re-installing a modified greasemonkey script

January 11, 2007 9:37 AM

I installed a greasemonkey script and it works perfectly, but I want to tweak it slightly.

It's a profanity filter, but it occurred to me that I could use it as an awesome prank, i.e. install it on someone's machine and have it change the name of [insert politician] to "evil emperor" or whatever. Also, I'd like to tweak its sensitivity, as it blocks out potentially non-naughty words, like "balls" and "rutebaga" when really all I want to do is remove the f-bomb and one or two others I have grown weary of.

So it's pretty obvious when I load it into textwrangler what to change, but after I've made the changes and saved it, and then uploaded it to my server, when I point my browser at it, greasemonkey won't install it.

Is this a problem with permissions? Is there something I'm leaving out?

posted by craniac to computers & internet (11 answers total)

Have you tried right clicking on the Greasemonkey icon in your status bar, choosing "New User Script", pointing it at C:\Windows\notepad.exe, and then pasting your modified code into the resulting document?
posted by mikeyk at 9:47 AM on January 11, 2007

In GreaseMonkey you can click the Monkey then Manage User Scripts/Edit your script. No need to reinstall it, just save it as it edits the script you already have installed.

To get it on another instance of Firefox then yeah, upload to a server and you should be good to go.
posted by zeoslap at 9:47 AM on January 11, 2007

You don't need to upload it anywhere to open it in firefox/greasemonkey. Just browse to the location where it's saved using your browser. For example, if it's on the C drive, just type "C:\" into the address bar, and browse to the script.
posted by chrisamiller at 9:51 AM on January 11, 2007

Why upload it? You can install from and browse directories from Firefox (file:///c:/).
posted by JeremiahBritt at 10:01 AM on January 11, 2007

Crud.
posted by JeremiahBritt at 10:01 AM on January 11, 2007

Yes, you don't have to reinstall it in any shape or form. Just edit the .js file on disk and the changes take place immediately on the next page load. It's not necessary to even restart the browser.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:02 AM on January 11, 2007

Craniac, a lot of people are experiencing a "won't let me install" bug with the latest version of Greasemonkey, yours truly included. I've got an e-mail to the developer, but in the meantime, for verification you're not crazy, read a couple pages' worth of the comments on Addons.Mozilla.Org.
posted by WCityMike at 12:15 PM on January 11, 2007

Actually, better linkage for that.
posted by WCityMike at 12:18 PM on January 11, 2007

Yeah, it will let me install the original script but not any local versions. I'll keep updating greasemonkey and see if that helps.
posted by craniac at 12:38 PM on January 11, 2007

Ok, I'm able to install the script locally, off my desktop, but if I even make the slightest change to the script, such as replacing '***' (the naughty word replacement text) with any other three characters, such as '---' or 'doh' or what have you, the script quits working. So I wonder if there's a checksum or something. Anyway, it's probably a javascript thing and beyond the scope of this forum so it looks like I've got some studying to do. Thanks all.
posted by craniac at 12:51 PM on January 11, 2007

darn it, I just figured it out. I can't change the file name so it differs from the embedded name of the script. Any changes I make to the script other than changing its name work great. Gosh, I'm sure as heck glad that I got the flipping script to work. Thanks all^2
posted by craniac at 12:55 PM on January 11, 2007