Making a REALLY GOOD turk alert script

OK. Here is the deal. I am scanning the web and trying to combine some scripts to make something that will search the first page of mturk every 1 second for whatever requesters you want. Any help is appreciated. I am NOT a coder but I do know simple html and JavaScript. Lets do this. Turkalert misses too many requesters and notifies us by email way too slow. I want something that audible notifies and works from your own personal PC and not running from a server or such. I will post the scripts I find and maybe something can be pieced together.

 

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex11/findpage.htm

this is interesting. It is the code need to search the page but needs a few tweaks. Off to find more scripts that can be possibly used.

 

Credit to the author: Alan Koontz



<script>
<!-- Hide from old browsers

/******************************************
* Find In Page Script -- Submitted/revised by Alan Koontz (alankoontz@REMOVETHISyahoo.com)
* Visit Dynamic Drive (http://www.dynamicdrive.com/) for full source code
* This notice must stay intact for use
******************************************/

// revised by Alan Koontz -- May 2003

var TRange = null;
var dupeRange = null;
var TestRange = null;
var win = null;


// SELECTED BROWSER SNIFFER COMPONENTS DOCUMENTED AT
// http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/sniffer/browser_type.html

var nom = navigator.appName.toLowerCase();
var agt = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
var is_major = parseInt(navigator.appVersion);
var is_minor = parseFloat(navigator.appVersion);
var is_ie = (agt.indexOf("msie") != -1);
var is_ie4up = (is_ie && (is_major >= 4));
var is_not_moz = (agt.indexOf('netscape')!=-1)
var is_nav = (nom.indexOf('netscape')!=-1);
var is_nav4 = (is_nav && (is_major == 4));
var is_mac = (agt.indexOf("mac")!=-1);
var is_gecko = (agt.indexOf('gecko') != -1);
var is_opera = (agt.indexOf("opera") != -1);


// GECKO REVISION

var is_rev=0
if (is_gecko) {
temp = agt.split("rv:")
is_rev = parseFloat(temp[1])
}


// USE THE FOLLOWING VARIABLE TO CONFIGURE FRAMES TO SEARCH
// (SELF OR CHILD FRAME)

// If you want to search another frame, change from "self" to
// the name of the target frame:
// e.g., var frametosearch = 'main'

//var frametosearch = 'main';
var frametosearch = self;


function search(whichform, whichframe) {

// TEST FOR IE5 FOR MAC (NO DOCUMENTATION)

if (is_ie4up && is_mac) return;

// TEST FOR NAV 6 (NO DOCUMENTATION)

if (is_gecko && (is_rev <1)) return;

// TEST FOR Opera (NO DOCUMENTATION)

if (is_opera) return;

// INITIALIZATIONS FOR FIND-IN-PAGE SEARCHES

if(whichform.findthis.value!=null && whichform.findthis.value!='') {

str = whichform.findthis.value;
win = whichframe;
var frameval=false;
if(win!=self)
{

frameval=true; // this will enable Nav7 to search child frame
win = parent.frames[whichframe];

}


}

else return; // i.e., no search string was entered

var strFound;

// NAVIGATOR 4 SPECIFIC CODE

if(is_nav4 && (is_minor < 5)) {

strFound=win.find(str); // case insensitive, forward search by default

// There are 3 arguments available:
// searchString: type string and it's the item to be searched
// caseSensitive: boolean -- is search case sensitive?
// backwards: boolean --should we also search backwards?
// strFound=win.find(str, false, false) is the explicit
// version of the above
// The Mac version of Nav4 has wrapAround, but
// cannot be specified in JS


}

// NAVIGATOR 7 and Mozilla rev 1+ SPECIFIC CODE (WILL NOT WORK WITH NAVIGATOR 6)

if (is_gecko && (is_rev >= 1)) {

if(frameval!=false) win.focus(); // force search in specified child frame
strFound=win.find(str, false, false, true, false, frameval, false);

