autofill
Autofill v11.8.0 released (Sep 21, 2023)
Here are all of the changes since v11.7.0:
- A new and improved Portuguese translation (credit to Frederico Valério 👏)
- The “commands” permission was removed as it was triggering security warnings and wasn’t needed
- Fixed errors related to the experimental fenced frame feature
- Fixed issue generating rules for some
<select>fields, which cascaded into other errors
Version 11.8.0 should start rolling out to all three browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox) in the coming days.
🌟Autofill Stars🌟
Presenting our newest Autofill Star: Dylan from Australia! 🎆 Dylan, take it from here…
I’ve made Autofill a part of my online shopping routine, especially on websites like Supreme. When it comes to highly sought-after items like the Supreme box logo, being fast is crucial, and Autofill has become my secret weapon. It pairs seamlessly with my custom Chrome extension, the Supreme Size Selector (you can find it on the Chrome Web Store for just USD$3). This extension simplifies the process, allowing me to quickly get those in-demand pieces, including the iconic Supreme box logo. It doesn’t just streamline checkout but also offers a cost-effective alternative to pricy Supreme bots. My reason for creating this extension was simple: to help fellow users get the items they want without having to spend a lot on bots that they might only use occasionally.
Feel free to checkout Supreme Size Selector:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/supreme-size-selector-%2B-a/mialjgeooaepealoglgacdjicchfipjd
I also have a version for Palace as well:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/palace-size-selector-%2B-at/agmnobgmdcadclfblcgccgjojdbkhncl
Dylan, you’re an Autofill superstar!
Autofill v11.7.0 released (Jul 2, 2023)
This version introduces a global hotkey to execute all profiles. Before you could assign a hotkey to individual profiles, but you’ll quickly run out of hotkeys to assign if you have a ton of profiles. Instead of setting profile hotkeys, you can opt to assign one global hotkey that will execute all rules in all profiles that match the site filter (even if “Autofill active profile only” option is checked). This works great when you’re in manual mode. This new global hotkey can be set by clicking “Global Hotkeys”.
🌟Autofill Stars🌟
Today I would like to introduce our next Autofill Star: Rich from USA. In Rich’s own words:
I send 250,000 to 1 million or more emails per day promoting 3-5 affiliate programs. Would not be possible without Autofill. Every new Autofill profile (I have a template) contains all the fields necessary for all the safelists and SuperSolos I use. When I set up my profile for a promotion I populate all fields including 5-6 subject lines, banner URLs, HTML and Text Ad Copy. When I start to promote on a safelist, it is simply login, add my solo or credit mail, select the profile, send. Rinse and repeat.
I do primarily email marketing but have over 100 videos on my YouTube channel (@RichMoyer1953).
Rich, you’re definitely an Autofill power user!
Autofill Signin (Jun 14, 2023)
I’m getting more and more cases of the welcome email bouncing or people complaining that they never received the subscription key, which suggests that people are making typos when entering their email address. This is a security risk – I don’t want invoices and welcome emails containing the subsription key going to the wrong email account by accident.
Since Stripe doesn’t validate email addresses during checkout, I will be introducing an Autofill signin form to ensure that subscription keys always go to the right email addresses. This means that the Stripe Checkout buttons will only be available once you validate your email address and sign in. This should offer more peace of mind for subscribers. 😌
Stripe Checkout up again (Jun 6, 2023)
The Stripe Checkout links are working again. Yay! Once again, sorry for the interruption.
Stripe Checkout down (Jun 5, 2023)
Stripe has disabled my subscription checkout page because of some fraudulent activities. I’m in the process of resolving this situation, which will require an extra step to authenticate users before sending them to the checkout page.
Apologies for the inconvenience.
Autofill v11.5.1 released (May 31, 2023)
This update adds a feature that a number of people have been asking for over the years: the ability to remove attributes from problematic forms. Now you can accomplish this by adding a comma-separated list of attributes to the new “Attributes to remove” field in the Other Stuff tab. Prime candidates for this field include autocomplete (often used to disable the browser’s built-in autofill) and readonly (prevents Autofill from filling out the field).
You don’t need to create any rules for the attributes to be removed. As long as the web page’s URL satisfies any site filter you’ve defined for the active profile, the attributes will be removed automatically on page load if this option is enabled. Note that attributes will only be removed for form fields.
🌟Autofill Stars🌟 (May 16, 2023)
Our Autofill Star for this month is Abdelrahman from Egypt. Abdelrahman uses Autofill to help complete his tasks at work.
Abdelrahman, keep up your improved productivity!
🌟Autofill Stars🌟 (Apr 23, 2023)
Today I’d like to shine the spotlight on Daniel @ OnShoreIt from USA. Daniel uses Autofill to fill out Nagios forms and ATT tickets.
Daniel, you’re an Autofill Star!
Autofill v11.4.5 released (Mar 29, 2023)
Autofill v11.4.5 fixes various bugs related to text spinner and sequential list variables (thank you Matthew for reporting), as well as a minor profile deletion bug. More importantly, it introduces an often requested feature:
With this option checked, the infobar will only show profiles whose site filter matches the current web page’s URL or document title. This will make selecting profiles a lot easier for people with a ton of profiles.
