Customer Reviews

Greasemonkey Hacks: Tips & Tools for Remixing the Web with Firefox

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Greasemonkey (GM) is an extension (arguably one of the most useful) for the Firefox browser. GM is an agent that allows the dynamic alteration and manipulation of web pages via scripts which run after the page is loaded but before it is rendered to you. GM opens the Document Object Model (DOM) of other people's web pages up to client-side access, which gives you the power to add, remove and change the content of that web page to suit your tastes and needs - almost exactly if you had written the web page yourself. GM, however, is only the hosting engine. All the real work is performed by implementing JavaScript files, that you or someone else has written.

Greasemonkey Hacks is a great read and a valuable "ideas" asset, but only if you fit into the niche it is written for. As GM is nothing more than an interface host for dynamic scripting, not a lot other than an overview of the extension, where to get it, and a how to use its few dialogs can be written about. Indeed, it already has been covered before and is freely available on the extension's home page (Greasemonkey dot Mozdev dot Org). As GM makes the DOM available to custom JavaScripts, unless you only intend to look for and run other peoples scripts (which is quite doable as UserScripts dot Org makes hundreds of thousands of them readily available, some of which appear in this book), a working knowledge of the DOM and JavaScript is needed. The author does not spend much time covering what GM is, and very little time covering any JavaScripting or DOM objects; you are expected to already understand what you see. What this title does give you is hundreds of pages of ideas, accomplished by presenting recipe script after recipe script complete with discussions and explanations.

The book is well written, and entertaining to read. The information presented within ranges from novice to advanced (if you're into scripting) and is never dumbed down or made overly complicated. If you're really interested in writing your own web browsing "hacks", this is an excellent read as it provides a great guided introduction into the topic, beyond what you would get if you just threw yourself into the GM-related websites. If you find the possibilities tantalizing, you won't be sorry you purchased this book. But, as this is not a how-to or learning book for the DOM or for JavaScript, I couldn't recommend it above the GM websites to the casual Firefox user or those who do not script.

Bottom line... I'm hooked. I was vaguely aware of what Greasemonkey was, but I really hadn't taken the time to explore it. That time is now over. I had a chance to review a copy of Greasemonkey Hacks by Mark Pilgrim, and I don't think I'll look at web browsing the same again.

Contents: Getting Started; Linkmania!; Beautifying the Web; Web Forms; Developer Tools; Search; Web Mail; Accessibility; Taking Back the Browser; Syndication; Site Integration; Those Not Included in This Classification; Index

This is a typical O'Reilly Hacks title, where you have 100 tips and tricks on exploiting some technology or toy. In this volume, Mark Pilgrim shows how you can use the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox to completely change the way you interact with web pages. The first two tips show how to install Greasemonkey and how to install a Greasemonkey script that you either download or write yourself. From there, it's all over the board as far as what you can do with these script gems. Tired of dealing with URLs on a site that aren't clickable? Check out tip #13 (Turn Naked URLs into Hyperlinks). Want to have a web page refresh itself automatically every x minutes (even though they don't have a meta refresh tag)? Then go to tip #41 (Refresh Pages Automatically). And my favorite... Hate those web site registrations that force you to enter basic information every time just to see the content? Do you normally use BugMeNot to find an existing registration? Wish that all could be integrated and automated in your browser? Tip #84 - Bypass Annoying Site Registration. I can tell you that this one was the first Greasemonkey script I installed, and it's way cool...

This is really not a "how to code Greasemonkey scripts" book. You're dealing with JavaScript and the document object model, but Pilgrim and his group of contributors don't spend any time trying to teach you how to do all that. The book delivers the scripts already coded and tested, and you just have to install them. But that's not bad, and it works on a number of levels. If you've never used Greasemonkey, it's a great way to discover the power (as I did). And if you *are* a Greasemonkey user and/or developer, this will give you many new ideas on scripts you might want to write yourself. And since you can download the scripts from the O'Reilly site, you already have a solid base of code from which to start. Hard to beat that in terms of value...

