[ILUG] firefox plugin thread...

[David Golden]

On Monday 08 August 2005 22:59, Gavin McCullagh wrote:

>
> Out of curiosity, is this in some way better than just using
> Firefox's keyword and %s syntax or do you just prefer the Konqueror
> syntax?  Just to be clear I have a bookmark:
>

hm... a few reasons:

(a) is irrelevant if you're not me.
(b) is a good, fine and interesting reason.
(c) is a reason.
(d) is me being a git.

(a) I prefer konq syntax simply because it's what I learned to type 
first and still use most, I tend to use firefox only for sites which 
don't work in konq, so I'm forever typing "google:my pants" or whatever
into firefox.

(b) ketjap apparently hooks URL resolution and arbitrarily rewrites 
URLs. So you can rewrite microsoft.com into unpleasantsite.cx, if you 
must.  *This works for links in pages, not just entered into the 
location bar.*

For example, one of the pre-made ketjap rules (by Harmen van Rossum):
When you do a google image search, this makes the thumbnails
on the results page link directly to the upstream image instead of
going through google's frameset:
regex: 	/http:\/\/images.google.(.*)\/imgres\?imgurl\=(.*)/i
rule: 	[[URL].substring([URL].indexOf("=")+1,[URL].indexOf("&"))]

(c) As it has the beginnings of a rule building wizard (though you 
really need to know javascript to do anything smart), ketjap probably 
allows easier composition of sillier (i.e. more complicated) actions 
(as such, it might be a security hole, if somehow an attacker knew what 
actions you had set up and that one of them was unsafe, and had 
knowledge of what sites you were visting, yadda yadda... or if it's 
just buggy) 

(d) (the flamebait reason) I, um, wasn't aware of that feature of 
firefox bookmarks. To blame the tools a minute: Firefox seems to 
emulate  the infuriating lack of discoverability of a GNOME UI - how is 
one supposed to know keyword bookmarks  have that functionality without 
RTFMing?    In a similar situation, the konq "web shortcuts" config 
panel (the feature is not mixed with bookmarks in konq) displays  
just-in-time documentation of permitted substitutions with the usual 
"click on [?], click on gadget" help, and F1 (*) pops up the help pages 
with a more verbose description.  F1 does nothing in the firefox 
bookmarks dialog, at least in my installation.

(*) Amigas had "HELP" written on its own key, godammit. You can 
generally assume "F1" is help on the PC... except when it isn't...