Script Summary: Quickly look something up in wikipedia, a dictionary or whatever you like (its easy to add custom sites!). The result is displayed directly on the page.
Version: 1.5
Note: I published a new script called LookItUp2
I will give it a week or so, before I let the autoupdate inform about the update (so potential bugs won't hurt too many people)Description
You select a word, and it will be looked up immediately. Which dictionary is selected depends on customizable keystrokes
Screenshot of settings:
Quick Start
1. Install the script.2. Try it out, by selecting some text, and pressing "w".
3. Wikipedia will open in the right side of the page.
4. While the text is still hightlighted, press "v", and the text will now be looked up in Wictionary
5. While the text is still hightlighted, press "?", and you will see a popup with a textarea showing the highlighted word, and a button for each site. Click on a button to look the word up in that engine
6. Click on the page, or press Esc key to make the popups go away
7. Customize the script by pressing '#' while some text is hightlighted
There are different ways a lookup can be triggered:
SELECT: The lookup will be performed immidiately when a text is selected
SHIFT-SELECT,ALT-SELECT and CTRL-SELECT: Like SELECT, but only when SHIFT/ALT/CTRL key is hold down.
And finally, by pressing a custom key while there is a selection.
Extra features
Pressing '?' while text is highlighted displays a search menu. From this menu you can enter a word (the highlighted word is shown per default), and select which site you want to look the word(s) up in. Pressing '!' while text is hightlighted temporarily sets the SELECT action to the last action. This is usefull if you are on a page where the text is hard to understand, and you want to look up a lot of words quickly.Example:
- Select some text
- press 'w' to look it up in wikipedia
- press '!' to temporarily make wikipedia your quick-lookup engine
- Select some text.
- The text will be looked up immediately when its selected. The assignment is not saved. It only lasts while on page.
Pressing Esc key closes the boxes
Pressing 'q' while text is highlighted disables the script
Example: Adding custom site (GET)
- Decide which site you want to add. In this example, we will add a google image search- Make a search for "words", and copy the address line.
- Open settings, by selecting something and pressing "#"
- Click "Add site"
- In the first column, you freely choose a proper name. Ie "Images - google"
- In the next column, you paste the address line from the search: http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&...
- Now, find the place in the url where it says "words", and replace it with "[words]"
- It will now be: http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&...
- Choose a shortcut that makes sence to you. Ie "i" for "images". Make sure that there are no other sites that uses this shortcut.
- Choose a style. You have to enter the exact name of a style (these a defined below). The predefined styles are "narrowbar" and "widebar". I choose "widebar".
- Click "Save"
Adding custom site (POST)
Most search forms puts all the options in the url (GET), but some does not. Even though a form uses POST, the engine might accept GET requests anyway. In this case, I recommend the post-interceptor script for easily seeing what is posted: http://www.oreilly.com/pub/h/4132V1.4 features
- Multiple search results can be displayed at once by assigning same shortcut key- You can open the first n sites in a grid, by pressing a number key, while text is selected
- Added cleanup features, so cleanup instructions can be placed in the url
- Changed default site url's, so they use the new cleanup features
- Added "merge default sites into sites" feature, so you can easily use those new urls, without loosing your own site definitions
- Changed encoding of urls
Note: Its still possible to use separate cleanup scripts, but beware that you dont have an old cleanup script running while using these new urls. It will fail misserably
Quick v1.4 tour
1. Go to settings, click "merge default sites into sites", and click "Save". The urls are now magic: The search results are cleaned up2. Select some text and click "3". Then click "4". Then click "8".
Multiple search results can be displayed at once
- If you assign the same key to several sites, they will all be opened.- Number keys open the first n sites in a grid
Grouping sites, by assigning the same key:
Be aware that the sites will overlap, if they use the same style. You will have to make new style definitions.
Example of usage: I have three dictionaries assigned the same key. I copied the "widebar" style into 3 styles, and named them "1of3", "2of3" and "3of3". I then changed the height and top attributes of all of them:
1of3: width:672px;height:33%;top:0%;...
2of3: width:672px;height:33%;top:33%;...
3of3: width:672px;height:34%;top:66%;...
Number keys open the first n sites in a grid:
Try pressing '3' while text is selected. The first 3 search engines will open. Now, try pressing '4'. Another search engine will open, leaving the first 3. Now, press '5'. I find that moving up the numbers this way, starting from '1' is a quite effective: You can read the previous, while the new one is loading. The ordering is ofcourse important. It should match your preferences. You can order the sites by clicking the new "move up" buttons in settings.
Cleanup features
The major change from between 1.3 and 1.4 is that its no longer neccessary to build separate cleanup scripts. Cleanup instructions can be appended to the urls. Thanks to alien_scum for this idea, and his "xStripper" script. Note: You don't actually have to read more about the cleanup features, unless you want to write cleanup scripts yourself. Several ways to clean up are implemented:xcrop: Selects nodes to keep, using xpath (this is what xStripper does)
xremove: Selects nodes to destroy, using xpath
css: Applies css to the document
eval: Run any script.
replace: Replace content using regexp
crop: Select content between two strings in the sourcecode (in the innerHTML)
The actions can be combined. They will be performed in the order that they appear in the url. Its possible to have the same type of action multiple times
Notes:
- Some sites respond to extra params in a bad way (ie freedictionary: It tries to look up all words passed as params). To handle this, I expanded the syntax: the url is scanned for "lookitup". The character that follows this string is choosen as the command separator. Usually the separator is "&", but I have given you the option to redefine this. This syntax could also come handi if need to use "&"'s in the command values. Example: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=...') (note: this feature was not in the original version of this beta)
- The actions are only triggered if the url contains "lookitup". Reason: the script runs on *, so it should be able to quickly decide if it should spent time examining the parameters - and some sites might use the same parameter names, which would have unintentional effects.
