nameandnature

I’ve updated the little script I wrote to keep track of which comments are new on LJ and Dreamwidth (LJ now does this automatically in its default style, DW doesn’t, by the looks of it). Thanks to various people for telling me it was broken for HTTPS sites, which LJ and DW both default to these days.

Userscripts.org is long dead, so I’m now hosting it on my site.

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Originally posted at Name and Nature. You can comment there. There are currently comments.

I've just updated LJ New Comments, the Firefox extension which remembers which comments you've read on LiveJournal or Dreamwidth and allows you to find new comments easily. It'll now remember comments on syndicated journals (that is, those which are actually feeds from external sites).

Though I value its role in motivating LJ to be less stupid, I have not yet accepted Dreamwidth as my personal saviour. However, seeing as a lot of people have and one of them asked me about it, I've updated LJ New Comments to support it.

For you Firefox users, I've put a new version of LJ New Comments up.

It supports Russian keyboards, courtesy of some code from mumi_0.

I've also made it expand collapsed comments when you move to them by pressing the "n" or "p" keys, as my assumption when you do that is that you want to read the comment. The thread expansion stuff needs the style to have an "Expand" link for the comment (literally, a link to the thread with the text "Expand": if anyone's got any ideas on how to identify it in a way which doesn't assume it's labelled in English, let me know).

Comments/questions to the entry for the script.

So, Facebook have opened up their site to allow third parties to do stuff, namely put stuff on consenting users' profiles, stick items in the feed, and embed an interface to a third-party site inside Facebook. I eagerly await:

• The first Facebook group filled with people protesting this change.
• My first goatse on Facebook (q.v. d1rtyf1lthy vs beckyzoole in their new production of Asshat vs Lolcow)

I'm quite faint with excitement.

But srsly, this is an interesting ploy for world domination by Facebook. Why bother starting your new knitting, kitten appreciation or dating site if you can start one within Facebook and make use of (I'm fighting the urge to use the word "leverage" here, Dawkins help me) their existing users? You do need somewhere to host your application, which might mean big hosting bills if it became popular, but if you're not writing something which needs lots of state available on the network, it looks like you could also do interesting things from the user's desktop, or even from their browser with things like Greasemonkey scripts or browser add-ons.

Personally, I'm interested in online CDC Top Trumps. A port of that 100 Million Spiders thing looks like a win, too: it'd be funny, and some I noticed that some members of Facebook are already complaining that they can't put "Alice is in a dom-sub poly pirate-ninja conglomerate with Bob and Eve" on their profile using Facebook's existing relationship options (they're complaining by forming a Facebook group, naturally).

Finally, CNN's in-depth report on the changes solves the mystery of what Facebook's "poke" function is for. Apparently It even still has a feature which enables you to "poke" another member - something most people interpret to mean a sexual come-on. So now you know. Lord knows how you interpret the sort of poke war that lots of Facebook users get into.

Just uploaded another version of the LJ New Comments script. This one never displays negative numbers of new comments ("-3 new") next to your friends' entries. I also noticed that Firefox was getting fat and slow after much LJ browsing. Turns out that Firefox leaks memory like a sieve when you do the thing that the script does to let you click from one new comment to the next. This is Firefox's fault, but luckily a way to get around this was discussed on the Greasemonkey mailing list recently. So I did that. All seems well so far. FF1.5 is so leaky that it'll probably get fat for some other reason, but with the amount of LJ I read I've probably helped myself a bit.

It occurs to me that the same sort of tricks LJ New Comments uses to find comments could probably also be used to make a version of the LJ Thread Unfolder which worked with more than just the default comment style. I might do that if I get around to it.

I've finally got around to writing the Greasemonkey script which I've long been threatening.

What it does

The script remembers which comments you've seen on LJ (or Dreamwidth) and helps you navigate to new comments. That's right, I'm finally dragging LiveJournal kicking and screaming into the 1980s.

If you're on an entry page, pressing "n" skips you to the next new comment, and "p" skips to the previous one. If the style has an "Expand" link, moving to an unexpanded comment with these keys will also expand the thread. If the style has a permanent link or a reply link for each comment in that comment's header or footer, the script inserts another link next to it, labelled "NEW". That link shows you that the comment is new at a glance. Clicking the "NEW" link selects the comment so that pressing "n" will go to the next comment from there. On some styles, the currently selected comment will be outlined with a dotted line.

