Today I crafted a user script I have been missing ever since way before there were any user script capable browsers. A bookmark that remembers my progress through an archive (of comics, typically) I plow through, a few pages at a time, in random bursts, often weeks, months or years apart, without my doing any of the book-keeping, remembering or similar. A bookmark that follows me where I go, keep track of what I read last time and suggest I pick up where I was there, whenever I return to the site.
So let me present the Automatic last read bookmark (direct install link) user script, which does just that. It's predefined to hook in only on megatokyo.com, sinfest.net and qwantz.com, since those are where I always both seem to lose track and eventually return to pick up again, and since all three sites are in the fine habit of keeping a complete archive you can browse, but the script works just as well for many other sites, too, and not just comics either.
To add a new automatic bookmark for some site, just add the domain you want it to run at using Greasemonkey's Tools -> Manage User Scripts dialog for the script and add it among the include links following the pattern. Some minor meddling, that I don't mind overly much doing once for each additional site I want to bookmark.
How it works, once there?
Well, say I go to Qwantz. It's my first time there, so I don't have a [Last read] bookmark. Everything looks just as usual. Today's strip featured at the root page is number 858, but with the root page not being a permalink (it won't necessarily hold the same strip tomorrow), no bookmark is made.
Let's say I go to the Archive, and visit the first strip, from February 1st 2003. Now, the script will silently file a bookmark for this page -- since it found a number in the URL ("/index.pl?comic=1"). Head back to the root page, and you will get a sticky [Last read] link in the top left corner of the page, pointing there. For every page you visit on the site matching the same URL pattern and where the number is greater than your last bookmark, the bookmark is silently updated, and you will be suggested to pick up from there on your next visit.
The script indexes your bookmarks by site and can keep track of however many sites you want it to. And on sites like these, where there is a single numeric straight id embedded in the URL, it will warn you if you happen to bypass any number or numbers, rather than just silently warping the bookmark forward in the sequence.
One final feature: you can always reset the bookmark to some earlier page manually, if you like; just head to where you want it and invoke the Tools -> User Script Commands -> Set last read bookmark to this page menu option. Enjoy!
