Topic: [2.0] Artist Basis - artist subscriptions/favorites, galleries, searching

Posted under e621 Tools and Applications

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Artist Basis is a collection of tools to help you discover new artists and keep an eye on your favorites. It adds the following features to the site (click any heading for a demo):

Artist Watchlist

This page offers specialized tag subscriptions for artists. It helps you keep up with the activity of your favorite artists on e621, and also provides convenient access to more primary sources. In most places where artist tags exist on the site, you'll find a small ♥ icon to add that artist to the watchlist.

Artist Gallery

An overwhelming number of posts exist on e621, so it can be difficult to find artists you're interested in. The Artist Gallery lets you browse artist tags on the site in a gallery format, giving an artist with 2000 posts and one with 10 posts an equal platform (with each artist's most favorited work shown).

There's a gallery for each artist database on the site - tags and wikis. The tag database is faster and more complete, but they each have their uses. More info can be found in the tool's help page.

Artist Search

This page searches both artist databases for a given creator and presents the results in a way that makes sense (and in a gallery format, of course). It can make searching for an artist by name or alias much easier.

View Artists

This simple addition to the mode menu shows you the artists associated with each post. Expansion to this feature is planned for a later release.

Installation

1. Have a userscript manager ( eg Tampermonkey - Firefox · Chrome · Other ).
2. Install the script from here: https://github.com/index-eab/artist-basis/raw/master/artist_basis.user.js
3. If you already have an old version of Artist Watchlist (version 1.x) installed, please remove it.
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Version history

Released as Artist Gallery and quickly withdrawn.

Version 0.0 (2016-06-01)
  • Basic gallery functions.

Total rewrite, released as Artist Watchlist.

Version 1.0 (2018-08-18)
  • Dropped the gallery. Basic watchlist functions only.
Version 1.1 (2018-10-26) (skipped release)
  • You can now favorite artists from the sidebar of posts and search results.
  • Thumbnails on the watchlist are now cached, reducing server strain and wait times. Expired thumbnails are grayed out.
Version 1.2 (2018-11-08)
  • There's a new mode in search results and on favorite post lists, "View artists", for more convenient artist favoriting.
  • New, easier to read date format
  • Support for very large watchlists
  • Fixed errors that could occur if you used the script in two places simultaneously
  • eSix Extend compatibility
  • Numerous bug fixes and stability improvements
Version 1.3 (2019-04-10)
  • You can now blacklist tags.
  • The watchlist is now divided into time categories, including one highlighting posts since your last visit.
  • On the watchlist and in the artist view mode, hover over posts to show the favorites <3. Links to artist wikis were also added.
  • Compression! The max size of the watchlist has increased by about 4x.
  • The style now adjusts to themes besides Hexagon.
  • Greatly improved stability and performance in certain edge cases.
  • Added options to create backups and clear cached results.
Version 1.4 (2019-06-29) (skipped release)
  • Before, the watchlist showed only the latest post and you had to manually check for more. Now all new posts are accounted for - the watchlist will report, for example, that an artist has 6 new posts since your last visit, and you can expand them without leaving the page.
  • Changed thumbnail links to make more sense with the above change. Check the new help page for an overview.
  • The watchlist now enters a "cooldown" state after it updates. Until the cache expires (90 minutes), you can navigate away and back without the state of the watchlist changing.
  • "View artists" mode is now maintained between pages, like the native modes.
  • Stylistic changes, and greatly improved theme system.
  • Further optimized database, saving about 25% storage space.
  • Flash thumbnails are now shown properly.

Third release as Artist Basis - the first real release of the tool as I originally envisioned it. Much of the script was rewritten.

Version 2.0 (2019-08-24)
  • The script now has its own top-level tab. Look for Basis to the right of Artists in the site navigation.
  • Added a comprehensive Help and Configuration pages. Blacklist setup and cache management were moved here.
  • I eliminated the "Add/remove artist" field and replaced it with a search that leads to the tag galley. It was an awful, inflexible input method now that other options are available.
  • "Other sites" section added to the watchlist - intended to make the watchlist a hub for your watchlists on other sites where artists upload their work.
  • Faster, more reliable, and more transparent handling of irregular tags (aliases, no posts, etc).
  • Storage is better regulated: every preference is individually limited so that onsite storage is never exceeded.
  • The tool now drops into a "simple search" mode in case the server is taking too long to process requests.
  • Countless minor enhancements and stability fixes.
  • Thumbnail caption now flexes to accommodate long artist names.


Comments?

I want to hear from you! Any sort of feedback is welcome.
[/s]

Updated

I just published version 1.2. If you aren't prompted to update by your userscript extension, visit the install page and press Install again.

