How to set MSDN to be always in English - msdn

I know that this isn't exactly programming question, but it is tightly related -
How the hell do I set MSDN to display everything in English? I'm Czech, and every KB or documentation article it automatically translates it to Czech with their translator, which result just in gibberish, and switching it to English requires couple of searching and clicks.

I wrote a simple dedicated browser extension for this. Unlike the Redirector plugin, no configuration is required.
It's called "FFS MSDN in English" and is available for:
Chrome
Firefox
Opera
It simply redirects any localised MSDN (or docs.microsoft) page to the english (en-us) version.
The rather trivial sources can be found at https://github.com/AirLancer/ffs_msdn_in_english

Very legitimate question, I think.
You need to modify the url like explained here. In your case change cz-cz to en-us.
Or better, let it do a browser plugin like Redirector for firefox:

You can select your default language from bottom left of the page.
Edit
New docs site has an easier option to view in English. However, the setting is not permanent.

I've fixed it by installing a redirector plugin for chrome:
http://bendavis78.github.io/chrome-extension-redirector/

If you are using Google search, you need to change language preferences for Google itself (you don't need to be logged in)1:
Go to https://google.com
Click Settings > Search settings on the bottom right corner.
Proceed to Languages tab.
Choose English as preferred.
1 You might also need to do what pr0gg3r and Beachwalker advise.

One solution is to rewrite google's search engine links using this Tampermonkey userscript:
// ==UserScript==
// #name Fix learn.microsoft.com links on google.com
// #description Changes all links to en-us versions.
// #include /^http[s]?:\/\/(www\.)?google\.[a-z]{2,3}\/.*$/
// #noframes
// #grant none
// ==/UserScript==
(function() {
'use strict';
let re = /^(https?:\/\/(docs|msdn).microsoft.com)\/(\w+\-\w+)\/(.*)/i;
const links = document.querySelectorAll("a");
for (const link of links) {
let m = re.exec(link.href);
if (!m) continue;
const clone = link.cloneNode(true);
clone.removeAttribute('onmousedown');
clone.href = `${m[1]}/en-us/${m[4]}`;
link.replaceWith(clone);
}
})();
Edit 2021-01-28: Remove onmousedown attribute event from link. Stops link capture and substitution of google's own redirect link.

I do not want to use extensions because I consider their required permissions to be a major security risk. Furthermore MSDN is not the only site where translations sucks. So for me the best solution was to change the language settings in Windows 10. Add English to your "Preferred languages" and set it to be 1st. Apps and websites will appear in the first language in the list that they support.

I like to have the choice between the translated and en-us version.
I authored the following UserScript... to be used in TamperMonkey for instance.
It does what it pretends in the #description.
// ==UserScript==
// #name Link to MSDN in en-us
// #description Adds a link in the top left corner of the translated MSDN pages allowing to jump to en-us version.
// #match http*://learn.microsoft.com/*
// #match http*://msdn.microsoft.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
(function() {
'use strict';
let url = location.href;
let rx = /^http([s]?):\/\/(docs|msdn)\.microsoft\.com\/(\w+\-\w+)\/(.*)$/i;
let match;
if ( match = rx.exec(url) ) {
if (match[3] !== 'en-us') {
var targetUrl = url.replace(rx, "http$1://$2.microsoft.com/en-us/$4");
jQuery("body").prepend(
jQuery('<a>en-us</a>').attr('href', targetUrl)
);
}
}
})();

In Firefox > Settings > "Language and Appearance" section there is below some Language settings a button next to a label that says:
"Choose your preferred language for displaying pages"
There you can setup a ordered list of languages. I have added english and moved it to the top of the list.
Now after a restart the same, previously opened msdn links do not auto translate.

I don't know the browser you're using but most browsers send info about the client to the server (incl. preferred language). So one option might be to set the default language to english (as done here for Firefox).

Related

Can vscode's markdown preview scripts trigger actions directly in an extension?