First Autofill tutorial (Mar 23, 2023)
Recently, I helped a user with autofilling a tricky AJAX form that stumped Autofill’s generated rules. I felt the solution for this form could be applied to other forms as well, so I created my first Autofill tutorial around this. I can’t believe after 12 years this is my first tutorial, but better late than never ^^.
Automate first test (Mar 5, 2023)
This is the first ever proof-of-concept demo of Automate:
https://www.loom.com/share/1e328d19073a40fb944f78076507d575
I’m really happy with the results. In this video the following actions were automated:
- Navigate to Amazon.
- Search for “ps5” after the page loads.
- Wait for results to load, then take a scrolling screenshot.
- Insert the screenshot image at the bottom of the page.
Even at this early stage, this video shows a level of automation that even Autofill can’t do. Now imagine doing all this using simple commands from your own Google Sheets. All that power at your fingertips, and this is just the beginning. Down the road, in addition to taking screenshots, you will be able to scrape the results and send them to Sheets, open multiple tabs and autofill all of them, and so much more. Automate is going to be awesome!
🌟Autofill Stars🌟
Today I’d like to shine the spotlight on Don from USA. In Don’s own words:
I have been using Autofill for years to complete my required online form documentation for work in healthcare. I have amassed 18 profiles with over 300 rules, 30 advanced rules, and almost 200 variables that I mostly activate with keyboard shortcuts. Autofill has saved me hundreds of hours. I also use Autofill for pop-up tasks as they come to make filling forms and clicking buttons a breeze. My advice for any newer Autofill users is to learn variables and JavaScript with advanced rules to add delay for clicking – this will open a whole new world for you!! Also, if you use multiple machines, use Pastebin to save your rules. It is free!
Don, you’re an Autofill Star!
Autofill Stars (Feb 18, 2023)
It has been about two weeks since I launched my Autofill fundraising campaign, and it has been a humbling experience. Honestly, I thought only a handful of power users would subscribe since I have been giving Autofill away for free for so long, but the number of new subscribers I’m getting every day continues to touch my heart. 🥰
As a way of paying it forward, I present to you the inaugural 🌟Autofill Stars🌟 program. About 1-2 times a month I will showcase one Autofill subscriber or influencer right here in the News tab. It’s a great platform for them to share with all of us how they use Autofill, which could be beneficial to everyone. Autofill Stars are allowed to promote their own service or brand to Autofill’s 800k users, so if anyone has something they want to announce then please subscribe!
The first Autofill Star I’d like to shine the spotlight on is Ronald from USA. Not only was he one of the first subscribers, but he also donated a generous $600 to Autofill. Thank YOU, Ronald! This is how Ronald has been using Autofill:
Autofill saves me tons of time in my job. I gather data used in performance evaluation used to determine system productivity. I start with what I call a set of “baseline autofills” to enter data on sets of standardized forms. My evaluations are then completed by adding essential bits of customized information to create unique reports.
How to get rid of the banner
The instructions are in the order confirmation email after you subscribe, but it’s worth repeating here since I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this:
- After you subscribe, you should be getting an order confirmation email from Stripe. If you don’t see it, look in your Spam folder. Make a note of the invoice number inside this email.
- Go to Autofill Options / Other Stuff tab and enter the invoice number from step 1 into the “Invoice number” field under the Subscription section.
- Click on the “Verify Subscription” button. After a new seconds, the button should change to “Subscribed” to verify that you have been registered successfully and should no longer see the fundraiser banners.
Please help spread the word ^_^
One small way that you can help that doesn’t cost anything is if you have any friends or colleagues that you noticed are doing repetitive work in the browser (like filling out long tedious forms), then you can introduce them to Autofill. In the latest version I have added Facebook and Twitter icons in the footer to help you share Autofill with others in one click. Please click on these icons as a free way of showing support.
Automate Community
I have finally set up the Automate Community. It’s going to be a premium invite-only support community for Autofill subscribers. I will send out an invite to existing subscribers shortly. All future subscribers will automatically receive in invite to join this new community. It will be quiet in there for awhile as I’m still in the early design process of building the Automate MV3 extension.
https://community.automateextension.com/
UPDATE: PeerBoard, the service that powers the community site above, will shut down in June 2023. I have set up a Discord server to host the new community. You can join using the link below.
Introducing Autofill v11 (Feb 14, 2023)
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! 💘
I was wrong when I said there will be no more updates to Autofill–a major update to v11 will be rolling out soon. Please don’t fret, this won’t be a big headache like the v10 release because most of the changes do not affect the extension’s core functionality. I actually didn’t plan on making amymore changes to Autofill, but my hand was forced by Mozilla. To make a long story short, last week Mozilla notified me that they were going to unlist Autofill within 10 days because the tools I used to build the extension were closed source and they required open source software in order to review the source code for publication. This must’ve been a new policy because the Firefox version had been around for years without any issues. Since the tools I used to build Autofill were over 10 years old, closed source, and no longer supported, it was a good time to overhaul my entire development environment to prepare for the big MV3 changes to come. Hence, I replaced all my ancient build tools with modern open source equivalents.
