Facebook autopoke development update

Over the weekend, I've been slaving away to find a better way to search for the poke div box.  After some hacking, I found that facebook uses something called ajaxify.  The problem with this plugin is that greasemonkey cannot interact with it, which sucks because facebook loads the pokes using ajax.  I've known this for a while, but it wasn't until recently that I found the mechanism that it uses.

While I have yet to hear from anyone from facebook concerning my script, it does seem that facebook is trying to block automated requests to poke someone.  I don't know if this is intentional or a side-effect of other changes they are making.  What is clear is that every so often, the code changes.

One of the features I'm hoping to add to the autopoke script is the ability to "fix itself" should facebook change their code.  While this is not 100% possible, the script can be flexible enough to notice changes to facebook's main page and hopefully, figure out the solution.  This feature may not be ready by the release of 4.0, but I'm hoping to work on it.

Another feature I'm actively working on is better internationalization.  Currently, the script only works with English, specifically by design.  I'm working on this so that it will work for any language.

Finally, some important news:

Initially, the autopoke script was born out of a need to fix someone else's autopoke script.  I continued working on it, making it better until my script became more popular than original script.  It came to the point that I no longer had any of the original code (as of version 2.0).

Development of this script takes a lot of time.  In fact, the development of 4.0 has so far taken 20 total programming hours.  There have been a little less than 100,000 installs of the script, which doesn't necessarily mean 100,000 users.  But judging by the sheer number of people who complain when it doesn't work, it's still a lot of people.

I am a firm believer in open-source and source-code freedom.  I also believe people should be compensated for their work.  Whether that's a hardy "thank you" or a monetary contribution, I believe it encourages development and lets the author know that he is appreciated.  With this in mind, I will be establishing a new release structure for this script.

I've decided to something similar to what Stephen King did in 2000: The script will be released once a certain amount of money has been raised. 100% of the money will go toward a non-profit organization that will be decided when the script is ready for release.  I don't have a dollar amount figured yet or how the logistics will work.  As soon as I figure this out, I'll post here.

As a result of this, will not be pushing the updates to Google code.  Changes and source will become available after the release.

Development on Facebook Autopoke 4.0 to start next week

A long awaited update to my most popular greasemonkey script will begin sometime next week.  The following changes will be made my autopoke script:

• a complete rewrite of the script from the ground up!
• use xml_httprequest instead of GM_xml_httprequest to save time and overhead
• better poke detection
• poke war count
• localization for any facebook language
• better use of xpath and other tools that have been introduced

I know that this script is being used on other browsers (e.g. Opera, Google Chrome, etc) but please realize that I can only focus on one browser: Firefox.  You are more than welcome to port the script to your own flavor of browser.

Release date is unknown at this time, but I'm hoping for September 2011.

zagg replacement utility uploaded

I released a script that goes through each order that you have with zagg and shows only orders where a replacement can be made.

Have at it.

wikiHow Helper - 0.1 ALPHA released

Welcome to the official blog of the tailgate software repository!  This blog will announce releases and other news for the repository.

I have a lot of scripts on the burner right now.  The one I'm releasing today is the wikiHow Helper script.  Due to it's complexity, I'm only releasing small features at a time.  It makes heavy use of the document.evaluate function so it may not work in non-Firefox browsers.

Please visit the project's change log and release notes for details on how you can help debug the script.