Filter Manager

Filter Manager In the Tools menu there is now a new item Filter Manager. With the help of the Filter Manager you can define and manage URL-specific sets of preferences. The filter manager includes the old image and javascript filters but also many other preferences. A set of URL specific preferences can be bundled into a configuration. A configuration can be imported and exported. This makes it easy to offer special preferences for certain web pages which require special browser settings without affecting other pages. We will offer special configurations for important web pages on our web page.

The Filter Manager has two modes. A simple mode and an extended mode.

Simple mode

By default iCab uses the simple mode. The simple mode doesn't allow changes to configurations. It is only possible to import, export and delete predefined configurations. It is also possible to change the order of the configurations (important ones should come first). To bottom part of the filter manager window will show some informations about the configuration.

Filter-Manager

The toolbar contains several buttons:
Import
imports a configuration file with site-specific settings
Export
exports a configuration into a file
Delete
deletes a configuration
Download
opens a Web page where the user can download some predefined configuration files
The order of the configurations in the list will define their priority. Important ones should be moved to the top of the list, configurations which affects multiple webpages (like advertising filters) should the last ones. iCab will always use the first matching filter it can find. iCab will ignore all configurations which are unchecked, so be sure to check all the configurations which should be used by iCab.

The Open button in the information area of the window will open a web page where you can get updates of the configuration or further informations (if a web page is available).

Extended Mode

The extended mode allows to create new configurations or to modify existing ones. The window will show three lists. The left one contains all configurations. Selecting a configuration will activate the list in the middle which then contains a list of preference sets that can be configured. Selecting one of the preference set items will activate the last list to the right which contains the URL filters for the selected configuration and preferences. The bottom part of the window contains information about the configuration or the preferences itself.

Filter-Manager

The buttons of the toolbar or the contextual menu can be used to create, edit and delete configurations and URL filters. Reorder the configurations and URL filters via Drag & Drop to change their priority. iCab will search for matching filters starting with the first filter of the first configuration, so very important filters and configurations which affect ony certain web pages should be moved to the top and general filters which affect many web pages (like advertising filters) should be moved to the bottom. Configurations, preferences sets and URL filters can be activated and deactivated by setting or removing the checkbox. iCab ignores all configuration, preferences sets and URL filters which are not checked. The buttons in the toolbar have the following meanings:
Import
imports a configuration file with site-specific settings
Export
exports a configuration into a file
Delete
deletes a configuration
Download
opens a Web page where the user can download some predefined configuration files
Properties
can be used to view and edit the general properties of the selected configuration or URL filter
New Configuration
creates a new configuration
New URL
creates a new URL filter for the selected configuration and preferences set
These features are also accessible through the contextual menu of the configuration list and the URL filter list.

Create and modify configurations

Click the Properties button or select the properties item in the contextual menu of the configuration list to view or edit the properties of the configuration. You can edit the title of the configuration, the name of the author, the version number. The web site information should contain the URL where users can get updates or more information about this configuration. You can enable the protection to prevent you from modifying a configuration by accident. The priority is used when importing the configurations. It tells the browser if the configuration has to be inserted at the top (configurations which affects only special sites), in the middle or at the end (configurations which affect all sites) of the configuration list.

Neue Konfiguration

The contextual menu of the configuration list does include an item duplicate, which can be used to create a copy af the selected configuration. This can be useful to split existing configurations into several special ones. This option is not available in the simple mode.

Create and modify URL Filters

If a configuration and a preferences item (list in the middle) is selected, you can create new URL filters (or edit existing ones). Click on New URL or select New URL in the contextual menu to create a new URL filter. After selecting an URL filter you can click on Properties or select Properties in the contextual menu to edit the URL filter.

If no URL filter is selected, the bottom part of the window will display the preferences of the selected preferences set (disabled) to give you an idea which preferences can be configured now.

Neuer Filter

When entering an URL filter, you can use the following wildcards:
?
represents a single character
*
represents any number of characters
[abc]
represents a single character from within the brackets.
Example: The filter http://www.icab.de/ will only match the URL http://www.icab.de/. If the wholeiCab site should be addressed by the filter, you must define the filter as http://www.icab.de/*. The "*" at the end is important here.

In the dialog box where you can enter/edit the URL filter, a popup will offer all existing URL filters of the same configuration. So if you need a certain URL filter for several preference sets (for example for the "Network" preferences and for the "InScript" preferences) you don't need to enter it multiple times.

To edit the preferences for a certain URL filter, just select the URL filter and the preferences will be shown in the bottom part of the window. If the configuration is protected, all preferences are dimmed and can't be modified. Only if the configuration is not protected, the preferences can be modified.

Below the preferences you'll find some buttons which will open the standard preferences dialog. The settings of the preferences dialog will be used if none of the filters will match to the current web site.

In the contextual menu of the URL filter list there is an item Add copy to. This menu item will copy the selected filter together with its preferences to another configuration. This is helpful if you want to combine certain parts of multiple configurations into another configuration. Note that you can only add a copy of a filter into configurations which are not protected.

Some additional remarks

A very general configuration which should affect many web pages (like an advertising filter) will probably contain URL filters like http://* which will match almost any page. These configurations should be defined with a low priority because they should be listed at the bottom of the configuration list. iCab will search for matching filters from top to down. So when such a general filter is located before other more specialized filters, it will "hide" most of these specialized filters. If you plan to offer such a general configuration to the public, you should also add some information to the comment field, which tell the user to move the configuration to the bottom of the configuration list.

It is not only possible to filter out images, it is also possible to create a filter which makes sure that a certain image will be shown.

All old filters (image filters, cookie filters and InScript filters) will be transfered into a special configuration, so they won't be lost. But the new configuration will be deactivated by default to avoid conflicts with existing configurations.

iCab will create a default configuration my Filters which will be used to add all filters which are created by the accept Cookie dialog, the Filter image dialog and the InScript Filter dialog.