Refreshing Solutions

[clickhappier]

Originally written in Dec 2014, updated as needed.

If you're trying to panda a HIT, or keep an eye on some of your favorite requesters' HIT lists, you may want a tool that can automatically refresh a webpage without you having to keep manually hitting the refresh button or F5. Here are some of the current options - not comprehensive (there's way too many bad/buggy/broken auto-refresh things out there), just what currently appears to me to be the best.

Be aware that if you have too many mturk pages being reloaded/refreshed in any of the various ways (including userscripts such as HIT Scraper and Turkmaster), you need to slow down and spread out the refresh intervals, or you'll get 'max page requests' errors from mturk.

I've included links to a few resources from the creators of the now-defunct 'mturkhitstream' site (their site may be gone, but fortunately their videos and blog are still available).

Except where specifically stated otherwise, this is talking about browsers for desktops/laptops running Windows/Mac/Linux. Mobile possibilities are more limited; the browsers available for mobile OSes that call themselves by the same names as desktop-OS browsers don't have the same features.

 

[clickhappier]

For desktops/laptops
running Windows/Mac/Linux (and Chrome on Chromebooks)


Chrome Browser Extensions

ChromeReloadPlus - Chrome Web Store page
(Auto-refresh a tab. An improved version of the formerly-popular open-source extension ChromeReload, which developed problems and was removed from the Chrome store.)

Page Monitor (PM) - website - Chrome Web Store page - how-to thread - how-to video - pm vs c4c
(Auto-reload a webpage in the background and notify you when a selected portion of the page changes. There was a controversy in Dec 2015-Jan 2016 when the author of a new inferior extension called VisualPing bought out Page Monitor, and replaced its webstore contents with VisualPing on Dec 18, causing users to be forcibly switched. A user initially uploaded an unofficial copy of the old Page Monitor, but then about a month later, the VisualPing people saw the error of their ways and officially re-released the original Page Monitor.)

Distill Web Monitor - website - Chrome Web Store page - browser-specific documentation - MTG thread
(Similar to Page Monitor. Be aware that you can't backup/export its settings.)


Firefox Browser Add-Ons

Tab Mix Plus - website - Mozilla Add-Ons page
(Among the many other uses of this add-on, it includes a great feature to auto-refresh a tab. Go to the add-on's Options -> Menu -> Tab Context Menu -> Reload Tab Every, to get an option for that when you right-click on a tab. It also adds a drop-down menu to the browser's Refresh button.)

ReloadEvery - website - Mozilla Add-Ons page - how-to video
(Auto-refresh a tab. Don't use ReloadEvery if you have Tab Mix Plus, they can conflict with each other.)

Check4Change (C4C) - website - Mozilla Add-Ons page - how-to video - pm vs c4c
(Auto-refresh a tab and notify you when a selected portion of the page changes. CH-CH-CH-CHANGES!)

Update Scanner - website 1 - website 2 - Mozilla Add-Ons page
(Similar to Page Monitor. If it works with your browser version, it could be good for some uses. Fastest time interval available is apparently 5 minutes.)

SiteDelta - website - Mozilla Add-Ons page - tutorial
("Notifies when websites are changed and highlights the changes since last visit." Minimum interval appears to be 1 minute.)

Distill Web Monitor - website - Mozilla Add-Ons page - browser-specific documentation - MTG thread
(Similar to Page Monitor. Be aware that you can't backup/export its settings.)


Safari Browser Extensions
(Safari is Mac-only in current versions, and isn't used much for turking, but I've seen a few people mention using it sometimes, so you may want to try this.)

Auto Refresh (by Andrew Griffin) - website - Safari Extensions page
(Auto-refresh a tab.)

Mac Dashboard Web Clips Widget - how-to blog post
(Integrated feature of Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" and newer. Display selected portions of webpages you want to keep an eye on, in the Mac 'Dashboard'.)


Internet Explorer Add-Ons
(IE isn't used much for turking, but I've seen a few people mention using it sometimes, so you may want to try this.)

