Have you noticed your friend number going down recently? I always kind of wonder who would unfriend me on Facebook and why.  The Unfriend Finder user script will at least help me answer one of those questions.  It will keep track of who unfriends you on Facebook.

The problem is that once you have over 100 friends it is a little hard to keep track of them all.  The Unfriend Finder simply gives you the ability to know when they have unfriended you or their account.  Once installed, you will have 0 unfriends.  When a person removes you or deactivates their account, you will be notified on the new "unfriend" page added to Facebook by this script.

This Unfriend Finder also gives you the ability to know who has not yet accepted your friend request. So if you want to know who is ignoring you – this gives you the real time ability to do just that too.

You will need Greasemonkey installed to make the script work.  Once you have that in place though, head over to unfriendfinder.com and start finding out who is unfriending you on Facebook.

Want to give Facebook a more minimalist look and feel?  If so, I have found the perfect Greasemonkey script for you to install and use.  The simply named, Minimalist Facebook userscript removes several annoying (and space wasting) features of the Facebook website.

After installing this user script, here are the elements that were changed or removed on the Facebook website:

• unnecessary right column gone
• feed column and comment boxes extended
• chat info on left column gone
• chat dock is partly transparent

It is a big improvement.  I like the wider content area – seems to make things easier to read.  You can pick up the Minimalist Facebook userscript for Greasemonkey on DeviantArt or UserScripts.org.

One big complaint about search engines is they are all rather vanilla with their visual representation.  Wouldn’t it be better if you could color code things a ‘bit more?  One Greasemonkey script that does a great job at this is Colorful Search.

Once you install this user script, it will generate a random light background color for Bing, Yahoo and Google.  Colors are decided and grouped together based on the domain name they come from.  So you can quickly see that if Firefox Facts results are light blue, and you see 7 out of the 10 results are light blue, they all came from here.  It makes the visual representation much more useable. 

Want to color code your own search engine results? You can pick up Colorful Search from userscripts.org.

Want to hide all the stuff you do not really need on your personalized iGoogle homepage?  Thanks Super iGoogle, a handy Greasemonkey script, you can simplify iGoogle to only show you the content you need to see.

Why hide iGoogle content?

I really didn’t want to hide everything you see in the screenshot, I mainly needed a way to hide the left sidebar, because I really only use one page on iGoogle for my calendar, RSS links and e-mail.  Once you get Super iGoogle installed into Greasemonkey, the tool itself is pretty self explanatory.

What about other Google links, settings and more?

You get a drop down menu added to the iGoogle web page, where you can choose to hide or show the header, the sidebar, the footer and the mini search the script adds to the very top of your iGoogle page.  Other menu items include:

• Advanced Search
• Search Preferences
• Language Tools
• iGoogle Settings
• Change Theme
• Get artistic themes
• Themes for Causes
• Add Stuff
• Classic Home
• My Account
• Sign Out

So all the usual iGoogle settings are there, they are just tucked away so they are not a visual distraction to you.

Download the Super iGoogle user script on UserScripts.org.

Anthony is one of the driving forces behind that project, so I thought it would be fun to pick his brain to find out what his part in the project is, and what advice he might have for other hopeful Greasemonkey script writers or Firefox add-on developers.

What all have you done in development for the Firefox Greasemonkey extension?

I’ve definitely lost track of when and how exactly I first learned about Greasemonkey, and when I got involved.  Luckily, I can look up enough old records to get a pretty good idea of what the right answer here is.

I first interacted with Greasemonkey as a user.  Quickly though I graduated to User Script author.  My earliest blog post about a script I authored was in March of 2005.  I wrote a few scripts, some quite popular, for a while.  By June, Mark Pilgrim contacted me about being included in the “Greasemonkey Hacks” book, essentially a cookbook-like collection of existing User Scripts, with discussion about what they were and how they worked.  I was included as a contributor when that book was published.

I am first credited in a commit message from November, 2006.  That’s when I first began development of Greasemonkey itself, nearly three years ago.  At the time, the original creator, Aaron Boodman, was very much in charge and I was minimally involved.  Over time, I became more and more involved in the development process.

