EscapistPlus - A Firefox & Chrome Add-On

[bluegate]

[HEADING=2]EscapistPlus - A Firefox & Chrome Add-On[/HEADING]

An experimental and unofficial attempt at improving the Escapist Magazine, one byte at a time.

As the Escapist Magazine is undergoing restructuring and development, some functions of this add-on may not work as described.
Further development of the add-on will be paused until the Escapist Magazine's new website and forums are in a stable state.

Although this add-on has been in development for a little while over in the Wild West, with the release on Mozilla's Add-On store and Chrome's webstore finalized, I thought it high time to share this add-on with all members of the Escapist Magazine, not just the people frequenting the Wild West.

This add-on aims to improve your user experience on the Escapist Magazine's website, especially its forums, and as such I wholeheartedly invite you to give feedback, suggestions or discuss the add-on either in this thread, or in its own User Group.
Although the add-on is an experimental product, I hope that people find it useful.

The add-on is currently only available on Firefox and Chrome.

For more information on the add-on, including the links to download and install it, please visit this website;
https://luckymouse.nl/escapistplus/
Future updates will be posted in this thread and in the User Group.

Note: This Add-on is a private endeavor and is not affiliated with the Escapist Magazine or any of its associates.
[hr]
[HEADING=3]Version: 1.5.8[/HEADING]
Release Date: 13-10-2018
[hr]

[HEADING=3]Features and Functions[/HEADING]

Dashboard
When enabled, the add-on will periodically check for updates on The Escapist Magazine and will notify you when you get a new message, are quoted or when one of your groups has an update for you.

Post Assistant
When enabled, the add-on will spawn a little post assistant that will help you with the forum's BB code on forum threads and group chats. The Post Assistant also allows you to include Emoji in forum posts.

Themes
Allows users to recolor the Escapist's website.

Block YouTube Autoplay
When enabled, the add-on will attempt to block embedded YouTube videos set to automatically play when the page is loaded from actually playing automatically.

Extended Ignore List
When enabled, and set up, the add-on will hide quotes from users on your ignore list.
In order for this to work, a short visit to your ignore list on the Escapist is needed in order to set things up, you can find more information on this here

Embedded WebM Videos
When enabled, the add-on will transform [webm] BB code to actual embedded WebM videos.
The Post Assistant has a function which can help with including WebM videos in your forum posts and group chat messages.

[webm width=440]https://fat.gfycat.com/CoordinatedRawHerculesbeetle.webm[/webm]​

Replace Banned Avatars
This will replace "Perma Banned" avatars with their original avatars, if they are still available. If they are not available, they will be replaced with the default Male avatar.

This feature's toggle can be found in the Add-on's Options page, which can be accessed through the Add-on's menu.

Hide User Avatars
This will allow users to hide individual avatars.

This feature's toggle can be found in the Add-on's Options page, which can be accessed through the Add-on's menu.

Up-Vote Posts
This will allow users to add a emoji reaction to Forum Posts. This feature also comes with a Notifications Panel which can be launched by clicking "+Notifications" in the user menu.

The Up-Vote toggle and the Notifications toggle can be found in the Add-on's Options page, which can be accessed through the Add-on's menu.

Example Images

Spoiler: Example Images

Dashboard

Spoiler

Themes

Spoiler

Post Assistant

Spoiler

Extended Ignore List

Spoiler

Embedded WebM Videos

Spoiler

Hide User Avatars

Spoiler

Up-Vote Posts & Notifications

Spoiler

The Up-Vote button on top of a post.

The +Notifications button.

The Notifications Panel

[HEADING=3]Minor Tweaks[/HEADING]
Quote Collapse
This allows you to collapse quotes, eliminating nasty quote trees.

Spoiler Toggle
This allows you to hide Spoilers again after viewing them, it also keeps the Spoiler's flavor text when viewing the Spoiler.

Contain Images in Spoilers and Quotes
This blocks images from outgrowing Spoilers or Quotes.

View Moderated Posts
The message to view posts which have been moderated will no longer break the layout when using the middle or largest font.

Forum Drop Down: Wild West
An entry for the Wild West forums is added to the Forum drop down list for members of the Pub Club.

White Line Removal
On pages that filled the entire screen vertically, there used to be a white line beneath the page's black footer.

Post Page Redesign
The Create a Post page and Edit a Post page used to look different from each other with different spacing for elements and such, now they have a more universal look and make proper use of the screen's width.

Unstuck Forum News Footer
The boxes beneath forum pages used to stick to the black page footer.

Wild West Post Highlighting
Wild West posts are properly highlighted in the 'Popular Forum Posts' widget to make them easier to spot.

News and Article Redesign
The News and Article pages have been redesigned a little to make relevant content pop out more naturally on the page.
Incidentally, this also removes rogue commas between an article's tag boxes.