I'm writing a vscode extension where I'm hoping to squeeze more dynamic functionality out of markdown preview. Effectively the problem I'm trying to solve is:
In markdown preview, there's a checkbox
When user clicks the checkbox in markdown preview, send a message/event to the vscode extension runtime
Vscode extension can listen for this message/event and store the action in local storage
Checkbox state is saved - and subsequent renders of the markdown preview can use this action
Ideally, I'd like to do this while keeping the default markdown preview security (https://code.visualstudio.com/Docs/languages/markdown#_strict). After all, I don't need the extension to or markdown preview script to talk to a remote server - I just want them to be able to talk to one another.
Problem as code
To write the problem as sudo code, I want my markdown preview script to contain something like:
const button = ... // get button element
button.addEventListener('click', () => {
... /*
* Send a message to the vscode extension. Something like:
* `vscode.postMessage('vscode.my-extension.preview-action' + value)`
* (which I can't get to work, I'll discuss why)
*/
});
where then my extension can listen for messages like 'vscode.my-extension.preview-action'.
What I've Tried Already
I have tried acquireVsCodeApi() but because the markdown extension already does that, I can't do it again in the subsequent loaded script. I've also tried registering a uri handler but as far as I can try out the preview script still needs to fetch to that uri, which is still blocked by the default markdown security settings.
Perhaps markdown preview scripts are not the place to do this kind of thing, but I just wanted to leverage as much as possible that's already there with the vscode markdown extension. I want to supplement markdown but not replace it, the functionality I want to add is just icing on markdown documentation.
I've read https://code.visualstudio.com/api/extension-guides/markdown-extension#adding-advanced-functionality-with-scripts and it doesn't tell me much about markdown extension scripts capabilities and limitations.
Thanks to #LexLi I looked at some of the source code in the markdown extension and was able to come up with an ugly hack to make this work in preview scripts. Markdown allows normal clicks. And vscode extensions can handle normal clicks. I've paraphrased the code so there could be small syntax errors.
In the extension I did this:
vscode.window.registerUriHandler({
handleUri(uri: vscode.Uri): vscode.ProviderResult<void> {
console.log(`EXTENSION GOT URL: ${uri.toString()}`);
},
});
Then I made sure my extension/preview script put this in the document
<!-- in the preview script I place a button like this -->
<!-- it even works with hidden :) so I can do more app customization -->
<a
hidden
id="my-extension-messager"
href="vscode://publisher-id.my-extension"
>
cant see me but I'm there
</a>
Then my preview script I can even set href before faking a click:
const aMessager = document.querySelector("#my-extension-messager");
console.log('client is setting attribute and clicking...')
aMessager.setAttribute('href', 'vscode://publisher-id.my-extension?action=do-something');
aMessager.click();
console.log('client clicked');
Logs I saw (trimmed/tweaked from my particular extension to match the contrived example):
client is setting attribute and clicking...
client clicked
[Extension Host] EXTENSION GOT URL: vscode://publisher-id.my-extension?action%3Ddo-something
It's a hack but I can do a lot with this. Within the URL I can encode data back to the extension and kind of pass whatever I want (as long as data is relatively small).

Documentation for Xcode Source Editor Extension

I'm looking for some documentation of the new Xcode Source Editor Extensions in Xcode 8.
As far as I can see there is only the "documentation" found in the header file for XcodeKit. Would be great to get something that's more detailed and more official.
Very preliminary XcodeKit reference documentation is now available.
Our WWDC 2016 presentation introducing Xcode Source Editor Extensions remains the best walkthrough.
The very shortest version, however, is: Because App Extensions need to be embedded in an application, you need to first create a new macOS Cocoa Application, and then add a new Xcode Source Editor Extension to that application. Then the XcodeKit reference should help some in implementing that.
Not really a documentation but a good reference also
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/414/
Extensions, at the moment, are poorly documented. There are a lot of assumptions made (for example, did you know that you can execute the container app? Yup, it’s really nice for settings GUI - see this How To Execute Container App - Second Answer)
At the moment, there are a lot of things missing: for example, there isn’t a structure that shows the corresponding lines with the data object - though this is quickly created with the following code:
var matches: [NSTextCheckingResult] = []
do {
let regex = try NSRegularExpression(pattern: "\n", options: [])
matches = regex.matches(in: completeBuffer,
options: [],
range: NSMakeRange(0, completeBuffer.count))
}
catch {
}
This gives you the location of all the \n’s - you should be able to fill out the rest to give you starting and ending positions which should match up to the lines.
All in all, there is a lot to like about the extension, but there are quite a few things missing as well.
Currently the only available documentation is in the headers; there's nothing "unofficial" about them. If you have specific questions, please ask.

