IE8 Accelerator: Preview and Launch URL
This Internet Explorer 8 accelerator allows you to select a text URL on a web page (or mouse over a hyperlink), and it will generate a website thumbnail for the selected URL (using the free websnapr service).
This accelerator supports URLs which either have no prefix or is prefixed with either http:// or https://.
For the selected URL, the user has the option of launching the URL immediately without needing to copy and paste the selected URL text string into the Internet Explorer address bar.
Click here to install the “Preview and Launch URL” accelerator
Click here to install the “Preview and Launch URL” accelerator (no preview version)
(You will need to be using Internet Explorer 8 in order to install this).
Source files can be downloaded here.
You can test the accelerator by using the following text links and hyperlinks:
- armchairtheorist.com
- facebook.com
- www.elipva.com
- http://espn.go.com
- https://www.vpost.com.sg/login.html
- Try this link!
- Try this relative link!
The accelerator now also supports the expansion of shortened URLs directly from the preview window! This is convenient for users who want to know what is the real URL for a shortened URL before actually clicking on the link.
Currently supported URL shortening services include:
TinyURL, bit.ly, ping.fm, s3nt.com, cli.gs, twurl.nl, poprl.nl, budurl.com, xrl.us, is.gd, short.ie, kl.am, idek.net, sn.im, snipr.com, snipurl.com, snurl.com and tr.im.
Try the following text links to see what I mean:
- http://bit.ly/RXb8w
- tinyurl.com/ce8s3g
- Try this shortened URL!
Visit the Internet Explorer Gallery for more accelerators and Internet Explorer 8 goodness!
Consider removing newlines from the redirect header. IE: http://goo
gle.com when selected will error. This is a common error with fixed width emails. Awesome tool btw.
Thanks for the feedback, Mitch.
It’s been fixed!
I use this and like it alot, good job. If it were possible to open a real preview-window instead of the websnapr thumbnail it would be near perfect.
Just a few days ago, I was looking for an Accelerator that would do this but I must have overlooked yours on the ieaddons.com website. So, I went ahead and wrote one. Basically the same, but I used Snapcasa.com for the preview and used Javascript rather than PHP. Now, I came across yours. Mine is available at:
http://tcgcomputers.com/openurlaccelerator.aspx
By the way, how long did it take to get approved on ieaddons.com? Mine is still listed as “Under Review.”
My accelerator got approved quite quickly, if I remember correctly.
BTW, I noticed that on your redirection page you put quite a fair bit of analytics code on it (Google Analytics and Office Live) – doesn’t that affect performance?
Also, would your implementation have a privacy concern since your Google Analytics is capturing a log of all the incoming requests, which contain the request parameters of where the users want to launch to?
For my implementation, I use a straight PHP header redirect, so I don’t even have a chance to insert in analytics code even if I wanted to…
I am comparing some of the available analytics tools to see which one I would prefer to use on my web page when it is launched. Yes, the analytics code is a performance hit, but it’s not really that bad, and I was planning on removing it once I had a decent sample size for my comparisons. However, the privacy concern hadn’t crossed my mind. I have removed all the analytics code.
It’s been a while, but I don’t think you have removed all the analytics code, have you? I just checked your page source for your openurl.htm file.
Having analytics code to look at the URLs that your users are going to is a major privacy concern.
My image preview page does not have any analytics code. My URL launch page uses a PHP redirect, which makes the insertion of analytics code impossible. Both are easily verifiable.
In the mean time, I will remove the URL to your accelerator until you change your implementation and remove your analytics code.
When I went back to the version that uses Snapcasa instead of Websnapr, it also put the analytics code back in. It has been removed again… permanently, this time, because I went through and deleted all the old versions. Sorry about that.
Just thought I should drop this message into this discussion, too:
One thing to keep in mind is that analytics code is not the only way to track information. The actual web server logs can be analyzed as well and there wouldn’t be any indication of that in the page’s code. My Accelerator is hosted through Office Live, so I don’t have access to the web server logs. However, I would remind everyone that most Acclerators are hosted on sites where the web site admin can look through his logs at every request coming into his server.
Hover over URL doesn’t work for me on IE8 final
Sorry, should’ve said hover over hyperlink doesn’t work on IE8 final.
What kind of error do you get? Can provide more details?
It works fine for me and I’m running IE8 final as well…
Stop a while and consider the security implications of sending a piece of text or url to someone elses server.
