Brett Terpstrauserscript page - Brett Terpstra

Minor update to Instapaper Beyond (1.4)

Brett — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:11:49 +0000

Instapaper Beyond¹ users will want to type “U” in their Instapaper SSB² to update to version 1.4. It includes a minor update that improves bottom-of-page detection when using the spacebar.

Styled after Google Reader and others, when the spacebar is pressed at the bottom of an article, it loads the next article. I’m trying a better selector to detect the bottom of the page, which should prevent false jumps before you finish reading your article.

Originally published here. ↩
Site Specific Browser created using Fluid (Mac only). ↩

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Minor update to Instapaper Beyond (1.4)

Instapaper Beyond 1.3

Brett — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 02:22:04 +0000

I just pushed out a fairly large update for Instapaper Beyond¹, my little userscript for Fluid which adds extensive keyboard navigation and additional functionality to the Instapaper website. I’ve been playing with it sporadically for a while now, and version 1.3 has a lot of new features and some big fixes. See below for the best changelog I could pull together from my surprisingly scattered notes and commit messages.

Current users can update simply by pressing “U” (shift-U) in their Instapaper SSB. New users will want to take a look at the original installation instructions. The script itself is located here and over at userscripts.org. If you find any problems or have any feature requests, I’d love to hear them!

Added new keys:
- Shift-O to open articles immediately
- t to open a menu for sending articles elsewhere
  - D to send to Delibar, d to delicious web
  - E to Evernote web clipper (the local helper isn’t quite ready yet)
  - e to email link with selection or highlighted text if it exists
  - p for Pinboard web
- \ to enter “concentrate” mode (no sidebar, dark background)
- See the help (h) for a complete list
Made certain functions work outside of Instapaper pages so it could do some tricks on opened tabs
added click recognition in article list, select articles by clicking with the mouse and then perform keyboard actions
added click recognition for paragraphs in text only version, sets highlight, ready for Delicious, Pinboard, email, etc.
added automatic target=_blank to title links
intercept mouse clicks on the “Text-Only” links to load Ajax version
added _blank to Open Original Article in text view
improved element selector for ‚. paging and selection
Ajax folder creation, kinda
fixed text styling options so you can use all of Instapaper’s built-in customizations
smoothed out autoscrolling (/)
made the up and down arrows not scroll the article list page until the selection moves offscreen
added styling to break lines in code blocks (pre) for wrapping

Originally published here. ↩

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Instapaper Beyond 1.3

A big upgrade for Instapaper Beyond

Brett — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 09:06:38 +0000

I just got back from a week-long “Code Jam” that was all business, all week, so I took a Saturday to work on some personal projects. Instapaper beyond 1.1 is out, and I’d love to hear some feedback on the new features. One of the major additions is a bit of mouse support. You can now click an article in your list to skip the highlighting to that point, and then perform the standard commands on it (open, move, archive, etc.). To that end, most of the links in the interface have also been hijacked and will use the Instapaper Beyond methods, mostly Ajax, to perform their jobs. Read on for a more complete list of new features…

Shift-O will open the original articles in a new window, immediately from the article list
Send-To menu (t), includes Evernote , E-mail, Delicious, Delibar and Pinboard
Sending to a service will find any selection, highlight or existing summary and use it as a description
Period and comma navigation has been improved, and mouse clicks to highlight elements have been added
Title links and “Open original article” links automatically open in a new window if clicked
Better positioning for the Star indicator in text view
Ajaxed folder creation (Shift-N) from the Unread and Folder views
“Concentrate mode” can be toggled with the backslash (\) key, hiding headers and sidebars and focusing the article list

I don’t know if anyone noticed it in the first version, but navigating with period and comma while reading in text view will sequentially highlight headlines, code blocks, paragraphs and other blocks of text for easy reading and clipping to other services. Like the article lists, these elements also accept mouse clicks to skip the highlight to your position more quickly. If you highlight a block and press “t”, you’ll be able to send it as a description or quote to a service or as an email (along with the link and title). Any manual selection on the page will override the highlight. From the list view, if there’s a summary available in the Instapaper article, it will be used as the description.

