PEP with Google Chrome 56 and Win10

[SteveJH347]

I've used PEP for years, without issues, on Firefox (FF 35/PEP 5.2.1) and assumed the Chrome version would work just as flawlessly. With FF, I must be using a paid version since there are no limitations -- but I don't recall my registration info, etc.

With Chrome, PEP rarely pastes anything. For example, when trying to enter an email address in GMail and with the cursor in the "To" box, if I hover over the PEP icon in the toolbar, a message shows saying "cannot paste - not a valid input field". (It is a valid field in Firefox.) Nothing happens when I click the PEP icon. This is the result I see when I've gone to various web pages, such as Google home page, put cursor in input box, and try to use PEP. On most web pages I tried, even when right-clicking and using the PEP sub-menu, nothing happens and no text is entered.

In the Forum box I am typing in now, PEP will ONLY enter the last pasted text, if I have chosen that option in the PEP Options tab. If I have chosen text as the Default when I press the toolbar icon, nothing happens on this forum page. The icon, however, shows a gold "OK", but still nothing.

In Firefox, there was also a downward pointing arrow that allowed me to access and select a variety of texts i wanted PEP to input. That arrow is missing in the Chrome version. The only way to access that list is to right click and use the PEP sub-menu.

I tried disabling all my active Chrome extensions other than PEP, with the results above. I don't believe I'm doing anything incorrectly. I'm on the most recent version of Windows 10, and using Chrome 56. Everything is up to date.

[cbaker_admin]

I will try to duplicate the problem and post my findings here.

I should point out that the Chrome version of PEP is not as powerful as the Fx version and probably never will be. Chrome uses the "WebExtensions" platform for its extensions whereas I use XPCOM and XUL for the Fx version. Unfortunately, Mozilla is in Firefox v57 in favor of WebExtensions for all existing add-ons. When this happens, PEP nor any of my other extensions will work with Firefox.

As an experiment, I tried to port two of my extensions (PEP and BackToTop) to chrome but had limited success. WebExtenions simply does not allow the advanced functionality needed to properly support any add-ons that can do anything more than a standard webpage can do (and that isn't much).

None of my Fx extensions offer a paid version. They are all free and will continue to be free (I do accept donations, however). I am asking for a small charge for my Chrome extensions in hopes of recovering the charges that Google imposes for developing add-ons on their platform.

[SteveJH347]

Thanks for your response. And yes, after how well PEP worked with Fx, I was caught off guard when it didn't work with Chrome. I paid my $3.99 for the SuperDeluxe version, so if you need me to do anything to help you with your efforts to duplicate the problems I'm having, let me know.

The only reason I'm still with Fx35 is because I'm a heavy user of "Email This!" by Art Sabintsev. I contacted him a few weeks ago, and he has abandoned the add-on, so I am stuck. I'm slowly starting to use Chrome more, just to have it set up and operational for the day when I have to upgrade Fx -- and thereby lose some of the great add-ons. I will try to track down a version 55 or 56 installer, and keep it on ice until I need it. The add-ons are what make Fx great, and I'm seriously dreading losing all that customization.

Thanks again for your add-ons. Like I said, let me know if I can help you troubleshoot the Chrome version of PEP.

[SteveJH347]

Chuck - I just recorded a screen animation which illustrates the issues I was having in my first post. Let me know if you'd like me to send it to you. It's 2.25 mb, so not too large. I hover over the PEP icon in the Chrome toolbar, and show the options I'm using, so the video may be able to give you some hints as to what is going on.

[cbaker_admin]

Sure ... can you upload it here as an attachment? You may need to zip it up and upload the .zip for the forum software to recognize it.

[cbaker_admin]

I got the video but it is hard to view. Large parts are blacked out and it is difficult to see what your mouse is doing.

Here's the video you sent:

CBaker_PEP.wmv.zip

Remove .zip file extension. Name should be 'CBaker_PEP.wmv'

(2.25 MiB) Downloaded 451 times

[cbaker_admin]

OK ... I got the second file and can view it properly. Since I'm busy during the work week with my day job, I'll take a closer look at it this weekend.

[cbaker_admin]

Ok, I've been playing around with PEP and have discovered that it is not remembering the last pastetext used. In particular, the field in PEP Options > Options > Paste the last pastetext that was used: is not updating. That may be why the text is not pasting after you switch back and forth from 'Paste the last pastetext that was used:' and 'Paste the pastetext item:'. (You'll note that when you hover over the PEP icon on the toolbar, the text that should paste will be listed in the tooltip message. In some cases it is the empty string - two single quote marks with nothing in between.)

Are you aware that you can select the pastetext to paste by right-clicking in the input field and selecting the PEP context menu? Unfortunately, the PEP icon is not updating properly after doing this (unless you select a different input field). I'll be checking into that also.

Otherwise, it seems to be operating the way it is supposed to. I'll dig into the code and see what needs to be fixed.

[SteveJH347]

Chuck - Thanks for your investigation and follow-up here. As I said originally, PEP is a brilliant and very useful app. I'm glad you're on the case, and look forward to your solution.

[tomgee43]

Chuck - thanks for working on the update to allow the pastetext data to be saved to local computer. Please let me know when the final release is ready.

[cbaker_admin]

@ tomgee43

Tom, Just to keep you updated - I've been able to get PEP to work with gmail and google search but it requires the user to whitelist the urls. I'm writing the code to allow for whitelisting now. It should be ready for testing in a few days. When ready, I'll post it for download here.

[tomgee43]

OK great, thanks for update.
Hope we can get it to work for Freshdesk too. If it happens to not work after whitelisting, I could create a login for you so you can test live on Freshdesk.

[cbaker_admin]

@ tomgee43

Just another update. It turns out that google pages (at least search and gmail) are pretty tricky to whitelist. The problem is that whenever you load those pages (at least in the chrome browser), several other background pages are also loaded simultaneously. This is making it difficult to grab the url to compare against the whitelist. I'm working on some possible solutions and I'll keep you posted.

[cbaker_admin]

Making progress. The whitelisting seems to work, but I'm have problems getting the toolbar PEP icon to indicate when you are on a whitelisted page. But it is working well enough for you to test. I've tested on Google search and Gmail. I would like you to test on Freshdesk.

You will need to add Freshdesk to the whitelist in PEP options > Options > URL of page to whitelist. You may have to include the wildcard (asterisk) at the end of the url - please try with and without it. If included, it must be the last character in the url, i.e., "https://freshdesk.com*". It doesn't validate the url page title just yet, but that won't matter for testing.

ETA: Please put "https://mail.google.com*" in the whiltlist for Gmail. It will be automatically added in the next release.

PasteEmailPlus1.0.0.3.zip

PEP v1.0.0.3

(261.16 KiB) Downloaded 454 times

[cbaker_admin]

I believe I've got all the problems solved. Please install and test.

PasteEmailPlus1.0.0.4.zip

PEP v1.0.0.4

(260.27 KiB) Downloaded 475 times