Clippings for Portable Firefox/Thunderbird

Updated 7 January 2012: The Portable Edition of Clippings is now compatible with Portable Firefox/Thunderbird 9.

Unfortunately, the Portable Edition of Clippings, available from the Clippings website, is not yet compatible with Portable Firefox/Thunderbird version 9.0. I will have this problem resolved as soon as possible.

A retort to a Mozilla Add-ons review

UPDATE 1 November 2011: The review of Clippings that I was retorting to has since been removed by the Mozilla Add-ons editors, at my request.

Hi gishpuppy,

I read your flattering review of Clippings which you left on the Mozilla Add-ons page. It is reproduced below for the benefit of the readers of this blog:

Lost (all) my clippings twice. Does not backup to file or cloud. May not even save your clippings in your profile folder, but somewhere else.

The interface and usability are very good, if you don't need your clippings saved.

Normally, I would sympathize with data loss complaints. There certainly have been reports from users of them losing their clippings data from time to time. There's no denying that. Unfortunately, it is hard to isolate the cause of the problem, which is why there is a backup mechanism available in the event of data loss, which I happen to have documented just recently. But I certainly don't sympathize with you, given your rather scathing, and very unhelpful, comments.

Have you made any effort to do a little troubleshooting to figure out WHY your clippings data isn't being saved? Did you check out the Clippings FAQ to learn where your clippings data is being saved to? I assume that the common clippings feature is enabled; that is the default for users since Clippings 3.0. Here's a hint: do you have permissions to the folder where your clippings data source file is located? Ever thought of that?

You allege that Clippings doesn't back up to a file. You are dead wrong. Have you checked out the blog post I just mentioned describing how to restore your clippings data from backup? As for backing up to the cloud -- well, there is no such feature. Not yet. Have you suggested that as an enhancement request in the AE Creations forums?

If Clippings was such an unusable piece of crap, as your so-called review implies, then why is it that over 32,000 Firefox and Thunderbird users around the world continue to rely on it every day at home, at work, and at school, to save themselves from repetitive typing and make their lives easier? And just how on earth would it have become a featured add-on?

And finally, I took the liberty of checking out your reviews of other extensions you left on Mozilla Add-ons -- most of them filled with similar hyperbolic garbage. I'll be happy to reproduce a few of them for my readers' viewing pleasure and amusement.

For Xmarks Sync (rated 4 out of 5 stars on Mozilla Add-ons as of the time of this writing), you wrote, "Horrible, awful, painful sh1ty crap erases your writings forever. Smoke a turd in he11!"

That extension seems to be your all-time favorite, eh? Here's another little gem of yours, again for Xmarks Sync:

xmarks kills the human spirit. It is so dangerous it should be banned. It is the worst functioning addon ever and can led to broken keyboards, monitors, and minds. xmarks is the Al-Qaeda of browsers, terrorizing the user with every possible review. Dangerous and immutably destructive.

Not bad for someone who lists his occupation as "Unsatisfied."

It also gives me even less of a reason to take any of your nonsense seriously. Either come back to me with helpful, pertinent troubleshooting information to help narrow the cause -- or quit spewing your asinine hate and move on. Don't worry, I won't feel bad if you uninstall Clippings.

Problems when going to My Account from the AE Creations forums

Due to a recent, and clearly botched, Mozdev site upgrade, users going to their My Account page will see error messages, and are not able to do anything.

I have brought this to the attention of the Mozdev admins, and am awaiting word on resolution.

Data loss problem in Clippings after upgrading to Firefox 7.0 or Thunderbird 7.0

I've received a few reports from users having lost their Clippings data after upgrading to Firefox 7.0 or Thunderbird 7.0, both of which were released yesterday.

If this has happened to you, you can try to rescue your Clippings data by doing the following:

1. Locate the folder where your Clippings datasource file is found. To determine this, please refer to the Clippings FAQ. The datasource file is named clipdat2.rdf.
   
