How To Install A Greasemonkey Script For Firefox

How to write Greasemonkey scripts. Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to specific web pages. Greasemonkey can be used for adding new functionality to pages. Most Greasemonkey user scripts are written by hand, using site-specific JavaScript code which manipulates. IceFilms Forum. Skip to content. Search Advanced search. Here are the instructions on how to install the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox. 1-First of all, you need the installation url. You will also see a face of a monkey that will tell if the certain script is enabled and working at the time. How to manually install a Greasemonkey script 11:35pm. Copy the entire script into the clipboard. This includes the header part, it should start with '// ==UserScript==' 2. Create an empty file (A normal text file will do fine) anywhere on your PC, and paste the script from your clipboard into the file and save.

Everybody knows that Firefox has add-ons for virtually everything, but if you don’t want to bloat your installation you’ve always got the option of Greasemonkey scripts instead. Here’s a quick primer on how to use them.

Getting Started with User Scripts

Once you have Greasemonkey installed, managing the extension is really easy. Left click on the status bar icon to turn the extension on/off and right click to access the context menu shown here.

Whether you use the Options button in the Add-ons Manager Window or the context menu shown above, both will bring up the Manage User Scripts dialog. At the moment you have a nice clean slate to work with… time to get some scripts added in.

The majority of user scripts can be found at two different sites, the first being appropriately named userscripts.org, and you can either browse by tag or search for a script.

As you can see here your search for a particular type of script can be quickly narrowed down based on category. There is definitely a lot to choose from.

For our example we focused on the “textarea” tag. There were 62 scripts available but we quickly found what we were looking for on the first page.

Installing, Managing, & Using Your Scripts

When you find a script that you want to install visit the script’s homepage and click on the “Install” button.

Note: Link for this script provided below.

Youtube Greasemonkey Script

Once you have clicked on the Install button, Greasemonkey will open up the following installation window. You will be able to view:

A summary of what the script does
A list of websites that the script is supposed to function on (our example is set for all)
View the script source if desired
Make a final decision on whether to install the script or cancel the process

Right-clicking on our status bar icon shows our new script listed and active.

Reopening the Manage User Scripts window shows:

Our new script listed in the column on the left
The websites/pages included
An option to disable the script (can also be done in the context menu)
The ability to edit the script
The ability to uninstall the script

If you choose to edit the script you will be asked to browse for and select a default text editor of your choice (first time only). Once you have selected a text editor you can make any changes desired to the script.

We decided to test our new user script on the site. Going to the comment box at the bottom we could easily resize the window as desired.

The Comment box definitely got a lot bigger.

Conclusion

If you prefer to keep the number of extensions to a minimum in your Firefox installation then Greasemonkey and the Userscripts website can easily provide that extra functionality without the bloat. For added auto website script detection goodness see our article on Greasefire.

Note: See our article here for specialized How-To Geek User Style Scripts that can be added to Greasemonkey.

Links

Install the Textarea & Input Resize User Script

Visit the Userscripts.org Website

Google Book Downloader Userscript

@erosman , @Owyn , I don't quite understand your comments. Are you expecting GM to go out of its way to circumvent Firefox security policy/restrictions?

While I did suggest method, using storage, to work around the issue, in which I had a working implementation, I found it too risky. Unfortunately userscripts, currently, are executed using tabs.executeScript which doesn't completely sandbox them. They inherit many of the permissions of the parent extension. This includes access to the same storage instance. It's too risky to put a script in there and expect it to be the same when it comes out.

How To Install A Greasemonkey Script For Firefox Firefox

Further, I attempted to work the around issue using messaging to a background script. That too had security problems. Messages sent from tabs.executeScript as well as ones sent in scripts registered from the manifest have their origin set to the tab's origin. I couldn't figure out a way to prevent normal scripts from then sending a message and injecting whatever the hell they want.

Perhaps someone smarter than me can figure it out. But it's not super trivial.

Greasemonkey Script Download

Now, onto a possible solution for your immediate issue. If you add a script that is hosted from someplace, https://greasyfork.org/en, or equivalent, then you can edit the newly added script and paste your local file contents. Then repeat. You can repeat with the same remote userscript file.