Question

I’m trying to create a GreaseMonkey script that automatically extends the list of alerts in GitHub’s newsfeed but that doesn’t work.

Here is my code (inspired from this post):

var moreLink = $("a:contains('More')");
var evt = document.createEvent("MouseEvents");
evt.initEvent("click", true, true);
moreLink[0].dispatchEvent(evt);

But instead of expending the list of alerts like it does when you manually click on it, it just opens the page the link points too (https://github.com/organizations/my_organization?page=2)

How can I do this?

Edit:
Here is the HTML source code of the link, it looks like there is no javascript or onClick event associated to it:

<a href="/organizations/my_organization?page=2">More</a>

Edit 2:
Here is my full greasemonkey script:

// ==UserScript==
// @name        test
// @namespace   test
// @description test
// @include     https://github.com
// @require     http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.1/jquery.min.js
// @version     1
// ==/UserScript==

var moreLink = $("#dashboard div.news div.pagination a:contains('More')");
var evt = document.createEvent("MouseEvents");
evt.initEvent("click", true, true);
moreLink[0].dispatchEvent(evt);
//alert($(".alert").length);

Answer 1

Your code works perfectly for me — on the main page, when logged in. Though I would recommend that you use a more specific selector, to avoid false positives.

EG, use:

var moreLink = $("#dashboard div.news div.pagination a:contains('More')");

---

• What version of Firefox and Greasemonkey are you using?
• Is NoScript, Adblock, or similar running?
• You say that it looks like there is no javascript or onClick event associated with the link… How did you check? Firebug shows several event-listeners on that node.
• What errors appear in Firefox’s error console (CtlShiftJ), besides the zillions of CSS warnings that GitHub generates?
• Is your script doing anything else to the page? Especially adding or deleting content or using innerHTML? If so, post or link to the full script.

---

Update for new information:

1. On further testing, from more environments, it now appears as if GitHub’s pagination is not always initialized by the time the Greasemonkey script fires. To get around that, use the waitForKeyElements() utility and check for pagination-engine readiness before attempting to click the link. See below.

2. Greasemonkey 0.9.19 was buggy as all get-out — hence it was only active for a few days.
   Go to the Greasemonkey Version History page and install either version 0.9.20 or version 0.9.18.

3. The @include directive may not be firing when you want it. It needs to be at least:

   // @include https://github.com/
   

   But

   // @include https://github.com/*
   

   might be better, and the selector is specific enough that a broader include should cause no harm.

4. Step up to jQuery version 1.7.2 — we’ve used it extensively with no problems. (1.5.1 is probably not the problem, but best to eliminate that variable.)

Putting all that together, the following script works for me, from a variety of (Windows) environments. I left most of the debugging code in, just in case…

// ==UserScript==
// @name        _GitHub "news" item auto-paging
// @namespace   _pc
// @include     https://github.com/
// @require     http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js
// @require     https://gist.github.com/raw/2625891/waitForKeyElements.js
// ==/UserScript==

if (typeof unsafeWindow.console.clear != 'undefined') {
    unsafeWindow.console.clear ();
}
unsafeWindow.console.log ("Start...");  //-- Does not require Firebug.

waitForKeyElements (
    "#dashboard div.news div.pagination a:contains('More')",
    clickAjaxMoreLink,
    true    //-- Stop on first successful click.
);

function clickAjaxMoreLink (jNode) {
    this.numRuns    = this.numRuns || 1;

    unsafeWindow.console.log (
        "moreLink:", jNode,
        " | Parent classes:", jNode.parent ().attr ("class"),
        " | Run:", this.numRuns
    );
    this.numRuns++;
    /*--- COMMENT THIS NEXT CHECK OUT, if waitForKeyElements is set to
        continually click via clickAjaxMoreLink. (The last param is false.)
    */
    if (this.numRuns > 25) {
        unsafeWindow.console.log ("*** Excessive runcount, abort! ***");
        return false;
    }

    if (jNode.parent ().hasClass ("loading") ) {
        return true;    //-- Cancel the "found" status.
    }
    var unsfJQ_Body = unsafeWindow.$(document.body);
    if (    ! unsfJQ_Body
        ||  ! unsfJQ_Body.length
        ||  document.readyState != "complete"   //-- Order is important here
        ||  (typeof unsfJQ_Body.pageUpdate) != "function"
    ) {
        return true;
    }

    unsafeWindow.console.log ("Num news items, start:", $(".alert").length);

    setTimeout ( function () {
        unsafeWindow.console.log (
            "Num news items, after AJAX delay:", $(".alert").length
        );
    }, 2333);

    var evt = document.createEvent ("MouseEvents");
    evt.initEvent ("click", true, true);
    jNode[0].dispatchEvent (evt);

    return false;
}

unsafeWindow.console.log ("Setup complete...");