SE Chat Modifications -- Keyboard navigation and commands for chat

Question

Screenshot

Use /command shortcuts to perform common chat tasks:

See message history inline:

Easily preview replied-to messages:

And much, much more...

About

Legends tell of a prolific Meta Stack Overflow chatter who despised using their mouse above all things. In an effort to keep their hands firmly on the keyboard, this chatter set out to make a userscript that would bring all of chat's functionality within a few keystrokes' reach.

To make this possible, the userscript provides the following features:

• /command shortcuts to perform many different chat tasks, such as starring, flagging, and loading older messages, as well as some non-native chat tasks, like Vimeo pseudo-oneboxes and in-chat note taking
• Keyboard navigation to select and take action on specific messages without ever having to reach for the mouse
• Extensible interface for writing custom commands, key bindings, and pseudo-onebox generators in your own userscripts

To learn more about the specific commands and key bindings, please see the comprehensive list of functionality in the SEChatModifications section of the README.

License

The script makes use of the livequery plugin and therefore must be used in a way consistent with that plugin's dual MIT/GPLv2 license.

Download

install / update script – view source

Platform

The script should work under all major userscript-supporting browsers. Please file a bug if you encounter any issues.

Contact

Rebecca Chernoff *, Yi Jiang, and Tim Stone actively maintain this script, with additional code contributions from Benjol and Michael Mrozek.

Feedback can be given on GitHub, or by "@lerting" one of the maintainers on Meta Stack Overflow chat.
_{*This script is in no way associated with Stack Exchange Inc.}

Code

In addition to forking the GitHub repository, you can write your own userscripts that leverage this script's functionality by using the ChatExtension object.

For example, you can create new /command actions:

// Will be called on /myCommand
ChatExtension.define('myCommand', function () {
    console.log("This is my own command");

    return ChatExtension.CommandState.SucceedDoClear;
});

Or, you may want to add in support for a custom pseudo-onebox, like the one for Vimeo that comes built-in:

// Will be called on /ob vimeo.com/path
ChatExtension.associate('vimeo.com', function (domain, path) {
   // Perform Vimeo pseudo-onebox magic by calling the Vimeo API
   // and submitting messages on behalf of the users
});

To learn more, check the source code, or explore the ChatExtension object in your developer console of choice. Additional documentation will hopefully be made available in the near future.

Answer 1

2 ideas for drastically simplifying some command inputs:

A bare command such as /edit or /delete should assume "the last message I sent". Note that it will not necessarily be the highest id, because that could be one of another user.

Alternatively, if that implementation is too hard, avoiding the id number when the intent is obvious is still a nice idea, so perhaps instead of a bare command, something such as /edit last or /edit -1 could be used to indicate "my last message".

Answer 2

I think there is a bug: I was trying out the Clipboard feature, but I don't seem to be able to Delete/Paste items from the clipboard. If I try to delete an item, it always comes back if I click again on the "clipboard" button. and if I click Paste, nothing happens.

I'm using Firefox 37.0.1 and Windows 7.

In case it matters: I installed the following add-ons:

• Chat Reply Helper for Stack Exchange sites
• Firebug
• Greasemonkey
• Web Developer toolbar

Answer 3

Seems like the keyboard navigation broke since the jQuery version was upgraded while fixing the scrolling bug.

CTRL+Up will now both navigate upwards with the extension, and move the edited message marker (as though you pressed Up without CTRL).

Answer 4

I to remember reporting this before and the problem being solved, but it's back:

When I navigate through messages with CTRL+UP/DOWN, message by ignored users are silently traversed.