Christopher Finke writes about software, woodworking, and other creative endeavors.

Slashdotter

Slashdotter was discontinued on May 5, 2011. If you’d like to take over development, email me at cfinke@gmail.com.

Slashdotter was an extension for Mozilla-based Web browsers that added some customization to the Slashdot website. A summary of it was posted on Slashdot on March 28, 2006.

slashdotter1.png
slashdotter2.png
slashdotter3.png

Slashdotter’s features included:

  • A “Reply to Selected Text” option is added to the context menu whenever you select text in a Slashdot comment or topic. The reply box is then pre-filled with the selected text, and can be formatted using your choice of format string. The default is ‘<blockquote>%s</blockquote>’. You can also choose to always have the reply page open in a new tab or only when you middle-click the “Reply” context-menu option.
  • A link is added at the end of each comment (next to the “Reply to This” link) that allows you to toggle open/closed all of that comment’s replies.
  • Links to the Coral Cache, Mirrordot cache, and Google Cache are added after each link in a article description.
  • An advanced set of styling options allows you to style each Slashdot section differently. For example, you could have all Slashdot sections use the style from the Apple section, except for Linux, which you could have use the Politics style. The possibilities are endless! (Well, there are actually 10! possibilities, but that’s still a lot.) The OMG!!! Ponies!!! style from April Fools day, 2006 is available as an option.
  • For the links in the comment section labeled “X Replies below your threshold,” there is an option to have those comments load in the current page when you click the link rather than loading a new page. The newly loaded comments will have a pale yellow background to differentiate them once they have loaded. This also now applies to links to comments in threaded mode.
  • Option to be notified when you moderator points
  • When you have your maximum comment length set low, clicking on “Read the rest of this comment…” will load the full comment in place, rather than in a new page.
  • Option to increase comment reply indentation.

All of Slashdotter‘s features are optional and can be disabled in the extension’s options dialog.

Comments

15 responses to “Slashdotter”

  1. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    Nice work. I would like to see an option to prevent the site CSS from setting the font as small as it does.

    Reply
  2. Love it! Avatar
    Love it!

    Just want to say this add-on is what made Slashdot so much better! Love the ability to read replies without browsing to a new window! Keep up the great work!!!

    Reply
  3. JR Avatar
    JR

    I just started using that scrolling bar on the upper left – genius! What a great plugin this is. Thanks so much.

    Reply
  4. Alexander Gieg Avatar
    Alexander Gieg

    It seems the download link above isn’t working. Firefox downloads a small 7kb file, then says something about it not being a valid installation package, with error number -207. Version 1.8.9 is still available at addons.mozilla.org though.

    Reply
  5. Frank Tobin Avatar
    Frank Tobin

    I noticed that that with upgrading from Slashdotter 1.8.9 to 1.8.13 that if I select “Show Replies”, the “Hide Replies” option does not come up anymore. I am using Firefox 2.0.0.12 with several other extensions, possibly of which NoScript would have the greatest chance of interference (I have enabled Javascript on .slashdot.org).

    Reply
  6. MC Avatar
    MC

    Slashdotter is largely broken now. The hide replies and reply to selected text don’t work anymore. The ‘reply to selected text’ brings up an error box that complains it can’t find the reply button.

    This preceded updating to .13, however. Indeed, I was hoping that the update would fix the problem. As far as I can tell, it broke without any change or update in extensions on my end. It happened sometime after certain ACs started getting pre-moderated down to -1. It also happened on two separate computers with two different operating systems simultaneously. The linux laptop has a pared down set of extensions as well.
    Everything on the style and advanced tabs still works, though. The cache links work as well. I’ve really enjoyed using this. I hope whatever /. did to break this, you can fix it.

    Reply
  7. Slash Avatar
    Slash

    I miss the hide replies too. The addon says it’s compatible with 3 Beta 4, but the option isn’t visible.

    Since this blog has been so inactive, I guess it’s time for a greasemonkey script. This script, which also doesn’t work, might be a good place to start: http://www.allpeers.com/blog/?p=139

    Reply
  8. MC Avatar
    MC

    Actually, he fixed it within a couple hours of my post and pushed it out to mozilla. He even sent me an email. Unfortunately, when slashdot changed the look, yet again, with those big fat buttons 2 days ago, the hide replies option disappeared again.

    Reply
  9. Avatar
    Anonymous

    show replies below threshold now shows a whole new slashdot page, oomplete with menu links and other decorators. :( Re-hide doesn’t work either.

    Still, This has been one of my favorite addons so I’ll stand by whilst all the changes on slashdot keep Mr. Finke trying to accommodate.

    Reply
  10. Avatar
    Anonymous

    should have mentioned the platform. Fedora8 Linux/Firefox 2x

    Reply
  11. MC Avatar
    MC

    With this round of moderator points (when I had them earlier this month, this didn’t occur), selecting to view the replies under my threshold yields a footer much like symptoms that #11 described. No header, no ads, no sidebars; just moderate buttons, sig bar, copyright notice and navigation menu. In this case, it’s a feature until mod points hold out because the moderate button is ‘right there’. Still, its something to keep an eye on.

    Reply
  12. MC Avatar
    MC

    Addendum to the above: This does not occur when selecting a parent-level ‘show replies’ i.e. the link opens one or more generations above the post above which it occurs. It’s only when the replies are all descendants.

    Reply
  13. Disney Wallpapers Avatar
    Disney Wallpapers

    Slashdotter is largely broken now. The hide replies and reply to selected text don’t work anymore. The ‘reply to selected text’ brings up an error box that complains it can’t find the reply button

    Reply
  14. sideburns Avatar
    sideburns

    Slashdotter doesn’t work with any version of Firefox past 3.5. If it’s not going to be updated to work with newer versions, it’s useless. Shame, really, it was (operative word her is “was”) a great extension to Firefox.

    Reply
  15. sideburns Avatar
    sideburns

    I’ve installed the latest update. In the addon list, it now claims that it displays the items from your Live Bookmarks in a sidebar. I wouldn’t know, because I don’t use that. I do know that is as useless now as it was before, giving me no AJAX, no Reply to Quoted Text, no mention of moderator points. Nothing. If whoever wrote it isn’t going to bother making it work, they should be decent enough to admit it and not put out “updates” that do nothing but raise user’s hopes for no good reason.

    Reply

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