Stack Overflow Extras (SOX)

Question

SOX v2.8.0

Stack Overflow Extras (SOX) is a project that stemmed from the Stack Overflow Optional Features (SOOF) project.

The SOX userscript adds a bunch of optional features to all sites in the Stack Exchange network. These can be toggled on or off from an easy to use control panel (see screenshot below).

Note: This project has no relation to Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange; it is simply a userscript that enhances the sites!

Installation & Requirements

1. Install Tampermonkey. This is a userscript manager that must be installed in order for this to work, as the script relies on certain GM_* functions in order to save your settings!

2. Install the script. Clicking on 'install' below will make your userscript manager prompt you automatically to install it.

   • Official Version: install. view source
   • Development Version: install. view source

3. Go to any site in the Stack Exchange Network (e.g. Super User or Stack Overflow). You will automatically be asked to choose and save your settings. A toggle button (gears icon) will be added to your topbar where you can change these later on:

What features are included?

A full list of all the features is available on the SOX wiki page here.

Bugs and Feature Requests

Please post bugs and feature requests as issues on Github, where we can track them easily and push updates quickly. Please do not post them as answers on Stack Apps -- they are much harder to manage!

Contribute

Pull requests to add new features or improve the existing ones, etc. are welcome! Please head to the Contributing wiki page to get started.

Changes

Please see the change log at Stack Apps.

Answer 1

Change Log

On 2016-02-12, SOOF was renamed to SOX and rewritten by ᔕᖺᘎᕊ and ᴉʞuǝ. The versioning was reset.

• 2022-05-18 - v2.8.0

  • Fix bugs in various features due to SE layout changes
  • Add feature to add answer count to question header
  • Behind-the-scenes performance improvements (e.g., reduce usage of jQuery for efficiency - thanks @double-beep!)
  • Deprecate "align badges by their class on user profile pages" feature (now natively implemented!)
  • Deprecate "differentiate spoilers from empty blockquotes" (now native!)

• 2020-10-19 - v2.7.0

  • Fix bugs in various features (thanks @double-beep for many of these!)
  • Add feature to copy markdown for comments
  • Add feature to add scrolling to room list in usercards in chat
  • Only run SOX on HTTPS
  • Deprecate "add timeline button" feature (now natively implemented!
  • Deprecate "show question state in suggested edit review queue" (now native!)

• 2019-09-07 - v2.6.0

  • Fix bugs in various features
  • Add support for StylishThemes/StackOverflow-Dark theme
  • Remove dependency on Font Awesome for icons (use SVG sprites instead)
  • Update many features to work with recent SE HTML markup/CSS changes (thanks to @double-beep for many of these fixes!)
  • Add feature to open imgur image in a modal on click

• 2019-06-04 - v2.5.0

  • Only inject into Github issues if you are on the SOX repo
  • Fix bugs in various features
  • Deprecate the 'hide HNQ' feauter (now implemented natively)
  • Improve SOX's performance with many behind-the-scenes changes:
    • Reduce jQuery usage
    • Reduce number of API requests by caching them for a short period
    • Improve SOX's use of MutationObservers by specifying specific targets to observe in all uses
  • Improve SOX's Github Community Profile
  • Remove EOL RawGit dependency

• 2019-02-03 - v2.4.0:

  • Introduced 'feature packs' -- easily find and enable features that have been categorised into groups such as 'Major UI Tweaks' and 'Power User Features'
  • You no longer have to have an access token to use SOX; if you choose not to, then any features needing the API will simply be disabled. Thanks @Izzy for the suggestion.
  • Deprecated feature to paste images directly into the post editor (now native); feature to add notifications to your inbox when a post you downvoted was edited.
  • Added feature to hide the 'how to ask/format/tag' boxes that show when asking new questions
  • Added feature to add a link to the tag wiki page on the new tag popup boxes
  • Added feature to replace 'help' in the site-switcher to a link to the /on-topic page of the site
  • Added feature to add custom magic links to both posts and comments
  • Various bug fixes

• 2018-09-02 - v2.3.0:

  • Greasemonkey is no longer supported. Please use Tampermonkey
  • You can now import and export your settings from the SOX dialog
  • Added feature to paste images directly into SE textareas without using the image dialog
  • The old topbar is no longer supported (affects Area 51 mainly)
  • The feature that lets you watch posts for edits will soon be available as a separate userscript, and has been removed from SOX
  • Behind the scenes refactoring by @GaurangTandon
  • The fixed topbar feature has been deprecated as it is natively supported now!
  • Added feature to only show comment flagging/upvote buttons on hover (like it used to be)
  • Added feature to add the tag wiki link on the new tag popup box
  • Various bug fixes

