Can anyone help me out with this? Based on instructions from "Frankly's" blog site this is where I am stuck.

My error console says there is an illegal character and when I click on the link it takes me to this line in my script, which happens to be the first line:

{rtf1ansiansicpg1252deff0deflang1033{fonttbl{f0fswissfcharset0 Arial;}}

You have used WordPad to create the file and have saved it as an .RTF document. RTF documents have formatting codes that interfere with the script. If you use WordPad to create the file then you must save it either as "Text Document" or "Text Document - MS-DOS Format" as well as giving it an extension of .user.js. The greasemonkey script must be a straight text file with no additional formatting.

I also get an error that says "permission denied to call method Location.toString"

This error is generated by the Salon page and not by the script. The script has crashed after the first error message.

Any idea how to fix this? It doesnt appear that the script is doing anything for me right now.

Use a text editor (such as NotePad) to create the file or else be sure to save it as a text only document without formatting codes.

LITTLE BROTHER: If you are using WordPad to create the script file, this may be your problem as well.

... the fixed killfile script isn't working for me.

I'm sorry. I hoped that fixing the broken line would do it.

I didn't notice the error until I tried to install the script at work today by copying it from the blog and when I tried to run it nothing happened. But it did give me an error console message so I was able to fix it quickly. Once I did that, I was able to copy the script in its entirety and it worked fine.

* I don't know if this means anything, but when I right-click on the little Greasemonkey face displayed in the window taskbar to access the pop-up menu listing "New User Script" and "Edit User Script" commands, I notice that "Salon Letter Filter beta" does not appear above the commands. "Salon - make visited links purple" is listed, even though it's currently disabled.

I don't think that's significant. I have a little script that I wrote to remove the ads from www.salon.com/* and it doesn't show on the context menu, although other scripts do, but it works fine.

I do run several add-ons, e.g. NoScript and AdBlock, but they didn't cause any problems successfully running the original killfile script.

I also run NoScript (but not AdBlock) and it causes no problems.

I don't think I'm going to master Elements of Debugging 101: Using the Error Console, but I would be grateful for any further help from frankly, heru-ur, or any other technically informed visitor.

I don't think I can help any more unless you want to email me the user script you are trying to use. You can send it to rhett350 at yahoo dot com and I'll try to see if there's anything wrong with it. I hate to think that the script is unusable and that I am the only one enjoying a clutter-free Salon letters page.

LondonDerierre

P.S. It's been a week and we still have this godawful format for the letters section. I wrote letters, and unlike Pedinska, got no replies. But even Pedinska didn't get any action. I'm getting tired of re-sizing my browser every time I come to Salon. Beta is supposed to mean they fix things.

ondelette

Don't resize your browser — let greasemonkey do it for you. There is a lot of additional code for the letter filter script at <http://language-grammar.blogspot.com/2009/11/optional-additional-code-for-salon.html>. Even those who have philosophical objections to the killfile can use the script to make the letter pages readable without configuring the killfill.

There is code available to

• mark visited links so you don't have to remember what page you were on when you left
• Color code live links so they don't look like the rest of the text.
• Remove the huge navigation panel at the bottom of the page.
• Remove the hideous red background from the copyright notices at the bottom of the page.
• Remove the distracting second and third columns from the page.
• Expand the letter text across the now mostly empty page.

Use the script and you reconfigure a crowded, busy, and stressful page into a page with just the letters and very little else. It's better than cursing the darkness.

Typical liberal, treat your friends like enimies[sic] and your enimies[sic] like friends.
— BobTheCarpenter

Thanks for reminding us that Jesus Christ was a liberal. The fundamentalists eagerly await His return, but if He did return, the conservatives would just crucify Him again.

not all intentions are equal and that more often than not ours are well intentioned
— farragut

Yep, the good old USA — also known as "The Road to Hell Paving Company".

Unfortunately, after the last 8 years of good intentions, we're not just on the road to Hell, we're on an 8-lane limited-access superhighway.

If you're out there, I found a mistake in the code for the killfile script that prevents it from running. I have fixed it and the corrected version is at <http://language-grammar.blogspot.com/2009/09/salon-letter-filter-script-version-002.html>.

Or you can fix it yourself in the text editor. There is a hard carriage return in the middle of the line that begins "allHeads = xpath(". The line "md']",document);" that appears as the next line should be on the same line. Remove the carriage return at the end of the first line and the script should work.