I'm very happy with Adblock and NoScript. Together, they make an extremely powerful blocker of unwanted material. And NoScript is also a security enhancer, of course.
indeed, there are some very good ones out there, my personal favourites are the ones which let you make Fx work exactly the way you want it to, such as tab mix plus and PDF download :)
but i prefer adblock plus with the filterset.g updater personally, they seem to work better together

since i got the hang of Fx and had custimised it i've loved it, and not actually hate using IE :)

long live the fox :D
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Message 259694 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 22:14:38 UTC - in response to Message 259682.  

did you go 1.0.7 -> 1.5 -> 1.5.0.1, or straight to 1.5.0.1 ?
I went to 1.5 first.
but yea, there are many uses for profiles, for example i use sessionsaver to save my session, it does it so well :)
Thanks for the tip! Until now, I've saved my most used tabs in a bookmark folder and upon restart selected it to "Open in tabs". But Sessionsaver sounds more useful. :)
[..] i prefer adblock plus with the filterset.g updater personally, they seem to work better together
Filterset.G looks very nice! ...but doesn't it work with Adblock? Or do I have to get Adblock Plus? What's the difference between these two anyway?
since i got the hang of Fx and had custimised it i've loved it, and not actually hate using IE :)

long live the fox :D
I'm a convert from Opera myself. ;) It's a very long time since I stopped using IE...
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Message 259741 - Posted: 9 Mar 2006, 23:40:36 UTC - in response to Message 259694.  
Last modified: 9 Mar 2006, 23:41:32 UTC

did you go 1.0.7 -> 1.5 -> 1.5.0.1, or straight to 1.5.0.1 ?
I went to 1.5 first.
hmm, like i said, no problems myself, but obviously things go wrong, firefox is good, but like everything, it's not perfect, one problem i have with one of my "utility PCs" (it's next to my main workstation with it's own monitor etc. and is great for simple stuff like playing music, reading a walkthru while playing a game, really handy) firefox seems to have a few problems, like not remembering the extension manager window dimensions, and i somehow have no search plugins available, even thou they're all still in the correct folders, just strange really, as it remembered all other settings/preferences, all extensions work, and i can install new extensions etc.

but yea, there are many uses for profiles, for example i use sessionsaver to save my session, it does it so well :)
Thanks for the tip! Until now, I've saved my most used tabs in a bookmark folder and upon restart selected it to "Open in tabs". But Sessionsaver sounds more useful. :)

it's worth getting, not even a crash will phase it (or so they say, but i've had it loose a session before, but that's once out of like 500 restores lol usually it's exelent)

there's very little in the way of documentation thou, and it has some great features (like syncing with an FTP server, i use my local web server, it acts as a backup, but could also be used to take your session with you to other PCs on your network, or if you have firefox on a USB stick and when you're out and about, you can just download your session from home, just as you left it, or export all your sessions to a file to take with you, or use as a backup)

but it can be a little tricky to setup, the options box isn't the most obvious of things to confugure, for example by default it's in "simple" mode, and to change to "expert" mode there's a tiny little square that you have to click... you get the picture lol
so if you want some pointers etc. with configuring it then just shout

[..] i prefer adblock plus with the filterset.g updater personally, they seem to work better together
Filterset.G looks very nice! ...but doesn't it work with Adblock? Or do I have to get Adblock Plus? What's the difference between these two anyway?
yea, filterset.g is great, don't have to bother adding your own rules, the filterset list it provides is pretty exelent, excludes all the crap, but very rarely blocks an image you want to see, and even if it does, you can still over-ride it (but that's easier with adblock plus)
yes filterset.g will work with adblock, but adblock plus handles it better
the way adblock does it from my understanding is adblock only has a single list, and filterset.g replaces that list with it's own, and you have to add your own custom filters into filterset.g for it to include them in the big list as well (quite a backwards way of doing it)

the way adblock plus handles things, is it allows you to have "filterset subscriptions" (but the filterset.g will configure it all for you)
and your own custom filters are kept seperate from the filterset.g list, which to me seems a much better structure for doing things rather than the botch kinda way adblock does it

for the differences, take a look at the adblock plus FAQ it answeres most of the basic and technical questions
but in short adblock plus was writen by a different guy to the author of the original adblock because development of adblock had stopped (but it's started up again now)
and the author of adblock plus saw many faults with adblock and knew better ways of doing things, adblock plus is much smaller for example with more efficient coding, and the way it blocks ads is better too (see the question about DIV blocking)
you can also use more detailed filters with plus (called "regular expressions") to more acurately define what should be blocked and what shouldn't

since i got the hang of Fx and had custimised it i've loved it, and now [edit]<- typo[/edit] actually hate using IE :)

long live the fox :D
I'm a convert from Opera myself. ;) It's a very long time since I stopped using IE...
ah i see, well opera's good too, heard very few bad things about it (bugs and such) but they were fixed pretty soon after being discovered, each to their own thou, i just liked the idea of having extensions for firefox (although opera could be capable of them too, i don't know, i just went straight to Firefox)
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Message 259812 - Posted: 10 Mar 2006, 0:20:51 UTC - in response to Message 259741.  