I have a few more ideas to implement, mostly based around grabbing code snippets and sending them to Snippet, Snippets, Code Collector, TextMate or Gist, but we’ll see when I get my next big block of free time. In the meantime, let me know what you think!

If this is your first look at Instapaper Beyond, check out my previous post for instructions on creating a dedicated Instapaper app using Fluid. If you’re already using it and just need to update your script, you can press “U” in your current Instapaper Fluid instance, or point it here.

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at A big upgrade for Instapaper Beyond

Instapaper Beyond for Fluid.app

Brett — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 09:00:26 +0000

Introducing Instapaper Beyond, an Instapaper userscript for Fluid that provides full keyboard navigation and some special features for browsing your Instapaper articles. If you’re not familiar, Fluid is a Mac (only) application which creates a Single Site Browser (SSB) for a site, using the same Webkit engine as Safari. It essentially allows you to turn web applications and sites into Mac apps. It’s pure Cocoa, so all of your Services and fun text tricks (like Control-T transposition) work on it. Oh, and it includes userstyle and userscript engines, similar to Greasemonkey, which allows nerds like me to do some crazy things. Fluid (WebKit) is the only browser I’ve developed this for, so I doubt Greasemonkey (Firefox) users will have much luck with it.

Keyboard navigation highlight

Know what you’re doing and want to skip straight to the script? OK.

The script started as an expansion of a cool userscript called Instapaper Article Tools, which provides a floating menu with some options while in the text view of an article. For the most part, that script isn’t even visible in the final version, unless you manually click into an article. You don’t need to do that, though, because the whole point of the script is to provide keyboard navigation for Instapaper. Articles are loaded via Ajax and you can go from article to article in full-screen text view, starring/unstarring, moving and archiving on the fly. A full list of commands available at any time can be seen by pressing “h”, but here’s a quick overview:

Help HUD (h)

“h” will bring up a help screen with the available shortcuts on it
“g” opens a list of folders you can jump to
navigation is fairly intuitive if you use Google Reader or other Google apps, in that j is forward, k is backwards, o is open, u returns to unread articles.
Escape and Enter function as expected (at least to me), closing open dialogs, returning to posts, etc.
In list view, lowercase letters jump to sections (a:Archive, s:Starred, u:unread) and capital letters perform functions (A:Archive, S:Toggle Star).
The delete key deletes the current article in list and text views
see the help (h) for more!

Additionally, Instapaper Beyond adds target=_blank to external links (original articles) so that you can open them in tabs or new windows (depending on your tabbed browsing settings). “U” will check for updates to the script and offer you a link to any updated version for easy installation. There’s wraparound navigation of lists, so using any “next” command at the end of a list will take you to the top, and vice versa. I also built myself an easy-to-expand, contextual help system so adding new commands is a snap, and having them show up in the appropriate help menus is automatic. You don’t care so much about that, but hey, it’s cool.

No guarantee is offered that this script will function well with your userstyle of choice, although several have been tested with good results.

Installation

First, create your Fluid SSB and set http://www.instapaper.com/u as your home page. Download Fluid here, if needed, then run it to create the SSB. Here’s a handy icon you can use, too!
Have new windows open with your Home Page under General Settings in Preferences
Under Advanced Settings in Preferences, set your SSB to browse to any url (image)
Enable Tabbed Browsing under the Tabs Preferences (image)
Install the Instapaper Beyond Userscript: Point your Fluid SSB at http://brettterpstra.com/userscripts/instapaperbeyond.user.js. Fluid should automatically recognize it as a userscript and offer to install it for you. If you have any trouble, you can open the link above, copy the entire script and use “New Userscript” under the SSB’s Script menu (looks like a scroll). Name it “Instapaper Beyond” and paste the copied script into the window.
For best results, turn off Auto Archiving in Instapaper by unchecking the box at the bottom of a post list page (image)

The script is under development, but is stable at this point. Please let me know how it works for you and what you’d like to see! I’m thinking that I’ll eventually use Fluidium to make this into a full-blown app with auto-updates, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Remember, “h” for help, “U” to check for new versions! If you need a script to quickly populate your Instapaper account, be sure to check out the “Safari to Instapaper” script I posted earlier.

Originally posted on BrettTerpstra.com at Instapaper Beyond for Fluid.app