ABBREX

Version 0.43 of ABBREX was released today for both Firefox and Chrome. Here's what's new:

• Bug fixes and small improvements

This is a bugfix release. It also made some small improvements to the way abbreviation tooltips are shown. We hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.

Please let us know what you think and thanks for using ABBREX!

Are you the owner / moderator of a website / forum? If your website / forum houses a large number of abbreviations, ABBREX may help many of your users.

Users new to a website are usually intimidated by many obscure abbreviations and they don't like to keep a glossary handy or Google every other abbreviation when they read something.

Since ABBREX automatically adds tooltips to all abbreviations on a webpage, your users will stay on your web page without having to constantly check the meaning of abbreviations.

ABBREX's abbreviation database is community-driven, so if your website is a niche website your users can easily add abbreviation meanings (right from your website without even leaving your web page) that will only make sense in the context of your website.

So if your users had ABBREX, it could help your website by creating an overall better browsing experience for them.

It is now very easy to let your users know about ABBREX on your website. All you need to do is click on the For Websites link at the header and copy/paste the JavaScript code provided in your website's HTML code.

When you do this, any time one of your users visits your website they will see a message at the top of your webpage letting them know about ABBREX. They can install ABBREX with a single click from there. They can also stop this message from appearing again with a single click so it won't bother your users. Very simple.

Click on the For Websites link at the header to see what the message looks like and install the code snippet on your website. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Version 0.42 of ABBREX was released today for both Firefox and Chrome. Here's what's new:

• Bug fixes

This is a bugfix release. It mainly fixed a problem introduced by the last version that prevented some users from being able to register. We hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.

Please let us know what you think and thanks for using ABBREX!

Version 0.40 of ABBREX was released today for both Firefox and Chrome. Here's what's new:

• New feature: A new menu item called "Manage your Lists" on the ABBREX main menu (details below)
• New feature: A new button called "Delete Abbreviation Meaning" on the "Add Abbreviation" dialog (details below)
• Bug fixes

Manage your Lists

A new menu item called "Manage your Lists" was added to the ABBREX main menu in this version.

ABBREX was lacking a good way to view and manage your black, white, and abbreviation exception lists. Now, you can view and remove individual items from your black / white / exception lists (or add new items) from a single interface.

One thing to remember is: after you are done managing your lists with this new interface, you either need to select "Refresh your user settings" from the ABBREX main menu or restart your browser so that the changes you made are synched to your add-on.

Delete Abbreviation Meaning

A new button called "Delete Abbreviation Meaning" was added to the "Add Abbreviation" dialog in this version.

ABBREX was built in the "wiki" spirit so it normally let people add or update abbreviation meanings but not delete anything. Since ABBREX does not show any abbreviation meaning with a sufficiently low karma score, wisdom of the crowds made deleting abbreviation meanings mostly unnecessary.

However, we received feedback from some of our users that they would sometimes enter an abbreviation meaning accidentally and would like to delete it. With the new "Delete Abbreviation Meaning" button, this is now possible for the abbreviation meanings you entered.

All you need to do is hover over an abbreviation on a web page, click on the "Update" link for the abbreviaton meaning you want to delete in the tooltip popup, and click on the "Delete Abbreviation Meaning" button in the "Add Abbreviation" dialog that comes up. Obviously, you can only delete abbreviation meanings you entered.

There were also bug fixes. We hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.

Please let us know what you think and thanks for using ABBREX!

Version 0.37 of ABBREX was released today for both Firefox and Chrome. Here's what's new:

• New feature: A new menu item called "Assign Tags to Domain" on the ABBREX main menu (details below)
• New feature: Two new buttons called "Copy Tags From / To Domain" on the "Add Abbreviation" dialog (details below)
• Small user interface changes
• Bug fixes

New Feature: Assign Tags to Domain

A new menu item called "Assign Tags to Domain" was added to the ABBREX main menu in this version.

In the past, ABBREX had only two kinds of abbreviations: generic and domain-specific. Meanings for generic abbreviations were shown (expanded) when you visited any web page with ABBREX while meanings for domain-specific abbreviations were shown (expanded) only when you were visiting a web page within that domain.

This was mostly fine but it led to many of the same abbreviation meanings having to be re-entered for multiple domains (for example law acronyms which are not universal acronyms but valid for almost all law websites). While ABBREX provided a button to add a domain-specific abbreviation meaning to another domain with a single click, a better way of dealing with non-generic but common-to-many-domains abbreviation meanings was clearly needed.

So with this version, ABBREX introduces the concept of domain tags. Through a new menu item on the ABBREX main menu ("Assign Tags to Domain"), you will be able "assign" tags to the domain you are currently visiting (an autocompleter will help you of course). When you assign tags to a domain and you visit a web page on that domain with ABBREX, you will see abbreviation meanings expanded for:

1. All generic abbreviation meanings
2. All abbreviation meanings specific to that domain
3. All domain-specific abbreviation meanings (regardless of domain) with tags assigned to that domain.

What this means is if you want law acronyms to be expanded on a law website for example, you don't have to add all law-related acronyms to that domain one by one anymore. All you need to do is assign some tags to the domain of that law website and all abbreviation meanings with those tags (regardless of domain) will automatically be expanded when you visit that website.