2. Copy the backup files under the .clipbak subfolder to another location on your computer. Doing this ensures that your most recent, and hopefully pristine, backups are preserved.
3. From Firefox or Thunderbird, open Clippings Manager, then Options → Import. Locate the most recent backup file you saved from step 2.

Hopefully you will be able to recover your clippings.

If this fails, exit Firefox or Thunderbird and delete the clipdat2.rdf datasource file. Then restart the application and open Clippings Manager. This will generate a new, empty datasource file. Then repeat step 3 above.

If You Have Not Yet Upgraded

Your clippings are automatically backed up whenever creating a new clipping, editing them in Clippings Manager, and when closing the Clippings Manager window. But to be extra safe, you should export your clippings before upgrading Firefox or Thunderbird. Open Clippings Manager, click Options → Export, then choose the desired location to export your clippings data. Having this backup will be incredibly handy in case you ever lose your clippings after upgrading Firefox or Thunderbird.

Breakage in Delicious Post due to Delicious relaunch

Delicious Post users take note: Due to changes introduced by yesterday's relaunch of Delicious, the Post to Delicious dialog doesn't save your tags correctly.

Until yesterday, you could specify multiple tags for a new bookmark by separating them with a space; for example, entering "aecreations extensions firefox" in the tag field would create a new bookmark with those three tags. Now, a single tag is created instead, named "aecreations extensions firefox".

A workaround to this is to separate each tag with a comma; for example, "aecreations, extensions, firefox". Spaces after the comma are allowed; they will be stripped out automatically.

A fix will be available shortly to change the instructions in the Post to Delicious dialog.

EDIT: This post has been corrected with information about spaces after the comma separating the tag names.

Send Tab URLs 2.1 released!

Send Tab URLs 2.0 was released in 2008. Since then, Firefox 4 came out, which dramatically altered the browser UI for users on Windows Vista or Windows 7 by replacing the menu bar with a Firefox application menu (though it can be enabled if users could find the setting to do that). A new release was needed to improve usability for affected users -- and it's finally here!

Version 2.1 is now available on Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website. Current users should receive an update if automatic extension updates are enabled.

What's New

• New option to add the Send Tab URLs command to the List All Tabs menu (usually located on the far right of the tab strip in Firefox 4 and newer); option is enabled by default
  
• Removed experimental support for Yahoo! Mail
• Added translations for German, Hebrew and Swedish. Thanks to the translators at Babelzilla for their contributions!
  

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Clippings should be directed to the AE Creations forums.

Clippings 3.1.7 released!

A new version of Clippings is available from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

If you already have Clippings installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, open Extension Manager (Tools → Add-ons), then right-click on the entry for Clippings in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Update.

What's New

This release addresses the problems with the Swedish localization of Clippings that was introduced in version 3.1.6. This release contains the following fixes:

• Updated Swedish translation
• Bug fix: Shortcut key prefix is different on Swedish locale. This is fixed so that it is now CTRL+ALT+V, as advertised (bug 24375)

Many thanks to Lakrits at Babelzilla for addressing these issues quickly.

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Clippings should be directed to the AE Creations forums.

Clippings featured on Mozilla Add-ons!

I just learned that Clippings has been added as a Featured Add-on on the Mozilla Add-ons website!

From the Mozilla Add-ons home page.

Clippings page on Mozilla Add-ons, displaying the "Featured" banner.

It is an honour to have one of my works featured so prominently. A huge shout-out to all the Clippings users for their support over the years. And special thanks to everyone who provided feature enhancements, assisted with troubleshooting bugs, and translated it into different languages, furthering my mission of creating cool, useful software used by people all over the world.

Problems with Swedish localization of Clippings

There have been reports of issues with the Swedish localization of Clippings, which was added in the recent 3.1.6 release.

The shortcut key prefix, CTRL+ALT+V, does not work if using Clippings on the Swedish locale. It had been changed to CTRL+ALT+U. One user has reported problems with the translations of the text that is displayed in the Clippings user interface.

