Google Groups KillFile 3.4 Released

Jeff Urs made some great enhancements to the killfile script which you can grab here

You can now filter on the topic and the author matching has been greatly improved so it will no longer block tommy tomcat and tommo if you block a user called tom :)

If you don’t already have the script installed click here for full install instructions

It should update with no problems but check it didn’t install twice by right clicking on the Monkey > Manage User Scripts and make sure there aren’t two entries for the KillFile script, if there are, remove both of them but make sure you don’t select the delete preferences checkbox and reinstall.

Any issues let me know and we’ll strive to fix it asap. Enjoy!

Comments
  • Fred Goodwin January 17, 2008 at 4:44 pm

    So far so good — thanx!

  • Damian January 18, 2008 at 9:26 am

    Great, glad it did the trick

  • Fred Goodwin January 18, 2008 at 11:41 am

    I noticed another oddity:

    When I try to KF someone, then change my mind and hit cancel, the script adds “null” to the KF list, which basically kills every thread and every author. And since its “null”, there’s no way to resurrect it.

    I’ve had to delete the script and reinstall it to make my NGs readable again.

  • Damian January 18, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    I noticed that too Fred but if you look on your killfile all the way at the bottom you’ll see an X all on its own. Click that to remove the null user. I’ll address the cancel action in a future release though.

  • SN January 18, 2008 at 10:51 pm

    awesome script, we thank you for your work,

    my bug:
    this does most of the Mi5′s spam, but if one adds more, it doesnt work anymore, and messes up output.

    null%FFTopic%3AM%2CI.5%FFTopic%3AM%20I.5%FFTopic%3AM%27I.5%FFTopic%3AM.I5%FFTopic%3AM.I%205-%FFTopic%3AM%60I%2C5%FFTopic%3AM%60I%205%FFTopic%3AM-I%205%FFTopic%3AM.I5%FFTopic%3AMI5

    can we do some sort of wildcard?

  • Damian January 18, 2008 at 11:33 pm

    I’m not 100% on this as Jeff did some tweaking of how the script does the matching but it’s my understanding that it is doing a regexp match so you should be able to use .* as the wildcard. Let me know if this does the trick and if not we’ll figure it out.

  • Mark W January 20, 2008 at 6:44 am

    I think I’ve found a bug (v3.4)

    When I kill by subject, a space character appears at the end of the subject string. After adding the string to my killfile list, the post with that subject still displays.

    I find that if I delete the space at the end of the subject string, the post disappears as desired.

    Thanks again for all your work Damian (and Jeff!) Love the wildcard feature.

    Mark

  • Adam January 20, 2008 at 11:28 pm

    Great update, lets me kill most of the MI5 Spam with a much smaller kill list.
    Only problem I have now is when there is a single quote in the subject line. When this occurs, clicking on the Topic X does not work. I can’t manually add a wild card that includes the quote character, as this stops other entries from working).

    Any work arounds available for this one ?

    Again, thanks for all your work !

  • Mark W January 22, 2008 at 7:45 pm

    Adam,

    You might try highlighting the subject you want to kill, and copy it to the paste buffer.
    Then click on a different subject, and when the text box pops up, just paste in the subject you want to kill instead.
    Don’t know if that will work but it’s worth a try.
    Also, you may or may not have to replace the single-quote mark with %27

    Regards,

    Mark

  • Jim January 24, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    Doesn’t work at all for me but then neither did the previous version since I installed latest GreaseMonkey. At least, I think that’s when it quit working. I’ve deleted both killfile & GreaseMonkey and re-installed but no go. killfile is present and appears to accept additions to ignore but the Morgue is always empty.

  • Nathan January 25, 2008 at 7:04 am

    I’ve been using the killfile script with great success until a few days ago. I decided to clear out the killfile list, and now I can’t make any changes, either adding or removing. Is there a local file that got confused that I can delete or anything?

  • Damian January 25, 2008 at 7:09 am

    The killfile is stored in a Firefox preference. Enter the URL about:config in the address box and then search for Google.