Example Images

Spoiler: Example Images

Quote Collapse

Spoiler

Spoiler Toggle

Spoiler

Contain Images in Spoilers and Quotes

Spoiler

Before

After

View Moderated Posts

Spoiler

Before

After

Forum Drop Down: Wild West

Spoiler

White Line Removal

Spoiler

New Post and Edit Page Designs

Spoiler: Create a Post Page

Before

After

Spoiler: Edit a Post Page

Before

After

Spoiler: Edit a Post Page With a Poll

Before

After

Unstuck Forum News Footer

Spoiler

Before

After

Wild West Post Highlighting

Spoiler

News and Article Redesign

Spoiler

[hr]

Summary Links:

Download Page - FAQ & Support Page - User Group

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Huh, well ain't that a thing.

I probably won't use it, just have got my means of navigating the site down to an art at this point but I'm sure others will appreciate it. I would even suggest the site should consider hiring you, if on a part time level, for tech things but I wouldn't hold my breath on that. Still, this isn't the spambot post I had anticipated. I'm sure it took a lot of work to put that all together so thanks for giving it to the community!

 

[DeadProxy]

As someone who has more or less refused to memorize the basic commands to quote or post youtube links and other posting woes, that Post Assistant bit would be wonderful. I might even venture into the West for the fist time in ages with that thing taking care of the auto-play for me, so I'll be looking into this for sure.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

This is super helpful for me and should be a must for everyone, it's great.

 

[bluegate]

Huh, well ain't that a thing.

I probably won't use it, just have got my means of navigating the site down to an art at this point but I'm sure others will appreciate it. I would even suggest the site should consider hiring you, if on a part time level, for tech things but I wouldn't hold my breath on that. Still, this isn't the spambot post I had anticipated. I'm sure it took a lot of work to put that all together so thanks for giving it to the community!

Happy to give back to the community once in a while.

As someone who has more or less refused to memorize the basic commands to quote or post youtube links and other posting woes, that Post Assistant bit would be wonderful. I might even venture into the West for the fist time in ages with that thing taking care of the auto-play for me, so I'll be looking into this for sure.

I hope that the add-on does its job for you.

This is super helpful for me and should be a must for everyone, it's great.

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you're happy with it.

 

[bluegate]

Having skipped a release message for version 1.2.4 and 1.2.5 because they were mainly code cleaning updates, here is a message for the release of version 1.2.6.

[hr][HEADING=2]Version: 1.2.6[/HEADING]
Release Date: 4-3-2017

[HEADING=3]Changes[/HEADING]
Fixed YouTube Autoplay Blocker on Group Chat for Google Chrome
Under some conditions, the add-on would not properly block YouTube video's from playing automatically in Group chats.

Removed the white line at the bottom of almost every page
On pages that filled the entire screen vertically, there used to be a white line beneath the page's black footer.

Changed New Post and Edit Post pages to have a universal look
The Create a Post page and Edit a Post page used to look different from each other with different spacing for elements and such, now they have a more universal look and make proper use of the screen's width.

Unstuck the forum news footer from the page's footer
The boxes beneath forum pages used to stick to the black page footer, I unstuck them because I personally don't like elements that stick together too much.


Example Images

Spoiler: Example Images

White Line Removal

Spoiler

New Post and Edit Page Designs

Spoiler: Create a Post Page

Before

After

Spoiler: Edit a Post Page

Before

After

Spoiler: Edit a Post Page With a Poll

Before

After

Unstuck Forum News Footer

Spoiler

Before

After

[hr]

I hope that the people who use the add-on find these minor layout changes helpful.

If you're on Chrome, then the Chrome Webstore should push an updated version of the add-on automatically to your browser.
If that doesn't happen, you can also visit the Chrome Webstore page for the plugin and install it from there.

If you're on Firefox, if you have automatic updates for add-ons turned on, then Firefox should automatically check for updates and notify when it finds a new version.
You can also check for new versions manually by typing in "about:addons" in the address bar, clicking on "More" next to the EscapistPlus add-on and then selecting to manually check for updates.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Honestly, a mod should pin this at this point. You're not getting money out of it and its worthy of a 'thanks' badge.

I think so anyway.

 

[JoJo]

Honestly, a mod should pin this at this point. You're not getting money out of it and its worthy of a 'thanks' badge.

I think so anyway.

Yeah, I agree, I'll stick it up here for now.

 

[bluegate]

Honestly, a mod should pin this at this point. You're not getting money out of it and its worthy of a 'thanks' badge.

I think so anyway.

Yeah, I agree, I'll stick it up here for now.

I'm honored by the sticky, thanks!

Now that I have had a reason to quote you, I've always wanted to ask, what's that kid in your avatar from?
He seems eerily familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

 

[JoJo]

Honestly, a mod should pin this at this point. You're not getting money out of it and its worthy of a 'thanks' badge.