The first change I made to the source code directly, rather than submitting to the maintainers and being recognized for, was in February of 2007.  It was a very gradual process from there, but by some time in 2008 I was one of the more recognized authorities within the development community.  Finally, in August of 2009, the project’s original creator stepped down from the role of primary developer, handing the reins to myself and Johan Sundström, leaving me in the “co-lead” role with Johan.

Development progress over time has been relatively slow.  On one hand, Greasemonkey serves its purpose quite well, so doesn’t need to change very much.  On the other, there was a more complicated and difficult process for agreeing to and including changes.  Now that I’m more “in charge” than ever, I (along with Johan) am hoping to make it easier for Greasemonkey to progress, in the future.

As far as scripting and coding goes, how did you get started and what would you suggest somebody who wants to write their own Greasemoney script or Firefox add-on go to learn more on how to do so?

I’ve been programming since I was 10 or 11 years old.  Even earlier than that, I did “programming” by typing source code from a magazine into the Atari BASIC interpreter.  By my teens I was writing little programs, and by college I was beginning to learn PHP.  I got involved heavily in web development, and have been doing that professionally for six years now.

I was interested in Firefox extension development from the word go. Back in the 1.x days, however, tutorials and documentation was sparse, varied, and confusing.  Luckily today these problems have been solved. Mechanisms in Firefox 2 and 3 help make extension development easier, and both documentation and examples are much easier to find and understand.

I actually tried, and failed, to make my own extensions a few times. I finally got my first one running in June of 2005. Since then I’ve made a few of my own, and gotten involved with Greasemonkey.  For new extension authors, the developer.mozilla.org site is definitely the place to go, today.

User scripts are a different beast, and thankfully quite a bit simpler.  If you know javascript, you can probably get your first user script working in just a few minutes.  To learn how, visit the Greasespot Wiki, specifically the Manual.  The “common pitfalls” article by Mark Pilgrim is also very useful.

As an add-on developer, is there anything else you wish that the Mozilla team provided, or do you feel pretty happy with the information and support that they provide to developers?

It’s hard to say.  At this point, I’m a seasoned developer, so most of what I need is in my head.  There are two things that I would really like though:

Something like xulplanet.com’s XPCOM reference. The xulplanet.com site is now dead, giving just a link to the general developer wiki.  This is a good and helpful wiki, *but* has two weaknesses: it covers many disjoint topics (i.e. both web development, and extension development), and lacks the coverage that xulplanet.com
had.  There are many interfaces that, now, are harder to discover and understand.  Since xulplanet went away, I’ve found myself resorting to reading the source directly, which is more difficult to navigate to, and more difficult to read.

Better support for venkman. Venkman, the javascript debugger, was once quite wonderful.  Today, it’s often difficult to find the file you want to access (sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not) and almost impossible to find those that are/are referenced by javascript components.  Venkman seems to have bitrotted a bit.  Personally, even for web development, I strongly prefer it to Firebug for script debugging — it provides a multi-paneled interface that is significantly easier to use, than that of Firebugs, which is designed to fit in that tiny band at the bottom of the browser.

How big of a role has working on Firefox add-ons played in your professional life?

Almost none.  I interviewed for, but ultimately did not accept one position that would have been FF extension development.  My previous job did include creation of one extension, a port of the IE specific add-on that the company made, but was a secondary/side role.

What Firefox add-ons or Greasemonkey scripts are you a fan of?

For extensions, I like FireBug and Firecookie, JSONView, Open In Browser, and Web Developer extensions.

Most of the user scripts I use, I wrote myself.  Of those I find Linkify Plus and Submit in Select to be indispensible.  But I also use Check Range, and Google Reader Quick Links.

For more information on Anthony, what he does and his work – be sure to check out his personal site Arantius.com.  To check out all the Firefox add-ons he has been a part of, you can also check out his profile page on the Mozilla Add-ons web site.  From all the Firefox fans, I would also like to thank Anthony for the work he has done to (in the long run) make Firefox a better browser for all.

How Do You Use Greasemonkey?