• 2018-06-15 - v2.2.0:

  • lots of bug fixes (see milestone link above)
  • fixes major issue where SOX settings cog didn't show up
  • works on FF again
  • deprecated a few features
  • added a few features (disableVoteButtons, addTimelineAndRevisionLinks)

• 2018-02-24 - v2.1.0:

  • various bug fixes
  • many new features added
  • updated to be compatible with the new topbar and site design changes made by SE
  • versioning changed to MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH style

• 2016-12-21 - v2.0.2:

  • revamped dialog to include info hover buttons
  • added disableOwnPostVoteButtons, flagPercentageBar, replyToOwnChatMessages (thanks @IStoleThePies), hideCertainQuestions, inlineEditorEverywhere (thanks @nicael) features
  • fixed enhancedEditor feature
  • fixed downvotedPostsEditAlert feature
  • fixed issues with certain features not working in Firefox
  • deprecated addEllipsis feature
  • reordered features in dialog and made more categories for easier searching
  • added debug mode to help SOX devs fix bugs quicker and easier
  • features no longer run on page where they weren't designed to run on, fixing lots of weird bugs
  • completely rewritten fixedTopbar feature to work on all sites without manual configuration (thanks @IStoleThePies!)
  • fixed design issues with features with their own dialogs (thanks @IStoleThePies!)
  • fixed long-standing bug where the fancy vote buttons caused tearing on Skeptics.SE (thanks @IStoleThePies!)
  • fixes bugs in various features, which can be seen in the v2.0.2 Github milestone

• 2016-10-01 - v2.0.1:

  • many more bug fixes
  • fixed major issue where script did not work at all on Firefox
  • fixed cross-browser compatibility issues with the access token
  • rewritten downvotedPostsEditAlert feature to make it easier to use and more functional
  • known bug: the downvotedPostsEditAlert feature is flaky right now

• 2016-07-02 - v2.0.0:

  • Completely refactored version fixing a lot of bugs
  • deprecated feature that hides the search bar, feature that removes excessive exclamation marks from comments, quickCommentShortcuts feature
  • removed Ace Editor from the enhanced editor feature
  • bug fixes
  • fixed timing issues
  • setting dialog UI updates
  • script now request oauth access after installing to prevent rate limiting on certain features
  • added alignBadgesByClass, quickAuthorInfo, warnNotLoggedIn, hotNetworkQuestionsFiltering, hiddenCommentsIndicator features

• 2016-04-05 - v1.0.3:

  • SOX settings dialog now has a search bar and is a menu just like the inbox
  • new features
  • bug fixes

• 2016-03-06 - v1.0.2:

  • rewrote parts of script to allow better control over what features run when
  • bug fixes
  • added new feature (enhanced editor)

• 2016-02-28 - v1.0.1:

  • lots of bug fixes
  • rewrote some helper functions
  • built in error handling

• 2016-02-12 - v1.0: SOOF is now SOX.

Please see the revision history for this post to see the change log for SOOF, before it was renamed.

Answer 2

status-completed I had some trouble getting your script to run on Firefox / Greasemonkey. It turns out that I needed to replace this line:

// @require http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/jquery-ui.min.js

with:

// @require https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8/jquery.min.js
// @require https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/jquery-ui.min.js

With this change, the script seems to work on Firefox (although I haven't properly tested all the features yet).

---

I also noticed a few issues with the options pop-up:

• status-completed The pop-up appears in a weird location, partially off the screen. I managed to fix this issue by changing the style attribute from the original

  display:inline-block; position:fixed; margin:auto; top:50%;
  margin:-100px 0 0 -150px; z-index:2; background-color:gray;
  color:white; -webkit-border-radius: 15px; -moz-border-radius: 15px;
  border-radius: 15px;
  

  to:

  display:inline-block; position:fixed; top:10px; left:50%; width:500px;
  margin-left:-250px; z-index:2; background-color:gray; color:white;
  padding: 10px; border-radius: 15px;
  

• status-completed Having the checkboxes at the end of the option descriptions is somewhat ugly awkward; they'd look nicer and be easier to click if they were at the beginning. You could also simplify the HTML by nesting the checkboxes inside their labels, as in:

  <label><input type=checkbox id=id checked> Text </label><br>
  

• status-completed Every time I open the options dialog, all the checkboxes get checked. It would be much better to have them retain their previous state.

• status-completed Closing the options dialog using the "Close" link (instead of the "Submit" button) resets all the features to active, due to this line:

  GM_deleteValue('featureOptions'); //Delete the setting when clicked
  

  In particular, this interferes with trying to make the checkboxes retain their state (which is otherwise fairly simple). Simply removing this (apparently unnecessary) line makes it work better; the new settings will override the old when submitted, anyway.

