Replace Picasa with Flickr

October 23, 2007

Okay, maybe the title is a little misleading, but that’s what I wanted to do. I love Google for mostly everything, but one thing Yahoo did right was to snatch up Flickr. Flickr has so much more to offer that Picasa doesn’t. One side note though; Flickr doesn’t have a desktop photo organizer, but that’s no real loss for me.

Nevertheless, I love how Google has started to add their “gbar” (Google Bar) to the top of all their applications. Even though they aren’t consistent, it’s nice to see, and use. After a while, I noticed myself clicking on Photo when I wanted to go to Flickr, not Picasa. Well, rather than fix my own stupid mistake and not click the link, I decided to fix the link and make it point to Flickr instead. Sorry Google, but I just enjoy Flickr more.

Here’s how I did it.

To use this script, you need Greasemonkey add-on. Once you have it, just go here and click install: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13244.

// Google Photo Link with Flickr
//
// Version 1.0
//
// Date Written: 2007-10-23
// Last Modified: 2007-10-23 7:56 PM (19:56)
//
// (c) Copyright 2007 Ali Karbassi.
// Released under the GPL license
// http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
//
// --------------------------------------------------------------------
//
// This is a Greasemonkey user script.
//
// To install, you need Greasemonkey: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
// Then restart Firefox and revisit this script.
// Under Tools, there will be a new menu item to "Install User Script".
// Accept the default configuration and install.
//
// To uninstall, go to Tools/Manage User Scripts,
// select "Google Photo Link with Flickr", and click Uninstall.
//
// --------------------------------------------------------------------
//
// WHAT IT DOES:
// After the facebook profile page is loaded, it finds all the
// applications that your friends have invited you to and blocks them.
// Do not worry though, you can go to
// http://facebook.com/privacy.php?view=platform&tab=all and unblock
// them
//
// NOTE: This does not alter, delete, edit, add, or anything else to
//       your facebook profile. Just remove or disable this script and
//       everything will be displayed the same as it used to
// --------------------------------------------------------------------
//
// ==UserScript==

// @name        Google Photo Link with Flickr 1.0
// @author      Ali Karbassi
// @namespace   http://www.karbassi.com
// @description Replaces the link on the Google Bar that says Photo
// from going to Picasa to Flickr.
// @include     http://*.google.com*
// @include     http://google.com*

// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    var bar = document.getElementById('gbar').getElementsByTagName('a');
    if (bar) {
        for (var i = 0; i < bar.length; i++) {
            if (bar[i].textContent == 'Photos') {
                // Replace the link from Picasa to Flickr;
                // Sorry Google :(
                bar[i].href = 'http://www.flickr.com';

                // Replace the text from Photo to Flickr
                bar[i].textContent = 'Flickr';

                // We found it, so there is no reason to continue.
                break;
            }
        };
    }

}());