DuckDuckGo API - How to get more results?

The default search using the DuckDuckGo API returns only the results on the first page (around 25 I guess). Is there any way to get more results or navigate to the 2nd, 3rd pages of the search results?
Websites like Faroo have a parameter called s (which stands for start) which can be set to 1 if we want the first 10 results, to 11 if we want the next 10 results and so on. Is there something like that for DuckDuckGo, too?
According to DuckDuckGo Search API documentation, all the available parameters are:
q: query
format: output format (json or xml)
If format=='json', you can also pass:
callback: function to callback (JSONP format) pretty: 1 to make JSON
look pretty (like JSONView for Chrome/Firefox)
no_redirect: 1 to skip HTTP redirects (for !bang commands).
no_html: 1 to remove HTML from text, e.g. bold and italics.
skip_disambig: 1 to skip disambiguation (D) Type.
In particular, note that:
This API does not include all of our links, however. That is, it is
not a full search results API or a way to get DuckDuckGo results into
your applications beyond our instant answers.
TL/DR; - Install TamperMonkey, add the short script below (full instructions follow) and the browser will lazy-load the next page(s) automatically as you scroll.
After coming to this answer via Google and not finding the information I was seeking, I wrote this small TamperMonkey script to do the job. I post it here for future googlers.
The below userscript will work with Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Instructions for installation follow below the script, and a brief explanation of what TamperMonkey is follows below that.
This script is inspired by, and named similarly to (in honor of), Endless Google by Tumpio.
// ==UserScript==
// #name Endless DuckDuckGo
// #namespace http://tampermonkey.net/
// #match https://duckduckgo.com/?q=*
// #require http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.2.4/jquery.min.js
// #grant none
// ==/UserScript==
(function() {
'use strict';
$(window).scroll(function(){
var els = document.querySelectorAll('.result.result--more');
if (els.length){
var elmore = document.querySelectorAll('.result--more__btn.btn.btn--full');
if (elmore.length){
elmore[0].click();
}
}
});
})(); //
How To Install the Above Script:
Install the TamperMonkey extension for Chrome (or the "add-in" for Firefox).
You will see the TamperMonkey icon appear at the top of the browser
Do a search on DuckDuckGo
Click on the TamperMonkey icon and from the drop-down menu, choose Dashboard
Along the tabs at the top of the Dashboard page, click on the [+] icon at left of the tab strip
The TamperMonkey editor will open up with a blank UserScript template. Delete that entire sample script and replace it with the script from this post.
Save [Ctrl] + [s]
Run another DuckDuckGo search and scroll down the page... True happiness is yours.
What Is TamperMonkey:
A good overview is here.
TamperMonkey is a browser extension, and there is a version of TamperMonkey for each major browser. You probably already use the AdBlock or uBlock browser extensions (if not, WHY NOT?), this is just another extension like those. Anyway, to install for Chrome or Brave, go to the Chrome Web Store and search for TamperMonkey by Jan Binoc. Install it. (Yes, it's safe - there are hundreds of thousands of users, mostly coders). Please consider donating - Jan deserves your support (and no, I don't know him, and yes I donated.)
Before TamperMonkey, there was another extension called GreaseMonkey that did the same thing but only worked on Firefox. However, the GreaseMonkey authors stopped maintaining it or something, and Jan Binoc stepped up to the plate with TamperMonkey.
TamperMonkey allows us to inject our own code into ANY webpage, to programmatically manipulate the web page on our local computers. How does that work? Simplistic Explanation: When you view a web page, you never actually view it "directly from the web server" - your browser first downloads a local copy of the web page code to your browser's cache folder and displays it to you from there. Therefore, TamperMonkey can intercept the page as it loads from cache (on your local hard drive) into the browser and modify it before it is displayed. That explanation is super-simplistic and not fully technically accurate, but in essence that is exactly how it works, and why TamperMonkey works. Most Importantly: The above few lines explain why the page does not change for anyone else - just for you, on your own computer.
TamperMonkey is an excellent reason to learn a bit of javascript/css/html. Using it, you can do stuff like hiding or re-arranging images on a webpage, removing clutter from a page, totally reformatting a page, etc. For example, one of my fav News sites has lots of clutter. So, I go to their RSS feed page, which acts like a great index of articles, but that also has too much stuff I don't want to see (mainly unnecessary thumbnail images and too-narrow columns). I wrote a short TM script to hide all the images and widen the columns and now, instead of seeing 5 or 6 article summaries per screen, I see ~ 20.
The absolute best, most concise, primer for html/css/js that I've ever seen is on Lynda.com. (You might already have access via your local library card - I was greatly surprised to find out that I do.) There is a series by Emma Saunders called D3.js Essential Training for Data Scientists. The course begins with two short tutorials (Recalling HTML Basics (4m) and Understanding HTML5 (3m) ) in html/css/js that are worth a university course tuition by themselves. Why can't everyone teach like this? Anyway, that's all you need - those first two (3 and 4 min) videos. Now, go tweak a webpage.
(Final disclaimer: No, I don't know Emma Saunders either, nor do I have anything to do with either Binoc's or Saunders' products in any way. I'm just a run-of-the-mill user and fan.)