- I would appreciate tips on new urls. Also without cleanup.
xcrop
Selects the specified nodes, and deletes the rest. The code is taken from xStripper. The only difference is that I don't wrap each node in a div.Note: I can highly recommend the XPath Checker plugin for creating xpath expressions.
Example: Selecting images and inputs: http://www.google.com/webhp?lookitup&xcrop=//im...
LookItUp Example: Selecting all unordered lists in google define: http://www.google.com/search?lookitup&q=define:...
xremove
Removes all nodes that are specified by the xpath.Example: Removing the 4'th button on google (I don't feel lucky) http://www.google.com/webhp?lookitup&xremove=//...]
LookItUp Example: Removing the footer in wictionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?lookitup&t...
css
Applies css to the documentExamples:
Setting the background color and input height of google. css=body{background-color:yellow}input{height:200px;margin:10px}
LookItUp Examples:
Hiding the footer in wikipedia
eval
Allows you to run any script you want.Example: Saying hi: eval=alert('hi')
LookItUp example: Adding "Next" button to google define - such that the new page is also clean: url
replace
Replaces text, using regexp. It takes 3 arguments: Search-string, modifiers and replace-string. They are separated with this character: "|". If you skip the modifiers, they default to "gi".Examples:
Giving a new meaning to an article: replace=superman|Bill Gates&replace=DC Comics|Microsoft
Removing the "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" tagline from wikipedia articles: replace=From.*pedia|
crop
Crops the document. The action takes two parameters: Text that identifies where the crop should begin, and text that identifies where it should end. The first is included, the second is not. It also takes two additional optional arguments, that allow you to adjust the positions. This "crop" feature is maybe a little dogdy. There is for example a problem: The text is taken from documen.body.innerHTML - but this is actually not the same as document source, and I think its browser dependent. Note: in most cases you can use xcrop instead, by using the "following-sibling" and/or "preceding-sibling" axis (example here)LookItUp Example: Getting the content between the to horizontal rulers in Chambers:
url
Note: The content is shown in an iframe. This means that its also possible to create a dedicated userscript for a resultpage. I only recommend doing that if the cleanup is very complicated, which it appears that it never is. The cleanup features of lookitup are very powerful, and will usually be sufficient.
Other changes:
Encoding changed:The whole url was encoded with encodeURI. Now I only encode the selected words, and its encoded using "escape" instead. encodeURI was encoding danish letters wrong. Ie: 'å' is %E5, but encodeURI encodes it as %C3%A5. I only encode the words now, because I experienced a case where the encoding had a negative effect. If you want the url encoded, simply enter the encoded url. If not, then don't. Now the choice is yours. There are online url-encoders available here and here
Added "merge default sites into sites" feature:
The default sites are examined. If you already have a site with the same name as the default site, then the url is changed to that of the default site. If you don't, then the default site will be added to your sites. The changes does not take effect until you press "save". Note: Make sure that the styles of the sites that are added exists (Note to self: Maybe nonexistant styles should be added automatically?)
Note for danish users
Here are some usefull urls (including cleanup):Sprogteknologisk ordbase: url
Retskrivningsordbogen (New url, because they changed their url): url
Ideomordbogen: url
Engelsk - Dansk: url
Features under consideration
Feedback on these ideas will be appreciated- Automatic update of default site urls.
- Possibility to load site definitions. (Ie danish sites)
- A way to open grouped sites one by one (for example by clicking the assigned key multiple times)
- Assign several shortcuts to one site (not sure if this is useful: If you want several shortcuts, its probably because you want it in a group - which means the style should be changed anyway)
- Splitting sites and shortcuts: Sites: (name and url), Shortcuts: ref to sitename, shortcut and ref to style
- Groups: A group could be a commaseparated list of site names, a shortcut and... maybe list of stylenames, or maybe they should be layed out using the same scheme as with the number-keys
- Separating the settings into another script that are loaded and evaluated on demand. Purpose: To make the script smaller. Not sure if its worth it, though. Should first examine if there is a performance gain at all.
Version history
09 MAY 2007 - V1.4.4 crop now takes two additional arguments that allows adjusting the positions08 MAY 2007 - V1.4.3 added exclude on gmail editor, and fixed bug on "?" feature
07 MAY 2007 - V1.4.2 Added "1of3", "2of3" and "3of4" styles (but they will only show up for new users, because i have not made a "merge styles" feature). Changed "!", so it works better with multiple sites
06 MAY 2007 - V1.4.1 Fixed autoupdate, so it doesn't increase install counter
05 MAY 2007 - V1.4 Added cleanup features and support for opening multiple sites
17 MAR 2007 - V1.3 Fix: If ctrl or alt is hold down while a key is pressed, no site will be opened... anymore.
17 MAR 2007 - V1.2 Added '?', '!', 'q', '#' and Ecs key functions. urls are encoded using encodeURI.
28 FEB 2007 - V1.1 Oops. The "Save button" was not available on small screens. There are now scrollbars.
28 FEB 2007 - V1.0 Created
