As discussed on a previous post, the WOT add-on is able to add reputations to links on pretty much any website. It uses a simple system based on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and regular expressions to decide where to add reputations and how to display them. In this post I'll show you how to configure the add-on to add reputations to any website you like.
In order to configure the necessary rules to the add-on, you need to have at least some basic knowledge of regular expressions, more specifically, the dialect used in JavaScript. You should also be comfortable manually editing your Firefox configuration.
Creating a new search rule for the WOT add-on typically requires five new entries in your browser preferences. I recommend adding them to a user.js file in your Firefox profile folder, but you can also use about:config to edit the preferences if you prefer a graphical user inteface.
The add-on looks for search rules under the "weboftrust.search" preference branch. If you open about:config and type that in the filter field, you can see the default search rules that come with the add-on. The entries for each rule are grouped together under their own preference branch. For example, the entries that define a rule for adding reputations to Google search results are under the "weboftrust.search.google" branch.
In the following example, I will show you how to add a new search rule that displays reputations on the external links on stumbleupon.com, like this:
Here are the five entries I added under the "weboftrust.search.stumbleupon" preference branch in my user.js file:
Title. The first thing a search rule needs is a name. This is the title that is shown on the add-on preferences. Following the established convention, I'll just use "External Links - StumbleUpon" for our example rule:
user_pref("weboftrust.search.stumbleupon.display",
"External Links - StumbleUpon");
Location. The websites where the reputations are added are defined by a regular expression that is matched against the site's URL. The add-on uses the first rule that matches the site. In this case, I want the add-on to consider this rule for all pages under www.stumbleupon.com, so I'll add:
user_pref("weboftrust.search.stumbleupon.url",
"http\\:\\/\\/www\.stumbleupon\\.com\\/.*");As you can see, I have escaped the backslashes and dots in the regular expression. The ".*" at the end means that the rule matches all URLs starting with "http://www.stumbleupon.com/".
Exceptions. Unless otherwise instructed, the add-on inserts reputations for each link on a website. However, as typically is the case, I only want to see reputations for external links. To skip any local links that take me somewhere else within the stumbleupon.com domain, I'll add the following entry. All links matching this regular expression will be ignored:
user_pref("weboftrust.search.stumbleupon.ign",
"http(s)?\\:\\/\\/([\\w\\-]+\\.)*stumbleupon\\.com\\/.*");This one has a bit more regular expression magic in it. The "http(s)?" part says it also matches possible secure links and "([\\w\\-]+\\.)*" also causes it to match all subdomains under stumbleupon.com. For example, links that point to "example.stubleupon.com" are ignored as well.
Style. Now that you have selected where the reputations are shown and for which links, you must now select how they are shown. Typically, we show the reputation indicator on the right side of the link, but you can use your imagination and tune the CSS rule to your liking. However, I prefer the indicator on its usual place, so I'll just add:
user_pref("weboftrust.search.stumbleupon.style",
"dt a[ATTR=\"NAME\"] { background: url(IMAGE) right no-repeat; padding-right: 20px; margin-right: 5px; }");This is otherwise a normal CSS rule that adds a background image to a matching link and increases the padding so the image won't be under the link text. However, it has three constants that the add-on replaces with proper values before inserting the rule to a page:
For each matching link, the add-on adds an attribute to the link's DOM element that includes its domain name. The ATTR constant will be replaced with the name of the attribute, and the NAME constant will be replaced with the domain name.
The actual reputation is shown as a 16x16px reputation indicator that you can place where ever you want. The IMAGE constant will be replaced by the URL for the indicator image.
Category. Finally, you can select the reputation category that is used for the indicator. Usually, the general reputation is the way to go:
user_pref("weboftrust.search.stumbleupon.app", 0);
If you want to see the reputation for another category, here are the values for the different categories:
0 = General reputation
1 = Business partner
2 = Personal information
4 = Child safety
That's it, now you can start experimenting on your own. You can also download the complete user.js file from the example above. If you have any questions or suggestions, please post a comment below or send us feedback.
The add-on currently checks the rules and loads reputations only once when the page loads. This means that if the page contains links that are dynamically inserted after it loads, they won't have reputations on them.
After filing for an international trademark some time ago, we started receiving invoices from various companies regarding our application. The letters had striking similarities. All of them were very formal and well written, and at first sight, they looked just like an official invoice for trademark registration. However, our registration costs were already paid in full to WIPO, so obviously, all of these invoices were scams.
Just yesterday we received another fake invoice, this time from scammers calling themselves the F.I.P.T.R. service. They kindly inform us that this is short for Federated Institute for Patent & Trademark Registry. As usual, the name suggests that the letter originates from some obscure government office, which clearly is not the case. The letter starts with valid and publicly available information about our trademark application. This is followed by a breakdown of costs including the "Charges of registration", totaling at 1529,30 euros. They present us with two payment options at the end of the letter; we can part with our money by cheque or money transfer. Either way, they are expecting our payment within eight days.
On the other side of the invoice we find the "General terms of contract and trade", which look convincingly like the usual legalese one would expect to find in this type of correspondence. Only when reading the letter closely it becomes apparent that it is a scam. Visiting their website confirms it.
Despite the letter being clearly misleading, the fake invoice might still be considered legal in many jurisdictions. Hidden in the middle of the letter there is a small print saying "This is not a bill". The terms section further explains that the 1500 euros or so is not really related to our trademark application, but would instead buy us access to a database containing general information about trademarks. Of course, the same information is freely available from the USPTO, so unsurprisingly, there is nothing to be gained by paying the scammers.
The lesson here is that one should be very skeptical not only of unsolicited email, but also of snail mail invoices and letters. It is advisable to always read the small print and terms, but simply looking up the sender on the web is a good start.
We have released an update for the add-on, which fixes some problems you have reported. We have also received lots of requests for new features, some of which we are hoping to implement in the coming months. Thanks for the feedback!
Here are the notable changes compared to WOT 20070329:
Bug fix: fixes memory leaks when closing windows.
Bug fix: adds more robust error handling and fixes a handful of other minor problems.
Version 20070501 is now available for download from our website.
(Visit Mozilla Add-ons for previous versions and a more detailed version history of the WOT add-on.)