Automatic text translation at MSDN pages - How to turn off?

Is there a way to turn off the automatic text translation at the MSDN library pages ?
I do prefer English text but due to having a German IP address Microsoft activates the automatic translation on every new page load which gives me a yellow box with a German translation of the text I am currently hovering over with the mouse.
This happens regardless what language is initially set in the right upper corner and regardless of whether I am logged in or not.
I can't tell how annoying this is !!
Any ideas, anyone ?
When you hit the "Original" radio button at the top, you see English, with German in the yellow hover box.
If you visit the original English site, you don't see a translation, not even on hover.
You switch to English by replacing /de-de/ in the URL with /en-us/. As in
German (translation or original with translation on hover):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/system.diagnostics.contracts.contractargumentvalidatorattribute(v=vs.110).aspx
English only (no translation):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.contracts.contractargumentvalidatorattribute(v=vs.110).aspx
If you are a firefox user, you can use Redirector addon. Create a new redirect and set it up like this:
It will automatically redirect all msdn requests to english non-translated versions.
Found it! I mean, it's 2016, 3 years late, and maybe they just added it recently, but when you scroll all the way down there's a small button in the left bottom corner where you can choose language you want to use (more specifically a country "you're from").
MSDN uses the prefered language from your web browser settings.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/6543407d-f743-48fb-965b-b8af9f9a0cb1/howto-disable-automatic-translation-into-german?forum=msdnfeedback
This is due to the Accept-Language header:
http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-accept-lang-locales
So setting your browser to prefer English language websites should fix this problem. W3C has an overview how to do that on different browsers here:
http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-lang-priorities.en.php
There is a chrome addon aswell
Switcheroo-Redirector
I got tired of replacing manually the url of the MSDN docs to target en-us in the url, so I came up with this little user script for the very handy Tampermonkey extension (available on Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Firefox)
// ==UserScript==
// #name MSDN docs [en-us] redirect
// #version 0.1
// #description Redirects to the en-us version of the current MSDN doc page
// #grant none
// #match https://learn.microsoft.com/*
// ==/UserScript==
(function () {
let pathname = window.location.pathname.split('/');
if (pathname[1].toLowerCase() !== 'en-us') {
pathname[1] = 'en-us';
pathname = pathname.join('/');
window.location.href = window.location.origin + pathname + window.location.search;
}
})();
Once you have the extension installed,
Click on its icon
Click on Create a new script...
Paste the previous code
Save it (Ctrl + S or File > Save).
Test the redirection: https://learn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/classes-and-structs/classes
The #match property will ensure that this script is only run against MSDN doc pages.
Recently I came across the same problem. And I solved it with Chrome extension ModHeader.
I configured and it works:
I know it's an old question, by maybe this insight will be useful to someone.
I almost always open msdn through a search in google. It most of the time offered me site translated to my local language (through a part of the address with locale), sometimes accompanied by original (English) version next to it. If I click on the original language link, it does not translate anything, so it is not automatic translation based on my localization.
What solved my problem was to change google search settings to prefer English, rather than my native language. Go to google search settings, set Which language should Google products use? to English, then in Currently showing search results in: click Edit and check other languages you are likely to search in.
It will also change the UI language for google. I know it might be a high price to pay, but I believe it is worth it. If you search for a query typed in given language, results will most likely result in this language pages anyway.
Instead of extensions, which will consume memory and are a bit overkill for that kind of thing, you can use a custom search query.
Chrome
Settings => Manage Search Engines, add this entry:
Engine: MSDN US
Keyword: ms
URL: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Search/en-US?query=%s (or whatever the proper url is at the time of your reading, just use %s wherever it needs the actual query string)
Now, in the address bar, just type ms [SPACE]. As soon as you press the space, it will prompt you with Search on MSDN US:. Just type your query now. For instance ms string will redirect you to the MSDN-US version of the search results for string. Of course you can change the title and keyword.
I'm sure the other common browsers expose that kind of functionality too. On Firefox, I used to plug custom search engines on the search bar.
This is a neat trick that I use for all kinds of searches (SO, Amazon, Wikipedia in different languages, etc.). It's very efficient.
Usually there is a language link at the bottom of the page where you can change language (even though a permanent site specific setting would be much nicer).
In IE in Internet Options Panel you have Apperrance part in General Tab. Add preffered language as a first and from now on all pages from MSDN will be presented in choosen language
I'm using NoScript addon with Firefox (actually Waterfox), just forbib "m-msft.com", the translator will be turned off. I think you can use other plugins in other browser to forbid the domain too. NoScript is a must have addon for any serious web user, and UserStyles, of course.

Reliably getting favicons in Chrome extensions, chrome://favicon?

