It’s been some time since I’ve posted to the blog here - I’ve just been busy with a new daughter and a new Botsko.net project. I’ve got some very interesting projects coming up which I hope to be posting additional information on - from both the technical and managerial standpoints.

For those looking for Formsaver updates for the new beta versions of Firefox - I’m sorry that I have not released an update yet but I’m waiting for the first release candidate before releasing an officially supported version.

I recently started work on a firefox extension, but this time I’m working on a mac rather than a pc. Below is a sample shell script for automatically building the JAR and XPI files.:

#!/bin/bash
mkdir build
mkdir build/chrome
cd chrome
zip -r formsaver.jar .
cd ..
cp chrome/formsaver.jar build/chrome/formsaver.jar
rm chrome/formsaver.jar
cp -R defaults build/
cp install.rdf build/install.rdf
cd build
zip -r formsaver.xpi .
mv formsaver.xpi ../formsaver.xpi
cd ..
rm -rf build
echo -n extension build successful

Here is a sample file for automatically building on windows (batch script):

Note: This requires that you have 7zip installed.

set x=%cd%
md build\chrome
md build\defaults\preferences
cd chrome
"C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a -tzip "%x%.jar" * -r -mx=0
move "%x%.jar" ..\build\chrome
cd ..
copy defaults\preferences\formsaver.js build\defaults\preferences
copy install.* build
cd build
"C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a -tzip "%x%.xpi" * -r -mx=9
move "%x%.xpi" ..\
cd ..
rd build /s/q


I’ve been meaning to find some time to update this extension, but nothing has been done yet. However, it’s now available for download at two new locations.

@ Download.com
@ SoftPedia.com

FormSaver 0.6 was released in March, 2006 and I haven’t done a single update until now. 0.6 was an excellent and stable version that everyone could enjoy - I’ve been using it ever since without a single issue. I’ve had one or two problems reported that only exist in very obscure situations, I’ve had tons of feature requests, and I’ve gotten some great comments on it.

FormSaver 0.7 adds some excellent features that some of you have been asking for. Inside you’ll find:

• New option “Ignore Errors” which allows you to prevent the error window from appearing.
• New option “Ignore blank fields/textareas” will skip any text fields or textareas that are blank. When this option is unchecked it will save the field as blank.
• New option “Save hidden fields” will save the values of hidden form fields as well.
• New security warning if you’re selecting the “Save Password” box for the first time.
• FormSaver now checks the web address when you try to fill a form. If it doesn’t match the original web address if offers to redirect you.*
• A new toolbar icon. By going to View -> Toolbars -> Customize, you can drag the FormSaver icon to anywhere on your toolbar.
• For power users: you can enable/disable the url check by editing the about:config preferences.

*Many users requested that the bookmark take them to the URL and then fill the form. However, because the form fill script is in a bookmarklet it’s impossible to do this for two reasons. First, the javascript no longer runs after a new url has been loaded. Second, the script would run too quickly after the new URL is loaded and a bookmarklet cannot properly determine which page has been loaded. Sorry folks!

Head on over to the firefox page on Botsko.net to install 0.7. As always, I welcome any thoughts and suggestions (or bug reports).