How to Build a Time-Saving Macro Library for Firefox–Free
October 11th, 2007 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 17 Comments
I’m always surprised at how many of the computing tasks I do each day and each week are repetitive. If you find yourself doing a lot of repetitive tasks all the time, and you’re a Firefox user, I cannot recommend iMacros from iOpus highly enough. The download for this extension is free, and it shows up as a button on your Firefox toolbar for easy availability.
The iMacros application lets you record, edit, name and organize macros for every kind of repetitive browser-based task you do. Recording macros with iMacros is very easy and requires no coding on your part.
Let’s assume that you want to build a macro designed to visit a certain web page. First, you select a Record tab at the left of the iMacros application, and when you hit Record, a red status line will alert you that your actions are being recorded. After you follow the steps for loading the web page that you want the macro to bring up, you hit Stop to stop recording.
Your next step is to name your macro, and if you’re like me, you’ll end up creating a lot of them, so keep the names unique. To play the macro at any time you just hit a Play button in the iMacros application. All of your macros are listed in a tree-like directory that resembles Internet Explorer if you choose to have that pane open, or you can hide it.
While one of the nicest parts about iMacros is that you can you can create macros without working with code, you have the option to edit any macro’s code whenever you want. Just select the Edit Macro button to do so, and you’ll see the steps that the macro follows in a pop-up text editor.
One problem that occasionally arises when using other tools to record macros for web tasks is that Java, Active X, and other controls on the web can throw the recorders off. However, iMacros is tuned to work well with them.
Of course, creating a macro that visits a web page isn’t the most advanced job. As you get into the iMacros application, you’ll find that it’s great for tasks you often repeat that happen to have a lot of steps to them. For example, I regularly update a few web sites each week, and the initial processes are always the same: placing frames in the same places, putting in code for a table at the top of an HTML page, extracting old links that I’m going to replace with new ones, etc. This is where iMacros can really start to save substantial time for any web worker.
Do you have any tips on macros for web workers?
17 Comments Post your own comment
FirefoxHints.com » Automating FireFox with macros says: October 12th, 2007 5:59am
[...] over for a detailed review Permalink [...]
Mike Beltzner says: October 12th, 2007 6:15am
People interested in this sort of “task based browsing” functionality should also check out Co-scripter, developed by IBM Research and based on work out of MIT. As it’s introductory post on the Mozilla Labs website states:
Additionally, the scripts created with Co-scripter are shared between a community, so once installed, you’re already up and running with some pretty useful “one-click” functionality.
Mike says: October 12th, 2007 7:12am
I use iMacros for a few months now and highly recommend it, too. It saves me considerable time each day.
Just like CoScripter, iMacros scripts are human readable and editable. All commands are documented in a wiki at http://wiki.imacros.net/iMacros_for_Firefox
Macros can be shared using any social bookmarking service or blog. I haven’t used this feature yet (no need to share my online banking logins…) but some shared macros are available at http://del.icio.us/imacros/imacro
Stefan says: October 12th, 2007 7:32am
iMacros is great. For some readers it might be useful to know that there is an IE version available as well at http://www.iopus.com/download/
I prefer the Firefox version which is extremly easy to install and has a nice tree view of all macros. But I (have to) use the IE version at work, where we are not allowed to install Firefox. Macros that work in IE work in Firefox, too, so using both add-ons at the same time is no problem.
Mike Beltzner says: October 12th, 2007 10:34am
By human readable, I meant that Co-Scripter code is read/written like: “go to http://foo.com, click Register now” and the browser will open that page and click that button. Not just that you can edit the macro in a text editor :)
Mike says: October 12th, 2007 11:12am
Mike, I know what you meant with “human readable”. I work with neural networks and AI daily, so I tested CoScripter as soon as I saw it mentioned on a blog some weeks ago,
To cut a long story short, I was very disappointed. It lacks any kind of intelligence to be REALLY human readable. At least, it is not more human readable than a well-written Perl script or AppleScript.
Compare this: CoScripter iMacros
go to http://foo.com URL GOTO=http://foo.com
“click Register now” TAG POS=1 TYPE=* ATTR=”Register Now”
I fail to see any major difference, except some simple string manipulation.
Now, if you could tell CoScripter something like “Download all posts from webworkerdaily.com that mention Firefox and were published before September 30th” - THAT would be impressive :)
Christopher Kimura says: October 12th, 2007 12:27pm
Excellent! I’ve been looking for this!
It can be very helpful for using web apps like Salesforce.com
Christopher
John Huang says: October 12th, 2007 1:42pm
I use iMacros all the time. It’s very popular among my coworkers here in Taiwan.
Matthew Cornell says: October 12th, 2007 3:39pm
Question: Here’s a deal breaker for me: Can you do keystroke invocation of macros? There was an old, difficult-to-use Firefox extension that allowed arbitrary keystroke association, but I thought I’d ask. Autocompletion would be awesome (kit key, type part of macro name, hit tab to complete, hit enter to run).
Matt’s Daily Diigo Post 10/15/2007 « Matt’s Cuppa says: October 14th, 2007 5:41pm
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SpayNeuter Zan says: December 28th, 2007 6:20pm
Responding to Mike vs. Mike regarding CoScripter vs. iMacros: I’m a VERY basic/low-level user with minimal html knowledge, so I appreciated your conversation (below). Holy Cow, Mike; I certainly see a difference! TAG POS=1 TYPE=* ATTR=”Register Now” What?
Still, I practically had to give IBM.com my thumbprint in blood to get an account so I could access the info regarding CoScripter, so I’m inclined to try iMacros first and see if I can figure out TAG POS=1 TYPE=* ATTR=”Register Now”, etc.
Mike Beltzner says: October 12th, 2007 10:34am
By human readable, I meant that Co-Scripter code is read/written like: “go to http://foo.com, click Register now” and the browser will open that page and click that button. Not just that you can edit the macro in a text editor :)
Mike says: October 12th, 2007 11:12am
Mike, I know what you meant with “human readable”. I work with neural networks and AI daily, so I tested CoScripter as soon as I saw it mentioned on a blog some weeks ago,
To cut a long story short, I was very disappointed. It lacks any kind of intelligence to be REALLY human readable. At least, it is not more human readable than a well-written Perl script or AppleScript.
Compare this: CoScripter iMacros
go to http://foo.com URL GOTO=http://foo.com
“click Register now” TAG POS=1 TYPE=* ATTR=”Register Now”
I fail to see any major difference, except some simple string manipulation.
web development blog says: March 10th, 2008 3:43am
Nice one! I think that I’m gonna give iMacros a try.
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