I think so anyway.

Yeah, I agree, I'll stick it up here for now.

I'm honored by the sticky, thanks!

Now that I have had a reason to quote you, I've always wanted to ask, what's that kid in your avatar from?
He seems eerily familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

You've earned it, this whole project is really cool!

He's the actor Asa Butterfield, depicted in a short role in the British television series Ashes to Ashes. You may recognise him as he later starred as the lead in several popular films including the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Ender's Game.

 

[bluegate]

Bumping up to a full decimal, it's time for another update post, albeit a bit of a short one.

[hr][HEADING=2]Version: 1.3.0[/HEADING]
Release Date: 10-4-2017

[HEADING=3]Changes[/HEADING]
Expanded the Post Assistant
When hovering over buttons, you now see a small descriptive text of the button.

The Bold, Italic, Underline and Slashed buttons have been shortened to make room for the new Text Align buttons, Size buttons and Lists buttons.

The previously named H1, H2 and H3 buttons have been moved into the Size button list and renamed to Biggest, Bigger, Big. There are now also buttons for Small, Sup and Sub BB codes.

The Lists button list includes a button for dotted lists and a button for numbered lists.

Thanks to [user]Zombie_Fish[/user] for pointing me to [user]Aerosteam[/user]'s thread about more forum BB codes.

Themes
People can now recolor the Escapist by picking one of their own colors.
In this version, users can only select one color and a theme is extrapolated from there, but there are plans to allow users to edit the site's design in more detail.

Here is a list of colors I would personally recommend
cefdd5
c9f8fc
fef1da
e0eafc

Example Images

Spoiler: Example Images

Expanded the Post Assistant

Spoiler: The Post Assistant

Spoiler: The Lists list

Spoiler: The Size list

Spoiler: The Text Align Buttons

Themes

Spoiler: Launching the Theme Dock

Spoiler: The Theme Dock

Spoiler: Recolored Thread

Spoiler: Recolored Forum Index

[hr]

If you're on Chrome, then the Chrome Webstore should push an updated version of the add-on automatically to your browser.
If that doesn't happen, you can also visit the Chrome Webstore page for the plugin and install it from there.

If you're on Firefox, if you have automatic updates for add-ons turned on, then Firefox should automatically check for updates and notify when it finds a new version.
You can also check for new versions manually by typing in "about:addons" in the address bar, clicking on "More" next to the EscapistPlus add-on and then selecting to manually check for updates.

 

[bluegate]

I've also been working on some aesthetic tweaks to the Articles and News pages to try and make the Articles and News posts pop out more from their page, rather than blend in with the rest of the data on the page. But, because I'm not too big on redesigning pages, I thought I'd ask people what they think about it, or maybe even ask them to redesign it.

This is what I have got so far by playing around with the elements that are currently on the Articles and News pages;

Spoiler: 1.3MB Image included

The article sits in its own container, separating it from the widgets on the right.

The right lane of content is set lower than the article's container, showing that it's subservient to the article, drawing attention away from the right lane.

The "X comments" line above the "Comment and Share" bar is gone as it serves little purpose; One can go to the comments by either clicking on the blue box at the top of the article or by clicking on the 'My E' button in the "Comment and Share" box.

The "Comment and Share" box has more empty room around it, making it pop out and draw attention to it more, also, it breaks the white background from it's parent container, further drawing attention to itself.

The "Related Content" and "Facebook Comments" are positioned in a vertical direction so that they can use the full width of their parent container. Also, the "Related Content" box has been shortened to make the distance between the article and the "Facebook Comments" as small as possible, although I should probably add more space between both elements.

 

[bluegate]

Because some people want to avoid the Wild West and some people want to actively post in the Wild West, this update highlights Wild West posts in the Popular Forum Posts widget, allowing people to either easily ignore them or flock to them.

Also, the above mentioned redesign is included.

As always, feel free to provide feedback if something doesn't work or rubs you the wrong way. Or if something does work or rubs you the right way.

[hr][HEADING=2]Version: 1.3.2[/HEADING]
Release Date: 18-4-2017

[HEADING=3]Changes[/HEADING]
Wild West Post Highlighting
Wild West posts are properly highlighted in the 'Popular Forum Posts' widget to make them easier to spot.

News and Article Redesign
The News and Article pages have been redesigned a little to make relevant content pop out more naturally on the page.
Incidentally, this also removes rogue commas between an article's tag boxes.

Example Images

Spoiler: Example Images

Wild West Post Highlighting

Spoiler

News and Article Redesign

Spoiler: 1.3MB Image Included

[hr]

If you're on Chrome, then the Chrome Webstore should push an updated version of the add-on automatically to your browser.
If that doesn't happen, you can also visit the Chrome Webstore page for the plugin and install it from there.

