Wildcard Syntax

Logonaut

Does

*domain.com

affect to

my.domain.com

and also

mydomain.com

?

In other words: how to apply a wildcard to real subdomains only, instead of applying it to all other domains with a respective prefix within the domain name? Wouldn't it be more precise to accept a dot between the wildcard and the respective domain name, e.g.:

*.domain.com

SweetP

That does make more sense.
I’ll look into this for an update

Currently the * prefix affects only subdomains.

Perhaps I should just accept regex…. I thought that may be too confusing for non techies. I guess I’ve created more confusion with the current implementation.

I’m working on version 5 now, which hopefully makes the UI at least less confusing. Perhaps I should also look at how domains are implemented.

Logonaut

Great job, as always. Thanks!

Logonaut

@SweetP said in Wildcard Syntax:

Perhaps I should just accept regex…

I had an issue with one user who needed an exception for all those subdomains of podbean.com that start with letter "s" followed by a three-digit number, but no other subdomains, i.e.:

s###.podbean.com

I didn't even dream of Minim being so sophisticated one day that it could handle even such issues. But hey, maybe this day will come? Would be so GREAT!

SweetP

Safari only accepts a subset of regex, but I guess Minim could potentially accept any regex that is supported by Safari.

Perhaps I should limit it to . And * characters initially for simplicity…..

But, would it be confusing if I had a different rule syntax than regular regex?
For example I use:

* character to represent any character any number of times
? Character to represent any character one time

This would make it more approachable for everyone

And for reference:
https://webkit.org/blog/3476/content-blockers-first-look/
“Matching any character with “.”.
Matching ranges with the range syntax [a-b].
Quantifying expressions with “?”, “+” and “*”.
Groups with parenthesis.
It is possible to use the beginning of line (“^”) and end of line (“$”) marker but they are restricted to be the first and last character of the expression. For example, a pattern like “^bar$” is perfectly valid, while “(foo)?^bar$” causes a syntax error.”

SweetP

Perhaps also:
# Character to represent any digit character one time

Logonaut

Minim could become one of the most powerful tools to enforce generally strict browsing security settings by enabling precise exceptions.

The decisive factor here is not how simple or complicated the definition of a one-time rule is, but whether this rule will have a universal effect, e.g. by using wildcards, placeholders, regex… Especially aggressive websites or scripts will excessively make use of changes in URL structure and naming, just to block content blocker. So the more sophisticated the rules can be defined, the more universal it may work.

Whatever syntax you will use, it should be documented just "one click away" in a short overview, maybe with an additional help text incl. some examples below or beside. There won't be any confusion, if there's a clear explanation available. (The exact wording of a respective help text could be fine-tuned later, if necessary. And a reference to Minim's support forum could collect questions or feedback from users.)

If the syntax and behaviour of existing rules would change with a new version of Minim, there could be an issue with migration of old rules to a new syntax. So maybe it needs a warning or backup of existing rules or even a migration script. (Maybe later?)

Anyway, I'd prefer an automated iCloud backup (and/or local backup) of all changes to the exception list to remove changes step-by-step more easily. (Manual exports usually follow Murphy's law: outdated or not existing when you need it.)

SweetP

ive just released v5 on my server, and it has also been approved for the App Store.

Logonaut

Great job! Thanks!

️ Seems to work fine.
️ Main app and browser extension both show clear and simple UIs.
️ In browser extension, the popup text of the help symbol (?) should be changed from "open Minim" to "open Help".
️ Maybe for non-power users a short hint would be helpful that after update to v5 all rules need to be activated first by checking the new checkbox at the beginning of the line. (Otherwise one could think that Minim is running as before although all rules are not yet activated.)
️ After all, the help text is really understandable and easy to read with it's optical structure. Great!

SweetP

thanks for the feedback, ill fix these later today