Recall Monkey

[Abhinav Sharma]

Recall Monkey is an attempt to improve the history search engine in Firefox. Read more about it at the blog post and give us feedback:

http://mozillalabs.com/prospector/2011/06/20/recallmonkey-finds-what-you-forget/

[Judah Richardson]

First of all, this is a great idea. A few ideas:

• Shouldn't this functionality ideally be combined with Speak Words? It seems their functionality is complimentary
  
• Can we get a continuous history time slot instead of the standard 24h, 1 week, etc. options?
• A toolbar button would be nice for less advanced users who're not so handy with shortcuts

I tried it on my end and it seems to work pretty well. Thanks!

[Abhinav Sharma]

One of the reasons why we deliberately kept it outside of the url bar is because the original intention of the url bar is to jump off to something quickly instead of drill down and down for something incrementally (which is the intention behing RecallMonkey). That said, I think it might be worth trying to add it as an option to AwesomeBar HD in the future. Thanks for your suggestions, we'll keep them in mind.

[John Kjellberg]

Shouldn't it be on the history tab instead of file? That way it would be reachable even with the "new" Firefox-button besides being more intuitive.
That said Ctrl-Alt-m amounts to searching for the letter µ on my set-up...

[aelilea]

This is a really good idea! A couple of suggestions:

- It should also search the bookmark database, and maybe put hits from there up top. (Especially if one has lots of bookmarks and uses them to mark pages one might want to recall, this would give a nice combined interface to them).

- It should be possible to select RecallMonkey as a "search engine" from the search box dropdown menu.

- The placement in the File menu is unfortunate as there is no File menu without a menu bar. It needs its own entry in the Firefox button menu.

[Judah Richardson]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2011 2:13:32 PM UTC-5, aelilea wrote:

This is a really good idea! A couple of suggestions:

- It should also search the bookmark database, and maybe put hits from there up top. (Especially if one has lots of bookmarks and uses them to mark pages one might want to recall, this would give a nice combined interface to them).

- It should be possible to select RecallMonkey as a "search engine" from the search box dropdown menu.

Strongly in support of this.

- The placement in the File menu is unfortunate as there is no File menu without a menu bar. It needs its own entry in the Firefox button menu.

+1

[Abhinav Sharma]

I'm working on prioritizing bookmarks. Its tricky to implement in the drop down search because that is tied very closely to the openSearch specification that only web search engines can use, but an alternative is to probably make it quickly accessible from AwesomeBar HD. The file menu was a quick first shot, so we can work on finding a better home for the menu item.

[aelilea]

Could you not add a "web search engine" that uses jar:file:/.../recall...@prospector.labs.mozilla.xpi!/content/dashboard.html as its search URL?

Thanks for your quick reply!

[Abhinav Sharma]

I'm not saying its not possible (though the way you mentioned would be tricky, because restartless addons don't have chrome privleges in their pages by default, my workaround is to load an html page and add listeners to all the relevant elements into that page), in fact I'm sure there's a way to go into browser.js and add a special engine into the engine list for list, just that I'm prioritizing improving the core search for the time being, though eventually making it accessible quickly (1-2 clicks/types) is definitely on the agenda.

[aelilea]

Great - looking forward to it!

[Oliver Henshaw]

My first criticism would have been that the ability to exclude sites from the results would be useful, but then I noticed that the extension had been updated with this feature just after I downloaded it, so good work there! Other niggles are that it can't be accessed from the firefox menu (as pointed out elsewhere in this thread) and that with Noscript I have to whitelist file:// to get this to work - don't know if that's the fault of the extension or of Noscript itself.

[Abhinav Sharma]

While I haven't looked at how NoScript works, my guess is the developers of NoScript didn't consider addons that work the way this one does, restartless addons need to do certain things differently, but thanks for pointing that out, I'll keep track of the issue.

[Daniel Yang]

There's a small bug in the rendering of radio buttons for picking a time range.  After picking the first time range, that one stays picked even when you select other times. The engine searches with the new time, but the UI still displays the old.

Other then that, great work! Looking forward to new versions :)

I'm running firefox 4.0.1/5.0, recallmonkey 8, Win 7

[Abhinav Sharma]

Thanks for pointing it out, this is fixed in v9.

Abhinav

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[Axel Boldt]

I'm using Firefox 5.0 with RecallMonkey 10. Firefox/Add-ons shows that RecallMonkey is enabled. But there is no RecallMonkey option anywhere, not under the Firefox menu nor under Firefox/History. How do I start it?