New Feature: Copy Tags From / To Domain

Two new buttons called "Copy Tags From / To Domain" were added to the "Add Abbreviation" dialog in this version.

To make the domain tags feature mentioned above even more convenient, there are now two new buttons for the existing abbreviation meanings on the "Add Abbreviation" dialog. As you may already know, when you try to enter a new abbreviation meaning, ABBREX checks to see whether there are any other existing domain-specific abbreviation meanings for that abbreviation and shows you those along with some helpful quick-action buttons that let you add those meanings (with or without change) to the domain you are on with one click.

The newly-added two buttons help with transferring tags from/to the abbreviation meaning from/to the domain you are on. "Copy Tags From Domain" copies all tags associated with the domain you are on to that specific abbreviation meaning. "Copy Tags To Domain" adds all the tags of the abbreviation meaning to the domain you are on. The net effect is that abbreviation meaning will now be seen (expanded) when you visit the domain you are on (you may need to refresh the page). These two buttons let you assign existing tags to domains / abbreviation meanings with only one click! You are still free to add / update tags of specific domains and abbreviation meanings manually of course.

Small User Interface Changes

In this version, we added a small icon next to each abbrevation meaning that takes you to the Wikipedia article (Google's best guess) for that abbreviation meaning with just one click. This should come in handy when you want to learn a little more about the abbreviation meaning in question.

Also there is now a link on the abbreviation tooltips that lets you share ABBREX on Facebook. Remember that the more people use ABBREX, the more useful it becomes. So please spread the word!

There were also bug fixes in this update. We hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.

Please let us know what you think and thanks for using ABBREX!

Version 0.36 of ABBREX was released today for both Firefox and Chrome. Here's what's new:

• New feature: A new button called "Generalize Abbreviation" on the "Add Abbreviation" dialog (details below)
• New feature: A new option that sets the expansion wait timeout in seconds (details below)
• Some components (like abbreviation expansion) completely re-written for performance improvement (details below)
• Small user interface changes
• Bug fixes

New Feature: Generalize Abbreviation

A new button called "Generalize Abbreviation" was added to the "Add Abbreviation" dialog in this version.

Whenever you try to add a new abbreviation meaning, ABBREX automatically checks whether other people entered a domain-specific abbreviation meaning for the same abbreviation before. If that's the case, you now have the option of making that previously entered domain-specific abbreviation meaning generic (meaning it would now apply to all domains including the domain of the web page you are visiting right now).

To illustrate this with an example: You try to enter an abbreviation meaning for LOL. On the "Add Abbreviation" dialog, ABBREX shows you someone already entered a meaning for LOL specific to some domain (yahoo.com for example). You know that LOL should be a generic abbreviation and it applies to Internet in general (not just yahoo.com). So with one click on the new "Generalize Abbreviation" button, you make that previously entered abbreviation meaning generic and now it will appear on all sites (not just yahoo.com) you and everybody else visit.

New Feature: Expansion Wait Timeout Option

A new option that sets the expansion wait timeout in seconds was added in this version.

Whenever a web page you are visiting finishes loading. ABBREX checks to see whether you have been idle for a while (default is three seconds) before it tries to expand the abbreviations on that web page. The reason for this is ABBREX doesn't want to disturb your browsing as the expansion process may cause a split second freeze if the page is heavy in content. ABBREX thinks if you have been idle for three seconds that means you are probably reading the page so it is OK to expand abbreviations at that time.

With the new expansion wait timeout option, you can now change this idle timeout from the default three seconds to anything you want. If you set it to zero, ABBREX will expand abbreviations on the web page pretty much as soon as it can after the page finishes loading. You can also set the option to something higher than three seconds if you don't want ABBREX to expand abbreviations on a web page unless you stay idle on the web page for a long time.

Performance Improvements and Small User Interface Changes

There were a lot of changes under the hood in this version. Some components (like abbreviation expansion) were completely re-written. The abbreviation meanings are now pulled on demand which increases performance and eliminates synchronization problems.

There were also some user interface changes mainly to the way abbreviations are shown on the web page you are visiting. ABBREX now uses a double-width dotted underline for abbreviations to make them easier to notice. Abbreviations are also not colored by default unless you hover over them at which point they are colored either green if existing meanings were found or red if no meanings were found for that abbreviation. This change leads to less "color pollution" on the web page while still allowing abbreviations to be visible.

And of course there were bug fixes in this update. We hope that you find this update makes your ABBREX experience more enjoyable.

Please let us know what you think and thanks for using ABBREX!

AddictiveTips published an article on the Chrome version of ABBREX. You can view the article here.

ABBREX was recently featured on Civilization Fanatics' Center's Newsletter. Founded in March of 2000, Civilization Fanatics' Center is the largest fan site dedicated to the best turn-based strategy game series of all time, Sid Meier's Civilization. You can view the Civilization Fanatics' Center's Newsletter that features ABBREX here.

ABBREX - the abbreviation expander Chrome extension is launched! You can install it here.

ABBREX - the abbreviation expander Firefox add-on is launched! You can install it here.