Adblock Plus

How about adding the ability to disable a hiding rule only for a specific page to the blockable items list context menu (like we can for blocking rules). We don't need to add any more entries to the context menu the existing "Add exception rule for item" can be used.

For example if we had the filter
And a user discovered it was causing problems on example.com he or she could simply right click on it in the blockable items list and choose "Add exception rule for item" which would then create a new rule
Also I thought about putting these sorts of rules under the "My exceptions rules" section but I guess since they are not strictly exception rules they should stay in the "My Element Hiding rules" section.

I thought we had this feature for a while now? Just tried it with an element hiding rule - "Disable this filter on example.com" context menu item is enabled and seems to adjust the filter correctly. This won't work for filters in filter subscriptions of course - no way to change those. Is that your problem or is there another scenario where this doesn't work?

I would like the user to be able to quickly and easily create an exception rule for an element hide from the context menu (at the moment all we can do it disable the rule all together).

Hubird, this must be a filter from a filter subscription - normally you would also have "Disable this filter on au.yahoo.com" in the menu.

Wladimir Palant wrote:Hubird, this must be a filter from a filter subscription - normally you would also have "Disable this filter on au.yahoo.com" in the menu.

That's correct. The screen shot is a mock up of what I am suggesting. Disabling a generic hide is not always the best solution for a user. I'm after a quick and easy way to create a hiding rule with a domain exception.

Any thoughts on this, did I not make myself clear ?

I think I understood what you mean - you want the ability to create a rule that will work as a "modifier" for an existing element hiding rule (which might not be editable itself because in a filter subscription). While the functionality is clearly desirable, I don't think that this is the right way - having one rule influence another in this way will be problematic both for the software and the user. Some way to disable/re-enable rules on domains without having to modify the filter text would be a nice feature however. The plan goes like this:

1) "Disable filter on ..." context menu entry is available for all filters, including the ones from filter subscriptions. This means both blocking and element hiding rules.
2) When the user uses this context menu entry the filter stays unchanged, a modifier like "~example.com" is stored for it however. This modifier survives filter subscription updates just like the "disabled" flag does.
3) When a filter is displayed (in Blockable Items or Preferences) its "full" form is used, meaning that existing modifiers are added to the filter text. Context menu entries like "Re-enable filter on ..." allow removing modifiers.

Moving to "Future development" to get some comments on that proposal.

I would suggest that when Disable filter on ... is selected for subscription filters the rule should be automatically disabled and an identical filter with the exception appended should be created in the relevant personal filters section; this solution would reduce the additional development time required would make the changes clearer to the user.

The problem with that suggestion: if the filter subscription changes that filter (probably to address the very same issue) the user suddenly gets two filters, both enabled.

Wladimir Palant wrote:The problem with that suggestion: if the filter subscription changes that filter (probably to address the very same issue) the user suddenly gets two filters, both enabled.

If a hiding filter with a domain exception supersedes standard hiding filters (both general and for specific domain ones) then I feel having two is not a major issue (it is ultimately up to the end user to make to worry about duplicate rules of any type). The ability to create an exception rule from the context menu would also benefit those users who like to see certain ads for whatever reason (Google adsense comes to mind).

I rather propose this syntax:
This should disable the rule "##biguglybox" or "example.com##biguglybox" on foo.example.com. That's an exception rule, if it applies then the regular element hiding rule doesn't.

Done: https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/rev/e51998aafc6a

That was quick from proposed syntax to done

I guess the existing domain exception syntax will remain?

Excuse me, will this syntax make problems on older version?

No, Adblock Plus 2.0 and below will treat these rules as blocking rules (they don't meet the requirements for "simplified" element hiding syntax) - ones that can never block anything.