How to edit scripts with your favorite editor?

Table of Contents

For anyone who uses Violentmonkey, it is easy to find a way to edit a script like this:

editor 1

However, it is really hard to make everyone love it. A probably likes a theme of monokai, while B prefers eclipse. C might use 2 spaces for indentation while D prefers tabs.

It is impossible to satisfy every single user. Lots of configurations may be added for this, but are they really worth it? A user would have to face lots of choices before he could use it just as a script manager, or have to look for a simple option among lots of unrelated editor options. What is worse, the browser may inhibit some shortcuts or operations that a local editor can have. In other words, an editor inside Violentmonkey will never be as good as your favorite one.

Here comes the question: How to edit my script with my favorite editor?

Save to a file

First, copy the script to your favorite editor and save it to a file.

editor 2

VIM is my favorite editor, and the script is saved at D:/Source/vm-script.user.js. Note that the script file must have a name ending with .user.js, otherwise won't be recognized by Violentmonkey.

Install a local script

First make sure the local script is named with a suffix of .user.js.

Then use one of these methods:

  • Drag the file into any Violentmonkey tab or popup.

    Requires Chrome/Chromium 86+ and Violentmonkey 2.16+.

  • Drag the file into the browser toolbar or tab label area.

    • In Chrome-like browsers you must enable "Allow access to file URLs" in Violentmonkey's details in chrome://extensions page first. Since this is dangerous (any userscript will be able to read any local file via GM_xmlhttpRequest), you may want to use the other methods instead.

    • In modern Firefox-like browsers don't close the file tab while tracking as it's used to read the contents of the file.

  • Set up a server and navigate to http://localhost:8080/my-script.user.js.

    The port number :8080 may be different or even omitted depending on the server you installed.

    We recommend indexzero/http-server. Once you install it, just type http-server -c5 at the directory of your script to start a server. The -c5 option sets cache time for max-age header to 5 seconds (more info), thus forcing a browser to query the server URL every 5 seconds. The caching can be disabled with -c-1 option.

    Make sure the hostname is localhost and the script name ends with .user.js.

editor 3

Click Track external edits button to confirm installation. You can also make it the default button for local files by ticking the checkbox on the right.

Edit and sync

After installation, the confirmation page will keep watching the file before the page is closed. Once the file is changed, the new version will be installed automatically. As a result, you edit the script in your favorite editor, and the changes are synced to Violentmonkey immediately.

editor 4

Known issues


Published at March 14, 2017
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