If you're on Firefox, if you have automatic updates for add-ons turned on, then Firefox should automatically check for updates and notify when it finds a new version.
You can also check for new versions manually by typing in "about:addons" in the address bar, clicking on "More" next to the EscapistPlus add-on and then selecting to manually check for updates.

 

[bluegate]

A quick update to fix a bug and to add some experimental imagery fun!🙌

Emoji may not show up on older operating systems or not up to date browsers. The emoji are powered by unicode so they are essentially no different from the letters that make up this sentence, they will show up on modern operating systems that support the latest unicode standards. If the emoji in this post, or in the Post Assistant's Emoji Panel do not show properly, then you might be running old software.

On the Escapist, due to how the particular data is saved in the server's database, emoji will not show up in Forum Thread Titles or in Group Post Titles or in Post Previews, they do however work in normal Forum Posts, Group Posts, Group Chat and Private Messages.🍰🥂

[hr][HEADING=2]Version: 1.3.3[/HEADING]
Release Date: 2-5-2017

[HEADING=3]Changes[/HEADING]
Fixed a bug in News and Article Redesign
Fixed a small bug in the News and Article redesigns; pagination for paged articles didn't show up.

Emoji
Emoji are added to the Post Assistant. They only show up in Forum Posts, Group Chat, Group Posts and Private Messages.🤠

Example Images

Spoiler: Example Images

Emoji

Spoiler

[hr]

If you're on Chrome, then the Chrome Webstore should push an updated version of the add-on automatically to your browser.
If that doesn't happen, you can also visit the Chrome Webstore page for the plugin and install it from there.

If you're on Firefox, if you have automatic updates for add-ons turned on, then Firefox should automatically check for updates and notify when it finds a new version.
You can also check for new versions manually by typing in "about:addons" in the address bar, clicking on "More" next to the EscapistPlus add-on and then selecting to manually check for updates.

 

[Epyc Wynn]

Loving the new level of customizability you've added. Really shows how much users care about this site and want it to succeed.

 

[bluegate]

Loving the new level of customizability you've added. Really shows how much users care about this site and want it to succeed.

Happy that you're happy with it.😄

I do my best to try and improve the site in whichever little ways I can. 👩‍💻

 

[bluegate]

Although the update for this is not quite ready to be published yet, I thought I'd already make a bit of an introductory post about it. I would appreciate it if people were to share feedback on it after reading it, thanks!😄
[hr]- snip -

The previous content of this post can be found in the Theme Dock documentation thread which can be found here.

 

[bluegate]

Question: As the themes are saved on your server does that mean if one were to create NSFW image themes without publishing them that you'll still have access to them? Asking for a friend

Amazing stuff
Standing ovation from myself

 

[bluegate]

Question: As the themes are saved on your server does that mean if one were to create NSFW image themes without publishing them that you'll still have access to them? Asking for a friend

Amazing stuff
Standing ovation from myself

If one were to create a NSFW image theme then technically I would indeed have access to the raw data of said theme, but I respect people's privacy enough to not go snooping in their private themes' raw data to find out what they have made. If a user doesn't opt to Publish his theme then I, just like anybody else, won't see it.

I'm actually happy that you saw and replied to this post!😄 Part of the inspiration for further developing the Theme Dock came from seeing your Dark Theme thread a couple of weeks ago. Although I'm still in the process of mapping out areas of the site to change the design of, I had wanted to ask you whether you'd be interested in porting your Dark Theme over once this update is finished.

Always happy to see people ask questions or give feedback😄

 

[bluegate]

Question: As the themes are saved on your server does that mean if one were to create NSFW image themes without publishing them that you'll still have access to them? Asking for a friend

Amazing stuff
Standing ovation from myself

If one were to create a NSFW image theme then technically I would indeed have access to the raw data of said theme, but I respect people's privacy enough to not go snooping in their private themes' raw data to find out what they have made. If a user doesn't opt to Publish his theme then I, just like anybody else, won't see it.

I'm actually happy that you saw and replied to this post!😄 Part of the inspiration for further developing the Theme Dock came from seeing your Dark Theme thread a couple of weeks ago. Although I'm still in the process of mapping out areas of the site to change the design of, I had wanted to ask you whether you'd be interested in porting your Dark Theme over once this update is finished.

Always happy to see people ask questions or give feedback😄

Thanks, I'll let my friend know

Always glad to be partly inspiring - lol
I'll take a crack at porting my Dark Theme over. The color scheme should be easy enough.
I did remove lots of background images though so I don't see it being a smooth port job.
Unsure if you've already covered it or not but if feasible could you make is so users can set the hover-highlighting color?

Just days before I shared another userscript in the Creative Society group that one could easily edit to change the background image of the site but this blows it out of the water and into another galaxy
You keep doing you