On a journal or friends page, the script will also add the number of new comments to the link text, so that, say, "15 comments" becomes "15 comments (10 new)", and enable the "n" and "p" keys to move between entries which have new comments, and the "Enter" key to view the selected entry. This only works if you're looking at a journal which adds "nc=N" to entry links to say there are N comments on an entry (LJ can do this as a trick to confuse your browser's history function into thinking you've not visited that entry whenever there are new comments). If you want to turn this on for your journal then ensure you're logged in, visit this page, check the box which says "Add &nc=xx to comment URLs" and hit the "Save" button.

How it works

You don't need to understand this section to use the script. If you don't care about programming, skip to the next part.

( Gory details )

Using it

If you want to use it, you will need:

• Firefox, the web browser, and Greasemonkey, the extension which lets people write little bits of Javascript to run on certain pages.
• OR Google Chrome and TamperMonkey.
• LJ New Comments, which is what I've imaginatively entitled my script.

After you've installed all of the above, visit an entry on LJ or Dreamwidth and marvel at the "NEW" links on all the new comments (which will be all of them at this point, as the script wasn't around previously to remember which ones you'd seen before). See above for operating instructions.

Privacy

Note that the script stores a Firefox preference key for each journal entry you visit, listing the IDs of the comments it finds there. The script doesn't let the database grow without limit: when the script has seen 500 entries, it starts to drop the history for the entries you've not visited recently.

Clearing the browser's history doesn't affect the script's list of visited entries. Thus your visits to polybdsmfurries will be recorded for posterity, even if you clear the browser's history. You can wipe the entire history by using the "Manage User Scripts" entry on the Tools menu to delete the script and its associated preferences (you can re-install it afterwards, but you must clear out the preferences for it to delete the history).

The script does not record the contents of any entry or comment. The script does not transmit any information to LJ or any other website, it merely acts on what it sees when you request journal entries.

Your questions

This entry is intended to serve as a repository for questions about the script, so if you've got a question, comment here. I prefer this to commenting on my other entries or to emailing me, unless you already know me. Ta.

To keep up to date with new releases of my greasemonkey scripts, track the tag "greasemonkey" on my journal. This link should enable you to subscribe to that tag and get notified when I post a new entry about greasemonkey scripts.

Revision history

2006-01-02, version 0.1: First version.

2006-01-03, version 0.2: Added the "p" key. Used javascript to move between comments so doing so does not pollute the browser's history. Coped with the id=ljcmtNNNN way of marking comments. Made "n" and "p" keys work even in the absence of permalinks on each comment.

2006-01-04, version 0.3: Apparently you can have id=tNNNN, too.

2006-01-04, version 0.4: Broke 0.3, fixed it again. I hope.

2006-01-19, version 0.5: Updated to cope with LJ's new URL formats. Changed how comments are stored internally so that the database does not grow without limit: the script now remembers comments for the last 500 entries you visited, and forgets the entries you've visited least. Also added "New" marker based on reply link as well as thread link, for styles which don't have a thread link for every comment.

2006-01-19, version 0.6: Convert dashes I find in URLs to underscores internally, to preserve access to history from older versions of the script before LJ's URL change.

2006-02-09, version 0.7: Work around the fact that Firefox leaks memory like a sieve. Never display negative number of new comments. Change licence to MIT as GPL is overkill for this script.

2006-02-09, version 0.8: There was a bug in the workaround code I got off the Greasemonkey mailing list. Fixed that.

2006-06-04, version 0.9: Enabled the "n" and "p" keys on the friends/journal view. Added the box around the current comment.

2007-02-20, version 1.0, baby: Try harder to draw a box around the current new comment. Applied legolas's fix for pressing CTRL at same time as the N or P keys (see comments).

2008-03-31, version 1.1: Make it work faster on entries with lots of comments. Altered behaviour of "NEW" link so it now selects the comment you're clicking on, as that makes more sense.

2008-09-24, version 1.2: Support Russian keyboards thanks to mumi_0, make threads expand.

2009-01-27, version 1.3: Support for independentminds journals.

2009-05-04, version 1.4: Support for Dreamwidth.

2009-09-22, version 1.5: Amend support for Dreamwidth.

2010-08-09, version 1.6: Made syndicated journals work.

2016-04-16, version 1.7: Add @grant line necessary for it to work on Firefox, apparently. Thanks sally_maria.

2017-10-18, version 1.8: Fix for https URLs.