It was not long ago that I discovered that a number of Greasemonkey scripts that are designed to work with Gmail needed to be updated to work properly again after a few changes were made to Gmail’s code. And it was once I was once again able to access a web browser with Greasemonkey installed on it that I checked to see if the script that I wrote for redirecting to the older version of Gmail upon logging into Gmail was affected. And after running a few tests with it, I saw that the script performed the redirect successfully when accessing Gmail through a secure connection, but not when accessing it when it was “http://” rather than “https://” entered as the first part of the URL. This error was not reported on the page for the script on Userscripts.org. That may have been because secure connections to Gmail are used more often by the users of this script. In any case, I took the time to modify the script, test it out, and ensure that it would redirect the user regardless of whether what was entered in the URL indicated a secure or non-secure connection were to be used.
After I removed only one ASCII character from the script’s source code, it worked as intended once again. Although I only needed to remove one byte of data from the script’s code, I did consider it an accomplishment for me to correct that error at the time it was corrected. And the main reason I am surprised that I was able to get this done without the error being reported on the script’s web page is not because I am still unable to work with my own personal computer. The main reason I am surprised that I was able to get this done is the main point of this post. (I am not dedicating an entire blog post to the removal of eight bits of data from a script.) And this main point I am making involves some more important information that I need to give about this script.
Although this script is one that has been downloaded and installed more often than any other Greasemonkey script I have written so far, as you can see here, it is actually not one that I myself often use. When I wrote this script, it was not written so much for myself as much as it was for those who preferred the older version of Gmail to the newer one. From the time that I first wrote the script, it always was one that was designed as a quick fix to solve what many others viewed as a problem. I personally do not mind the newer version of Gmail, and thus I would not be expected to use this script that I wrote very often. Therefore, if it needs to be updated, it is not likely that I would be one of the first to know about the need to update the script.
I suppose that one could be amused by the irony of how what appears to be my most frequently used script is a script that I personally do not often use. However, with many people apparently using it, it fortunately appears to be the one with largest user base to report errors and suggest solutions to errors. I would say that I had done well in updating it considering that I received no notifications of the script not working and considering that I have recently been unable to work with a browser with Greasemonkey installed on it. However, I have written this for the users who want it, and I will try to maintain it for the same reason.