Archive for the 'Extensions' Category

Google recently hinted that it will deemphasize its Froogle search feature, opting instead to use product results in standard web searches. As such, I’ve begin thinking about potential replacements for the Froogle search option in Googlebar Lite. What kind of search would you like to see?

The two front runners I’ve gotten from email suggestions for new searches are Google Video and Google Scholar. What do you think should be added to future versions of Googlebar Lite?

CoLT version 2.2.1 is now available at Born Geek. Included in this minor update are two new localizations, Ukrainian (uk-UA) and Dutch (nl-NL), as well as a snazzy new extension logo icon. These two new localizations brings the number of supported languages to 15. If you would like to volunteer to translate CoLT into your language, head over to BabelZilla and sign up for a free account. Then, visit the CoLT translation forum post for the relevant links to translate the extension. BabelZilla makes translating easy (you can do it in your web browser)!

Version 4.4 of Googlebar Lite is available over at Born Geek. This new release features support for the latest Firefox 2.0 nightly builds, a new Croatian (hr-HR) translation, a bug fix, and other miscellaneous changes. Also released tonight is version 2.2 of CoLT. This new build adds support for the latest Firefox 2.0 nightly builds.

New builds of CoLT and Googlebar Lite are now available over at Born Geek. The new version of CoLT (2.1.1) adds support for Bon Echo beta 2 builds, as well as two new translations (Chinese Traditional and Danish). Likewise, the new version of Googlebar Lite (4.3.1) adds support for Bon Echo beta 2, and a new Arabic (ar) translation.

In completely unrelated news, I posted a new photo set today. My dad and I hiked around Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area this morning. I’ll certainly be glad when cooler weather arrives. I’m tired of all this heat!

A new release of Googlebar Lite is now available. There are several bug fixes in this release, including a low-risk security vulnerability (so make sure that you upgrade). Three of the localizations that appeared in version 4.2 are not available in this release: fr-FR, pt-BR, and sv-SE. If you would like to help complete these localizations, please visit the Googlebar Lite page at BabelZilla.

A new release of CoLT is now available, fixing a few bugs and adding a new Turkish (tr-TR) locale.

Version 2.0 of CoLT is now available over at Born Geek. This new release adds two new custom format options for the “Copy Link Text and Location” action, adds support for Firefox 2.0, includes a new Slovak (sk-SK) localization, and more. Also, be sure to check out the new screenshots page for a preview of the extension.

A new build of Googlebar Lite is now available over at Born Geek. The ‘disappearing search box’ bug, which I have mentioned previously, has been fixed. I’ve also added support for the Bon Echo alpha builds, and two new translations have been added (Slovak and Chinese Simplified).

The latest release of Googlebar Lite is now available. There are a total of 11 bug fixes (several of which are fairly major), 3 new translations, and a few new options. Here’s the full change log:

• New option allows user to set a custom Froogle top-level domain.
• New dialog warns when form-history is disabled and search history is enabled. Form history is required to maintain a search history in Googlebar Lite.
• Added a Portuguese: Brazilian (pt-BR) localization.
• Added a Russian (ru-RU) localization.
• Added a Turkish (tr-TR) localization.
• Removed some unused style rules.
• The Googlebar Lite widget used in the customize toolbars dialog now uses a new icon.
• Made a few tweaks to the about box.
• Bug Fix: The search modifier keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Enter, Shift+Enter, Ctrl+Shift+Enter) were not working.
• Bug Fix: The "Remember last combined menu search type" option was not being correctly applied to searches performed from the search box using the keyboard.
• Bug Fix: The "Use custom Google News domain" option was not working properly.
• Bug Fix: The search box in the Noia theme did not render correctly.
• Bug Fix: Toggling the combined search or up buttons caused the toolbar’s height to change in some cases.
• Bug Fix: The search box now uses a reasonable height when placed on a toolbar with large icons.
• Bug Fix: When Googlebar Lite was dragged to the customize toolbars dialog, the resulting widget was improperly sized.
• Bug Fix: The customize widget became invisible when dragged into the customize toolbar using the Noia theme.
• Bug Fix: Corrected some translation errors in the Catalan (ca-AD) translation.
• Bug Fix: Corrected the locale identifier for the Catalan (ca-AD) translation.
• Bug Fix: Corrected some corrupt strings in the French (fr-FR) translation.

Beginning with Googlebar Lite 4.0, an interesting problem has cropped up with the search history edit box. Take a look at this screenshot sent in by a Googlebar Lite user:

See how the drop-down marker is all the way to the left of the search box? The actual edit control has been resized to 0, while the popup element (which should be invisible) has been resized. I can get this problem to occur on demand using the Charamel theme. What’s most frustrating is that I cannot make it go away. I’ve tried forcing the edit control’s style via CSS, but the rules get ignored. I’ve built a bare bones toolbar from scratch to try to isolate the problem, to no avail. This is apparently a problem with the autocomplete textbox itself. A Firefox bug? Perhaps. If you happen to run into this problem, there are three courses of action you can take, none of which are very appealing:

1. Use the default theme (if you already aren’t). I have yet to see this using the default theme, although my dad has run into it using the default (he uses large fonts in Windows, however, so that might be the difference).
2. Disable search history.
3. Use Googlebar Lite 3.3.

Again, none of these solutions are ideal.

Do you know what’s going on here? Know of an existing bug in Bugzilla that references a similar problem? Found a workaround or a fix? Please let me know! I will continue to investigate this issue, but I don’t see a fix at this time. If only everything would just work as it is intended to …