Sean Coates: PHP, Web (+Beer)

I love [url=http://planet-php.net]Planet PHP[/url]. Well, most things about it.

It's great for keeping on top of PHP news. I had a similar idea, seemingly right around the same time that Planet PHP went up, but I never got around to doing anything about it. I'm glad [url=http://www.schlitt.info/applications/blog/]Toby[/url] and [url=http://blog.bitflux.ch/]Chregu[/url] did.

Anyway, as great as the site is, it isn't without annoyances.

[b]*** UPDATE ***[/b]: If you're a good user, you [url=http://greaseblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/mandatory-greasemonkey-update.html]upgraded greasemonkey[/url]. Unfortunately, this breaks my script (as it relies on GM_setValue and GM_getValue). Hopefully this is temporary. Carry on. [b]***[/b]
One of my peeves about Planet PHP is long entries hogging the screen. [i]Learn to use your blog's "read more" feature.[/i] Anyway, it seems they've already fixed this one. The [url=http://blog.bitflux.ch/archive/2005/05/26/planet-php-faq.html]FAQ[/url] that they released today has an update:
[quote]Update: First suggestion by Wez. Truncate too long entries. We do that now, if the entry is longer than 3500 chars, we snip it and add an additional link to the original post.[/quote]

One down. One to go.

There are certain blogs is one specific blog on Planet PHP that I really despise. It's nothing personal, it's just that the author makes very long entries (fixed!), full of images, all about a specific piece of software (well, framework), that I don't have the least care about.

I have very little patience for solutionless complaining, though, so, I did something about it.

Enter [url=http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/]GreaseMonkey[/url]. It's a really cool extension for Mozilla (Firefox, in my case) that allows users to load site-specific javascripts that automatically run when the user loads a URL that matches the script's criteria.

Using GreaseMonkey, and some crazy Javascript (Javascript's become a really powerful language, if you've been ignoring it for the past few years, due to one-too-many popups), I was able to solve my problem. And in what I think is a really elegant way.

My script is here: [url=http://www.phpdoc.info/greasemonkey/planetphp-selective_blogs.user.js]http://www.phpdoc.info/greasemonkey/planetphp-selective_blogs.user.js[/url]

Follow the instructions at the GreaseMonkey site, and install/activate it.

Now, next time you go to Planet PHP, you'll see checkboxes in the blogs box (in the rightbar). Uncheck a blog, and it disappears from the listing. Re-check it, and it comes back. Not only that, but it remembers which boxes you've checked.

So, if you just can't stand reading my entries, this may be the last one you see! (-:

S