THE SHORT VERSION:

Modstorm is a Firefox addon that will turn your Metalstorm from this






to this


.


It can be easily configured and all individual features can be turned on and off.

Current version: 0.2.4

Download here

Please test it and tell me what you think.

THE LONG VERSION (a.k.a. my original post):

Hi people,

we've all had some time to get used to the new layout now and it's not as bad as it first looked. Still I feel that it's wasting a ton of space and there are some modifications I still wish to have reverted. Therefore I hacked together a little add-on for Firefox that does exactly that. Originally I was writing it for myself because I don't have too much experience in Firefox hacking, but it works reliably and fast and so I thought I'd share it here.

Please note that this is not intended to restart the discussion and flame the staff for re-designing the page. I share this with you so you can quietly use Metalstorm as you like it and maybe collect a few ideas for further features. If I feel that things start to get out of hand I will take if off the internet and only modify it for my personal use.

I called it ModStorm and you can find it here (current version: 0.2.4). If you click this link, Firefox will ask you to trust software coming from my server (which you should think about, after all <ou don't me) and if you click allow, it will get installed. After restarting Firefox and visiting Metalstorm you will immediately notice the change. I encourage everyone with knowledge in javascript to look at the source code to verify that it's genuine. An .xpi file is just a .zip file with another extension and all the code is inside, without any binary content. Also, javascript is not exactly my area of expertise. I am a programmer, but if anyone sees something that can be made better or faster, feel free to point me to it.

Current features include:

Removing/reducing spaces to the left and in the middle of the page

Moving the shoutbox to the right

Decreasing the font size (has since been made redundant by Metalstorm's new toolbar features)

Removing the header completely (The main page can more easily be accessed through the website link)

Defaulting to the 'news' tab being open when entering the Metalstorm (even if you delete your cookies everytime)

Moving the part with 'supported events' and 'staff pick' down in the layout to give more focus to the news

Hiding Metalstorms info banners such as the 'metalstorm awards' one

I'm open to suggestions for more features and feedback for the ones I've implemented. I am working at an HTTPS-feature that automatically changes to HTTPS everytime you visit Metalstorm. But Firefox realizes that the request was not originally made by the user when I inject the protocol and hence the security warning doesn't offer a means to trust Metalstorm's certificate. So basically, everyone using the feature would have to trust the certificate in advance. And as I've already pointed out, that certificate is still issued for metalstorm.ee and not signed by a commonly trusted CA. If you like to test it, it can be activated in about:config.

Since Metalstorms internal layout is a complete mess, ModStorm relies on a certain structure in the website to identify parts of it. Unfortunately, the layout is using CSS classes only rarely and CSS id's only on a very few select elements. Also most style information is written inside the markup which is a really bad practice. But it's this information ModStorm uses which means that small modifications on the staff-side to the layout can render ModStorm's features unusable. But I tried making the code robust enough that a modification will either work or be deactivated. If you find a problem with anything, please also let me know.

There are a few features that can be thought of. Those include:

A Metalstorm toolbar for Firefox, including the search function and access to the shoutbox (which would possibly require a little support on Ivan's side)

Automatic login (which should be handled by Firefox for separation of tasks purposes but it is possible

The already mentioned HTTPS-feature (which can now be accomplished by other add-ons like NoScript)

The individual features can be (de)activated through a simple preferences dialog accessible through Firefox' add-ons pane.

Thanks to Valentin B for testing.

Now Ellrohir can return !!

My hoster has a network problem right now. The download link should be working again soon.

Edit: the server is back up again.

It appears that firefox' internal update mechanism fails with an error when the https connection to the update is untrusted. Since, much as metalstorm, I can't afford a legit certificate, subscribing to this thread and reinstalling modstorm everytime there is an update will be the only way to keep up with new releases for now.

I've released modstorm 0.1.1.It fixes two errors in moving supported events and staff picks. They don't always appear, but especially after just installing modstorm, there can be problems.

In the next version, if a feature fails, it will fail silently instead of stopping modstorm.

Written by corrupt on 19.03.2011 at 00:45

In the next version, if a feature fails, it will fail silently instead of stopping modstorm.

Yeah well, or not. At least not completely. But The font-reducing feature (that's mostly redundant anyway) does. It's the one that was the most problematic so far.

modstorm 0.1.2 brings Firefox 4 compatibility. Not that there was anything to change but the version numbers, but now it should install without complaints.

Update 0.2 brings a few more enhancements.

I've rewritten all code to conform to Mozillas addon performance guidelines. It should be much faster now and not slow down Firefox' start any more than a few milliseconds. I'd like more testers and a little feedback, especially from people with slow machines.

The charts can now also be moved to the right as back in MSv3 times.

The gradient backgrounds on news items and the like can be removed for better readability.

'Supported event' and 'Staff pick' are displayed in rows instead of colums by default because the column layout not only breaks with the rest of MS' look but also looks really weird on small screens when having the shoutbox positioned right.

Update 0.2.2 with few small new features:

Added the option to set permacookies for cookie-driven page UI settings such as displaying the sidebar and floating the header. These cookies can be controlled from the preferences and will be re-set for instance after auto-deleting them on the end of a Firefox session if configured.

Display the site stats if they are part of the DOM. That means, everytime the site stats would be displayed if modstorm was disabled, it will show up in the right sidebar (if configured) like back in MSv3.

I also tried turning the shoutbox from an <input> to a <textarea> as described here (post 21) but the shoutbox is reloaded with every shout and hooking into that call and hooking into every AJAX call would slow things down considerably.

Update 0.2.3 for compatibility with Firefox 5.

Anything for Google Chrome?

Written by Guest on 30.06.2011 at 18:35

Anything for Google Chrome?

Not by me. As long as the people writing Chrome refuse to provide interfaces for certain addons because Google feels like that could hurt their business model (AdBlock, NoScript) you won't see me supporting it. On the contrary, if I can get people to stop using Chrome/IE/Opera, that's what I'll focus on. People seem to like Chrome for things that usually don't matter at all like startup time (today almost everybody start their browser once per session) or artificual benchmarks Google presents, while it is quite restricting in what it'll allow you to do and what not. There is just no alternative to Firefox when it comes to freedom of choice and usability.

Update 0.2.4 for compatibility with Firefox 6.

I need to download firefox

By the way, starting with Firefox 10, all versions I posted here will be compatible. They changed the plugin interface in that regard.