Auto IE Refresher (by Rex Wen) - website - Softpedia page


Opera Browser Extensions

'Opera Classic' (aka 'Opera Presto') included a built-in auto-refreshing feature through 2012 / v12 (and small updates to v12 in 2013 and 2014).
'Reload Every' right-click menu option (in Opera Classic) - screenshot

From 2012 / v15 through present, 'Opera Next' controversially became a Chrome variant.
Page Reloader (for Opera Next) - Opera Add-Ons page
(Extension similar to the 'Reload Every' feature, but is reportedly out-of-date/buggy. A review says the pre-set refresh intervals are labeled wrong: "30 minutes = 30 seconds, 1 hour = 1 minute, etc. Once you realise this it works perfectly. P.S. in custom interval, minutes and seconds are correct.")

WebsiteMonitor (fixed) (for Opera Classic, and possibly Opera Next?) - Opera Add-Ons page - page for outdated extension it's based on, with more info
(Similar to Page Monitor.)

Distill Web Monitor (for Opera Next?) - website - Opera Add-Ons page - browser-specific documentation - MTG thread
(Similar to Page Monitor. Be aware that you can't backup/export its settings.)

 

[clickhappier]

For mobile devices


Mobile: Android Apps (Smartphones and Tablets)

Web Alert (Website Monitor) - website - Google Play App Store page
(Doesn't display exactly which versions it works with, but it is currently compatible back to at least Android 2.3.5. Free. Auto-reload a webpage in the background and notify you when a selected portion of the page changes.)

Web Page Monitor - Google Play App Store page
(For Android 4.0+ only. Free. Auto-reload a webpage in the background and notify you when a selected portion of the page changes.)


Mobile: iOS Apps (iPhone/iPad)
(I have no idea whether any of these will work for mturk, and I don't have an iPhone to find out, but these are the best-looking options I found.)

WebReloader - iTunes App Store page
(For iOS 4.0+ only. Free. Auto-refresh a webpage, and notify you when a specified word is found or not found on the page.)

Auto Refresh (by ytzong) - iTunes App Store page
(For iOS 7.0+ only. $2.99. Auto-refresh a webpage, and notify you when a specified word is found or not found on the page.)

NetSnips - website - iTunes App Store page
(For iOS 7.0+ only. Free initially; $3.99 in-app purchase to unlock full version. Auto-reload a webpage in the background and shows you a collage of 'snippets', your selected areas of the pages.)


Also consider bookmarklets (see next post).

 

[clickhappier]

Bookmarklets
Originally written in Feb 2015

Potentially Any Browser, on Desktop or Mobile!

If you're using a browser where you can't install these add-ons/extensions, or a different browser that doesn't support them, an auto-refreshing bookmarklet *might* work for you. This is a simple way to just refresh the page, with no fancy monitoring/notification capabilities. My post about bookmarklets in "Which Browsers Can You Run Userscripts In, and How?" has more information about how to 'install' one.

This code is a modification of this, with the default refresh rate set at 10 seconds. To change the refresh rate, find the spot that says var%20sec=10; and change the '10' to the number of seconds you want between reloads. If you set this too fast, you will get page request errors, same as any other method of refreshing MTurk pages. To stop the refreshing, close the tab it opened.

javascript:(function(){var%20urlWithoutFragment=window.location.href.replace(/%23.*/,'');var%20newWindow=window.open('about:blank','_blank');newWindow.document.write('<html><head><title>[Autoreload]%20'+urlWithoutFragment+'</title><script%20type="text/javascript">var%20sec=10;window.addEventListener("load",function(){var%20frame=document.getElementsByTagName("frame")[0];frame.addEventListener("load",function(){window.setTimeout(function(){frame.src=frame.src;},1000*sec);},false);frame.src="'+urlWithoutFragment+'";},false);</script></head><frameset><frame%20src="about:blank"></frameset></html>');newWindow.document.close();})()