Once you have installed Greasemonkey, you will see the little monkey’s head come up in your status bar.  From here you can create a new user script of your own or you can edit the ones you have already installed.  You also have the ability to enable and disable scripts or Greasemonkey all together, if you need to.

Where Can I Find Greasemonkey User Scripts?

Finding Greasemonkey scripts is easy.  For that, let me point you in the direction of Userscripts.org. This is a great depository of user scripts people have created to get more out of various web sites.  You can browse through all of the scripts, or search for the web site you want to modify.

Greasefire, another extension for Firefox can also help.  It will let you know in the status bar how many user scripts are available for that specific URL you are visiting. Here are a few more of my favorite Greasemonkey script collections:

• The Best Greasemonkey Scripts
• Make Google Better with Greasemonkey
• Best Flickr Greasemonkey Scripts

How Can I Make My Own User Scripts for Greasemonkey?

Making your own Greasemonkey user scripts might be a ‘bit of a challenge, unless you are an old JavaScript coding pro.  It does take some learning, however there are several resources on the Web that will help you teach yourself.  One of the best is the Dive into Greasemonkey eBook.  Here are a few more resources to help you create your own user script:

• The Wiki at GreaseSpot.net
• Greasemonkey Hacks Wiki

Once you have made a successful Greasemonkey userscript, you might even look into creating it into a stand alone Firefox add-on.

If you like the tweak the Web, and make it your own, then Greasemonkey is well worth picking up as a Firefox extension.  The add-on, plus some user scripting can lead to helping you get more out of your favorite web sites, and then share that help with others.  When push comes to shove, isn’t that what the Internet should be all about?

This downloads muxtape songs. Just click the “Download me!” link, change the file-name to your liking and append .mp3 to it.

There you go!  Pick up the Greasemonkey script in question here:

  http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24382

Now of course I am not encouraging you to go out there and be a pirate, but for those tunes up there that you can not find anywhere else or may be original works from an independent artist you would like to enjoy – the option to download is now there.  I have a feeling though they will more than likely get this fixed soon on the MuxTape side of things.

In this corner… MySpace!

• Birthdays on Homepage – Get birthday updates on all your buddies!
• MSPLinks Translator – Change those MySpace links back into regular ones!
• Ignore Bulletins – Whitelist or blacklist news from people you love or hate!
• Ad Slicer for MySpace – Does a good job at cleaning up the MySpace profile.
• Enhanced Friend View – Gives a better view of your friends with pics, comments, messages and more.
• Profile edit keyboard shortcuts – adds shortcuts to the preview and save buttons.
• Hide Tom Announcement – Never liked him anyways.
• Shortcuts on Top – Fixed spot on top for your MySpace shortcuts.
• Clean Home v2.3 – Another MySpace homepage cleaner.

From parts unknown… Facebook!

• Auto-Colorizer – Colors on page based on photos your viewing!
• Remove app requests – remove all application requests.
• View Photo in Album – See photos in somebody’s album, even if your not friends.
• Wall Text-Area Resizer – Resize the post on a wall text area.
• Mass Poking – You poking at me?
• Error Page Reloader – Try again, without any effort!
• View All Photos – View all pics, regardless of who tagged them.
• Beautifier – Hide 3rd party applications, aww.. no more pirates vs zombies?
• Video Tool for Facebook – Copy videos as .flvs!

Have any other favorite Greasemonkey scripts I might have overlooked?

The other day I was re-installing Firefox on my main machine here, and I needed to backup the edits and user styles I had downloaded and created. I searched and searched, and finally found the place which it is saved to. It is not an easy file to find so I thought I would share with you where it is at.

On Windows XP go to Documents and Settings, then go to your profile folder. From there navigate yourself through Application Data, then Mozilla, then Firefox (yes, it is pretty deep in there) and then your profile folder for Firefox.

You made it! Do the dance of joy and move on…

The file your looking to copy is stylish.rdf. Of course you could always just search your computer for the same file name – but what fun would that be?

Just right-click on it, copy it and save it elsewhere. Then when you need to restore the settings, drag and drop it back where you found it and all should be well again.

+ Check Out the Myspace Notifier Greasemonkey Script!