Since I had to refactor most of the code to make it work well with the new build tools, I figured I might as well make some improvements to Autofill. Aside from modernizing the tooling, here are some of the bigger changes in store for v11:
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Merged Chrome/Edge and Firefox branches. The Firefox version had always existed in a separate development branch, so anytime I made changes to Autofill I would have had to do it in two places. Now that Autofill versions for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox are all built from the same source code in the same branch, the maintenance overhead will be significantly reduced.
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Improved subscription validation. Before I was using the email address to validate subscriptions. Some users were not comfortable with this as it would mean their personal information would be stored in Autofill, and also transmitted over the internet every time Autofill communicates with the backend API to validate the subscription. This is obviously not good for privacy & security, so I’ve replaced the email address with the invoice number. Email addresses for existing subscribers should be migrated to invoice numbers automatically in v11, but if it doesn’t then you can grab the invoice number from the order confirmation email. I’ve never monetized anything before, so this was a learning experience.
Here are some other minor tweaks and quality of life improvements to Autofill:
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Added Facebook and Twitter share icons. If you find Autofill useful, then I’ve added these icons in the footer so you can spread the word about Autofill with just one click.
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Added lightbox loading screen. Sometimes it can take seconds to retrieve the changelog remotely when you click on the version number link (top right in Options), which can make it seem like Autofill is hanging. The loading screen will let you know that it’s still retrieving data.
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Removed squigglies in Form Fields. These distracting wavy red lines below the text are not applicable to Autofill rules, so they’ve been banished in v11.
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Updated developer notice. The fundraiser banner was too red, so I toned it down a notch. The buttons look prettier also.
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Fixed “what’s new” sometimes showing old version. There was a bug where clicking on the version number link would show the changelog for a different version.
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Fixed changelog parsing issue. HTML code in the changelog was not escaped (i.e.,
<...>replaced with<...>), which could break the changelog lightbox overlay.
The future of Autofill (Feb 2, 2023)
As Manifest V3 (MV3) is looming ever closer, I am left with three options:
- Easy path - let Autofill languish and die a slow death until MV2 extensions are prohibited (sometime in 2024).
- Lazy path - retrofit Autofill to be MV3 compliant, but that would mean it will lose JavaScript rules and variables. This is not acceptable to many users.
- Hard path - Rewrite Autofill from scratch as an MV3 extension that somehow can still do the automation work of JavaScript rules.
Automate - the MV3 way forward
For my 2023 New Year’s resolution I have chosen to take the hard path. To have a chance of pulling this off before 2024, I quit my day job so that I can focus full-time on building the MV3 successor to Autofill: Automate. Ever since I added JavaScript rules to Autofill, I always felt the name “Autofill” was misleading because it could do so much more than simply autofill forms. The new name better reflects this extension’s true capabilities. Automate will be a brand new extension built on top of the latest web technologies.
Please help me so I can help YOU 🙏
In order to support myself, I will borrow Wikipedia’s playbook and start displaying fundraiser banners in the next release of Autofill. Sorry guys, this is the only way I can think of to raise money without putting up a paywall. It’ll be a little naggy, but at least you’ll still be able to use Autofill indefinitely without paying a cent. Only moderate to heavy users of Autofill will see the fundraiser banners. They will present you with two subscription plans:
- $4.99 / month - this is catered to corporate users who can expense it, but anyone is free to select this plan to show their support.
$16.99$8.99 / year - this is for casual users who rely on Autofill for personal stuff. $8.99 per year is a promotional price until Automate is released, at which point it will go back to $16.99 per year. All subscribers on the $8.99 per year plan will get to keep this rate forever, so it’s a great deal if you act early.
After 12 years of pouring my heart & soul into Autofill and giving it away for free, I humbly ask for a little financial help to keep this dream to build the ultimate automation tool alive. However, if you are unable to contribute, I understand and you can still continue to use Autofill by clicking “I will use Autofill one more time.” Your support means everything to me.
Subscription benefits
To make it more worthwhile for subscribers, in addition to getting rid of the banners, they will get access to a premium support community where they will get to help me shape Automate every step of the way. This is where I will post preview versions for private “early access” testing. The biggest reason to subscribe now is that you will get discount promo codes for Automate’s premium tiers when it is released (25% off for yearly subscribers and 50% for monthly subscribers). Remember that Autofill will no longer have JavaScript rules when it is migrated to MV3, something that Automate will be able to do using an automation API. Please let me know if you want something else added to Automate. Autofill will remain “as is”–I will no longer work on it or support it as all my time will be dedicated to creating Automate. The Automate MV3 extension is the future.
I hope it doesn’t end like this, but…
If this little monetization experiment doesn’t work out after a couple months (i.e., I don’t have enough subscribers to support myself), then I will most likely sell Autofill. Once Autofill is sold, it will be out of my control, so I cannot guarantee that it will continue to work the way it does today under the new owner, or whether they will migrate it to MV3 down the road.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more on Automate in future posts.