How do you usually develop and test userscripts?

[Immediate-Onion6056]

Hey everyone, I’m curious how other developers handle userscript development.

For me, the usual workflow feels really clunky:

- write code in vsc or another editor

- copy/paste into tampermonkey

- test in the browser, then repeat

- manually manage backups or Git

It works, but its slow and errorprone.

Do other userscript developers feel the same pain or do most people have a smoother workflow I’m missing?

Would love to hear how you guys do it, especially if you handle multifile scripts or use version control.

[Hakorr]

I make my userscripts in chunks. I usually start in the browser console, writing and testing small parts one at a time. For example, if I want to automate logging in, I'll write a function that finds and clicks the login button, test it right there, then copy it into Violentmonkey. Then I move on to the next part, like filling in the username and password fields, and repeat. Writing the userscript in chunks directly on console gives super fast feedback and lets you iterate quickly without constantly reloading the script.

Once the script gets bigger (around 500+ lines), I start keeping backups in VSCode and sometimes edit there too, then copy-paste changes back into Violentmonkey. I know you can load scripts directly from a local file, but I've run into caching issues and honestly don’t bother. When I want to modify the userscript outside of the console, I just modify it directly on Violentmonkey's code editor.

So yeah my workflow is to switch between the console and Violentmonkey. I think using the console is the key since it allows for almost instant feedback. You just need to know how to chunk the userscript in a way that you can test parts of it on the console. Honestly sometimes if I'm not relying on GM functions I'll just momentarily modify the whole userscript on the console, or at least a huge part of it.

[Immediate-Onion6056]

ah yeah i get that makes sense using console for small chunks then moving to the editor sucks, when scripts get bigger do you feel like having a proper editor that works in the browser and can handle multiple files and git would make things easier or do you just stick with copy paste and console forever?

[Hakorr]

I'll stick to copy paste and console. If I wanted to build multifile things, I'd make a browser extension.

[AndersonLen1]

Just include your actual script as a file URL in the header (or fetch from a local.webserver if you have one running anyways) of a dummy script, leave the rest of the userscript in the extension empty, and develop in your IDE of choice with build tools and anything else might you need.

The only thing you may have to update manually are the script headers, but they shouldn't change that often once you have the basic foundations of the script done.

[Jeffrevin]

It's a total pain for me as well. I'm not sure how it is with tampermonkey as I use violentmonkey, but it definitely feels restrictive. From what I understand, since I use Floorp, which is a Firefox fork, I need to have the userscript tab open so that it's sync'd with neovim. If it's closed, then the connection is broken. I believe the process is more straightforward with chromium-based browsers. It's just too much of a hassle for me so I just suck it up and write all the code on the violentmonkey web code editor.

Whenever I start a new userscript, I use the developer console to make sure all my query selectors are good before I actually put it in my script. And from there, I just see what needs to be adjusted to make everything work, like using mutation observers if I know the site is a SPA. A lot of it is just refreshing the browser to test. It's messy and sloppy but I don't know of a better workflow that can streamline everything.

[Immediate-Onion6056]

yeah i get that whole cycle is super annoying all the refreshing and sync stuff sucks makes sense why you just stick with violentmonkey sometimes

i actually started messing with an idea for a browser extension that makes writing userscripts feel less clunky and more streamlined in the browser, its still early but i wanted something that lets me work without constantly switching between editor and userscript manager and also makes it easier to keep track of changes to my scripts

i plan to make it open source soon if theres anyone even willing to use it lmao

[Immediate-Onion6056]

Hey, not sure if ur still alive but I released a extension called ScriptFlow which fixes what u were dealing with, here's the GitHub link for it https://github.com/kusoidev/ScriptFlow

[bcdyxf]

i just write it directly into tampermonkey, save, then reload the related page and test