// The following statement enables reversion of focus
// back to the search box after each search event
// allowing the user to press the ENTER key instead
// of clicking the search button to continue search.
// Note: tends to be buggy in Mozilla as of 1.3.1
// (see www.mozilla.org) so is excluded from users
// of that browser.

if (is_not_moz) whichform.findthis.focus();

// There are 7 arguments available:
// searchString: type string and it's the item to be searched
// caseSensitive: boolean -- is search case sensitive?
// backwards: boolean --should we also search backwards?
// wrapAround: boolean -- should we wrap the search?
// wholeWord: boolean: should we search only for whole words
// searchInFrames: boolean -- should we search in frames?
// showDialog: boolean -- should we show the Find Dialog?


}

if (is_ie4up) {

// EXPLORER-SPECIFIC CODE revised 5/21/03

if (TRange!=null) {

TestRange=win.document.body.createTextRange();



if (dupeRange.inRange(TestRange)) {

TRange.collapse(false);
strFound=TRange.findText(str);
if (strFound) {
//the following line added by Mike and Susan Keenan, 7 June 2003
win.document.body.scrollTop = win.document.body.scrollTop + TRange.offsetTop;
TRange.select();
}


}

else {

TRange=win.document.body.createTextRange();
TRange.collapse(false);
strFound=TRange.findText(str);
if (strFound) {
//the following line added by Mike and Susan Keenan, 7 June 2003
win.document.body.scrollTop = TRange.offsetTop;
TRange.select();
}



}
}

if (TRange==null || strFound==0) {
TRange=win.document.body.createTextRange();
dupeRange = TRange.duplicate();
strFound=TRange.findText(str);
if (strFound) {
//the following line added by Mike and Susan Keenan, 7 June 2003
win.document.body.scrollTop = TRange.offsetTop;
TRange.select();
}


}

}

if (!strFound) alert ("String '"+str+"' not found!") // string not found


}
// -->
</script>

<!-- EXAMPLE FORM OF FIND-IN-PAGE SEARCH USING SUBMIT (ALLOWING 'ENTER/RETURN' KEY PRESS EVENT) -->
<form name="form1" onSubmit="search(document.form1, frametosearch); return false"><input type="text" name="findthis" size="15" title="Press 'ALT s' after clicking submit to repeatedly search page"> <input type="submit" value="Find in Page" ACCESSKEY="s"></form>

 

I believe I can piece something together possibly. You can learn anything if you just Google it and read =]. No guarantees though but I will put as much time into it as I can. There is a lot of different scripts out there that do part of what we need. I will try my damnedest until somebody comes along with it =]

 

Nah id never take money. If it ends up being something I have to run a server then I might have to take donations or something but that's a bit off from now. I am looking into the built in search function on chrome and seeing if I can get a script to refresh the mturk page then run the built in search function and if there is matches it will alert. Seems the easiest way to do it. Like I said I am not a coder but I know the basics so maybe I can learn a bit and get this working.

 

looks like I can code it as a chrome extension. Gonna take me a bit to get everything worked out. I got to do some searching on how amazons server treats constant connections. Wonder if turkalert has a specific reason for only getting new hit results every 3 mins. Could be because the server blocks connections if they are too frequent? Just something else I need to look into. Anyone with knowledge on any of this please feel free to comment. Nite time for me though.

 

I have a bit of it together and am currently searching on exactly what you just said BB. There is little to no information available and I have emailed Amazon dev on this issue and am waiting for an email back to define their exact perimeters they will allow. I am trying my best.

 

I am thinking the same. Would really like to get something that actually alerts for ALL of the requesters we want INSTANTLY. I have had TA not notify at all or take too long. I am not too lazy to keep refreshing myself but would really like to not have too. =] We shall see how it goes. Just something I am spending any extra time I have on. Technically I could have this running off a server IP spoofing so it LOOKS like it is not getting requests from the same server over and over every 10 seconds. Or have a few diff servers working together but that is gonna start costing a bit much. There are ways around it but I want to avoid causing myself or others any problems with amazon. Is not worth it if it causes problems.