Major changes:

Version 1.1 (skipped release)
  • You can now favorite artists from the sidebar of posts and search results.
  • Thumbnails on the watchlist are now cached for 30 minutes, reducing server strain and wait times. Expired thumbnails are grayed out.
Version 1.2
  • There's a new mode in search results and on favorite post lists, "View artists", for more convenient artist favoriting.
  • New, easier to read date format
  • Support for very large watchlists
  • Fixed errors that could occur if you used the script in two places simultaneously
  • eSix Extend compatibility

Updated by anonymous

Hi there, I love the idea of this, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to get this to work.

I'm running firefox 63.0.3 and couldn't install it with greasemonkey
swapped to tampermonkey and got it to install and the watchlist page under artists shows up, but forever shows 'first time setup...'

entering in an artist stalls the page, and there doesn't seem to be any other way to watch artists, as the dropdown on searches doesnt seem to be working either

I appreciate the work, just can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Updated by anonymous

Getting this on install (63.0, Greasemonkey 4.7):

User script download failed

    Ignoring @match pattern *.e621.net/* because: Error: @match: Could not parse the pattern.

I believe the pattern should be *://*.e621.net/* (1 , 2 ), after fixing that, I can confirm the same issue; nothing happens.

firstTime()

is run but HTTP request /set/create.json results in HTTP 500, though not sure why, almost seems like an API bug the little I investigated.

Updated by anonymous

Update:
Both issues are probably fixed now, but I don't have time to do much testing atm. I'll post again later. Thanks for the support LostPareidolia, and thanks Chessax for the pattern fix!

Original post:
So sorry for the trouble yall. I'll post an update soon to ensure compatibility with other userscript managers (I foolishly only tested Tampermonkey)

Second, the set API does appear to be broken (hopefully not my fault). If a dev happens to be reading this, /set/create and /set/update aren't giving responses. I'll see if there's anything else I can do on my end as soon as I get a chance. They work fine when you send multipart form data rather than URL parameters. It’s strange that URL params stopped working but no big deal.

Updated by anonymous

Nice! This is exactly the thing this site needs. I was wondering, though, would it be possible to do a search/filter on the watchlist page? For example, to find only things posted within the last day, or week? And is it safe to assume your blacklist will still apply to this page?

Updated by anonymous

Thanks for the support! There's no blacklisting yet but I've been working on that - it'll come with version 1.3.

I've considered breaking the watchlist up into sections: 'Past day', 'Past week', 'Past month', etc. Would that work instead of a search/filter?

Updated by anonymous

Ooo.... shoot. Support for the site's blacklist function is kind of critical for me, personally. Glad it's in the works though. Probably wouldn't even use the site without it, heh.

And those options aren't ideal, but definitely better than nothing!

Updated by anonymous

It's been a while but this is also a pretty huge update. Here's what's changed:

Version 1.3
  • You can now blacklist tags (see note below)
  • The watchlist is now divided into time categories, including one highlighting posts since your last visit.
  • On the watchlist and in the artist view mode, hover over posts to show the favorites <3. Links to artist wikis were also added - I found this useful as I've started uploading more.
  • Compression! The max size of the watchlist has increased by about 4x.
  • The style now adjusts to themes besides Hexagon.
  • Greatly improved stability and performance in certain edge cases.
  • Added options to create backups and clear cached results.
  • Increased default cache duration to 1 hour.

Note: the blacklist used by this tool is separate from the site blacklist. I assume people have a higher tolerance for content from artists they enjoy - for example, even if I normally have 'flash' blacklisted, I'd still like to know if one of my favorite artists makes one.

Just like the site blacklist, this one accepts simple lists of tags, with a minus sign to negate. More advanced searches are not supported. Ratings can be selected, and default to s, q, and e (all posts which match the entry are blocked).

Updated by anonymous

davidscheiber28 said:
I have a suggestion. I would love to see compatibility with this script https://openuserjs.org/scripts/rooshoes/e621_Thumbnail_Enhancer
currently, adding the url to the script only nets low res blown up images.

That's a great script, I wasn't aware of it. Thanks for the suggestion.

It's much easier to modify the thumbnail enhancer to work with my script. I posted a fork below that only takes effect on the watchlist page. You can install it in addition to the regular one (and make sure you remove the url you added to the original, to prevent collisions).

https://openuserjs.org/scripts/index-eaw/e621_Thumbnail_Enhancer_for_Artist_Watchlist

Also, version 1.4 will be released soon.

Updated by anonymous

This script is really great! However, when you click on a post in the watchlist it brings you to the artist's page, is there a way to make it bring you to the post directly?

Updated by anonymous

krabitz said:
This script is really great! However, when you click on a post in the watchlist it brings you to the artist's page, is there a way to make it bring you to the post directly?

