The Young Swell, tobacco label, 1869.jpg

His orphans tell him he’s a good boy

 

I’ve been asked to write a post to be used as an information hub for Monocle. I’ll give a quick explanation of what features Monocle has, some wishlist feature that Monocle should have sometime in the future, and how to install Monocle.

Basically, Monocle is a rough equivalent to Reasonable/fascr/greasonable on TSTSNBN. I wrote the initial code for myself as a learning experience, and greasonable hacked it up to get rid of all of my noob crap code and replaced it with quality, efficient code, some of which comes from his eponymous script. greasonable is pretty much the best, and he deserves many accolades for the work he has done so far.

Currently, the source code for Monocle is stored on gitlab.com, so anybody who wishes to help out can reach out to us and we’ll get you plugged in. Development of the code is on more of a “do what you want when you want” cycle, so we’ll never make any promises for a release date unless the feature’s availability is imminent.

Mobile Update! 2018/01/03 I have crafted a somewhat mobile friendly version of Monocle called Eyepiece. The only way I know to use it is to add tamper monkey to mobile Firefox and install Eyepiece by clicking the link.

How do I install Monocle?

Monocle only works on non-mobile versions of Firefox and Chrome; and now on mobile Firefox. Yes, it sucks that mobile is not supported. No, mobile support isn’t the highest priority right now. See update above! (SP edit)

Firefox install

  1. Install Greasemonkey for Firefox
  2. Click this link to install Monocle
  3. Click “Install” on the popup

Chrome install

  1. Install Tampermonkey for Chrome
  2. Click this link to install Monocle
  3. Click “Install” on the page that is loaded

Update to latest

  1. Click this link
  2. Click “Install” or “Reinstall” in the appropriate place

What Features are Currently Included?

Full width article/comments – if the author of a piece forgets to turn off the sidebar, Monocle removes that part of the webpage and expands the article and comments to full width of the screen.

Local timestamp – the timestamps for the comments are in Central Time on the server. Monocle adjusts them to your local time zone.

Condensed comments – The default view for comments has a large amount of space between consecutive comments. Monocle condenses them closer together.

Next unread comment – The Monocle toolbar shows a count of the unread comments on the page. Clicking that button cycles through the unread comments.

Show/Hide old threads – The Monocle toolbar includes a toggle for hiding all the comment threads that haven’t been commented on since your last refresh

HTML tag buttons – There are buttons above the comment box that allow you to insert HTML tags for formatting your comment. If you highlight any text on the screen and then click a tag button, the text will be placed within the tag inside the comment.

Current Known Bugs

-The comments at the furthest right (without a reply button) are too close to one another

-Hide old threads hides siblings of new threads

-If you click a formatting button without previously typing something in the thread, the word COMMENT stays in the comment box

As of version 1.15, there are no known bugs

Wishlist

-WYSIWYG commenting (you get to see, in real time, what your comment will look like as you type it)

-Spellcheck

-User Mute/Block

-Theme/Word/Topic Mute/Block

-Dynamic loading of new comments (so you don’t have to refresh the page to see new comments)

-Alternate comment views (newest first, most popular first, etc.)

-Options toolbar for toggling all of Monocle’s options

-Automatic split of multiple links in order to avoid having to go through moderation (this feature will be subject to admin’s approval)

-Allow images and Youtube vids to be displayed on the page (either automatically, or subject to clicking a “show” button)

-“Replies to you” information/button to allow you to see the new comments that are in reply to yours

-Mobile support

How do I get help with my specific Monocle questions?

Post a comment in this article. It’ll bug me and I’ll come check it out.

How do I suggest a new feature, report a bug, or otherwise make general comments/questions about Monocle?

Post a comment in this article. I’ll read it and reply to you.

How do I know whether a feature would be good for Monocle or for glibertarians.com as a whole?

If it’s something you’d prefer, but you think that other people might prefer it a different way, that’s the perfect feature for Monocle.  If it’s something that involves changing data on the server (like an edit button, two links in one comment, etc.), Monocle can’t do it. Generally, I’m not going to do anything that requires leaving “artifacts” in comments that Monocle then interprets and renders something different. That’s just mean to people who don’t use Monocle and can’t tell why the hell there’s some comment with computer code in it.

How do I lodge a complaint about Monocle?

Send all complaints to tour-scheduling@WartysDungeon.com