• status-completed I don't see any particular reason why I shouldn't be allowed to disable all the features, if I want. That extra check seems just plain useless to me.

• status-completed Also, the "Options were saved!" alert after editing the options gets kind of annoying after a while.

---

status-completed Also, the "add features" link injection doesn't seem to work on the fancy new user profile currently in testing on meta.SE. You might want to add compatibility for that, especially since it'll likely be rolled out network-wide sooner or later.

Answer 3

status-completed

I'm using v1.4 and I noticed that the following features seem to clash somehow:

• Make the topbar fixed (stay at the top as you scroll)
• Make the vote buttons sticky

The topbar stays at the top, that works fine, but when scrolling, the upvote button disappears under the topbar. See the following screenshot for an example:

It would be great if the upvote button was visible all the time.

Answer 4

v1.5 DEV has a problem with the "Extra Mod Diamond" added to the toolbar when used in combination with stackoverflow-code-expando

When stackoverflow-code-expando is disabled there is no issue.

Appears to be a z-ordering issue?

Firefox 38.0.5, Windows 7 4Bit.

Here is a screenshot of the problem from StackOverflow.

Answer 5

This doesn't work for Stack Overflow, due to the new topbar design.

Workaround:

For now, you must use the Dev version to make it work on SO.

Answer 6

status-completed (thanks to ArtOfCode, that is :)

This appears to break the styling of title bars on at least beta SE sites. It would be good if it didn't obscure the top part of the title bar.

To see what I mean:

Without 'Fix topbar position' enabled:

With it enabled:

Answer 7

SOX 2.8.0 and 2.8.3DEV both fail to load under Chrome on SE sites where you are not a member.
I don't know if this is intentional or not, but it seems like it should work regardless.

The settings icon does not appear in the top-bar, none of the SOX features function, and the console reports:

chrome-extension://dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo/userscript.html?name=Stack%2520Overflow%2520Extras%2520(SOX).user.js&id=9cf7e741-6827-41a6-b33e-da00a230471b:3

Uncaught SOX: There was an error while attempting to initialize the SOX Settings Dialog, please report this on GitHub.
TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'left')

The error itself appears to come from line 3 of https://code.jquery.com/ui/1.12.1/jquery-ui.min.js - the current version of this is 1.13.2 but switching to that didn't resolve the issue.

Answer 8

status-completed

The Change the 'share' link to show link as markdown format feature has the annoying side-effect that the replaced text in the form [text](link) is not selected when clicking the share link.

It is pretty annoying to manually having to select the text - it would be better if the whole text was already selected, so I could copy it directly from the box.

Answer 9

status-completed

Fixed in this build

This is really borked on askubuntu:

1. The bar position is broken.
2. The vote button is broken.
3. The post content moves to the left.

Answer 10

status-completed

'Get access token?' link broken, generates the following error:

VM2649:3464 Uncaught channelUrl must be under the current domain
r @ VM2649:3464
(anonymous function) @ VM2649:3740
n.event.dispatch @ VM2649:8
r.handle @ VM2649:8

Running on chrome, Version 49.0.2623.110 m

Works only when clicking it on http://meta.stackexchange.com/ - If this is intended, maybe show a warning or only display the link when on meta.stackexchange.com

Answer 11

Installation completion dialog box opens every time I visit a SE page.

Solution:

1. Open browser console.
2. Click on the first URL to get your SE access token.
3. Approve the extension.

After that, the popup will reopen, you just need to save your preferred settings again.

Answer 12

My SOX appears to "time-out" after 24 hours. Some features are still available, but elements like 'Show tags for the question an answer belongs to on search pages (for better context)' stop working.

Entering the console shows this link

Mixed Content: The page at 'Stack Overflow Extras (SOX)' was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure XMLHttpRequest endpoint 'http://stackapps.com/posts/6091/revisions'. This request has been blocked; the content must be served over HTTPS.

And clicking the link goes to

{"error_id":403,"error_message":"key is not valid for passed access_token, token not found.","error_name":"access_denied"}

---

• This issue can be resolved by resetting SOX and requesting a new token.

Answer 13

The recent top bar rollout seems to have broken the tools again as I am no longer able to access the menus such as settings or the meta link which shows new activity and my name is now showing as false.

This is using the dev version

Answer 14

I'm using 2.8.3 DEV with Tampermonkey on Firefox.

The primary feature I sought was the:

Show the flag outcome time when viewing your Flag History

It works. However, it is still somewhat difficult to find recent changes. Would it be possible to sort the flagging based on outcome time?

For example having this list sorted with the outcome from 4 hours ago first, the 11 hour second and the 13 hour last?