    You should see this entry, this is your killfile. Feel free to wipe it clean.

    greasemonkey.scriptvals./Google Groups Killfile.GoogleKillFile

    Hope that does the trick

  • Damian January 25, 2008 at 7:12 am

    Jim, check out my reply to Nathan below, try wiping out the preference.

    greasemonkey.scriptvals./Google Groups Killfile.GoogleKillFile

    The script definitely works with the latest version of GreaseMonkey.

  • Nathan January 25, 2008 at 7:22 am

    For some reason
    greasemonkey.scriptvals./Google Groups Killfile.GoogleKillFile
    doesn’t exist in my about:config list. I went ahead and added it, but nothing changed.
    Would you mind copying and pasting a sample string value for the entry?

  • Damian January 25, 2008 at 7:35 am

    This would give you one entry of Evans

    Looking at this a bit more it looks like Jeff split the topics/authors into two separate configs so look for

    greasemonkey.scriptvals.www.penney.org/Google Groups Killfile.GoogleKillFile

    use

    —–%FFEvans

    as the entry and Evans will be a blocked user, additional ones are delimited by %FF so

    —–%FFEvans%FFDamian etc etc

    I think greasemonkey.scriptvals./Google Groups Killfile.GoogleKillFile is used for subject based kills (I’m not 100% because Jeff made these changes)

    Let me know how it goes.

  • Jim January 25, 2008 at 7:35 am

    Thanks for your response, Damian. Just as Nathan responded, I don’t have the preference you cite when I display about:config. Sounds like we’re both experiencing the same problem.

    Windows XP SP2
    Firefox 2.0.0.11
    Grease Monkey .072? (January 21, 2008 Security Update)
    Deleted and re-installed both Grease Monkey & KillFile
    Re-booted system

  • Nathan January 25, 2008 at 7:50 am

    OK, I tried adding them in by hand, but nothing changed. I uninstalled Greasemonkey and the KillFile and reinstalled them, so I could have a clean slate.

    I currently have 3 entries in the GreaseMonkey section of about:config:
    greasemonkey.editor
    greasemonkey.enabled
    greasemonkey.version

    I’m going to add:
    greasemonkey.scriptvals./Google Groups Killfile.GoogleKillFile
    by hand as a string, with:
    —–%FFEvans%FFDamian
    as my string value.

    -Nathan

  • Damian January 25, 2008 at 7:53 am

    Hold off there is definitely a bug with regards the new version of Greasemonkey (I just updated) and setting these prefs. It’s not creating the preference on my system either now. At least I can replicate :)

    Bear with me and I’ll get a fix in place.

  • Damian January 25, 2008 at 8:05 am

    Fixed.

    Update you script by clicking here The latest version of Greasemonkey changed something that was blowing up the script.

    I’ve gone ahead and updated things, let me know how it goes.

    Damian

  • Nathan January 25, 2008 at 8:06 am

    OK I tried it, and it’s not working still! :-)

    I now have 4 greasemonkey entries, the 3 above and the 4th, the one I added with Google stuff. The killfile menu shows up in Google Groups, but it doesn’t seem to be communicating with FireFox. Everything else is as it was when I installed everything.

    I’ve got Noscript, Adblock, Colorful Tabs, FoxyTunes, Greasemonkey, and Long Titles as add-ons, if that matters.

    Thanks!

    -Nathan

  • Damian January 25, 2008 at 8:10 am

    See my last comment, Greasemonkey changed something that was breaking the script…

  • Nathan January 25, 2008 at 8:12 am

    OK, it now works!

    Sort of. :-)

    Now I can killfile a single topic, but when I try to block another topic, the first one comes back.

    I can’t seem to block users at all now, either.

    -Nathan

  • Damian January 25, 2008 at 8:15 am

    Curses! Okay let me see what on earth is happening.

  • Fred Goodwin January 25, 2008 at 9:56 am

    Installing the new script erased my old killfile, and now I can kill only one author; as soon as I kill a second, the first is restored.

    Also, the kill string starts with “undefined” instead of the five dashes from before.

  • Damian January 25, 2008 at 11:00 am

    Okay just pushed out 3.4.2 which addresses a whole slew of issues. Give it a whirl and let me know how it goes.

    Closing comments on this thread and redirecting everyone to the new post