Add-ons
QuickOWL 1.6
by Prasanna
Quickly Open Web Links using custom context menu with selected text as input
QuickOWL saves one's time in copying text from email and pasting in browser page to do some action or searching.
About this Add-on
Thunderbird email client add-on to quickly open web links, using custom context menu defined by the user, with selected text as input. Here the selected text can be bug number, JIRA Issue, issue tracking number, etc.,.
Where QuickOWL can help:
When we regularly copy text from emails and paste in [A_WEB_PAGE] and perform search or some action.
Here [A_WEB_PAGE] can be:
In order to add custom context menu of "Search with Google Scholar" the user will be adding following two information in QuickOWL:
Once added, select a text from any email in Thunderbird and right click, the user can see "QuickOWL -> Search Google Scholar" context menu. If no text is selected QuickOWL context menu won't be displayed. So, the requirement is to select a text to activate QuickOWL custom context menu.
Following sample data can be downloaded, and imported into QuickOWL:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ab5pqjy4vgymDDlM3QgE1bfx7t8W8S2u/view?usp=sharing
Why yet another custom context menu search extension?
Privacy:
Release Updates:
Release 1.4
Release 1.0
Thanks:
Special thanks to user @wOxxOm (https://stackoverflow.com/users/3959875/woxxom) who has helped to resolve some of the blocking issues while developing this extension.
Where QuickOWL can help:
When we regularly copy text from emails and paste in [A_WEB_PAGE] and perform search or some action.
Here [A_WEB_PAGE] can be:
- Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=)
- Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=)
- Bug tracking page in work (https://jira.<orgdomain>.com/jira/browse/)
- Google Translate (https://translate.google.com/?tl=en&text=)
In order to add custom context menu of "Search with Google Scholar" the user will be adding following two information in QuickOWL:
- [Enter Display Name] -> Search Google Scholar
- [URL before selected text] -> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=
Once added, select a text from any email in Thunderbird and right click, the user can see "QuickOWL -> Search Google Scholar" context menu. If no text is selected QuickOWL context menu won't be displayed. So, the requirement is to select a text to activate QuickOWL custom context menu.
Following sample data can be downloaded, and imported into QuickOWL:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ab5pqjy4vgymDDlM3QgE1bfx7t8W8S2u/view?usp=sharing
Why yet another custom context menu search extension?
- QuickOWL uses latest Thunderbird add-on API guidelines, which means it has longer shelf life
- Uses least amount of privileges required:
- storage - required to store the user defined context menu URLs
- unlimitedStorage - to allow cumulative storage for the extension to expand beyond 5MB
- menus - required to add custom user defined URL entries in Firefox's context menu
- downloads - required to export current list of user defined URLs for the extension as .txt file
- Provides necessary alert messages to user to make it easy for the user to understand what is working and what is not
- Provides simplified Extension Options page to manage addition/deletion of custom context menu URLs
- Light weight by design, the Options page of extension uses only the required html & javascript to achieve the tasks. No heavy weight third party is being imported. It's developed in pure HTML, CSS & Javascript.
- Features detailed Help page to make it easy to understand about the functionality of the extension
Privacy:
- Though after installing the Permissions in Extension page says "Read your browsing history", it doesn't actually do any reading of browsing history. The extension focuses on sending the selected text to the user defined context menu URLs. No extra reading, no background activities.
Release Updates:
Release 1.4
- Updated the .csv based file export & import to use .txt format, because the .csv file exported with separator as pipe symbol | gets updated to use comma , when edited in .csv editors (like Microsoft Excel). Once the .csv file separator gets updated to comma, further import from that .csv file fails. So, now the .txt format has been made as defacto format for export and import.
- Help section has been updated about the usage of .txt file instead of .csv file
- An example on sample data of .txt file with separator as pipe | symbol has been added in Import URLs section
- Font size has been updated to use 1 rem instead of 14px
- Font family has been updated to use system fonts, based on an article from Hacker News (https://systemfontstack.com/)
- Extension title summary has been enhanced to refer to multiple web links
- Added a note on "Save Changes" button usage in case of "Add URL" & "Delete Selected URLs"
Release 1.0
- First release of Extension with full set of features supporting import, export of URLs
Thanks:
Special thanks to user @wOxxOm (https://stackoverflow.com/users/3959875/woxxom) who has helped to resolve some of the blocking issues while developing this extension.
