How do I Use Local Names?

There are several things you can do now.

FireFox: Jump to Pages

What It Is

You can configure FireFox to automatically jump to named pages.

So instead of typing "http://ln.taoriver.net/", you instead type "ln Local Names", and it takes you here.

Or, instead of typing "http://youtube.com/watch?v=PnCVZozHTG8" in the address bar, you just type, "ln pancakes", and it takes you there.

How To Install It

  1. Start FireFox.
  2. Under "Bookmarks," choose "Manage Bookmarks."
  3. In the folder tree, open up "Bookmarks," and then select "Quick Searches."
  4. Click on the "New Bookmark" button.
  5. For Name, enter: Local Names Lookup
  6. For Location, enter: http://ln.taoriver.net/redirect?namespace=YOUR-NAMESPACE-URL-HERE&path=%s
  7. For Keyword, enter: ln
  8. For Description, enter: Jump to the page by the given name.
  9. Click on "OK."
  10. Close the Bookmarks Manager.

Be sure to put your URL where it says YOUR-NAMESPACE-URL-HERE above.

As an example, Lion Kimbro sets his URL to: http://ln.taoriver.net/redirect?namespace=http://taoriver.net:9000/description?namespace=lion&path=%s

(Geek note: The "%s" at the end is where Firefox is going to stick whatever Local Name you look up.)

How to Use It

  1. Hold down the Alt-key, and type the letter "d." (Alt-d.) You can release the Alt key now.
  2. The URL of the page you are at should now be highlighted, with a dark background.
  3. Type ln a local name, and then Enter.
  4. You should find yourself at the web page with that name!

So for example, when Lion types ln creole, he's taken to http://www.wikicreole.org/wiki/Home, because [http://taoriver.net:9000/description?namespace=lion his namespace] binds "creole" to that URL.

Caveats

This is by far the fastest way to get to a web page that you know by name. No browsing through huge lists of bookmarks, and no browsing across Google or del.icio.us. If you know what you want, you can get straight to it.

That said, this software is young. Sometimes, if nobody has used Local Names in a while, or if a namespace is freshly appended to, there's a noticable slight delay, as the query server comes to the foreground, and as needed namespaces are retrieved & cached.

You'll notice that every lookup after your first will be much quicker.

Firefox: Name Pages

What It Is

You can also name web pages (assign a name to a URL) in FireFox!

Basically: You see a page that you like, and you go, "Oh! I'll call this page... Pancakes!" You click a button, type in "Pancakes," and the page is named.

How to Install It

You do this with a bookmarklet, and an account on My Local Names.

Accounts are totally free, your data is yours, there's zero lock-in.

Type in a name for a namespace. If you want to protect it, put in your password.

You'll see a big page, and it'll have a bookmarklet on it. Drag the bookmarklet to your FireFox bookmarks toolbar, and it's installed!

How to Use It

Go to a page on the Internet that you like.

Come up with a name for it.

Click on the "Name this Page" bookmarklet.

Type in the name of the page in the box that prompts for the name, and hit the "submit" button.

You've named the page!

Caveats

First, you'll probably want to bind a name "this" (as in, the word "this") to point to your actual namespace description file.

When you see the "Welcome! You've just created a Local Names namespace!" page, you'll see a link to the source code for your namespace, immediately following. Click that, and then hit your "Name this Page" bookmarklet.

Type "this" in, for the name, and then hit the submit button.

Now, if you do an "ln this", you can see all the things you've named so far!

AND: If you want to back up your namespace description, this is the page to copy. Just save it to a file, and you're done.

GreaseMonkey

What It Is

Jonathan Roes has written an excellent Greasemonkey script: The Local Names Greasemonkey Script.

It sits in FireFox, and waits, while you browse the web.

When you start typing into an XHTML textarea, (such as [http://www.htmlref.com/examples/chapter12/textarea.html the one on this page,]) it intercepts local names, and replaces them with hyperlinks.

How to Install It

  1. Install Firefox, if you haven't already.
  2. Install GreaseMonkey. -- Don't worry, it's easy.
  3. Go to Jonathan Roes' Local Names Greasemonkey Script.
  4. Click "Install," to in the yellow bar with the monkey in it.
  5. Click "OK," when it says, "localnameslink.user.js installed."
  6. Click on "Tools" in the Firefox menu, and then "Manage User Scripts."
  7. Select "Local Names Link" in the list of scripts on the left.
  8. Click "Edit."
  9. If prompted for an editor, pick one, such as "Notepad."
  10. Find the text "namespace_url" in the text, as per your editor.
  11. Change the URL to the URL for your namespace. (For example, you could put: var namespace_url = 'http://ln.taoriver.net/localnames.txt'; if you wanted to use the Local Names namespace.)
  12. Close the editor.
  13. Go to the Textarea Example page.
  14. Try it!

That is, start typing text like the following:

This is a test of [[Local Names.]]
I want to see if the [[Local Names Greasemonkey Script]] works.

Though, this particular example will only work if you actually have those names defined.

How to Use It

You type in a textarea like normal, but you put two brackets around words that you want to link.

Here is some text,
it has a [[hyperlink]] in it.

The Greasemonkey script then detects this, performs a lookup, and replaces the text with:

Here is some text,
it has a <a href="http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?HyperLinking">hyperlink</a> in it.

Very simple.

Caveats

The script can take a few moments to kick in: The first request generally takes around 5 seconds, and then, thereafter, 1-2 seconds.

Also, it doesn't work on all sites, all textareas.

For example, it works on Slashdot, but it doesn't work in Gmail. Generally, the more JavaScript there is working on a page, the less likely it is to work.

WordPress

For the bloggers, there is a WordPress plugin.

I have written up special instructions for it; See: WordPress Plugin