Forum Utility: ABBREX - The Abbreviation Expander Extension
- Thread starter BandC
- Start date
To follow up on this, we've included it in the Civfanatics Newsletter, which will hopefully give it some exposure.
Thanks again for the plug Camikaze.
Hey guys. I released a new version of ABBREX (v0.36) today with a couple of new features, improvements, and bug fixes. You should be (or have been) updated automatically the next time you launch your browser. Details about the new version are below:
New Feature: Generalize Abbreviation
A new button called "Generalize Abbreviation" was added to the "Add Abbreviation" dialog in this version.
Whenever you try to add a new abbreviation meaning, ABBREX automatically checks whether other people entered a domain-specific abbreviation meaning for the same abbreviation before. If that's the case, you now have the option of making that previously entered domain-specific abbreviation meaning generic (meaning it would now apply to all domains including the domain of the web page you are visiting right now).
To illustrate this with an example: You try to enter an abbreviation meaning for LOL. On the "Add Abbreviation" dialog, ABBREX shows you someone already entered a meaning for LOL specific to some domain (yahoo.com for example). You know that LOL should be a generic abbreviation and it applies to Internet in general (not just yahoo.com). So with one click on the new "Generalize Abbreviation" button, you make that previously entered abbreviation meaning generic and now it will appear on all sites (not just yahoo.com) you and everybody else visit.
New Feature: Expansion Wait Timeout Option
A new option that sets the expansion wait timeout in seconds was added in this version.
Whenever a web page you are visiting finishes loading. ABBREX checks to see whether you have been idle for a while (default is three seconds) before it tries to expand the abbreviations on that web page. The reason for this is ABBREX doesn't want to disturb your browsing as the expansion process may cause a split second freeze if the page is heavy in content. ABBREX thinks if you have been idle for three seconds that means you are probably reading the page so it is OK to expand abbreviations at that time.
With the new expansion wait timeout option, you can now change this idle timeout from the default three seconds to anything you want. If you set it to zero, ABBREX will expand abbreviations on the web page pretty much as soon as it can after the page finishes loading. You can also set the option to something higher than three seconds if you don't want ABBREX to expand abbreviations on a web page unless you stay idle on the web page for a long time.
Performance Improvements and Small User Interface Changes
There were a lot of changes under the hood in this version. Some components (like abbreviation expansion) were completely re-written. The abbreviation meanings are now pulled on demand which increases performance and eliminates synchronization problems.
There were also some user interface changes mainly to the way abbreviations are shown on the web page you are visiting. ABBREX now uses a double-width dotted underline for abbreviations to make them easier to notice. Abbreviations are also not colored by default unless you hover over them at which point they are colored either green if existing meanings were found or red if no meanings were found for that abbreviation. This change leads to less "color pollution" on the web page while still allowing abbreviations to be visible.
And of course there were bug fixes in this update. I hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.
Please feel free to let me know what you think. Thanks for using ABBREX and spread the word!
Hey guys. I released a new version of ABBREX (v0.36) today with a couple of new features, improvements, and bug fixes. You should be (or have been) updated automatically the next time you launch your browser. Details about the new version are below:
New Feature: Generalize Abbreviation
A new button called "Generalize Abbreviation" was added to the "Add Abbreviation" dialog in this version.
Whenever you try to add a new abbreviation meaning, ABBREX automatically checks whether other people entered a domain-specific abbreviation meaning for the same abbreviation before. If that's the case, you now have the option of making that previously entered domain-specific abbreviation meaning generic (meaning it would now apply to all domains including the domain of the web page you are visiting right now).
To illustrate this with an example: You try to enter an abbreviation meaning for LOL. On the "Add Abbreviation" dialog, ABBREX shows you someone already entered a meaning for LOL specific to some domain (yahoo.com for example). You know that LOL should be a generic abbreviation and it applies to Internet in general (not just yahoo.com). So with one click on the new "Generalize Abbreviation" button, you make that previously entered abbreviation meaning generic and now it will appear on all sites (not just yahoo.com) you and everybody else visit.
New Feature: Expansion Wait Timeout Option
A new option that sets the expansion wait timeout in seconds was added in this version.
Whenever a web page you are visiting finishes loading. ABBREX checks to see whether you have been idle for a while (default is three seconds) before it tries to expand the abbreviations on that web page. The reason for this is ABBREX doesn't want to disturb your browsing as the expansion process may cause a split second freeze if the page is heavy in content. ABBREX thinks if you have been idle for three seconds that means you are probably reading the page so it is OK to expand abbreviations at that time.
