Jared McAteer’s Blag - jaredmcateer.com

Now that all major browsers support the Acid2, or at least have announced they have development builds that pass it, Ian “Hixie” Hickson has begun work on the Acid3. The exciting news is that it is going to focus on ECMAScript (aka. Javascript) and the DOM. The first two Acid tests focused mostly on error handling and emerging technologies of CSS. A lot of people tend to assume that if you pass the Acid tests your browser is standards compliant but they fail to realise that CSS is only a portion of Web Standards. They are important, don’t get me wrong, but most browsers are progressing along with support these days and I’m excited the focus is being shifted to an area that is somewhat neglected.

I do a lot of development in ECMAScript and work heavily in the DOM so it’s no end of frustration to support all browser’s quirks. Having the next Acid test focus on this makes me giddy, this will hopefully force Microsoft to support DOM levels 2 and 3, as of right now they only support DOM level 1 and poorly. I’m sure the guys that develop libraries like Prototype.js and jQuery will be equally as excited.

Technorati Tags: Web Standards, Javscript, ECMAScript, Acid Test, Acid 3, Browsers, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, DOM

Popularity: 80% [?]

Oh two updates in the same day… week… month! I come in cycles due to my ADD, I apologize for nothing, my biorhythm index for blogging and coding must be in their up cycle because in conjunction with updating this site, and the HFB extension, I also built a GreaseMonkey script to add links to friend’s application installs on you Facebook News Feed to block the application permanently.

I was getting tired of my news feed being dominated by application installs by my friends, they often outnumbered other news stories which are of actual interest. I also have very little interest in applications, I feel they are for the most part anti-social and are undermining the spirit of Facebook. There are exceptions and this is why I don’t just automatically block all the applications but for the vast majority I have no interest in seeing anything about them.

I found that blocking an application removes all the stories about it from the news feed and you don’t get any articles in your notification page bugging you with invites either, I was happier than a pig in sh*t! But the process to block an application is annoying. You have to click the app title, then click the block application, then confirm you want to block, then go back to the news feed. So far I’ve been able to cut it down to clicking the block link the GM script adds, confirming, then back to home. Future update I hope to streamline it even further to clicking block, confirm, done.

This is my first GM script, but I hope to build more.
My GreaseMonkey scripts page
My Block Application Links script on Userscripts.org

Technorati Tags: Userscripts, Greasemonkey, Facebook, Firefox

Popularity: 77% [?]

I just wanted to leave a quick note that I have updated the Hide Find Bar Firefox extension to include support for Firefox 3 now that it is in beta. Not a whole lot changed in the extension except that I’ve added support for secure updates which is a requirement of Firefox 3.

If you’ve never heard of the HFB, it’s an extension I’ve developed that will automatically hide the find bar, hard to derive from the name I know, after a certain interval of inactivity. This is handy when if you find yourself constantly forgetting the find bar open or if you’re just to lazy to click the close button, either way it’s handy.

Hide Find Bar Home Page

Technorati Tags: Extension, Firefox, Firefox 3 beta, Hide Find Bar

Popularity: 73% [?]

I’ve decided on a bi-weekly segment (a loosely defined deadline) for jmcom highlighting a specific Firefox extensions that I enjoy. I dislike all the “Top X extensions you will have a mob come and rape you to death if you don’t have it” articles, the whole point of extensions are that they are not necessary for everyone, but are useful to at least someone. I want to focus on one extension at a time as I feel some extensions don’t get the exposure they should. The first installment it going to focus on a wonderful little extension called Stylish.

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Popularity: 99% [?]

I created the Hide Find Bar extension earlier this year as a means of getting rid of the find bar without any hassle. I often found myself browsing, using the find feature, finding what I want and continuing to read, later finding the bar still open but having no purpose. I am also a real estate whore, I try to maximize the space I have for viewing websites, so this seemed like an ideal task for me to get my feet wet in the extension business for Firefox, something I’ve wanted to do for a while.

I recently updated the extension to fix a couple bugs, and with the moving of my new site lost all the history (forgot to zip it up.) So it’s now at it’s new home and on a rather unappealing webpage right now (I’ll make it look pretty one of these days I promise.) If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free.

Technorati Tags: Firefox, Extension, Hide Find Bar

Popularity: 33% [?]