Blogger Hacks, Categories, Tips & Tricks

Saturday, December 03, 2005
Greasemonkey Method: Update for Firefox 1.5 and Greasemonkey 0.6.4
Revised 7/17/06: Four versions of this script now exist, and each might be useful to you depending on your set-up and need for features.
  1. Script 3187: Basic Script for Firefox 1.5 and GreaseMonkey 0.6.4
  2. Script 1240: Basic Script for earlier versions of Firefox and Greasemonkey
  3. Script 2182: Deluxe Script by Johan Sundstrom w/ additional features
  4. Script 4712: Combination of Johan's Deluxe Script & Singpolyma's Trackback Script.
For scripts 1 & 2, see my original how-to. For script 3, read on here. Script 4 is introduced on the Singpolyma Tech Blog:

What is Greasemonkey?

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to modify existing web pages with open-source user scripts, adding features & functions that will make your browsing easier.

So how does this make it easier for me to tag my posts?
  1. Use the Mozilla Firefox web browser (v.1.5)
  2. Install the Greasemonkey Extension (version 0.6.4, compatible with Firefox 1.5) Install instructions for Greasemonkey can be found at A Consuming Experience:
    To use Greasemonkey you have to first install that extension from the Greasemonkey site (Firefox users should be familiar with how - click the Greasemonkey extension link, if nothing happens and you see just below your tabs a message in horizontal bar that "To protect your computer, Firefox prevented this site (greasemonkey.mozdev.org) from installing software on your computer", you should click "Edit Options" at the end, then "Allow" and "OK" to allow that site to install software, then try clicking the Greasemonkey extension link again, give it a few seconds then click "Install now". Close and re-launch Firefox.)
  3. Install Johan's Tag, Bookmark & Ping Script from Userscripts.org. View the text of the script in your browser, then go to the tools menu, & select "install this user script." For instructions & screenshots re: how to install a script, see greasemonkey.mozdev.org.
  4. Head to blogger, & in settings > formatting, set "show link field" to "yes." This will allow you to see the extra compose fields that are added by the script.
  5. Write a post.
  6. Add your tags to the tags field, space or comma separated (great touch, Johan...)
  7. This script does not require editing. The first time you select "publish" it will ask you a series of questions about how to format your tags.
    1. What text do you want to precede / introduce your tags? (Filed in:, for example)
    2. Tags that you'd like to add to all your posts (an "anchor tag", blog or author name, for example)
    3. What page on del.icio.us would you like the tags to point to? (your top-level account page, or an account+tag+tag page, for example)
  8. In the event that you make an error with these inputs, or want to reset them without reinstalling the script, you can click on the subtitle that introduces the tags field, which I have artfully highlighted with a red arrow below:

9. Publish your post. Note that you will need to be in the edit html side of the compose window when you publish. The tags will add to the end of the post, & will point to the location that you specified on del.icio.us.
10. In a great feature, Johan has also used this script to add a "post to del.icio.us" link to the publish notification page on blogger, which will pop-up a del.icio.us window auto-populated with permalink, title, timestamp & tags. Just hit "bookmark" over there & you're all set!!
11. You can also ping several services from the same notification window to let them know that you've updated. (Beware of ping spam, though, if you have blogger set to ping weblogs.com, or if you run your feed through feedburner & have turned on their pinging service, this step may be unnecessary...) For instructions on how to configure the ping options on this script, see Johan's post on pinging.
12. These tags contain the rel="tag" attribute, so they're also valid on technorati & other tag search services, & your posts should be indexed there automatically, once they crawl your site. Technorati tags don't have to link to technorati. They can link to del.icio.us and technorati will find them because of the rel: tag attribute.

See the two posts at Ecmanaut that explain the features and functions of this script. Blogger Del.icio.us Categoriser Script and Blogger Publish, Ping & Categoriser Tool. All good stuff. Integrated tagging for categories in the newest version of Firefox. Thanks, Johan!!

Update: To format tags on one line, instead of in a list, see Ecmanaut, where there are two sets of css for your template head. One puts the list on one line, & the second adds del.icio.us icons as your tag bullets. Very cool.

Update 3/1/06: The script has been updated to allow tagging inside the new RTF-powered blogger blogthis! Thanks, Johan!!
Posted at 3:42 PM by John.
26 Comments:
<    >
Blogger Jim Jannotti said...
Johan's script is excellent. I installed it back when you originally posted about it and simply stopped using any other method. Once the greasemonkey update become available following the FFox 1.5 release, I re-fired it up and it worked perfectly right out of the box.

It was one long day having to live without it, but it's just a memory now.

<    >
Blogger Greg said...
Great write-up, John. I hope this helps Johan's amazing hack the publicity it deserves.

BTW, you may be interested in this tip about getting the tags all on one line.

Cheers,

-Greg.

<    >
Blogger Johan Sundström said...
Excellent and to-the-point summary! I think I'll write a small follow-up on how to style the tags list to get nice little Del.icio.us icons the way I do with CSS.

Worth pointing out for step 7.2: if you want to add multiple anchor tags and have not reupdated the script after I wrote this comment, make sure you separate them with + characters, not spaces and/or commas. A bug in past versions of the script made it link the tag list to broken URLs otherwise. (Thanks for noticing and reporting it, Stephen!)