I'm using the chrome://favicon/ in my Google Chrome extension to get the favicon for RSS feeds. What I do is get the base path of linked page, and append it to chrome://favicon/http://<domainpath>.
It's working really unreliably. A lot of the time it's reporting the standard "no-favicon"-icon, even when the page really has a favicon. There is almost 0 documentation regarding the chrome://favicon mechanism, so it's difficult to understand how it actually works. Is it just a cache of links that have been visited? Is it possible to detect if there was an icon or not?
From some simple testing it's just a cache of favicons for pages you have visited. So if I subscribe to dribbble.com's RSS feed, it won't show a favicon in my extension. Then if I visit chrome://favicon/http://dribbble.com/ it won't return right icon. Then I open dribbble.com in another tab, it shows its icon in the tab, then when I reload the chrome://favicon/http://dribbble.com/-tab, it will return the correct favicon. Then I open my extensions popup and it still shows the standard icon. But if I then restart Chrome it will get the correct icon everywhere.
Now that's just from some basic research, and doesn't get me any closer to a solution. So my question is: Is the chrome://favicon/ a correct use-case for what I'm doing. Is there any documentation for it? And what is this its intended behavior?
I've seen this problem as well and it's really obnoxious.
From what I can tell, Chrome populates the chrome://favicon/ cache after you visit a URL (omitting the #hash part of the URL if any). It appears to usually populate this cache sometime after a page is completely loaded. If you try to access chrome://favicon/http://yoururl.com before the associated page is completely loaded you will often get back the default 'globe icon'. Subsequently refreshing the page you're displaying the icon(s) on will then fix them.
So, if you can, possibly just refreshing the page you're displaying the icons on just prior to displaying it to the user may serve as a fix.
In my use case, I am actually opening tabs which I want to obtain the favicons from. So far the most reliable approach I have found to obtain them looks roughly like this:
chrome.webNavigation.onCompleted.addListener(onCompleted);
function onCompleted(details)
{
if (details.frameId > 0)
{
// we don't care about activity occurring within a subframe of a tab
return;
}
chrome.tabs.get(details.tabId, function(tab) {
var url = tab.url ? tab.url.replace(/#.*$/, '') : ''; // drop #hash
var favicon;
var delay;
if (tab.favIconUrl && tab.favIconUrl != ''
&& tab.favIconUrl.indexOf('chrome://favicon/') == -1) {
// favicon appears to be a normal url
favicon = tab.favIconUrl;
delay = 0;
}
else {
// couldn't obtain favicon as a normal url, try chrome://favicon/url
favicon = 'chrome://favicon/' + url;
delay = 100; // larger values will probably be more reliable
}
setTimeout(function() {
/// set favicon wherever it needs to be set here
console.log('delay', delay, 'tabId', tab.id, 'favicon', favicon);
