cynber

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I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better! in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been trying a few packages, such as ZXing, some have worked better than others. I can get it to scan a barcode, but it doesn't work reliably yet. I have a few more issues to iron out, but it will be possible

Made in Canada Grocery Store Guide | Made in CA in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That's what my tool is working towards! It uses OpenFoodFacts data. Right now you can manually type in the UPC codes to search

https://lemmy.ca/post/38474037

https://isitcanadian.cynber.dev/product-search

I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better! in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Could you share which link? They seem to be working for me.

I was having DNS issues when setting it up, which could be related

https://madeinca.ca/

This is great! I might remove the blog section and focus on the search functionality, since there are a lot of these compilations/guides already.

I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better! in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

It's the first thing I want to improve. I didn't have time to explore how to do that last night, but I'm planning to.

If someone else has experience there, I'd appreciate the help!

I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better! in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm also planning to set up a community on this instance project, if there is enough interest for it. I didn't make the commuinity yet because I haven't settled on a name. I mentioned those plans here:

https://isitcanadian.cynber.dev/community

I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better! in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Please share any ideas for what to call the tool / project!

200
I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better! (isitcanadian.cynber.dev)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
14 comments fedilink
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/38473938

I spent last night putting together this tool. You can try it out here: https://isitcanadian.cynber.dev/product-search

Some barcodes that you can try with:

  • 0673513001507
  • 0013000052528

It lets you search for a product by the barcode, and then using the Open Food Facts database, it will tell you where the product is from (origin of ingredients, location of manufacturing / processing, and where it is sold). You can then search for Canadian alternatives.

It uses the categories of the item to search for similar items in the database, and filters out items that aren't Canadian in at least one of the ways above. You can further filter by those categories or by origin and manufacturing / processing location.

I chose Open Food Facts because it is an existing open source initiative, run by a non-profit, and already has lots of data. When a product is missing or incorrect, you can contribute it with their mobile app. This has the added benefit of improving the data for everyone, and there's a lot more there than just the country of origin.

Some things I'd like to do:

  • Ability to search by name, not just barcode
  • Ability to scan a barcode instead of typing it in / pasting it
  • Gather articles and compilations from community members since the search alone would be tedious
  • Go through the mess I made of the code while trying to do it all in one night

I hope it's helpful, and I'd love to hear feedback. It's open source so if you want to contribute, you can find the code here: https://github.com/cynber/is-it-canadian

I'll be back again tonight to respond to comments and feedback. Thanks you!

171
I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better! (isitcanadian.cynber.dev)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
8 comments fedilink
 

I spent last night putting together this tool. You can try it out here: https://isitcanadian.cynber.dev/product-search

Some barcodes that you can try with:

  • 0673513001507
  • 0013000052528

It lets you search for a product by the barcode, and then using the Open Food Facts database, it will tell you where the product is from (origin of ingredients, location of manufacturing / processing, and where it is sold). You can then search for Canadian alternatives.

It uses the categories of the item to search for similar items in the database, and filters out items that aren't Canadian in at least one of the ways above. You can further filter by those categories or by origin and manufacturing / processing location.

I chose Open Food Facts because it is an existing open source initiative, run by a non-profit, and already has lots of data. When a product is missing or incorrect, you can contribute it with their mobile app. This has the added benefit of improving the data for everyone, and there's a lot more there than just the country of origin.

Some things I'd like to do:

  • Ability to search by name, not just barcode
  • Ability to scan a barcode instead of typing it in / pasting it
  • Gather articles and compilations from community members since the search alone would be tedious
  • Go through the mess I made of the code while trying to do it all in one night

I hope it's helpful, and I'd love to hear feedback. It's open source so if you want to contribute, you can find the code here: https://github.com/cynber/is-it-canadian

I'll be back again tonight to respond to comments and feedback. Thanks you!

1
Crab Fit, an open source tool for group event planning (similar to When2Meet) (crab.fit)
 

I'm not the developer. I came across it and I thought it was neat.

Repository: github.com/GRA0007/crab.fit

Align your schedules to find the perfect time that works for everyone. Open-source and licensed under the GNU GPLv3.

Self-hosting guide

Lemmy Apps Directory (MEGATHREAD) in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank you for putting all this together!

Potential conflict of interest: I help with [email protected]

Having a separate list for extensions would work nicely, although I think it fits to have the extensions listed here. There are few actual browser extensions for Lemmy/Kbin/Mastodon. There are a lot of scripts, and we were working on incorporating the better scripts into the extension for the same reasons you mentioned above. Scripts are harder to manage and review

My thoughts on the questions.