[Abhinav Sharma]

It should be under History. What operating system are you on?

On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 5:06 AM, Axel Boldt <axel...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm using Firefox 5.0 with RecallMonkey 10. Firefox/Add-ons shows that RecallMonkey is enabled. But there is no RecallMonkey option anywhere, not under the Firefox menu nor under Firefox/History. How do I start it?

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[Jarkko Seppälä]

It's not there if you are using new menu (orange button). I have to press first alt and go history. Then i see Recall Monkey.

Some feedback: Sold! I like to put Recall monkey as a apptab, but one issue. When i open browser Recall monkey tab is always shown as white page. Refresh doesn't help. Have to close tab and relaunch Recall monkey. Then it works.

This should merge to new hometab & new new tab projects. Ha! I never thought that history search with simple UI can change my browsing habits! Thanks!

[Abhinav Sharma]

The refresh problem is actually a bug I'm working to get around that is one of the disadvantages of restartless addons (no chrome privileges in the html file). The page doesn't have access to the history data, its another script that loads the page, and listens to events on it - this script has elevated privileges.

Thus if you only load the page, the elevated page doesn't add its listeners and nothing happens, I'm working on a fix for this.

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[aelilea]

There is a problem somewhere along the line which causes Recall Monkey not to update itself. I had Recall Monkey 5 installed and was quite surprised to discover by accident that Recall Monkey 12 was out!

[Axel Boldt]

On Sunday, June 26, 2011 11:12:20 PM UTC+2, Jarkko Seppälä wrote:

It's not there if you are using new menu (orange button). I have to press first alt and go history. Then i see Recall Monkey

Thanks, that was it! I didn't know the Alt trick. Maybe it would be good to make Recall Monkey more visible for the new-menu people.

Cheers,
   Axel

[John Kjellberg]

Same here!

2011/6/27 aelilea <ael...@yahoo.co.uk>

There is a problem somewhere along the line which causes Recall Monkey not to update itself. I had Recall Monkey 5 installed and was quite surprised to discover by accident that Recall Monkey 12 was out!

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[Abhinav Sharma]

Looking into it, so far it seems like like AMO isn't very set up for fast releases so there's a significant caching and notification delay.

[Abhinav Sharma]

RecallMonkey as of v13 has been rewritten in the Addon SDK. There's some important changes to note:

• There is no longer a menu item, but there is an icon in the addon bar, that feature is not built into the SDK, I might add it later, but it seems like they're discouraged because of the Firefox menu on Windows in the new UI.
• The shortcut has changed to Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + M. The addon SDK wasn't playing nicely with the original shortcut.

Sorry about those and if they cause any confusion.

On the bright side, the tab is now persistent and can be pinned and you won't lose its search capabilities on refresh. This needed a major change on the backend. The code is under development here and I'll move it to the prospector repo as soon it is somewhat stable.

https://github.com/abhinavsharma/jetMonkey

[Jarkko Seppälä]

Just installed v13 and it works perfectly! Thanks!

[Axel Boldt]

> The shortcut has changed to Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + M.

Maybe the users should be told about the shortcut, perhaps in the balloon popup on the recall monkey icon.

Axel

[aelilea]

Thanks for all the amazing improvements (bookmarks etc) in version 15!

One suggestion: The infinite scroll is a great idea, but it takes a while for the next few entries to show up. Maybe a visual indicator (throbber of some sort) at the bottom of the page would be helpful to make it clear there is something happening, so one doesnt scroll up again.

[Abhinav Sharma]

The app needs an approval from an addons.mozilla.org editor in order to be activated for automatic updates. Because of the frequent pushes it kept being sent to the back of the review queue, and the AMO team is pretty busy dealing with upgrading apps for Firefox 5, so we're waiting on their approval in queue.

[Ken Saunders]

Hey great work on the latest version. I left some positive comments on AMO.

A few suggestions.
Offer an option to open links in the current tab.
If Recall Monkey is already open, pinned, etc, clicking on the icon or using the keyboard shortcut should focus the already opened instance and not create a new one.
Please implement this so that I can learn how to do it for one of my add-ons. :) I just can't figure it out.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Code_snippets/Tabbed_browser#Reusing_tabs
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Code_snippets/Tabbed_browser#Notification_when_a_tab_is_pinned_or_unpinned

Also, it may or may not be unfair to others, but any add-ons developed by Mozilla should take priority for review on AMO.
Mozilla Labs: Prospector - Recall Monkey 15
by Mozilla Labs
"This add-on has not been reviewed by Mozilla"

It just doesn't look right.
I suppose filing a bug is in order, but I'm not sure which component would be the correct one.