}, delay);
});
}
This approach returns the correct favicon about 95% of the time for new URLs, using delay=100. Increasing the delay if you can accept it will increase the reliability (I'm using 1500ms for my use case and it misses <1% of the time on new URLs; this reliability worsens when many tabs are being opened simultaneously). Obviously this is a pretty imprecise way of making it work but it is the best method I've figured out so far.
Another possible approach is to instead pull favicons from http://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=somedomain.com. I don't like this approach very much as it requires accessing the external network, relies on a service that has no guarantee of being up, and is itself somewhat unreliable; I have seen it inconsistently return the "globe" icon for a www.domain.com URL yet return the proper icon for just domain.com.
Hope this helps in some way.
As of Oct 2020, it appears chrome extensions using manifest version 3 are no longer able to access chrome://favicon/* urls. I haven't found the 'dedicated API' the message refers to.
Manifest v3 and higher extensions will not have access to the
chrome://favicon host; instead, we'll provide a dedicated API
permission and different URL. This results in being able to
tighten our permissions around the chrome:-scheme.
In order to use chrome://favicon/some-site in extension. manifest.json need to be updated:
"permissions": ["chrome://favicon/"],
"content_security_policy": "img-src chrome://favicon;"
Test on Version 63.0.3239.132 (Official Build) (64-bit)
chrome://favicon url is deprecated in favor of new favicon API with manifest v3.
// manifest.json
{
"permissions": ["favicon"]
}
// utils.js
function getFaviconUrl(url) {
return `chrome-extension://${chrome.runtime.id}/_favicon/?pageUrl=${encodeURIComponent(url)}&size=32`;
}
Source: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensions/c/qS1rVpQVl8o/m/qmg1M13wBAAJ
I inspected the website-icon in Chrome history page and found this simpler method.
You can get the favicon url by --
favIconURL = "chrome://favicon/size/16#1x/" + tab.url;
Don't forget to add "permissions" and "content_security_policy" to Chrome. (https://stackoverflow.com/a/48304708/9586876)
In the latest version of Chrome, Version 78.0.3904.87 (Official Build) (64-bit)) when tested, adding just img-src chrome://favicon; as content_security_policy will still show 2 warnings:
'content_security_policy': CSP directive 'script-src' must be specified (either explicitly, or implicitly via 'default-src') and must whitelist only secure resources.
And:
'content_security_policy': CSP directive 'object-src' must be specified (either explicitly, or implicitly via 'default-src') and must whitelist only secure resources.
To get rid of them use:
"permissions": ["chrome://favicon/"],
"content_security_policy": "script-src 'self'; object-src 'self'; img-src chrome://favicon;"
Now you can use chrome://favicon/http://example.com without getting any errors or warnings.