Clippings 3.1.6 released!

A new version of Clippings is available from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website.

If you already have Clippings installed, it will be upgraded for you if automatic extension updates are enabled. Otherwise, open Extension Manager (Tools -> Add-ons), then right-click on the entry for Clippings in the list of installed extensions and choose Find Update.

What's New

• Bug fix: Missing entries in chrome manifest for Danish and Swedish localizations (bug 24334)

Help and Support

Questions and comments about Clippings should be directed to the AE Creations forums.

Has anyone used Send Tab URLs with Google Apps Gmail?

Send Tab URLs has had experimental support for Google Apps Gmail since version 2.0 (regular Gmail has been supported out of the box). Since I do not have access to any Google Apps environment, I haven't been able to test it, and so the UI for Google Apps support was not enabled by default. A past blog post describes how to enable Google Apps Gmail support.

Has anyone tried using Send Tab URLs with Google Apps Gmail? I would like to hear from those users who have. I'm interested in learning whether Send Tab URLs works with it -- and what, if any, issues were encountered. If there are many users that have enabled Google Apps support, I would consider exposing the user interface for Google Apps support in an upcoming release of Send Tab URLs.

Your feedback on experimental support for Google Apps Gmail in Send Tab URLs is most welcome. Please leave comments below. Also, please indicate if you would be willing to assist in testing. Thanks in advance.

Clippings 3.1.5 and Panic Button 1.1.6 released!

New releases of Clippings and Panic Button are now out, and are available on Mozilla Add-ons and on the AE Creations website. These releases fixes a few bugs and adds translations for Swedish (Danish translations are added to Clippings).

Among the highlights:

Clippings 3.1.5: Fixes a problem where Clippings Manager doesn't remember its window size and position; also fixes broken dragging 'n dropping of text into Clippings Manager to create a clipping.

Panic Button 1.1.6: Fixes a bug (as described in this past post) where the custom toolbar button image doesn't get updated when adding the Panic Button toolbar button to the browser toolbar.


Help and Support

Questions and comments about Clippings should be directed to the AE Creations forums.

Delicious Post bug: Simplified Chinese translation is incomplete

The Simplified Chinese (zh-CN) translation for Delicious Post is incomplete. As a result, users that are running the Simplified Chinese version of Firefox with this extension will see missing or blank text in the Delicious Post dialog boxes and menu commands.

I've requested the translator on Babelzilla to translate the missing Simplified Chinese translations. This fix will require a new release of Delicious Post. Apologies to those users who are inconvenienced.

Compatibility with Firefox 6 beta

All AE Creations extensions -- Clippings (except for the special version for portable devices), Delicious Post, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs -- are now compatible with Firefox 6 beta. However, there is a minor issue with Panic Button which is noted below.

Panic Button Issue With Firefox 6 beta

If the Panic Button toolbar button is not added to any Firefox browser toolbar, and you change the toolbar button image (from Panic Button's extension preferences dialog), the toolbar button image is not updated until you add the button to a toolbar and then change the toolbar button image again. See the Bugzilla bug for more details.

Delicious Post 1.1.1 and Panic Button 1.1.5 released!

New updates of Delicious Post and Panic Button are now available from Mozilla Add-ons and the AE Creations website. The updates fix a few bugs and adds translations for Swedish.

Using Delicious Post 1.1.1 For the First Time After Upgrading

Delicious Post 1.1.1 fixes a bug where the Delicious password was incorrectly URI-encoded in Firefox's password manager.

As a result, if you are upgrading Delicious Post from an older version (1.1. or older), you will need to re-enter your Delicious password in the Post To Delicious dialog when posting a link or page for the first time after the upgrade. You won't have to do this again afterwards unless you change your Delicious password.

[Updated] Compatibility With Firefox 5

Update: Clippings is now compatible with Thunderbird 5. Also, the portable edition of Clippings, available from the Clippings web site, is now compatible with Portable Firefox 5 and Portable Thunderbird 5.