If you update the script and have had such issues, clicking the Tags: link will allow you to reconfigure. Then I would suggest republishing all affected posts to fix the problems.

<    >
Blogger Frank said...
Hi folks,
I followed the instructions, but my posts are not displaying the "Filed in: " line.

What may I have done wrong? Any suggestions?

<    >
Blogger betta said...
Hello!

I'm trying to do as you say, but in point 6, there's no "tags field". I've tried to write them in the "link field" but nothing happens. :(
Is there a way to know what I'm doing wrong?

Thank you!

<    >
Blogger Sun Bin said...
betty,

i have the same problem as well, but after i quit and re-started firefox, i can see the 'tag entry line'

<    >
Blogger RPM said...
Thanks, I am online now with the script on 1.5.

Would you know why it keeps asking me for the information in Step 7 you have mentioned, every time I post?

<    >
Blogger Chris Spinks said...
I use this with no problems at work, but keep getting the following error everytime I try to install the script on my laptop.

Error: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIChannel.open]" nsresult: "0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://greasemonkey/content/utils.js :: getContents :: line 167" data: no]

Any ideas?

<    >
Blogger Yash said...
hey john, after i changed the title of my blog and installed firefox 1.5, some things just arent going right. can u just visit my blog page once and see wht i am doing wrong? the tag link at the footer of every post are not linking to the delicious page like they used to. and what are the new settings that appeared when i was making my first post with firefox1.5 with the new greasemonkey?

<    >
Blogger Yash said...
thanks for explaining the three options that it asks...just one more thing, how do i change that now?

<    >
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I fixed the original script to work with Firefox 1.5 and GM 0.6.4 and put it on userscripts.org here. I liked the old way better.

<    >
Blogger Shang Lee said...
i've added the script and it worked excellently! i've also added a tagroll from delicious, but i only want the tags relating to my own blog appearing in side bar. so i modified the javascript to point to http://del.icio.us/cissyn/myblog (i've used myblog as an anchor tag for all posts). something annoying is the tag "myblog" appearing in the tagroll, and swamping all other tags, just because it's the most frequently used tag! is there anyway around this?

<    >
Blogger John said...
CisSyn,

I don't see a way to add a tag as a filter in the JS, as you have, but then exclude it from the tagroll.... I don't, in fact see a way to exclude anything from the tagroll.... I'll keep looking.....

<    >
Blogger Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

<    >
Blogger Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

<    >
Blogger djmundy said...
It seems whenever I visit del.icio.us by clicking on a link from my blog or any other page, it asks me to log in. When I type del.icio.us in the Firefox address bar, it doesn't ask me. Is it just me that gets this?

<    >
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hello. Whenever I click on Johan's script to install it i get a message from userscripts.org saying it doesn't exist. Anyone know what the problem is?
Thanks.
Jayson

<    >
Blogger John said...
Jayson,

Looks like their whole site is down? Hopefully they'll be back soon.

<    >
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Excellent introduction. But I'm having problem downloading the script. I've tried for a few hours and I am not able to connect to the userscripts.org site. (always connection timeout ><)
Can anyone kindly email me the scripts? I would really like to try out right away!

ericshung[at]pchome[dot]com[dot]tw

Thanks in advance.

<    >
Blogger Sarah said...
Since I installed Beta Blogger, my 'Filed in' line no longer exists. I've tried reinstalling it, but to no avail. Advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

<    >
Blogger John said...
Sarah,

We're working on it... The script specifies the Blogger pages that it will work with, & the beta pages aren't included... Expect an upgrade as soon as the dust settles.... See my comment & Annie's follow-up.

<    >
Blogger Unknown said...
Hi John, hi guys

I'm just a bit confused. In step 7.2, if I have 3 tags for example, then do I enter my delicious address as http://del.icio.us/Jubinell/A+B+C

??

because when I look at the resulting post, clicking on A, or on B, or on C all lead to the same page where only THIS post is there. Whereas I would like to see a list of posts with category A if I click on A, category B if I click on B etc. etc.

It seems like I'm missing something

<    >
Blogger John said...
Jubinell,

You would only select multiple tags if there is an "anchor" tag that you want to apply to all of your posts (your blog name, or del.icio.us username, or something...) Otherwise simply choose the "top level" of your del.icio.us account. http://del.icio.us/username/

Hope this helps. Let me know if not!

<    >
Anonymous Anonymous said...
thanks john

<    >
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I'm using Firefox 2.0 with the latest GreaseMonkey and have just downloaded the script. It works nicely, except for one item.

If I use the BlogThis! button on my Google toolbar, everything starts out fine. I write my post, fill in tags, and submit the post. It publishes, and all is good. However, the Publish page does not show the "post to del.icio.us" link.

If I go to blogger.com and create a post there, the publish page does show the del.icio.us link. Just not when I use BlogThis. Is this normal behavior? Is there a fix? Thanks.

<    >
Anonymous Anonymous said...
great script..hmm..if there any other alternative..rather than del.icio.us?


eXTReMe Tracker