Install this script ?

Multitool for cleaning any webpage by instructions passed in the url. The tool is embedded in LookItUp2, so you don't have to install it in order to use LookItUp2. There are two reasons I created this script separately: 1.To document the features on a separate page, 2.The tool could be useful in to embed other script, so submitting it as a separate script makes it easier for others to extract.

Cleanup features

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:

• The actions are only triggered if the url contains "cleanitup". Reason: the script will likely run 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.
  
  
• 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 "cleanitup". 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=test#cleanitup!xcrop=#MainTxt!eval=alert('hi')
  
  

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 quickly testing xpath expressions on a page

Examples

• Selecting images and inputs:
  http://www.google.com/webhp?cleanitup&xcrop=//img|//input

xremove

Removes all nodes that are specified by the xpath.

Examples

• Removing the 4'th button on google (I never feel lucky):
  http://www.google.com/webhp?cleanitup&xremove=//input[4]
  

css

Applies css to the document

Examples

• Setting the background color of google:
  http://www.google.com/webhp?cleanitup&css=body{background-color:yellow!important}

I recommend Web Developer tool for quickly viewing the existing css of a site
I recommend Instant CSS for quickly testing new css

eval

Allows you to run any script you want. Note: You have access to greasemonkey functions here!

Examples

• Saying hi:
  http://www.google.com/webhp?cleanitup&eval=alert('hi')
  

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:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman?cleanitup&replace=superman|Bill Gates
  
  
• Removing the "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" tagline from wikipedia articles:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagline?cleanitup&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)

Examples

• Getting the content between the to horizontal rulers in Chambers:
  http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chref.py/main?cleanitup
&query=hello&crop=%3Cdiv%20class=%22hr%22%3E|%3Cdiv%20class=%22hr%22%3E
  
  

Credits

Based on the xStripper script by alien_scum

version history

24 JUN 2007 - v1.1 Fixed autoupdate
02 JUN 2007 - v1.0 Created