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NextPlease!

resources:	Home Installation Using NextPlease! Past Releases Mailing List Source Code Members Bugs

How NextPlease! Works

NextPlease! analyzes the web page and tries to determine which links will take you to the next/previous/first/last web page. The way that NextPlease! determines these pages can be taught by you. NextPlease! looks for the following to see if a link might be a navigation link:

• A direct match of a certain word like "next".
• A direct match of an image URL that specifies a button.
• A match for a certain pattern (like "next # results").
• If the site has a series of number links like 1 2 3 4 ..., NextPlease! will guess which numbered link refers to next/previous/first/last.

So NextPlease! doesn't just work on search results; it works on any web page that fits one of the above criteria. For instance, NextPlease! can be used on many web articles with multiple pages, and also on lots of types of image galleries.

NextPlease! can be triggered through several different ways:

• Typing a keyboard shortcut.
• Selecting it from the right-click popup menu.
• Clicking a toolbar button.
• Using an Optimoz mouse gesture.

Using the NextPlease! Shortcut

The default shortcuts for NextPlease! are listed below:

Command	Default Shortcut
Next,Please!	Ctrl +Shift + Right Arrow
Prev,Please!	Ctrl +Shift + Left Arrow
First,Please!	Ctrl +Shift + Up Arrow
Last,Please!	Ctrl +Shift + Down Arrow

If you don't like the key bindings, you can adjust them by selecting Tools->Extensions and going to the NextPlease! Options page.

Just select the keyboard modifier and key you want for each command (next/prev/first/last), and hit OK when you're done. The changes will take effect only in new browser windows or after restarting the browser.

Using the NextPlease! Menu

You can also right-click anywhere on the page and select the NextPlease! menu. From there, you can select which NextPlease! command you want to use.

If you don't want the NextPlease! items cluttering up your menu, you can turn them off by going to the NextPlease! options page, selecting the General tab, and deselecting the "Enable right-click (context) menu items" checkbox.

Using the NextPlease! Toolbar

The NextPlease! toolbar appears in the upper-right hand of the browser.

Button	Command
	Next, Please!
	Prev, Please!
	First, Please!
	Last, Please!

You can hide the toolbar by right-clicking on the toolbar, and unchecking the NextPlease! Toolbar item.

Or you can select View->Toolbars from the main menu to do the same thing.

You can also move the toolbar buttons around by selecting "Customize..." from the menus listed above.

Using NextPlease! with Optimoz Mouse Gestures

First things first, you have to install the very cool Optimoz Mouse Gestures. After that is done, you can create the NextPlease! mouse gestures by clicking on the following links:

Command	Install Gesture
Next, Please!	Right-Down
Prev, Please!	Left-Down
First, Please!	Left-Down-Left
Last, Please!	Right-Down-Right

If you don't like the default gesture, you can change it after clicking the link. Now, to trigger the gestures, just right-click and then drag the mouse in the directions corresponding to the command you wish to use.

Using the NextPlease! with All-in-One Gestures

NextPlease! support has been added in the very handy All-in-One Gestures extension. NextPlease! is only supported in version 0.14 and later. To use it, open up the All-in-One Gestures Options page, and assign gestures for "Follow Next Link" and "Follow Previous Link". If NextPlease! is installed, these gestures will trigger "Next, Please!" and "Prev, Please!" respectively.

Using the NextPlease! Number Shortcuts

On sites that have numbered links, you can jump to a certain page number by pressing Alt + number. So if you wanted to jump to page three, you would press "Alt + 3".

You can disable these shortcuts on the NextPlease! options page. Go to the General tab and uncheck the "Enable ALT+Number shortcuts" checkbox.

The options page also allows you to enable jumping on pages that use HTML submit buttons for their next/previous links.

Miscellaneous Options

One other options in the General tab of the options dialog is the "Search for HTML buttons" checkbox. Some sites use an HTML submit button for the next/prev/first/last buttons

Teaching NextPlease!

NextPlease! can be taught to use new phrases, images, or patterns to determine the next/prev/first/last links.

To add a new phrase, right-click on the link that you want to use, then select one of the "Use phrase for ..." items.

This comes in very handy for non-English sites.

You can also manually add/remove phrases using the Phrases tab in the options page.

The process for adding support for an image button is very similar. Just right-click on the image button, and select the appropriate "Use image for ..." menu item.

You can manually change the images using the Images tab in the options page.

Experienced users can change the pattern used to determine links using the Advanced tab of the options page.

Teaching new patterns for NextPlease! should only be done by people familiar with regular expressions in Javascript.

If you get into trouble by entering a bad expression, you can hit the Restore Default button for the appropriate expression, and hit OK to get NextPlease! back to the original settings.

Known Issues

• If the key bindings don't work, it is likely that there is a conflict with Firefox's default shortcuts or another extension. You can use the handy keyconfig extension to sort out what might be causing the conflict. You can try selecting another key binding from the NextPlease! options page. If key bindings still don't work, you can try selecting Tools->Extensions, right-clicking on NextPlease, and selecting Move to Top. If the key bindings still don't work and you really want to get things working, you can Create a New Profile, then try installing NextPlease! as your first extension and see if that improves things. You can then try installing your other extensions after that.
• You can't use the numpad numbers for the numbered shortcuts like Alt+1/2/3. This appears to be because of the modifier (Ctrl/Alt) forcing the numpad keys to act as their alternate functions (Home, End, PgUp, etc.)
• After changing preferences on NextPlease!, you have to run it once (by right-clicking and selecting Next, Please!) before the preferences will take effect. So it's kind of confusing since you have to run it twice to get it to do what you want.
• The NextPlease/PrevPlease right-click menu options and toolbar buttons always appear even when there is no next or previous link or button available. I think I'm going to keep it this way since I didn't want to add overhead and search every single page upon load just for this extension.