Greasemonkey How-To

We've put together some simple instructions on how to get our Greasemonkey scripts for mTurk installed and working for you. Follow the steps below and you'll have Turk Berserk scripts improving your mTurk experience in a matter of minutes!

Step 1: Get Firefox

Greasemonkey is an Add-On for the Firefox web-browser, so you'll need to use Firefox (at least for Turking) in order to make use of our scripts. If you already have Firefox, skip this step and go straight to Step 2. If you don't have Firefox, it's easy to install. Just click on the "Get Firefox" button in our sidebar (we get a small fee from Google when you click through this link - it costs you nothing but helps keep us motivated to write cool new Greasemonkey scripts!) and click on the blue install button. Or you can go directly to the Firefox page (but then we get no referral fee.....) and click on the big green download button. Follow the instructions and you'll have Firefox installed!

Download Firefox

Step 2: Get Greasemonkey

Already got Greasemonkey? Then skip to Step 3. Otherwise....

Open the Firefox browser and go to the Greasemonkey add-on page. Click on the green "Add to Firefox" button and a small window will open asking you to confirm that you want to install Greasemonkey. Click "OK" and Greasemonkey will be installed. You'll need to restart Firefox for Greasemonkey to activate.

Install Greasemonkey

Step 3: Install a Script

Head on over to our Scripts page and find a script that you'd like to use - then follow the link to that script's own page. At the top of the page you'll find an "Install Now" link. Click on it, and Greasemonkey will open a window asking you to confirm that you want to install the script. Click OK and the script will be installed.

Step 4: Turk with the power of Turk Berserk scripts

You're all set! Head over to mTurk and you should see the scripts you've installed start to work their magic. We're happy to hear your thoughts on how to improve our scripts, or other features you'd like to see, and if you find any bugs, let us know - we'll try to fix them!

Working with GreaseMonkey

GreaseMonkey is designed to "just work" - so you should be able to install scripts and know that they'll work their magic as required. But, there are a few useful things you should know about GreaseMonkey:

Disabling GreaseMonkey: You can completely disable GreaseMonkey by just clicking on the small monkey-face icon in the tool-bar at the bottom of the browser window. The face will become sad when GreaseMonkey is disabled. To re-enable, just click again. You'll need to reload a page after disabling/re-enabling GreaseMonkey for the change to take effect.

Which Scripts Are Active?: To see which scripts are active on the current page, right click on the monkey-face icon. At the top of the menu you'll see a list of all scripts that are active on this page. (If no scripts are active on the current page you'll see "No scripts installed!" instead).

Disabling a Specific Script: If you need to disable a script that's active on the current page, right click on the monkey-face icon. Scripts that are enabled are listed in the GreaseMonkey menu with a green check mark. To disable a script, just select it from the menu. Disabled scripts show up in the menu with a red "X". You can re-enable a script by clicking on it in the Greasemonkey menu again. If you need to disable a script that isn't active on the current page, use the Manage dialog (see below).

The Manage Dialog: Right click on the monkey-face icon and select "Manage User Scripts...". This will open the Manage dialog (see below). On the left, you'll see a list of all of the scripts that you have installed. You can enable or disable any script by clicking on it and then using the "Enabled" check-box in the lower left corner. When you click on a script in this dialog, the boxes on the right show you which web pages this script will work on, and those that it will ignore (by default all pages are ignored). You can also use this dialog to remove scripts - just select the script and click the "Uninstall" button. Finally, if you want to look at the inner workings of a script click on "Edit" and you'll see the Javascript code that does all of the work. You can even edit the script if you want!

The Manage Dialog

Uninstalling GreaseMonkey: If you want to totally remove GreaseMonkey and all of its scripts open the "Tools" menu from Firefox's menu bar and select "Add-ons". Search down the list of add-ons for GreaseMonkey, click on it and then click the "Uninstall" button. You'll need to restart Firefox for the change to take effect.

Where To Find More Help

There's a lot of Greasemonkey help available online. Here are some of the most useful references that we've found:

• Monkey manual: the official guide to Greasemonkey
• Manage dialog: how to use Greasemonkey's "Manage" dialog to manage your scripts
• userscripts.org: a place to find other Greasemonkey scripts
• Scripts section at Turker Nation: Turker community discussion on using scripts with mTurk