  1. "last stable version" sounds like a good way to sort it, for readers. It might become cumbersome for you to manage unless you can automate it somehow.
  2. I'm leaning towards flagging or removing out of date apps because of potential security issues. Could you contact devs after a few months to ask if it is being maintained?
  3. A big list of every app would be interesting for data. It isn't helpful for users, so I agree with keeping them off
  4. I have a donation link. I don't think it should be included in guides or lists either
  5. I like the formatting, as a reader. Consider if it becomes too cumbersome for you and your team to manage. I'd rather have a list that stays up to date and doesn't cause headaches for the maintainer
0
What's a good way to map bathrooms/showers/water fountains? (lemmy.ca)
 

I don't see an option to enter that info on StreetComplete or EveryDoor, and it would be hard to open your laptop every time

This was specific to a university campus, to try and map out the amenities available to the public / to students

1
~~Going to start working on this again soon!~~ Thank you to everyone that has continued to suggest features, leave reviews, and the very generous tips/donations 💛 (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
0 comments fedilink
 

Apologies for not actually putting anything out in months

1
Instance Assistant v1.2.6 is out - Redirect user profile pages (github.com)
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/6770347

This is a very small update, but hopefully it's helpful! As I mentioned in the last update, I'm a little tied up with other commitments right now, so I haven't had a chance to implement the other features on the to-do list. This one was requested the other day, and it was simple to add since I could reuse a lot of existing code.

Links:

❓ What is Instance Assistant?

If you're new to Instance Assistant, it is a browser extension with a collection of tools and features to simplify your browsing experience on Lemmy and Kbin. It is available on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge; you can also install it from the releases page on GitHub.

For a full list of features, please see the GitHub homepage: https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant

⭐ What's new in v1.2.6?

  • Redirect user profile pages: When you want to message a user and click on their profile, you might end up on a foreign instance. To message them, you need to modify the URL or copy/paste. Instead, you will now find a little button to jump you to your home instance.

💛 Also

Thank you for all the suggestions and feedback! Like I said before, I'm really happy to see that people are using the extension and finding it useful. Please continue to make suggestions and contribute your expertise.

Cheers :)

2
Instance Assistant v1.2.6 is out - Redirect user profile pages (github.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
0 comments fedilink
 

This is a very small update, but hopefully it's helpful! As I mentioned in the last update, I'm a little tied up with other commitments right now, so I haven't had a chance to implement the other features on the to-do list. This one was requested the other day, and it was simple to add since I could reuse a lot of existing code.

Links:

❓ What is Instance Assistant?

If you're new to Instance Assistant, it is a browser extension with a collection of tools and features to simplify your browsing experience on Lemmy and Kbin. It is available on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge; you can also install it from the releases page on GitHub.

For a full list of features, please see the GitHub homepage: https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant

⭐ What's new in v1.2.6?

  • Redirect user profile pages: When you want to message a user and click on their profile, you might end up on a foreign instance. To message them, you need to modify the URL or copy/paste. Instead, you will now find a little button to jump you to your home instance.

💛 Also

Thank you for all the suggestions and feedback! Like I said before, I'm really happy to see that people are using the extension and finding it useful. Please continue to make suggestions and contribute your expertise.

Cheers :)

1
Instance Assistant v1.2.5 released: You can now generate posts for Lemmy/Kbin, search for posts, and redirect posts from foreign instances (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
0 comments fedilink
 

Hi everyone, I'm excited to announce one more release before I take a short break. I have some other stuff starting up, so I won't be pushing out new features as fast, but I'll still be around to manage the project. (more at the end)

Links:

❓ What is Instance Assistant?

If you're new to Instance Assistant, it is a browser extension with a collection of tools and features to simplify your browsing experience on Lemmy and Kbin. It is available on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge; you can also install it from the releases page on GitHub.

For a full list of features, please see the GitHub homepage: https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant

⭐ What's new in v1.2.5?

  • Redirect posts to your home instance!: Post pages now have a redirect button that will find the same post on your home instance(1). You don't have to hunt it down yourself anymore.
  • Posts related to this webpage buttons in popup & sidebar
    • Make a post: You can now create a post from any webpage! Click the 'Make a Post' button in the extension popup or sidebar to generate a draft post with autofilled title, URL, and body contents. Afterwards, just select a community and hit post. (This currently works for both Lemmy & Kbin, but custom frontends are untested while they develop). Try it here: https://lemmy.ca/post/4478560
    • Open Posts: This will find any posts about the webpage/article/video that you are looking at. Use it to see if something has already been posted, or to find related discussions about it. When there are multiple posts, it will ask before opening them all. (see note on risks and why it doesn't count automatically)
  • Post an image: You can now right-click on an image, anywhere on the web, and hit "Post this image". It will open a new tab and autofill the title, image link, and add the page URL to the body as "Source: URL". Try it here: https://lemmy.ca/post/1282303
  • Reorganizing popup:
    • I fixed the issue where the popup would still display a button after removing all instances from the list.
    • The number of default instances in the popup was reduced to 4
  • Added settings:
    • You can now hide onboardining guides to make the interfaces less wordy
  • General styling changes, wording improvements, and bugfixes