But Sessionsaver sounds more useful. :)
it's worth getting, not even a crash will phase it
Yeah, I've installed it and tried it. Works like a charm - right out of the box. I just exited FF, restarted, and my previous session was restored with all tabs. :)
but it can be a little tricky to setup, the options box isn't the most obvious of things to confugure
Since the most basic needs are covered without tweaking, I'll have lots of time to look at the more advanced settings.
yes filterset.g will work with adblock, but adblock plus handles it better [..] for the differences, take a look at the adblock plus FAQ it answeres most of the basic and technical questions
OK, thanks. I'll take a look at it. :)

But now I will try your Wiki Search! :D
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Message 259847 - Posted: 10 Mar 2006, 0:47:58 UTC - in response to Message 259812.  
Last modified: 10 Mar 2006, 0:48:21 UTC

But Sessionsaver sounds more useful. :)
it's worth getting, not even a crash will phase it
Yeah, I've installed it and tried it. Works like a charm - right out of the box. I just exited FF, restarted, and my previous session was restored with all tabs. :)
but it can be a little tricky to setup, the options box isn't the most obvious of things to confugure
Since the most basic needs are covered without tweaking, I'll have lots of time to look at the more advanced settings.
yup, it's wonderful, when you've got more time and feel the need to explore some of it's other features, take a look at http://kb.mozillazine.org/SessionSaver
yes filterset.g will work with adblock, but adblock plus handles it better [..] for the differences, take a look at the adblock plus FAQ it answeres most of the basic and technical questions
OK, thanks. I'll take a look at it. :)
i used filterset.g with adblock for several months without problems before changing to adblock plus, it works fine with either, i just prefer the design model of plus

But now I will try your Wiki Search! :D
lol, cheers, just a bit of a side-track there ;)
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Message 260037 - Posted: 10 Mar 2006, 10:07:06 UTC - in response to Message 259741.  
Last modified: 10 Mar 2006, 10:08:22 UTC

yes filterset.g will work with adblock, but adblock plus handles it better
the way adblock does it from my understanding is adblock only has a single list, and filterset.g replaces that list with it's own, and you have to add your own custom filters into filterset.g for it to include them in the big list as well (quite a backwards way of doing it)

It's really not a big deal. You can just create a .txt file and store it on your HD somewhere, tell filterset.g updater where to find it, and whenever the updater grabs an update, it will synchronize with the .txt file and add your filters. You can even grab from multiple lists if you happen to download lists from anywhere else. It's pretty flexible actually.

I still maintain my filter lists this way, even though I use adblock plus.

most of the basic and technical questions
but in short adblock plus was writen by a different guy to the author of the original adblock because development of adblock had stopped (but it's started up again now)
and the author of adblock plus saw many faults with adblock and knew better ways of doing things, adblock plus is much smaller for example with more efficient coding, and the way it blocks ads is better too (see the question about DIV blocking)
you can also use more detailed filters with plus (called "regular expressions") to more acurately define what should be blocked and what shouldn't

The original adblock plus was a group of guys that took over improving adblock when the author stopped development. This version was never hosted on the Mozilla extensions update site. The current adblock plus is a recent development. The current author took over from the group that was developing adblock plus. He recoded it from the ground up though, and now it's hosted on Mozilla. There was a lot of confusion from adblock plus users (myself included) when this 'new' adblock plus appeared, that in many ways looked like a step backwards. It was lacking many of the features that adblock plus had. In fact, the earliest versions didn't support the filterset.g updater. I switched to the newer version because it is under active development. I still think some of the operation of the old adblock plus is easier than the new version, but there are enough things I like with the newer version that I stick with it.

The original adblock also used regular expressions (regex) for filtering. If you are into regular expressions, the regular expressions tester plugin is pretty handy. I have a spam filter that allows me to create custom regex filters and this is nice to validate my filters.

The biggest difference between adblock and plus really was the whitelist capability and easier access to some preferences.

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