Yesterday, Mozilla unveiled the newest version of Firefox. Firefox 5 is the first release from the new rapid release development cycle that aims to push out new releases more frequently.

All extensions from AE Creations -- Clippings, Delicious Post, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs -- are compatible with Firefox 5.

Future Firefox Releases

For now, the policy for extension compatibility with upcoming Firefox releases will remain unchanged. They will not be compatible with the nightly (Aurora) builds. Extensions will be made compatible with beta releases once they have been tested and confirmed to be working with the beta releases.

What About Thunderbird 5?

Clippings currently is not compatible with the beta release of Thunderbird 5. This will be fixed once it is tested and confirmed functional on that release.

The forums are back!

Further to my last post regarding the outage in the AE Creation forums, I'm happy to report that the forums are now back online.

My apologies for the troubles the forum outage may have caused.

Forum posts not displaying

Forum posts in the AE Creations forums have recently disappeared from view. Old postings do not show up when going to a forum.

This is reportedly a problem affecting all projects hosted on Mozdev, including the ones from AE Creations. The latest word I've received is that the Mozdev admins are investigating the issue.

In the meantime, feel free to leave general comments and suggestions for improvements to Clippings, Delicious Post, Panic Button and Send Tab URLs in the comments area in the Mozilla Add-ons page for the respective add-on. Bug reports should be directed to Bugzilla. Note that Clippings has its own Bugzilla database.

[EDITED] The Delicious Post Extension: Implications of Yahoo!'s Sale of Delicious

Word came today that Delicious, the online social bookmarking website which Yahoo! acquired in 2005, has now been bought out by the founders of YouTube.

This caught my attention, since not only am I a loyal Delicious user, I am also maintaining a Firefox extension, Delicious Post, for adding bookmarks to Delicious. I was also interested to learn what this would mean for Delicious Post, because for quite some time I've been struggling to make it work with OAuth-based Yahoo! logins without much success. OAuth authentication is painful to implement, with so many steps to follow and a lot of room for errors, many of which are difficult to isolate given that they could originate from one's own code or from the code libraries being used (or unknowingly misused). The poorly-written Delicious OAuth documentation hasn't helped at all.

According to what I've read in a Delicious developer forum post, the old-skool Delicious logins will still function, but users with Yahoo! logins will have to migrate to using Delicious logins. So this means that I no longer have to worry about making Delicious Post work with OAuth authentication. Woo hoo!

What will this mean for current Delicious Post users? Since Delicious Post only supports the old-skool logins, current users can continue to use this Firefox add-on without any issues.

EDIT: Don't forget that you need to accept the new privacy policy and terms of service agreements in order to continue using Delicious beyond the transition from Yahoo! to AVOS, the company that is taking over Delicious. You should be prompted to do this when you visit your bookmarks on the Delicious website.

Clippings for Portable Firefox 4

As promised, Clippings is now compatible with Portable Firefox 4. Follow the download link in the Clippings installation page to download it to your Portable Firefox browser.

About Clippings Portable Edition

This special release of Clippings is intended for Portable Firefox users. The difference is that the common clippings feature is disabled; the Clippings data is stored in your Portable Firefox profile directory -- typically on your USB flash drive or other portable media in which Portable Firefox is installed. This ensures that your Clippings data stays in your portable media.

Clippings Portable Edition can also be used with Portable Thunderbird. Simply use the same download link as given above.

Firefox 4 is here!

The newest and the best-yet browser from Mozilla has just been released. Sporting a streamlined user interface, faster Web page display, and cool new capabilities for Web developers, Firefox 4 is now available from the Mozilla website.

All extensions from AE Creations are compatible with this new Firefox release. Some of the changes introduced by Firefox 4 necessitated new minor releases of Clippings and Panic Button.

Clippings for Portable Firefox Not Yet Available

The special portable edition of Clippings for Portable Firefox will be ready shortly. Watch this blog for further updates.