Ken

[Abhinav Sharma]

The idea behind allowing for multiple instances is to let you run searches for different things in parallel, and basically mimic how you would use any other search engine.

If you want to implement it, one way I could imagine doing it that you could enumerate windows and their tabs, check if the resource URI for your addon is already open and switch to that tab instead of just opening a new tab.

We're talking to the AMO team to try to get the review process more streamlined, its just that they're really busy right now because of the Firefox 5 launch and the process of updating plugins for that.

[Judah Richardson]

After about a week, I unfortunately had to uninstall the add-on due to the severe slowdowns/freezes I was experiencing in Fx5 because of it. Good idea, but may need some serious performance tweaks.

[Bao Pham]

i prefer the option in History better than an extra icon in the add-on bar. i usually just hide the add-on bar anyway

[Brent Mendelsohn]

Hmm. I second this. I've turned off the addons bar as everything else has migrated to other parts of the UI. It's also off by default, so you then have to remember the shortcut. If items could be added to the tools menu, perhaps that would be an option. Alternatively, Ghostery and NoScript can be placed in the main navigation toolbar - unsure if the SDK allows for this. Otherwise, this is an excellent tool and a really nice way of searching for things - I find I use it more than the standard History search. Appreciate the new bookmark prioritization feature, and the new infinite scroll (although as mentioned this could do with a bit of feedback)

[Abhinav Sharma]

I did some investigation into memory usage, and basically, no more memory should be used once a search is completed. The only other thing I can think of is that you have a fairly large places DB and caching it (something Firefox does automatically when needed) takes a lot of memory. I'll dig around to see if there's things that can be done there.

[flutrtutr]

I may be the only person who's having trouble getting off the ground with this addon.  I've installed and removed it several times, and the behavior is always the same:  I hit the hot key or the icon and I get a new background tab, just like any other new tab, except I can't close it without shutting down Firefox and restarting it - then it can be closed.  There is no Recall Monkey in the History menu or any other.  I'm running Firefox 4.01 on OSX.

This seems like it'd be a very useful app and I sure would like to get it running.  I'd appreciate any help or suggestions.

Regards -

[Abhinav Sharma]

There is no longer a menu item in any of the newer versions, its in the addon bar and the shortcut is cmd + shift + m. Try the latest version v16 (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/prospector-recall-monkey/versions/). This might also be a Firefox issue, so an upgrade to Firefox 5 can't hurt either. Try that and tell me how it goes.

I haven't been able to replicate this on OSX/Firefox 4.0.1 yet.

Abhinav

[flutrtutr]

Thanks for the fast reply.  I just installed v 16, and it's the same story - a new tab just like any other new tab except it can't be made to close.  Supposedly Recall Monkey works from Firefox 4.0 so --  ?? 

I'm reluctant to upgrade to 5.0 because several other of my addons are not compatible, and I use them.

If you have any other suggestions, I'd like to hear them  This is an addon I'd really like to be using.

Regards -

[Abhinav Sharma]

There might be a conflicting plugin that tries taking over the same hotkey or modfies the behavior of a new tab. I really can't think of anything else because I mostly developed the addon in Firefox 4 / OSX, and this never happened.

The logs form Tools > Web Developer > Error Console might also provide some information. If you notice something there, feel free to post it or email it to me at abhinav at mozilla dot com.

Abhinav

[flutrtutr]

Ah - that did the trick.  I disabled all addons, restarted Firefox, and methodically enabled them one by one until I found the culprit - another, dammit, useful one for a task similar to Recall Monkey - Categorize (http://www.techuser.net/bookmarks/).  I don't know what you can do with that information, but it's a shame that these two addons conflict - rather, that it conflicts with yours.  I haven't tested it the other way around.

Thanks for your help -

Regards -

[Abhinav Sharma]

The same thing happens if you open them other other way around too. I think you should still be able to access RecallMonkey using this URL:

resource://recallmonkey-at-prospector-dot-labs-dot-mozilla-recallmonkey-data/dashboard.html

I'll try to see what could be causing this and if its fixable at my end.