(1) This is an important feature to me because this little annoyance was part of why I set out to create the extension in the first place. Thanks to some help from @zero_gravitas, I was able to use the Lemmy API to grab the post details, and then run a search for it on your home instance. While most posts should only bring one result, there is a chance that there are multiple posts by the same user, in the same community, with the same title. If this is an issue, I'll make this search more specific.

🗣️ My questions for you:

Improving 'post to Lemmy'

  • Right now the 'Post to Lemmy' button does a very basic search in the page meta tags for information. This works for most websites, but it is not perfect. What websites do you usually post from, and is the extension doing a good job of replicating how you format the post? Please share both good and bad examples, so we can fix what isn't working and keep what is.

Improving Post search

  • Having the extension automatically count the number of posts and display it in the icon would be pretty nice, since then you would know about any posts for the news article / blog / video that you are looking at. However, there are privacy implications with this since it needs to send the URL to your home instance to do the search.
  • I would like to add the option to whitelist specific websites, so the user can choose what browsing data they want to find posts for. Is this something you would list to use? What websites would you whitelist?

Anything else?

Please share any issues that you find. Lemmy and Kbin instances have a lot of variation in how things are structured, so there are bound to be some bugs that I haven't found yet. If you have any ideas for new features, please share them too! I'm always looking for new ideas to add to the project.

🔮 Cool ideas being discussed for the future

  • Account switcher & ability to save login info to extension
  • Reddit migrator tools
    • multireddit input should convert subscriptions to official Threadiverse replacements, or large related communities
    • embeds on Subreddit sidebars to search for similar community
    • button on post pages to cross-post to home instance
  • Prepping for Firefox Mobile app, now that they are opening mobile up to all extensions!
  • Keyboard hotkeys, possibly collaborating with someone that already implemented something similar

For the most up to date information, see the issues or the project road map

💛 Finally

Thank you for all the suggestions and feedback so far! I'm really happy to see that people are using the extension and finding it useful. I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do with it in the future.

Like I said above, I won't be as active over the next few months in terms of getting new features out. The extension is now in good shape, and it covers most of the important use cases. There's still lots of cool stuff we can do with it, so please contribute ideas and expertise! When I get a chance, I'll pop in and grab a few more issues.

Cheers :)

1
To test 'Make a Post' feature (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
0 comments fedilink
 

This feature will be in 1.2.5, which is being submitted for review this week! I'm drafting this post early so that I can link it in the submission.

Open one of the following links, or try your favourite website. You can then use the 'Make a post' button in the popup or sidebar to generate a draft post with autofilled contents. Over time, we can customize how draft posts are generated for specific websites. Please comment below if you have thoughts on this feature.

Site Type Status
Arstechnica 📰 News Working
Reuters 📰 News Working
BBC 📰 News Working
CBC 📰 News Working
WashingtonPost 📰 News Working
Medium 📝 Articles Working
Substack 📝 Articles Working
YouTube Video ▶️ Video Working, could be improved
Twitch ▶️ Video Working, could be improved
Amazon Product: None linked, pick one 🛍️ Shopping Working
Stack Overflow 💻 Forum Working, could be improved
Imgur 📷 Images Working, could be improved
Instagram Account 🙌 Social Working, could be improved
Instagram Post 🙌 Social Working
Mastodon Post 🙌 Social, Fediverse Working, could be improved
1
v1.2.5 is on the way, with some exciting new features for posts! (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
0 comments fedilink
 

I'm wrapping up with the new changes and I've started testing the extension for any remaining issues. Here is what you can look forward to:

Preview:

Changes with v1.2.5:

  • Redirect posts to your home instance!: Post pages now have a redirect button that will find the same post on your home instance(1)
  • Posts related to this webpage buttons in the extension popup
    • Make a post: This will pull the metadata from the page you are on and then open the post page in a new tab, autofilling in the title and URL. All you need to do is pick the community and hit 'Create'
    • Open Posts: This will check for any posts with the same URL, either as a link post or when the URL is in the post body. It will then open the post(s), but not before asking you when there are many posts. (see note on why it doesn't count automatically)
  • Post an image: You can now right-click on an image, anywhere on the web, and hit "Post this image". It will open a new tab and autofill the title, image link, and add the URL to the body as "Source: url".
  • Reorganizing popup:
    • I fixed the issue where the popup would still display a button after removing all instances from the list.
    • The number of default instances in the popup was reduced to 4
  • General styling changes, wording improvements, and bugfixes
1
Instance Assistant v1.2.4 is here! (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
0 comments fedilink
 

