Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#2I wanted to try making a browser extension and it seemed weird to me that there didn't seem to exist any means of linking to specific elements on a web page if they hadn't been given IDs to make a fragment identifier out of, so I made this.
You select a page element and generate a link, which you can then share. For someone without the extension, the link will work as normal and just take them to the page, but someone with the extension will have the selected element focused on and highlighted for them.
There's also a repo on GitHub (for now)[1] and I wrote about how I made it[2]. My next priorities are to make it not look like ass and to shorten the links somehow. Let me know what you think.
[1] https://github.com/Rumperuu/Pinpointer
[2] https://bengoldsworthy.net/2018/04/developing-pinpointer/
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#3I wanted to try making a browser extension and it seemed weird to me that there didn't seem to exist any means of linking to specific elements on a web page if they hadn't been given IDs to make a fragment identifier out of, so I made this. You select a page element and generate a link, which you can then share. For someone without the extension, the link will work as normal and just take them to the page, but someon…
You should post such a generated link here as an example, so people can immediately try it by clicking on it.
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#4"It requires your permission to: Access your data for all web sites"
I wish Firefox had a permission along the lines of 'Access all data from pages on which I activate the extension', which is presumably all this would need.
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#5I have installed it and it doesn't work.
In the Mozilla addons page it just says "Pinpointer error".
In this HN page, it prompts me to select and click a green button, but fails to do anything.
It's an interesting concept, keep going!
edit: Firefox 62.0b9 (32-bit) in up-to-date Ubuntu 16.04, with uMatrix and other extensions running.
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#6I wanted to try making a browser extension and it seemed weird to me that there didn't seem to exist any means of linking to specific elements on a web page if they hadn't been given IDs to make a fragment identifier out of, so I made this. You select a page element and generate a link, which you can then share. For someone without the extension, the link will work as normal and just take them to the page, but someon…
You should post such a generated link here as an example, so people can immediately try it by clicking on it.
Good point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela#aHRtbCA%2BIGJvZ...
(I wasn't kidding about needing to shorten those links.)
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#7A video or a few screenshots would help me understand how it works better and probably help with the number of installs.
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#8I have installed it and it doesn't work. In the Mozilla addons page it just says " Pinpointer error ". In this HN page, it prompts me to select and click a green button, but fails to do anything. It's an interesting concept, keep going! edit: Firefox 62.0b9 (32-bit) in up-to-date Ubuntu 16.04, with uMatrix and other extensions running.
(Self-reply) It worked in the next page I tried:
https://www.metafilter.com/175389/None-Dare-Call-It-Treason#...
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#9I have installed it and it doesn't work. In the Mozilla addons page it just says " Pinpointer error ". In this HN page, it prompts me to select and click a green button, but fails to do anything. It's an interesting concept, keep going! edit: Firefox 62.0b9 (32-bit) in up-to-date Ubuntu 16.04, with uMatrix and other extensions running.
As far as I can tell the Mozilla addons page doesn't like addons running on it. I'll add a more explanatory error message though. I hadn't thought to test it on HN, so that's intriguing. I'll look into it, but I'd presume it's due to some sort of quirky DOM structure.
Re: Show HN: Pinpointer – A Firefox extension to share links to page elements
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should post such a generated link here as an example, so people can immediately try it by clicking on it.
Good point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela#aHRtbCA%2BIGJvZ... (I wasn't kidding about needing to shorten those links.)
Shorter link that still works with your addon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela#cDpudGgtb2YtdHl...
I simply tried to find a suffix of the path that still identifies the element uniquely. Turns out that p:nth-of-type(3) is good enough already. If you want to be a bit more robust to changes on the page, you could also search for the last element with an ID in the path, i.e. #mw-content-text > div.mw-parser-output > p:nth-of-type(3).