[ツSimón]

Hi,
RecallMonkey 20 / Firefox 5 / Ubuntu Lucid 64 bits

When I install another add-on, the Recall Monkey icon disappears from status bar. I have to disable, enable it and restart Firefox to see the icon.

[Abhinav Sharma]

It would be great if you could tell me the name of the conflicting addon.

Abhinav

[∫imøn ㋡]

Occurs always with every new addon.

El 25/07/11 18:39, Abhinav Sharma escribió:

> It would be great if you could tell me the name of the conflicting addon.
>
> Abhinav

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[Yukun]

It seems that when this add on is used in combination with tab focus, the add on bar will always appear when Firefox restarts even after hiding the add on bar when it appears.

[Abhinav Sharma]

Thanks for reporting that, I'll look into it.

[aelilea]

I've noticed for a while now that Recall Monkey throws the following exception to the error console (usually when one is typing in a text box):

Error: An exception occurred.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "resource://recallmonkey-at-prospector-dot-labs-dot-mozilla-api-utils-lib/keyboard/utils.js", line 114, in normalize
    return toString(toJSON(hotkey, separator), separator);
  File "resource://recallmonkey-at-prospector-dot-labs-dot-mozilla-api-utils-lib/keyboard/utils.js", line 159, in toJSON
    throw new TypeError(INVALID_COMBINATION);
TypeError: Hotkey key combination must contain one or more modifiers and only one key

[aelilea]

nb this happens *without* any RecallMonkey tab existing

[aelilea]

Unfortunately there seems to be a regression in RecallMonkey 21 - it no longer searches bookmarks correctly. (At least I get zero hits compared with the standard Bookmarks search). There are also error messages in the error console:

Error: [Exception... "'JavaScript component does not have a method named: "handleCompletion"' when calling method: [mozIStorageStatementCallback::handleCompletion]"  nsresult: "0x80570030 (NS_ERROR_XPC_JSOBJECT_HAS_NO_FUNCTION_NAMED)"  location: "native frame :: <unknown filename> :: <TOP_LEVEL> :: line 0"  data: no]

[Abhinav Sharma]

Thanks for the information, that should make it easier to debug. Though I'm not working at Mozilla anymore, I'll try looking into it when I next have some free time, hopefully in around a week or so.

Abhinav

[aelilea]

I realize you might no longer be supporting this add-on, but if you are: further use has revealed that results from bookmarks are still included in RecallMonkey results. However, it finds much less "hits" than the awesome bar does (or bookmarks search) - i.e. 2 or 3 results when 30-40 should be present. This is rather unfortunate. Incomplete results are more misleading than no results at all. (Not sure if this also affects history search results.)

[Abhinav Sharma]

Recall Monkey is a little inactive since it was my intern project, and I've resumed at school since then. This is a very curios bug though, and I'll definitely try to have a look at it when I next have some free time, though I don't know when when that would be yet, sorry!

Abhinav

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 12:14 PM, aelilea <ael...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

I realize you might no longer be supporting this add-on, but if you are: further use has revealed that results from bookmarks are still included in RecallMonkey results. However, it finds much less "hits" than the awesome bar does (or bookmarks search) - i.e. 2 or 3 results when 30-40 should be present. This is rather unfortunate. Incomplete results are more misleading than no results at all. (Not sure if this also affects history search results.)

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[Ron R]

It's really too bad the development of this plugin has stopped.
It makes the whole browsing experience by far superior, and I have ideas on how to enhance it.
However, it seems that it doesn't work on the latest Aurora build, and that's a shame.

[Abhinav Sharma]

I've bumped it to be compatible with Firefox 10. I don't think there should be any problems because I don't think the addon system has changed much. Let me know if there's issues though.

Abhinav

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[Ron]

Hmm, maybe there's something wrong with my set-up then.
Firefox (Aurora) simply ignores the ctrl+shift+m shortcut.
Also, if I open recall monkey using the status-bar icon, and try to search with it for anything, it just refreshes and gives no results.

If you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

[Ron R]

Okay, this is a bit odd, but I guess I've failed to notice it before.
For the past couple of weeks, some of my add-ons stopped working properly. Mostly restart-less addons.
I've updated Aurora today, and suddenly all add-ons are working correctly, including recall-monkey.
I guess something was messed up in Aurora's versions.

Have you completely stopped working on this add-on? There a are a few suggestions I have for it, and I wonder if those could be implemented.