Monday, May 29, 2006

Odd HTML code due to Jajah's Firefox extension?

While working on a post for my blog, I noticed strange lines of HTML code when using the online editor provided by TypePad. Here’s an example of such odd lines:




<div id="jajahYDiv" style="visibility: hidden;">0</div>


<div id="jajahXDiv" style="visibility: hidden;">0</div>


I decided to open a ticket with TypePad and after I got their answer I uninstalled the Jajah extension. Guess what? The funny lines of code had disappeared, except for a few of the posts of my blog. I wonder what may have caused this and obviously I now feel somewhat less confident in the Firefox extension for Jajah. A pitty because it was quite convenient.


The details of my uninstall, with screen shots are available at the link below.







SP32-20060529-192743Here are three screen shots of posts in which I found HTML lines similar to the ones shown above. Please click on the pictures to get a full-size image.


In fact all of the posts I opened and viewed in HTML rather than WYSIWYG format had such strange lines at the very end of the post. Also, I noticed that the WYSIWYG editor showed some pretty strange behaviour: when writing a new post starting to type at the SP32-20060529-192906default location of the cursor I got nothing on the screen other than the cursor moving as though text was being printed; to solve this I had to use the UP arrow and only then would the editor work properly. That behaviour started after I installed the extension and it is not peculiar to TypePad’s editor as I had the same issues on other online platforms.


 


SP32-20060529-193007Now, the third screenshot is the test I am using to show that the abnormal lines of code must be coming from Jajah’s extension. Test is simple:


1. remove the extension


2. close all instances of Firefox


3. restart Firefox, go open the same post on TypePad and read the corresponding HTML code


SP32-20060529-193054


I removed the extension as shown in the following screen shot.


 


 


SP32-20060529-193756The odd lines of HTML are no longer in the code of that post.


 


 


 


4 comments:

  1. Alex, this is very interesting. As I am not doing any hardcore HTML (just some easy Dreamweaver updates from time to time), I do not think I have to be concerned. Or should I?

    ReplyDelete
  2. David,
    I am not suggesting for a minute that people ought to be concerned. Or that they should nto be, for that matter.
    This case is just quite strange and since I am a stupid user who understand just a little bit of IT, I wonder. When software has behaviours I have not authorized I personally get pretty nervous.
    I guess you are pretty safe continuing to Dreamweave merrily :-)
    Regards,
    alex

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is a known issue with this editor
    You can uncheck the "activate clickable phone numbers" in the Tools -> Extensions -> Jajah extension -> options, and refresh the page.
    To use the Jajah extension again just redo it.
    Enjoy Gilad

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the info.
    A pitty I won't be able to use the "clickable phone numbers" feature, which I found pretty cool.
    As an aside: I am really amazed at Jajah's ability to follow what is being written about their products & services on the web. IMHO these guys understand a great deal about what next generation marketing should be. Next generation marketing is one of the topics I am researching and working on these days as part of a couple of my projects.

    ReplyDelete