With the new expansion wait timeout option, you can now change this idle timeout from the default three seconds to anything you want. If you set it to zero, ABBREX will expand abbreviations on the web page pretty much as soon as it can after the page finishes loading. You can also set the option to something higher than three seconds if you don't want ABBREX to expand abbreviations on a web page unless you stay idle on the web page for a long time.
Performance Improvements and Small User Interface Changes
There were a lot of changes under the hood in this version. Some components (like abbreviation expansion) were completely re-written. The abbreviation meanings are now pulled on demand which increases performance and eliminates synchronization problems.
There were also some user interface changes mainly to the way abbreviations are shown on the web page you are visiting. ABBREX now uses a double-width dotted underline for abbreviations to make them easier to notice. Abbreviations are also not colored by default unless you hover over them at which point they are colored either green if existing meanings were found or red if no meanings were found for that abbreviation. This change leads to less "color pollution" on the web page while still allowing abbreviations to be visible.
And of course there were bug fixes in this update. I hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.
Please feel free to let me know what you think. Thanks for using ABBREX and spread the word!
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2007
- Messages
- 9,311
I really ought to install a 4.0+ version of Firefox on my new computer so I can use it and ABBREX whenever I browse Civ5 or whatever other games that I'm not familiar with. Still love Opera as a browser but this really is a practical extension.
Just a thought, but have you considered an intermediate level between domain-specific and whole-Internet abbreviations? I'd call it something like "topic-specific". And you could put multiple domains into one topic. So for instance, we'd have civfanatics.com, apolyton.net, weplayciv.com, and several other sites in a topic for "Civilization (game series)", and then you could add "OCC" as a topic-specific abbreviation for "one city conquest" for the "Civilization (game series)" topic, and it would appear on CFC, Apolyton, and WePlayCiv, witout having to be individually added to each one. If someone else creates a new Civ site, they could add their domain to the domains that are part of that topic, and the Civ abbreviations would expand in their site, too.
You'd still be able to add domain-specific abbreviations, too, but that would lessen the overhead of getting abbreviations on multiple sites (when the whole Web isn't appropriate) considerably. I know I wouldn't want to add a term to more than one Civ site myself.
Just a thought, but have you considered an intermediate level between domain-specific and whole-Internet abbreviations? I'd call it something like "topic-specific". And you could put multiple domains into one topic. So for instance, we'd have civfanatics.com, apolyton.net, weplayciv.com, and several other sites in a topic for "Civilization (game series)", and then you could add "OCC" as a topic-specific abbreviation for "one city conquest" for the "Civilization (game series)" topic, and it would appear on CFC, Apolyton, and WePlayCiv, witout having to be individually added to each one. If someone else creates a new Civ site, they could add their domain to the domains that are part of that topic, and the Civ abbreviations would expand in their site, too.
You'd still be able to add domain-specific abbreviations, too, but that would lessen the overhead of getting abbreviations on multiple sites (when the whole Web isn't appropriate) considerably. I know I wouldn't want to add a term to more than one Civ site myself.
Excellent suggestion Quintillus! And you came up with it without even installing the extension. Impressive! 
I have actually thought about this in the past. But I was trying to come up with a good way of putting it into the UI without making it too complicated. There is already a way of adding the same abbreviation to other domains with one click when you try to add the same abbreviation to another domain but it doesn't completely solve the issue and like you say an intermediary level abbreviation designation is needed.
So after thinking about this for a while, I came up with this plan (which is pretty much what you are suggesting):
I will add a new menu item called "Assign tags to this domain" to ABBREX main menu. When you select this menu item when you are on civfanatics.com for example, you will be able assign tags or subscribe to tags if you will (there will be an autocompleter based on existing tags helping you out of course). When you assign tags to a domain and you visit that domain with ABBREX, you will see abbreviation meanings for:
1) All generic abbreviations
2) All abbreviations specific to civfanatics.com
3) All abbreviations with tags civfanatics.com subscribed for (Civilizations, Gaming, Strategy for example) regardless of domain.
Since people already add tags to abbreviation meanings when they enter them, tag assignments for domains meshes really well with the existing abbreviation tag system.
I will also put some convenience buttons on the "Add Abbreviation" form to let users easily transfer tags from an existing domain-specific abbreviation to a domain without having to type.
I already started working on this so I'll probably have it on the next version. Let me know what you think.
By the way, I made ABBREX installable from Firefox 3.6 so if you'd like to try it you can now. However, I never tested it on 3.6 so it might not work so I have to give you fair warning.