Status & Download Links:

Firefox v1.2.4 Chrome v1.2.4 Edge v1.2.3

Download from source: release v1.2.4 (github.com)

  • While Edge and Opera are awaiting approval, you can install v1.2.4 from here, or through the Chrome store

Hi everyone!

On the surface, this update brings a handful of features integrating the extension with other tools and services. We have the first of many features from the LemmyTools userscript, as well as the support for Alexandrite and Photon frontends. You can also directly search for communities through Lemmyverse.net and for posts through search-lemmy.com, among other small changes.

The biggest change was behind the scenes. I've completely refactored the code throughout the extension. Now that we have a clearer plan for the extension, I simplified all around, such as consolidating most functions to a central utils.js file. I also reworked the settings, and unfortunately this means you may have to add your home instance again. Moving forwards, it should be a lot easier to maintain the extension and for people to collaborate, which brings me to:

Want to help?

Get started:

I've put together some notes on how the extension is structured for those that want to help. The extension itself is fairly simple, and it doesn't use any particular framework or anything. It should a great first project to work on, even if you are just learning or new to web development.

Having more people add to one place would make it easier for users that are juggling many extensions and userscripts. That's why I've been focussed on having a more intuitive structure for the project and leaving detailed notes and comments. I'm also likely not going to have as much time starting next month so I'm trying to do what I can now to get everything rolling.

If you don't know where to start or just have an idea, let me know and I'll see what I can do :)

As always, you can add new ideas and issues here: https://github.com/cynber/lemmy-instance-assistant/issues

All new improvements with v1.2.4

New Changes

  • search for communities through Lemmyverse.net or for posts through lemmy-search directly from the popup or sidebar
  • You now have the option to hide the default Lemmy sidebar (more LemmyTools features to come!)
  • Replaced non-functional 'subscribe' button on foreign /communities pages (only when no account is signed in, so not to replace something functional)
  • Support for Alexandrite & Photon frontends. Test them here:
  • Fix for generated link on CommunityNotFound pages
  • Completely refactored the code to move repetitive functions to a utils.js file

Future Plans:

  • Exploring a 'Reddit migrator' tool, similar to the mobile tool in Voyager, powered by lemmyverse.net
  • Adding more features from LemmyTools Userscript, with help from /u/[email protected]
  • Prepping for Firefox Mobile app, now that they are opening mobile up to all extensions!
  • Keyboard hotkeys, possibly collaborating with someone that already implemented something similar
  • Adding icons and simplifying the design, as the menus are getting very wordy
    • settings to limit onboarding / help instructions
  • Ability to have multiple 'home instances'
  • Finishing the setup so that people can contribute translations / other languages to the extension.
1
v1.2.4 is on the way! (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
0 comments fedilink
 

I finally got around to testing out the new changes and submitting the build.

I will make a proper post once it is approved on Chrome and Firefox, but if you get the update before I get a chance then you can read below for the new changes:

Changes with v1.2.4:

  • search for communities through Lemmyverse.net or for posts through search-lemmy.com directly from the popup or sidebar
  • First feature pulled from LemmyTools! You now have the option to hide the Lemmy sidebar entirely (more LemmyTools features to come!)
  • Replaced non-functional 'subscribe' button on foreign /communities pages to make them useful (only when no account is signed in, so not to replace something functional)
  • Initial support for Alexandrite & Photon frontends. Test them here:
  • Fix for generated link on CommunityNotFound pages
  • Biggest change was behind the scenes: Completely refactored the code to move repetitive functions to a utils.js file. Should be a lot easier for people to collaborate and to maintain

Future Plans:

  • Exploring a 'Reddit migrator' tool, similar to the mobile tool in Voyager, powered by lemmyverse.net
  • Adding more features from LemmyTools Userscript, with help from /u/[email protected]
  • Prepping for Firefox Mobile app, now that they are opening mobile up to all extensions!
  • Keyboard hotkeys, possibly collaborating with someone that already implemented something similar
  • Adding icons and simplifying the design, as the menus are getting very wordy
    • settings to limit onboarding / help instructions
  • Ability to have multiple 'home instances'
  • Finishing the setup so that people can contribute translations / other languages to the extension.
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