Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Edit Bigger in Blogger

After spending an inordinate amount of time editing my largish last post in a very tiny window, I figured there oughta* be a way to make the Compose window bigger. So, here's how to do it.
  1. If you don't have Firefox, download it here. Install it and forever use it instead of Internet Explorer.
  2. Go to the Mozilla Add-ons page and download the GreaseMonkey add-on. It's a tool that lets you write a snippet of JavaScript to re-write a web page or add new functionality. You don't have to be a fancy web programmer to make good use of this tool, but it is very useful if you are.
  3. Restart Firefox so GreaseMonkey is active.
  4. Go to userscripts.org. That's GreaseMonkey's site for user-created site scripts. Not all scripts are benign, however, so don't install stuff you find here with reckless abandon.
  5. Search for Blogger Large Post Editor. Two results will show up. I used the newer one (the update dates are listed on the right of the found items). I took a cursory look over the script, but I didn't see anything malicious. I'm no expert JavaScripter, so I can't guarantee that it's safe. If you find out otherwise, leave a comment. I use this thing, too.
  6. Anywho, when you click on the newer Blogger Large Post Editor, there will be an info page with a download link in the upper-right. Click that link and a dialog will pop up. That dialog gives you the option to install the script, read the script source, or cancel. You can still install the script after reading its source, so take a gander at it if you can read code.
  7. If your on your Blogger post edit page, refresh it. Now you have one large Compose window. Hooray!
I've been using GreaseMonkey for a while, so I may have skipped a necessary bit of setup. Leave comments (or IM me if you are a very dear, close friend) if you're experiencing installation issues.

* Misspelled on purpose, so don't correct me.

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