Well, unfortunately, the IE8 accelerator model is as such – the accelerator will always be hosted on someone’s server, and you will always have to give up a little bit of your privacy as a trade off to the increased convenience that accelerators bring you.
I always like to use the example of web mail. No matter what Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google says, we really cannot be 100% certain that our mail data is not being scanned and mined as we speak. However, we are willing to give up this certainty in exchange for the ubiquity of web mail.
And similarly, most folks will have no problem to make this trade off every time they use an accelerator.
I agree with FG, and will install the first Accelerator that does “Launch URL in New Tab” withOUT the preview function.
I’ve updated my Accelerator to have two versions, one with the Preview function and one without it.
Thanks Jim, I’ve installed it and it works fine.
I hope Jon does something similar and I’m sure his version is good too.
I have updated my accelerator with two versions – one with preview and one without preview.
However, folks have to realize that the way accelerators work is that they are always hosted on someone’s server.
Even without preview, the URL link is still being transmitted to the accelerator host to do the redirection (in both Jim’s version and my own); there is simply no way around that.
So, the URL cannot be opened using a simple analog of the “Open in New Tab” command in the IE right-click context menu ?
Is there something about Accelerators that requires use of a Web Server ?
Accelerators don’t work by adding any direct functionality to the browser. The Accelerator feature is already builtin with IE8, but all it in essence does is paste copied text to a web page. Most Accelerators paste the text to web pages that do things like translate it or map it. Both my and Jon’s Accelerators paste it to a page that uses scripting to tell IE to open a page with the pasted text as the URL.
To get the feature you are looking for, you would need to have a locally installed add-on for the browser, like a Browser Helper Object in IE or Extension in Firefox. I have not seen anything for IE to accomplish this, but there is an Extension for Fifefox called Plain Text Links that will do what you are seeking. The method of locally installing this functionality basically just shifts the burden of whom you trust from the Accelerator’s web page to the author of the browser addon.
So, do all Accelerator’s use a MS web server, or does each Accelerator author have to provide a web server (which then may or may not be operational at any particular point in time) ?
@Ken – Yes, each accelerator author has to provide a web server, which like you pointed out, may or may not be operational at any particular point in time.
Particularly free, small time accelerator authors like myself – I certainly can’t guarantee uptime like what eBay can promise if you use their accelerator hosted on their servers.
One of the nice things about hosting through Office Live is it’s free and has very good uptime. One of the bad things is no PHP.
Hi Jon; Jim,
I like y’all Accelerators but I think the preview image could be bigger? Maybe something close to the size of the preview window.
Thanks to both of you!
S
PS Hovering does not work, at least not for me, but highlighting and selecting the Accelerator does preview the link.
Sterling,
Both accelerators are using the largest thumbnail snaps available from Websnapr using a free account. To provide a larger thubnail from Websnapr, I would need to pay per snap request, and that isn’t feasible for a free IE addon. My accelerator originally used Snapcasa, which allows larger thumbnails to be created with their free account. It is also usually a little faster at creating the snaps which will allow you to see less of the “this snap has been queued” message. However, Snapcasa doesn’t allow client side snap requests with their free account, which caused problems with my Accelerator’s preview feature since I use client side Javascript.
“Hovering” refers to hovering over the Accelerator itself. You can either right click on the hyperlink or select an un-hyperlinked URL and right click on the selection. Then, you can hover over the Accelerator to bring up the preview or click on the Accelerator to open the URL in a new tab.
After looking at it again, I changed the way the Preview function works with my Accelerator so that it can use Snapcasa. I have made the change and you should see larger thumbnails in the Preview window. Also, while you will still see a queued or processing message sometimes, I’ve found Snapcasa to be faster than Websnapr. You do not need to reload the Accelerator to see the change.
Hi Jim,
RE: Hovering – Sorry. I thought if I hovered over a URL, it would preview it like some addons provide. This feature can be nice but it can get in the way.
The new, larger preview is great!
I saw the “This thumbnail has been queued” and wondered what it meant. BTW, can you make a small icon/favicon for the accelerator? The generic IE icon/logo is kind of blah…
Thanks Jim!!!
Sterling
PS I tested the accelerator with the links on your page and I’m getting “Invalid Address” with the last two URL (ftp://ftp.microsoft.com and “Link to Google News).
I’m no graphic designer, so I’m not gonna even try to make a new icon.
But, I take a look and find one on http://www.iconspedia.com that I think works. If you want to look around and find (or design) a better one, send it to me and I’ll take a look. It needs to either be 16×16 or at least look good when scaled to that size.
