Firefox + Greasemonkey = Lurve

I wanted to share yet another little gem of information which, if you haven’t discovered it yet, will change your Flickr-addict lives (if you are, in fact, a Flickr addict that is).

Two things before we begin:

1. You must use the FireFox browser in order for what I’m about to tell you to work. You can download it here: www.mozilla.com. You can feel free to download either the current stable version 2, or the beta FireFox3 version. I use FireFox 3. If you don’t, or have never used, the FireFox browser before — I’d recommend, at the very least, giving it a try. It’s wonderful and in my opinion, much more intuitive than the current IE7. Bonus! — FireFox DOES work with Mac OSX, as does everything I am about to tell you. So users with Macs, feel free to indulge yourselves as well!

2. Brace yourself. This is seriously ~life changing~. *ungh! giggidy!*

———————————

Now, let me begin by explaining one quick thing.

How many of you out there, really hate submitting a picture to one Flickr group at a time?

*raises hand* I do!!!

I often find myself wanting to submit a photo to 30 groups at a time, and find that I generally had to sit there and click that stupid “Send to Group” button over…and over…and over. It’s mind numbing and unBELIEVABLY counter-productive. Which brings me to what I want to tell you about today.

The Greasemonkey plugin for FireFox, and the Flickr Multi-Group Sender script. You will need to download both in order for them to work.
“What do they do?” Well, I’m glad you asked!

Someone I used to be dear friends with introduced this to me last year some time, and I haven’t been able to live without it since. I imagine, if you take the time to set it up, you will have the same reaction. THIS IS HOW FLICKR WAS MEANT TO BE USED!!! DO YOU HEAR ME YAHOO?!?! Now, down to the nitty gritty:

1. Download FireFox!

For those of you who want the stable FireFox2:
Click here
For those of you who want the beta FireFox3:
Click here

Note: I’ve been using FireFox3 since its beta release, and have encountered no problems.

There are Windows, Mac OSX and Linux options on both downloads, so rememeber to download whichever you need!

Now!

2. Download the Greasemonkey Plugin for Firefox!

If you downloaded FireFox 2:
Install the plugin here.
Note: This plugin will claim that it works for Firefox2-3. It’s lying! If you download the latest version of FireFox 3, then follow the instructions below:

If you downloaded FireFox 3:
Right-click and save this file to your hard drive! Once you have it downloaded, open FireFox and double-click the XPI file. It will install the plugin to your Firefox browser. Note: If this *DOES NOT WORK*, please let me know! I have a working xpi script at home, I can host it on my website if I need to.

Once the plugin is successfully installed, a little monkey will appear in the bottom right hand corner of your status bar at the bottom of the Firefox browser. This is how you know the plugin is installed correctly.

NOW!!! (again!)

3. Download the Flickr Multi Group Sender script for Greasemonkey.

This is the easiest step of them all. Simply go to this page, click the black box in the upper right corner that says “Install This Script”, and it will install the script to Greasemonkey (you should get a little message next to the monkeyhead that says “Script Installed Successfully”).

Once that is done, close and restart FireFox.

4. This is the part where your life changes.

Go to your Flickr profile and click on any one of your pictures in your stream. NOW… hit the dreaded “Send to Group” button. A scripted window should appear with a list of all of your groups. You can hold the control button to select multiple groups (up to 30 of them, I believe). Once you have selected all of the groups you’d like to submit your photo to, click the “Add Photo” button, and watch as this nifty little script begins sending this one photo to all of the groups that you selected, ALL AT ONCE! There are other things you can do with this script (such as save lists of groups you’ve selected), but I’ll let you guys read up on the script to learn how to use those.

—————————————

So, there you have it! No more submitting photos to one group at a time. I hope this is useful to some of you out there!!! I sure know it’s been life changing for me. LOL

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comment stream. I’ll try to answer them as best I can!