Thank you! In version 2 clicking on a thumbnail takes you directly to the post. I'll have the update out in a few days.

Updated by anonymous

Index said:
Thank you! In version 2 clicking on a thumbnail takes you directly to the post. I'll have the update out in a few days.

Awesome, thanks!

Updated by anonymous

Index said:
Thank you! In version 2 clicking on a thumbnail takes you directly to the post. I'll have the update out in a few days.

I am loving the script so far, as well. I can't wait for clicking to go directly to the post. That will definitely take this to a much higher level of usability and functionality. Keep up the good work!

Updated by anonymous

Sporq said:
I am loving the script so far, as well. I can't wait for clicking to go directly to the post. That will definitely take this to a much higher level of usability and functionality. Keep up the good work!

Thank yall for the encouragement, it really means a lot! 2.0 has many important changes so I'm eager to get it out, but probably 60% of the codebase is brand new so I want to test it into the ground first. Here's a teaser (not final).

Updated by anonymous

[title card] Three decades later [/title card]

Here it is! Because of the depth of the changes made, I'm not pushing 2.0 to all existing users yet (hoping to get some feedback first). Please disable the old Artist Watchlist script and install the new version from here: https://github.com/index-eab/artist-basis/raw/master/artist_basis.user.js

Here's a tl;dr of the most important changes, with a more complete changelog further down:

tl;dr
  • New pages: Artist Galleries and Artist Search (see the OP for more info). Also new Help and Configuration pages, where the blacklist config has been moved along with other options and info.
  • Watchlist changes: Before, the watchlist showed only the latest post and you had to manually check for more. Now all new posts are accounted for - the watchlist will report, for example, that an artist has 6 new posts since your last visit, and you can expand them without leaving the page. This state will be maintained until the cache expires (90 minutes).
  • Interface changes: The script now has its own top-level tab. Look for 'Basis' to the right of 'Artists' in the site navigation. Also, the links in the thumbnail have changed - clicking the image takes you to the post, and the artist name takes you to their search results (see the new help page for more info).
Version 1.4 (skipped release)
  • Before, the watchlist showed only the latest post and you had to manually check for more. Now all new posts are accounted for - the watchlist will report, for example, that an artist has 6 new posts since your last visit, and you can expand them without leaving the page.
  • Changed thumbnail links to make more sense with the above change. Check the new help page for an overview.
  • The watchlist now enters a "cooldown" state after it updates. Until the cache expires (90 minutes), you can navigate away and back without the state of the watchlist changing.
  • "View artists" mode is now maintained between pages, like the native modes.
  • Stylistic changes, and greatly improved theme system.
  • Further optimized database, saving about 25% storage space.
  • Flash thumbnails are now shown properly.
Version 2.0
  • The script now has its own top-level tab. Look for Basis to the right of Artists in the site navigation.
  • Added a comprehensive Help and Configuration pages. Blacklist setup and cache management were moved here.
  • I eliminated the "Add/remove artist" field and replaced it with a search that leads to the tag galley. It was an awful, inflexible input method now that other options are available.
  • "Other sites" section added to the watchlist - intended to make the watchlist a hub for your watchlists on other sites where artists upload their work.
  • Faster, more reliable, and more transparent handling of irregular tags (aliases, no posts, etc).
  • Storage is better regulated: every preference is individually limited so that onsite storage is never exceeded.
  • The tool now drops into a "simple search" mode in case the server is taking too long to process requests.
  • Countless minor enhancements and stability fixes.
  • Thumbnail caption now flexes to accommodate long artist names.

Updated by anonymous

Demesejha said:
Went to try it out but, only got repeated 403's.

I found a possible error in the user agent and corrected it in 2.0.2, please try it out and let me know if it works. You may need to select the "Script state" option in the Help page (cache management section).

Edit: after doing some more research, it seems more likely that Cloudflare is hitting you with a captcha for some reason. I'm not sure how to build the tool to handle this because I don't know how the captcha response is formed, but I've posted version 2.0.4 with more detailed server response reporting. If you run into a problem again, please DM me the generated report so I can set something up.

Updated by anonymous

Artist Basis is now on version 2.0.7 with some bug fixes (thank you, Demesejha, for the report!). Violentmonkey support has also been added (supposedly, I haven't tested it in depth).

Existing users of Artist Watchlist will be updated to 1.3.2. I can't transition you to Artist Basis automatically, so instead I've added a message directing you to the new install location.

Updated by anonymous

earlopain said:
Do you plan on upgrading this to work with the new api?

Yes, it will be updated, but I can't spare the time for it just yet - it'll probably take me a few weeks.

tnshe said:
Yes, it will be updated, but I can't spare the time for it just yet - it'll probably take me a few weeks.

Thank you though for sticking with this project

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