Firefox 3.6 support ends in April 2012 so you might want to upgrade anyway. The new versions aren't so bad.
I have actually thought about this in the past. But I was trying to come up with a good way of putting it into the UI without making it too complicated. There is already a way of adding the same abbreviation to other domains with one click when you try to add the same abbreviation to another domain but it doesn't completely solve the issue and like you say an intermediary level abbreviation designation is needed.
So after thinking about this for a while, I came up with this plan (which is pretty much what you are suggesting):
I will add a new menu item called "Assign tags to this domain" to ABBREX main menu. When you select this menu item when you are on civfanatics.com for example, you will be able assign tags or subscribe to tags if you will (there will be an autocompleter based on existing tags helping you out of course). When you assign tags to a domain and you visit that domain with ABBREX, you will see abbreviation meanings for:
1) All generic abbreviations
2) All abbreviations specific to civfanatics.com
3) All abbreviations with tags civfanatics.com subscribed for (Civilizations, Gaming, Strategy for example) regardless of domain.
Since people already add tags to abbreviation meanings when they enter them, tag assignments for domains meshes really well with the existing abbreviation tag system.
I will also put some convenience buttons on the "Add Abbreviation" form to let users easily transfer tags from an existing domain-specific abbreviation to a domain without having to type.
I already started working on this so I'll probably have it on the next version. Let me know what you think.
By the way, I made ABBREX installable from Firefox 3.6 so if you'd like to try it you can now. However, I never tested it on 3.6 so it might not work so I have to give you fair warning.
Firefox 3.6 support ends in April 2012 so you might want to upgrade anyway. The new versions aren't so bad.
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2007
- Messages
- 9,311
I think that makes sense. That'll be a nice way to take advantage of the data that's already available to jump-start the feature, too.
It's a bit of an exagerration to say I didn't install the extension, as I did on my laptop. But I've since switched to a desktop as my main PC, and haven't put Firefox on the desktop yet. I'll be sure to let you know how it runs on Firefox 3.6. But you're right, it is about time to upgrade. GMail Offline for Firefox 3.6 doesn't work anymore, and that was my biggest reason for staying on 3.6, so there's less of a reason to now.
It's a bit of an exagerration to say I didn't install the extension, as I did on my laptop. But I've since switched to a desktop as my main PC, and haven't put Firefox on the desktop yet. I'll be sure to let you know how it runs on Firefox 3.6. But you're right, it is about time to upgrade. GMail Offline for Firefox 3.6 doesn't work anymore, and that was my biggest reason for staying on 3.6, so there's less of a reason to now.
Alright, so here it is:
Version 0.37 of ABBREX was released today for both Firefox and Chrome. Here's what's new:
New Feature: Assign Tags to Domain
A new menu item called "Assign Tags to Domain" was added to the ABBREX main menu in this version.
In the past, ABBREX had only two kinds of abbreviations: generic and domain-specific. Meanings for generic abbreviations were shown (expanded) when you visited any web page with ABBREX while meanings for domain-specific abbreviations were shown (expanded) only when you were visiting a web page within that domain.
This was mostly fine but it led to many of the same abbreviation meanings having to be re-entered for multiple domains (for example law acronyms which are not universal acronyms but valid for almost all law websites). While ABBREX provided a button to add a domain-specific abbreviation meaning to another domain with a single click, a better way of dealing with non-generic but common-to-many-domains abbreviation meanings was clearly needed.
So with this version, ABBREX introduces the concept of domain tags. Through a new menu item on the ABBREX main menu ("Assign Tags to Domain"), you will be able "assign" tags to the domain you are currently visiting (an autocompleter will help you of course). When you assign tags to a domain and you visit a web page on that domain with ABBREX, you will see abbreviation meanings expanded for:
1. All generic abbreviation meanings
2. All abbreviation meanings specific to that domain
3. All domain-specific abbreviation meanings (regardless of domain) with tags assigned to that domain.
What this means is if you want law acronyms to be expanded on a law website for example, you don't have to add all law-related acronyms to that domain one by one anymore. All you need to do is assign some tags to the domain of that law website and all abbreviation meanings with those tags (regardless of domain) will automatically be expanded when you visit that website.
New Feature: Copy Tags From / To Domain
Two new buttons called "Copy Tags From / To Domain" were added to the "Add Abbreviation" dialog in this version.