The Preview function does not work with FTP links, since Snapcasa doesn’t work with those. However, if you click on the Accelerator, my script will still open it correctly in a new tab. The hyperlinked test on my site, “Link to Google News,” works fine for me with both the Preview and actual opening of the tab. Not sure why you would be seeing an error.
Oh yeah, to get the new icon, you may have to remove the Accelerator, delete your Temporary Internet Files, and reinstall the Accelerator. I had to do all that before IE would show the new icon on my computer.
Hi Jim,
I’m no graphic designer either (though I am thinking of studying it). I only have to uninstall the accelerator and reinstall it again to get the new icon. I like the new icon! It gives the accelerator a “look” of it’s own.
What made you decide on that icon?
Thanks!
S
I have updated my accelerator to allow the user the option of expanding shortened URLs directly from the preview window.
Supported services include:
TinyURL, bit.ly, ping.fm, s3nt.com, cli.gs, twurl.nl, poprl.nl, budurl.com, xrl.us, is.gd, short.ie, kl.am, idek.net, sn.im, snipr.com, snipurl.com, snurl.com and tr.im.
Try it out!
Nice URL shortening accelerator. See: http://bit.ly/vJKbW
For readers who use Firefox and IE8, I wanted your readers to be aware that Firefox has a version of Accelerators too, it is called “KALLOUT – Accelerators for Firefox” It’s available as a free add-on through Firefox. See: http://bit.ly/vJKbW
I believe the shortening accelerator will actually work directly with KallOut-Accelerators for Firefox so users can stick with Firefox if they want and still get the benefits of the community-developed accelerator.
EL
I don’t think KallOut currently supports IE8 Accelerators, does it not?
And based on some of the reviews from the Mozilla Add-in site, it seems that KallOut is still suffering from teething stability problems.
Regardless, it would be cool to see the Microsoft IE8 accelerator format become an unoffical standard of sorts and be supported by other browsers besides IE8.
Jon,
Native support for IE8 Accelerators (and the like) in KallOut Accelerators for Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10722) is on its way. In the meantime, Firefox users can try out the IE8 Activities Add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6777) by Mike Kaply which already has that support built in.
At KallOut, we agree that theIE8 Accelerator format is one of the emerging standards in Selection-Based Search products and we are committed to supporting it and thereby help reach our goal of giving the developers of accelerators the maximum distribution for their products possible. This would include not only support of accelerators not only inside Firefox and IE8 but also in other browsers likeIE7, Google Chrome, Avant, etc. and in Windows applications like Outlook, Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Adobe Reader, etc.
Thanks,
Lee Lorenzen
CEO, KallOut — Search Outside the Box
LeeL@KallOut.com
Nice accelerator, Jon! But “mouse over” hyperlink doesn’t for me though… It work’s only on selected text links trough “Preview an launch URL” button.
@Rimvydas – For hyperlinks, you need to actually right click on the link and select the “Preview and Launch URL” button. You can’t just “mouse over” it.
There was no “Preview an launch URL” on right click menu. But I figured it out, that IE7PRO plug-in conflicts with your accelerator. After disabling IE7PRO, “Preview an launch URL” works. Current IE7PRO plug-in version isn’t very compatible with IE8…
Ahh… OK. I guess what we need is an IE8PRO plug-in then.
Can it support this: the user select a section of text, this addon can parse through all those text, open all hyperlinks and text urls in new tabs? That can save much time to click on all those links!
Not this version. But maybe I’ll look into this for version 2.
Any chance you could support other protocols? Instead of parsing http:// on the front of an unknown protocol (such as mms://) could you just look for the colon slash slash and send it through as is?
I get an Page error “Element not found” error when trying to load it.
Hey Jon,
Saweet work! I actually joined to compliment your Add-On.
Thanks
Thanks, Trip!
Gettin this when clicking links:
Webpage error details
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.648; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Timestamp: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:58:35 UTC
Message: Element not found.
Line: 89
Char: 1
Code: 0
URI: http://armchairtheorist.com/projects/ie8-accelerator-preview-and-launch-url/
Let’s take this offline. Can send me a screen shot of what you are encountering? Send to my email address on my Contact page.
I was just thinking how great an accelerator like this would be, and here it is!
Thanks for making it!
Is there anything Like ” Preview & Lanch URL ” or Somthing Silmilar for Firefox ??
FF sucks big time.
Man, this is the first thing I add to IE8 after a fresh install! My choice is the “no preview” version. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the encouragement!