Obviously, I like tech books and I read a lot. But not often do I run across a book that ends up changing the way I view the basic technology I touch every day. If I wasn't a Firefox user, this book would convince me to become one in short order. As a Firefox user, I'm now convinced that I can personalize and manipulate web sites and information in ways I never imaged. This is really a recommended read...

Since its inception, the Web has been a one-way pipe from the information suppliers to the consumers: take what we offer and like it. Greasemonkey turns that paradigm on its ear by giving the user of the Web the power and the tools to change Web sites to suit his own needs.

But Greasemonkey requires programming in Javascript. That's within reach for most technically-savvy Web users, but easy for only a few. Platypus (platypus.mozdev.org) provides a graphical interface for creating Greasemonkey scripts, but if you want to create anything unique or deeply powerful, you'll have to tackle Javascript programming.

That's where this book comes in. With a hundred examples of different Greasemonkey scripts, all of them clearly explained by the author of "Dive into Python" and "Dive into Greasemonkey", this book provides the basic recipes for almost any sort of script you'd like to create. By cutting, pasting and recombining what you find in this book, you'll be able to shape any Web site to your own vision without spending years plumbing the esoteric depths of Javascript and the Firefox browser.

If you can't amaze yourself with Greasemonkey, don't blame this book. Blame your lack of imagination!

-- Scott Turner

If you're looking for a book on how to actually get started with Greasemonkey *coding* this is a great book. Sure, there's a collection of basic intro info, but this is a how-to book for coders. That's not a bad thing, of course! And from a coding standpoint, it does a great job.

Greasemonkey is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser to give users tons of control over ANY web page that they visit. The idea behind Greasemonkey is simply that DHTML can be outputted in useful ways, to do thinks like control how all links on a web page are displayed to the user, make cosmetic changes (image control and such), and these are just the tip of the iceberg! Never before have users had the kind of control before that they get with the Firefox web browser and the Greasemonkey extension. If you want to learn how to hack your way around (and the word 'hack' is so true when it comes to this extension) and have fun doing things that you should just NOT be able to do, you have come to the right place! Mark Pilgrim's book is an entertaining, interesting, and easy to follow guide to getting the most out of this great add-on. It gets into the nuts and bolts of Greasemonkey and does everything as advertised and more!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

There are three things that are really good about this book: 1) it really opens your eyes to the fact that the web page designer/developer has absolutely no final control over the page layout, presentation or behavior, 2) it presents a good feel for the range of things you can do with JavaScript to alter a web page or bend it to your will, and 3) the source code, which is printed for each hack, provides some of the best study material in coding style, best practices, etc.

Highly recommended for intermediate to advanced JavaScripters. Heck, it's probably even good for beginners, since this type of stuff might get someone really interested in programming by sticking their toe in the water.

I've been playing with the extensions in Firefox for some time, and one of the more interesting ones is Greasemonkey, which allows you to alter websites on the client side to add functionality or to remove annoyances. The Greasemonkey language is very similar to JavaScript, so Ajax/JavaScript junkies can get a very quick grasp of the techniques in the book.

It does assume some familiarity with programming in general, so this is not something to jump into without any experience; however, it is a smooth ride, and having a good JavaScript book will make it very satisfying.

Really this should be Firefox Hacks since the book is primarily about how to use Greasemonkey to make the sites we all visit on a daily basis more usable. Greasemonkey allows you to write scripts that alter the behavior of websites from within the browser. If that sounds esoteric, ok, but just have a look around what you can actually do with it and you will see just how powerful it is. Greasemonkey is worth your time and this is the book that shows you how to exploit that power.

Has a really poor index.
Can't find a way to delete "[p]Some Text String[/p]".
Figured I would pay money and get this book. No dice.
Save your money and just use Google.