Soroush Javidi

Having used Flickr for a while now, it might seem that it's lacking some tiny features that would make using Flickr much more easier and enjoyable. As an active Flickr user, you may want a boost with commenting, viewing comments or browsing the photos. Well, I've been using some Flickr oriented Greasemonkey scripts that did just that, and have been so handy, that I decline to use Flickr on a browser without these scripts! (ok, that might be a bit extreme!) If you are an active Flickr user without these Greasemonkey scripts, I would definitely recommend them.

First of all, I'm assuming that you're using Firefox and have installed the Greasemonkey extension. Now we'll continue!

1. Viewing photos : Greased Lightbox Ever visit a Flickr group pool and want to quickly scan through the photos with a bit more details than the tiny thumbnails? Greased Lightbox does just that! Click on an image, and it will open on the same webpage, so you can see a larger version. It also dims the rest of the webpage for better focus. Now, if you press the left arrow or right arrow keys on your keyboard, it'll go to the previous or next photo allowing you to quickly browse the photos in larger size. Press the + key to zoom in, or 0 key to see the original image size instead of fitting it to screen. What's more, Greased Lightbox is handy on google images, or just any website where clicking an image takes you to another page. This way, you just view it in the same webpage!

2. Replying to Comments: Buddy Icon Reply This script is useful when you want to reply to comments made on your photos. Two links appear next to each comment made, one called "name reply" and the other "icon reply". Now if you want to reply to someone's comment, you click on one of the links and the appropriate string will be entered in the comment box for you. Use "name reply", if you'd only want to get someone's username, and "icon reply" if you'd like to have a small icon of the user in your comment. I find that this helps in quickly scanning photos for replies to a comment. Also, if someone has a long or unusual username, then you don't have to worry about mistyping it. See the example above to see it in action.

3. Commenting: Refer Comment With this script, a signature style text will be appended to the end of your comments showing where you came from to see the particular photo. It's always good to know where your visitors found your photos, and many Flickr users have this script installed, so you'll always know where they found the photo. See the example below to see how it appears. I think it also helps with groups that ask you to leave a link back to their group. This does it automatically!

4. Contacts: Style Contacts From the author of the script:

This Greasemonkey script adds styling to: 1- photos of your contacts/friends/family and your photos in group pool 2- comments from your contacts/friends/family, from you and from the photographer of the current photo.

If you have lots of contacts, this will help quickly and visually find their photos in a group pool by the coloured borders that appears around the photos. Also, if your friends leave comments you'll be able to quickly find it, again from the border that appears on one side of the photo. Replies or comments from the photographer of the photo also appear in bold. See the first example, where the comment is in bold. It all helps visually to find comments in a long set of comments!

5. Viewing your comments: Follow Comments Have you ever gone to the "Comments you've made" page to track discussions on your recently commented photos, only to find it's populated by photos and comments from 3 or 4 months ago, which you're not necessarily following anymore? That's where the Follow Comments script comes in. It allows to to view the comments you've made since your last visit, or to view those photos with less than 10 comments since you made yours. You can also filter comments so that only those from your family, friends, contacts or favourites are shown. It takes a short time for this script to load the "Comments you've made" page, but once it's loaded no more hunting through comments to find the one you want!

6. Submitting to groups: Multi Group Sender Ok, I guess this is the most convenient of all the scripts I've mentioned! If you want to submit a photo to several group pools, you have to do it one by one. With this script however, you select multiple groups from a list and they will submitted to the groups in a batch. Confirmation on whether the submission was successful or not will also be provided by the script. Also, if you find yourself submitting to a particular set of groups, then this script will also save that selection for quick access later on. A big time saver!

I think these are the most useful scripts for Flickr. You can browse the Flickr Hacks group to find more Greasemonkey scripts that you think may be helpful to you. For example, there's a script that adds smiley faces and one that adds a rich text editor to the comment box. But I don't think they'd be adding to convenience.

If you're a Flickr user with a love for Greasemonkey scripts then share your favourite scripts that make your experience on Flickr even more enjoyable!