Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Starting string freeze for Adblock Plus 1.0 · 2008-11-04 02:18 by Wladimir Palant

A new Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5+ development build (2008110323) has been uploaded. Multi-language build is available but many strings will be in English.

Installation

https://adblockplus.org/devbuilds/

Warning: Format of patterns.ini file changed in a way that is not backwards compatible. If you want to go back to an older version of Adblock Plus, keep a backup or you will loose all your filters.

Note: This is a first beta release for Adblock Plus 1.0. No major changes are expected at this point, in particular no string changes. The development focus now is on polishing the release and fixing remaining bugs.

Changes

Added new filter composer dialog that is opened to add a new filter
Moved warning that Adblock Plus is disabled from preferences to composer dialog, made it possible to enable with a single click (forum topic)
Merged first run preferences extensions.adblockplus.checkedtoolbar, extensions.adblockplus.showsubscriptions, extensions.adblockplus.checkedadblockinstalled into an extensions.adblockplus.currentVersion preference
Filter subscription dialog on first run now opens in a new tab (bug 15786)
Made filter subscription dialog warn if Filterset.G is installed and suggest automatic uninstall
Removed Adblock warning as a separate question, made filter subscription dialog warn if Adblock is installed and suggest automatic uninstall
Subscription dialog on first start shows up even if other extensions already added a filter subscription, only existing downloadable filter subscriptions disable the dialog
Blockable items: Changed default action for blocked items to “add exception rule” instead of “edit filter”
Blockable items: Tooltip now shows the filter source in addition to the filter itself (forum topic)
Blockable items: Added “Copy filter” item to the context menu (forum topic)
Blockable items: Multiple selection and copying of multiple addresses/filters now possible (forum topic)
Blockable items: Added “Select all” item to the context menu
Blockable items: Filters can now be disabled and re-enabled from the context menu (forum topic)
Blockable items: Added “Size” column (hidden by default)
Blockable items: Added element size to the tooltip
Blockable items: Sort by “State” column by default (blocked items first)
Fixed: Subscriptions are sometimes loaded from browser cache
For subscription downloads, a comment “! Checksum: abcd” is now interpreted and files with wrong checksum are rejected (forum topic, reference implementation to add checksums)
Added hidden preference extensions.adblockplus.savestats to allow turning off hit statistics (useful if patterns.ini is put into a version control system) (bug 18650)
Firefox 1.5, Thunderbird 1.5, SeaMonkey 1.0, Songbird 0.5/0.6 are no longer supported
Flock 1.2 and Songbird 0.7 are supported now
Cleaned up some backwards compatibility hacks
Removed ancient drag&drop handling code (not discoverable and not advertised anywhere)
Redesigned core classes for better maintainability, added code documentation and tests for large parts of the core
Changed patterns.ini format to allow user-defined filters to be stored in any filter group
Adblock Plus 0.6 preferences are no longer imported on upgrade
Adblock preferences are no longer imported on upgrade (filter list still imported)
Preferences: eliminated delay when Preferences window is opened and much of the delay when changes are applied
Preferences: Added “View” menu to control visible columns and sorting, removed column picker
Preferences: Made new “View” menu the context menu for list header
Fixed: Dates in Preferences window would sometimes use wrong character encoding (bug 441370)
Fixed: “Edit filter in effect” might select the filter in a disabled subscription even though it exists in an enabled one (forum topic)
Preferences: Filter export inserts a checksum comment into the file (forum topic)
Preferences: Pasting filters that contain spaces (especially comments) now possible (bug 18920)
Preferences: Groups containing user-defined filters can now be disabled as well” (forum topic)
Preferences: Removed “Add filter” dummy from the list (forum topic)
Preferences: Comments can now be inserted in all filter groups, not only “Advertisement filters”
About dialog: Made it possible to select and copy version number
Made sure filter composer warns the user on regexps and too short filters
Preferences: Showing exclamation mark for too short filters as well now
Preferences: Added a tooltip explaining the meaning of the exclamation mark
Preferences: For invalid filters, the tooltip now explains why they are invalid
Preferences: Removed regular expressions warning and corresponding preference extensions.adblockplus.warnregexp (warning in composer and exclamation mark are enough) (forum topic)
Preferences: Removed dropdown list from filter editor (forum topic)
Preferences: Filter changes (with exception of element hiding) no longer apply immediately to the “current” window, this is only done for the composer (forum topic)
Preferences: “Add subscription” now opens a list of subscriptions instead of the “custom subscription” dialog
Preferences: Added a way to disable/enable filters and subscriptions from context menu
Preferences: Changed names for groups of user-defined filters (forum topic)
Fixed: Findbar in preferences dialog has no icons (Firefox 3)
Mac OS X: Preferences menu changed into toolbar to make sure it stays inside the window (forum topic)
About Adblock Plus: Made homepage link localizable (and different for German/French locales, bug 17136)
Fixed: Object tabs show up on print (bug 19405)
New options $third-party and $~third-party restrict filters to third-party/first-party requests (forum topic)
Subscription download: Next attempt after failed download is after one day now rather than after one hour (preference extensions.adblockplus.subscriptions_fallbackerrors adjusted accordingly)
Fallback request can now disable automatic downloads for subscriptions that are no longer available
Fixed: Preferences dialog doesn’t immediately display changes to “downloaded automatically” status
Fixed: Blockable items list header is hidden in fullscreen mode
Preferences: “Reset filter statistics” now resets “Last hit” as well (bug 18650)
Preferences: using more obvious images for the “Enabled” column (forum topic, forum topic)
Fixed: “Disable on this page only” won’t work for pages with query string
Significantly reduced the time for reading patterns list from disk as well as for writing it back
Reduced the amount of memory used for long filter lists
Made sure patterns file isn’t overwritten unless write was successful (bug 16488)
Added “Adblock Plus: Blockable Items” to the View menu in Firefox (View – Toolbars menu in SeaMonkey)
Renamed Tools menu item into “Adblock Plus Preferences”