To make the domain tags feature mentioned above even more convenient, there are now two new buttons for the existing abbreviation meanings on the "Add Abbreviation" dialog. As you may already know, when you try to enter a new abbreviation meaning, ABBREX checks to see whether there are any other existing domain-specific abbreviation meanings for that abbreviation and shows you those along with some helpful quick-action buttons that let you add those meanings (with or without change) to the domain you are on with one click.
The newly-added two buttons help with transferring tags from/to the abbreviation meaning from/to the domain you are on. "Copy Tags From Domain" copies all tags associated with the domain you are on to that specific abbreviation meaning. "Copy Tags To Domain" adds all the tags of the abbreviation meaning to the domain you are on. The net effect is that abbreviation meaning will now be seen (expanded) when you visit the domain you are on (you may need to refresh the page). These two buttons let you assign existing tags to domains / abbreviation meanings with only one click! You are still free to add / update tags of specific domains and abbreviation meanings manually of course.
Small User Interface Changes
In this version, I added a small icon next to each abbrevation meaning that takes you to the Wikipedia article (Google's best guess) for that abbreviation meaning with just one click. This should come in handy when you want to learn a little more about the abbreviation meaning in question.
Also there is now a link on the abbreviation tooltips that lets you share ABBREX on Facebook. Remember that the more people use ABBREX, the more useful it becomes. So please spread the word!
There were also bug fixes in this update. I hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.
Please feel free to let me know what you think.
Version 0.37 of ABBREX was released today for both Firefox and Chrome. Here's what's new:
New Feature: Assign Tags to Domain
A new menu item called "Assign Tags to Domain" was added to the ABBREX main menu in this version.
In the past, ABBREX had only two kinds of abbreviations: generic and domain-specific. Meanings for generic abbreviations were shown (expanded) when you visited any web page with ABBREX while meanings for domain-specific abbreviations were shown (expanded) only when you were visiting a web page within that domain.
This was mostly fine but it led to many of the same abbreviation meanings having to be re-entered for multiple domains (for example law acronyms which are not universal acronyms but valid for almost all law websites). While ABBREX provided a button to add a domain-specific abbreviation meaning to another domain with a single click, a better way of dealing with non-generic but common-to-many-domains abbreviation meanings was clearly needed.
So with this version, ABBREX introduces the concept of domain tags. Through a new menu item on the ABBREX main menu ("Assign Tags to Domain"), you will be able "assign" tags to the domain you are currently visiting (an autocompleter will help you of course). When you assign tags to a domain and you visit a web page on that domain with ABBREX, you will see abbreviation meanings expanded for:
1. All generic abbreviation meanings
2. All abbreviation meanings specific to that domain
3. All domain-specific abbreviation meanings (regardless of domain) with tags assigned to that domain.
What this means is if you want law acronyms to be expanded on a law website for example, you don't have to add all law-related acronyms to that domain one by one anymore. All you need to do is assign some tags to the domain of that law website and all abbreviation meanings with those tags (regardless of domain) will automatically be expanded when you visit that website.
New Feature: Copy Tags From / To Domain
Two new buttons called "Copy Tags From / To Domain" were added to the "Add Abbreviation" dialog in this version.
To make the domain tags feature mentioned above even more convenient, there are now two new buttons for the existing abbreviation meanings on the "Add Abbreviation" dialog. As you may already know, when you try to enter a new abbreviation meaning, ABBREX checks to see whether there are any other existing domain-specific abbreviation meanings for that abbreviation and shows you those along with some helpful quick-action buttons that let you add those meanings (with or without change) to the domain you are on with one click.
The newly-added two buttons help with transferring tags from/to the abbreviation meaning from/to the domain you are on. "Copy Tags From Domain" copies all tags associated with the domain you are on to that specific abbreviation meaning. "Copy Tags To Domain" adds all the tags of the abbreviation meaning to the domain you are on. The net effect is that abbreviation meaning will now be seen (expanded) when you visit the domain you are on (you may need to refresh the page). These two buttons let you assign existing tags to domains / abbreviation meanings with only one click! You are still free to add / update tags of specific domains and abbreviation meanings manually of course.
Small User Interface Changes
In this version, I added a small icon next to each abbrevation meaning that takes you to the Wikipedia article (Google's best guess) for that abbreviation meaning with just one click. This should come in handy when you want to learn a little more about the abbreviation meaning in question.
Also there is now a link on the abbreviation tooltips that lets you share ABBREX on Facebook. Remember that the more people use ABBREX, the more useful it becomes. So please spread the word!
There were also bug fixes in this update. I hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.
Please feel free to let me know what you think.
