Make Link 2.0

finuvir · Post by **finuvir** » August 20th, 2004, 4:43 pm

Update (18 April 05): Version 2.0.1 works with Firefox 1.0.3

I've finishing Make Link v2.0 for Firefox. Download Make Link v2.0 and report any bugs in this thread (or by email or private message). It's a good idea to uninstall any previous version of Make Link. You may need to save the XPI to disk and open it with Firefox.

Overview of extension:
Make Link gives you a context menu group that lets you copy links to the clipboard. It behaves differently depending on whether you click on a link, selected text or elsewhere. By default you can make HTML, Forum Code or Plain Text ("Text (URL)") links, but this version lets you define your own link types. For a description of v1.2 see the project page.

Changes since v1.2:
* The old options have been replaced with the new user-configurable link types. Access this from the options ([Make Link]->[Configure...] or from the extension manager)
* Works in PR1.0.

Known issues:
* There are some style rules that should be moved to a skins directory (no affect on the user).

Requested variables:
* (Implemented) <code>%INPUT%</code> - prompt the user for some text as the link is made.

Fixed:
* (Fixed) Configure... menu item should be at the bottom of the Make Link submenu.
* (Fixed) Delete and Modify buttons in options should only be enabled when a link type is selected
* (Fixed) Fails to make links in the page context when the page has meta elements without name attributes.
* (Fixed) Wrong wording of the confirmation prompt for deleting custom link types.
* (Fixed) Bad things happen when the link text has the string %URL% or %TITLE% in it.
* (Fixed) Help is out of date.

Requested enhancements (not implemented in this version):
* The ability to provide a MIME type
* The ability to control the order of the list

If you spot anything else, or want some more functionality, please post in this thread. I've deliberately avoided putting usage instructions in this post because I want people to report usability bugs too. E.g. is the help file on defining link types informative enough? Is the interface intuitive? Etc.

papaoom · Post by **papaoom** » August 21st, 2004, 9:47 am

Just installed Make Link v2.0α and so far so good...
I'll play around with it some more and see what I can do with it once I figure out how to configure a new option or two!!

Plain Text :arrow:

Make Link v2.0α (http://www.netsoc.ucd.ie/~finuvir/makelink_2.0a.xpi)

HTML :arrow:

<a href="http://www.netsoc.ucd.ie/~finuvir/makelink_2.0a.xpi">Make Link v2.0α</a>

Forum Code :arrow:

Make Link v2.0α

w8in · Post by **w8in** » August 21st, 2004, 11:17 am

What would be nice is if you could add your own text for the link on the fly, like [url=%URL%]%INPUT%[/url], where %INPUT% should get the value of whatever the user enters into a prompt box

finuvir · Post by **finuvir** » August 22nd, 2004, 6:40 am

Some requests I got by email, just to keep them in one place:
*the ability to provide a MIME type (so HTML or XML can be pasted as such)
*the ability to control the order of the list (I meant to include this myself)
*the Configure... menu option would be nicer at the bottom of the list. (I wanted this but I had problems with the XUL templates. It's doable, but requires more code)

finuvir · Post by **finuvir** » August 22nd, 2004, 6:50 am

papaoom: If you have any difficulty figuring it out then I consider that a bug. I want this extension to be as easy to use as possible. Could the help be easier to find? Could I rephrase anything to make it easier to understand without anyone having to think too much about it? Like I said, I've deliberately avoided putting usage instructions in this thread because I want people to report usability bugs too.

w8in: Great idea! I sometimes find myself using Make Link and then just replacing the pasted link text with something else. I'll add %INPUT% to the list.

Edit: I've included %INPUT%. I also fixed another bug I spotted. Current version is 2.0alpha3.

sasquatch · Post by **sasquatch** » August 23rd, 2004, 8:06 am

I have 1.2.

I also have [text/plain 1.1]

Do these overlap? I have forgotten which one does which function.

Also, what about Linkification? How do these all compare or fit in together?

Thanks

finuvir · Post by **finuvir** » August 23rd, 2004, 8:29 am

sasquatch: text/plain lets you right-click a plain text URL to open it (current tab, new tab, or new window). Make Link is for making links; it gets the link text, URL and other attributes and sticks them together according to the specified format. Version 1.2 had 3 formats, version 2 has the same three by default but lets you define your own. I believe Linkification automatically converts plain text URLs to links, which might make it useful in combination with Make Link. Linkification makes text/plain redundant (I think).

sasquatch · Post by **sasquatch** » August 23rd, 2004, 8:33 am

Well, I definitely use and like text/plain and paste happy.

I am not quite sure on the use of Make Link as it doesn't seem to work for me, but I may be doing it wrong. Is there a page with examples and screenshots? Thanks.

finuvir · Post by **finuvir** » August 23rd, 2004, 8:39 am

There's the project page. Like I said above, if it isn't obvious what it is or how to use it then that's a bug and I want to fix it. Basically, right-click on something (it behaves differently depending on whether you click on a link, selected text or elsewhere), choose one of the link types from the Make Link menu and then paste the link somewhere. Make Link just copies the link to the clipboard so you have to paste it somewhere to see any effect.

For example, to make that link to the project page I right-clicked on the same link in my first post and selected [Make Link] - [Forum Code], then I pasted it into the reply box. It took the text and URL from the HTML link above and stuck them together with Forum Code to make the Forum Code link.

sasquatch · Post by **sasquatch** » August 23rd, 2004, 8:43 am

selected text or elsewhere (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... 603#740603)

Thanks, I just copied and pasted some text from your message and got the results above.

I guess I was doing it in the wrong order. I was copying and then pasting with make link instead of copying with make link and pasting.

Make sense? It will take some getting used to, but I might try this versus Paste Happy and see how they compare/contrast.

Thanks again.

finuvir · Post by **finuvir** » August 23rd, 2004, 1:15 pm

Thanks for the input. I'll try to make it clearer (in descriptions, project page, and help files) how it works. As for Make Link versus Paste Happy, I have them both installed and I use them both. There's a tiny overlap but they're mostly for different things.

finuvir · Post by **finuvir** » August 25th, 2004, 11:55 am

I've fixed two more issues, but my FTP server isn't responding so the newest alpha (number 4) isn't up yet. I'm about to dive into drag and drop code. I don't think choosing MIME types will make it in, simply because I can't think of how to expose that functionality to the user. A few tweaks to internal code structure and some polish on the help and project pages and this'll be ready for release. It's very usable at the moment.

sasquatch · Post by **sasquatch** » September 7th, 2004, 3:03 pm

"Changes since v1.2:
The old options have been replaced with the new user-configurable link types. Access this from the options ([Make Link]->[Configure...] or from the extension manager) "

Will it still work out of the box without configuring anything, or will it require user input? I am happy with this the way it is, and don't want to have to monkey around with settings if I can help it. Even if it just comes with some defaults which are the same as the old version, that would do for me. Thanks.

finuvir · Post by **finuvir** » September 7th, 2004, 3:10 pm

Yep, it still has the same three defaults of HTML, Forum Code and plain text. The old version had some options that aren't needed anymore because it's more flexible now. It works perfectly "out of the box".

sasquatch · Post by **sasquatch** » September 7th, 2004, 3:19 pm

The first post states "close to finishing". How close? (ie: I don't want to download then download again in a day or two; plus I know a lot of changes are happening right now with extensions.)

Thanks again.