Known issues

Comments cannot be moved between filter groups
~~Filterset.G warning doesn’t pop up after upgrade from Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5~~
~~Whitelisting rules apply to entire pages by default, even the ones not starting with “http://”~~
~~Blockable items: sorting by “State” column takes precedence over user’s chosen sort order~~
Subscription dialog on first start doesn’t play nice with session restore
Styling broken in SeaMonkey

Source code revision: 706469dfa5bf

Tags: adblock plus development builds

Comment [5]

Simon · 2008-11-04 02:46 · #

> Subscription dialog on first start doesn’t play nice with session restore

In case Session Restore overwrites your tab, try adding the following call before you open the subscription tab:

Components.classes[”@mozilla.org/browser/sessionstore;1”].getService(Ci.nsISessionStore).init(window);

Starting with Firefox 3.1, you could also wait for the sessionstore-windows-restored notification (unfortunately that one fires too early in Firefox 3.0).

For further help, feel free to contact me (or indicate the bug where you’re tracking this issue).

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Yes, I am aware of that notification (it was discussed in http://blog.fligtar.com/2008/10/16/responsible-first-run-usage/). Main problem is a consistent implementation across applications (Songbird, SeaMonkey) and application versions (Firefox 2). I’ll get it eventually but it will need some time – and I have more important issues at the moment.
LorenzoC · 2008-11-04 11:25 · #

Just a little thing, I’ve just seen when you export your filters in a txt file there is this at the begninning of the file: [Adblock Plus 0.7.1] which should be updated I guess.

Another suggestion: I’ve just installed the last dev build and I was notified about the subscriptions. I don’t use any subscriptions since I have got my own list, so maybe the user should be notified only if there aren’t any filters already in use. Not a big deal anyway.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Filter export always chooses the minimal version that is required to properly interpret the filters. If you use the $third-party option for example you will get [Adblock Plus 1.0].

Notifying the users who don’t have a subscription is especially important for users upgrading from Adblock. This is a one-time thing, shouldn’t be a big deal for the few who consciously chose not to use and subscriptions.
Aerik · 2008-11-04 20:05 · #

Ceiling Cat!

The sudden window asking me to subscribe to things scared the shit out of me. I immediately rushed to my filter list to see if it was erased. It was not. Phew!

Don’t do that. I only want to see that if I’m doing a fresh install, not an update.
Ameet · 2008-11-16 04:52 · #

please please reduce its memory consumption

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

What memory consumption? Which web pages and which filter subscriptions? You would be better off asking such questions in the forum – easier to help you there.
seth · 2009-10-28 19:52 · #

Also please add an option to export/save a list of my subscriptions. Not the content, but the urls so that I may more easily replicate them in another firefox profile

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