chrispederick.com
Greasemonkey and Stylish
- General
- 3 Comments
- 2 years ago on November 29, 2006
I am somewhat of a perfectionist and I love to tweak. The first thing I do when I get a new computer is go through every option in the control panel or system preferences. If I start using a new application I spend the first hour configuring all the options and any toolbars to my liking.
This is great for applications running on my computer, but what about the numerous websites that I have no control over? Previously I had to live with whatever customizable options were exposed by the site, but using Greasemonkey and Stylish I can tweak any site as much as I like.
What Greasemonkey & Stylish Do
Greasemonkey and Stylish are Firefox extensions with slightly different, but related functionality. Greasemonkey “lets you add user scripts to any web page to change its behavior…and control any aspect of its design or interaction”, while Stylish “allows easy management of user styles…that let you fix ugly sites or customize the look of your browser”. Essentially Greasemonkey lets you add your own JavaScript and Stylish lets you add your own CSS to any site.
Both extensions also have accompanying websites containing a repository of user scripts and user styles - userscripts.org and userstyles.org - and I use a number of scripts and styles from each.
User Scripts I Use
- Allow Password Remembering - Allows the browser to remember passwords even on those sites that try to disable the functionality
- Alt Tooltips - Copies an image’s alt attribute to its title attribute for those sites that do not provide tooltips for some of their icons
- Flickr Image Unblocker - A script to remove the invisible image blocking images on Flickr
- Flickr Photo Page Enhancer - Adds direct links to all of an image’s sizes and automatically loads your most used tags whenever you click to add a tag to an image on Flickr
- Flickr Reload Backer - Adds support for the back button on Flickr Explore Interestingness
- Gmail Attachment Reminder - Reminds you to attach a file to your Gmail if it appears that you have not, based on whether you have the word attach in the body
- Gmail Macros - Adds extra keyboard shortcuts and macros to Gmail
- Google Image Relinker Mod - Rewrites Google Image Search links to point straight to the images
- Linkify Plus - Turns plain text URLs into links
- Netflix Rent Now - Puts an ‘Add To Top Of Queue’ button next to the ‘Add To Queue’ button on Netflix
- UPS/FedEx Tracking Linkify - Links UPS and FedEx tracking numbers to their respective tracking sites
User Styles I Use
- Bookmarks Manager Icon Only Toolbars - Removes the text under the icons on the toolbar of the Bookmarks Manager
- Firefox Add-ons Clean Up - Tidies up the layout on Firefox Add-ons
- Gmail Inbox With New Style - Changes the colors and font used in Gmail
- Gmail Labels Box With Pretty Colors - Changes the Gmail labels box to use nicer colors
- Gmail With Different Attachment Icons - Shows what kind of attachment an email has in your Gmail inbox
My User Styles
I have long considered writing my own Greasemonkey user scripts, but I have never set aside the time to sit down and do it. However, Stylish user styles are typically simpler and easier to get started with, and this week I created my first two:
- Gmail Streamlined - Hides the ‘Chats’ navigation item and the ‘Invites’ box in Gmail
- Google Reader Streamlined - Tweaks the colors and fonts, and hides certain features in Google Reader
Clearly, these are pretty basic right now, but I plan to keep updating them - taking advantage of the style update checking feature of Stylish. You can see what other user scripts I might create in the future by visiting my user page on userstyles.org.
3 Comments
A very handy dandy expansion for people who want to see the world their way instead of the ugly way .
Ah, Stylish is in my top five FX extentions, very helpfull tool. And there goes Greasemonkey for sure, which gives us even more control over the webpage.
That’s the way we want it to be! 
Thanke for review.
Lucas
2 years ago
December 5, 2006
Very nice list Chris. Power to the Users.
Once again I have trouble finding your plugins at Mozilla, so pay a visit here and get rewarded with more downloads!
Cheers,