Website workaround discussion, commentary and help thread
Apr 11, 2011, 4:19 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: STL
Programs: Hhonors Diamond, Southwest A-list Preferred, Delta Million Miler
Posts: 362
Website workaround discussion, commentary and help thread
THANKS for the link to the awards booking area. I've been searching for this. I have 5 leftover RR 1.0 award tickets which have NOT expired yet. Why does it give you the option to "reisuuse" the tickets. It says "availble for reissue." What does that mean or what is that for? My awards haven't expired yet.
Apr 11, 2011, 4:21 pm
#2
Moderator: Southwest Airlines, Capital One
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: California
Programs: WN Companion Pass, A-list preferred, Hyatt Globalist; United Club Lietime (sic) Member
Posts: 21,620
You need to login to MyAccount before you use these:
... and they appear to work very well. Thanks, ftnoob!
If you like bookmarks, use these links:
Apr 11, 2011, 4:42 pm
#3
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
You do need to be logged in to see the info on those pages, but if getting to one of those pages is your main objective, go ahead and use any of those URLs before logging in. If you are not logged in, each of those URLs will redirect to a URL of the form:
https://www.southwest.com/flight/login?returnUrl=…
After you enter your login credentials the requested page will be displayed without first displaying the default account view page.
Apr 11, 2011, 4:43 pm
#4
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 1,832
THANKS for the link to the awards booking area. I've been searching for this. I have 5 leftover RR 1.0 award tickets which have NOT expired yet. Why does it give you the option to "reisuuse" the tickets. It says "availble for reissue." What does that mean or what is that for? My awards haven't expired yet.
That option really shouldn't be there until an award is less than 30 days from expiring.
Apr 11, 2011, 5:32 pm
#5
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
The old policy was six months; 30 days would be downright rude.
Apr 11, 2011, 5:38 pm
#6
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 1,832
The old policy was six months; 30 days would be downright rude.
May 15, 2011, 11:29 am
#8
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
Imagine a world in which the WN fare search input page looked something like this (cropped) image:
Guess what…mine now does!
Except for the red rounded rectangle highlighting the weird alignment problem, the above is an actual screenshot of the flight input page in my browser, not a mockup.
As of now the expert mode section is just being used to replace the cursed ad carousel. Making it functional is one of the next projects.
Note also that in the left panel the one way option is already chosen and the third city input field is already displayed (although it is disabled for one way searches). That all happens automatically.
If you want to make changes like this to southwest.com on your computer, install the Customize Your Web add on for Firefox.
I will soon share some customizations that you can install without having to create your own.
Guess what…mine now does!
Except for the red rounded rectangle highlighting the weird alignment problem, the above is an actual screenshot of the flight input page in my browser, not a mockup.
As of now the expert mode section is just being used to replace the cursed ad carousel. Making it functional is one of the next projects.
Note also that in the left panel the one way option is already chosen and the third city input field is already displayed (although it is disabled for one way searches). That all happens automatically.
If you want to make changes like this to southwest.com on your computer, install the Customize Your Web add on for Firefox.
I will soon share some customizations that you can install without having to create your own.
May 15, 2011, 12:51 pm
#9
Moderator: Southwest Airlines, Capital One
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: California
Programs: WN Companion Pass, A-list preferred, Hyatt Globalist; United Club Lietime (sic) Member
Posts: 21,620
This is where I want one of those animated smilies that bows down with both hands in front. Just amazing.
Southwest gives us a horrible website and ftnoob makes it tolerable. Now if I could only get rid of the persistent (for more than a year now) problem in which the payment section vanishes from the purchase screen after I add the second TTF. Southwest has not been able to replicate the problem, but I certainly have, and on several different computers.
Southwest gives us a horrible website and ftnoob makes it tolerable. Now if I could only get rid of the persistent (for more than a year now) problem in which the payment section vanishes from the purchase screen after I add the second TTF. Southwest has not been able to replicate the problem, but I certainly have, and on several different computers.
May 16, 2011, 9:10 pm
#10
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
It turns out that once I looked into it, getting rid of the entire utterly useless middle column on the revamped flight search page was the easiest / shortest script I have ever written. It is so simple that there are multiple variations that IE, both old versions of IE and recently bookmarklet-crippled versions of IE, should be able to handle it with aplomb!
The reasons I did this with the Firefox CYW Add On were:
- to avoid the hassle of having to manually apply a bookmarklet every time you load the page;
- there will be a good bit more code involved to make the expert mode functional; and
- probably most importantly, the flight search results page, which contains input fields to modify a search, will also have to be modified. Applying another bookmarklet every time you run a search would get very old very quickly.
Code:
javascript:void($('#center-content').fadeOut(3000))
A quicker approach is to use:
Code:
javascript:void($('#center-content').hide())
We don't need a fancy library to get rid of the center content, however. This simple script should be supported by all major browsers:
Code:
javascript:void(document.getElementById('center-content').innerHTML='')
ETA: note that the last version of the script could cause JavaScript errors, and if your IE is set to break on all JS errors you'll be in for a world of hurt. Changing such a setting is possible in many cases, but tedious. Better just to use one of the first two (jQuery) versions of the script, or the native counterpart of the second version.
Last edited by ftnoob; May 17, 2011 at 10:56 am Reason: a) As noted; b) typo
May 17, 2011, 8:26 am
#11
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 1,832
Thanks, ftnoob. If I post the java script into the URL window, things work as described. But in FF 4, when I save the page as a bookmark, the bookmarked page that gets stored is the original page without your modifications.
Perhaps I'm missing something.
Perhaps I'm missing something.
May 17, 2011, 12:13 pm
#12
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
Right, a script is not a page, so it has to be saved differently; the browser's Bookmark This Page function will still save the URL of the page.
There is a way to make bookmarklets appear as a links on a web page that you can right click, then use the "Bookmark This Link" function from the context menu. Neither the board software nor the wiki software offer a way to display that kind of link, however.
You can manually edit the bookmark you already made, change the name to something descriptive (like ZAP SWA Flight Page Ad Carousel), and change the location to be just the entire bookmarklet (including the javascript: portion, which, like http: or ftp:, tells the browser what protocol to use to handle the rest of the characters).
Or copy this script and paste it to the URL line:
It will display a page with "links" you can right-click or drag to save the above three bookmarklets, plus a fourth that unhides the center column.
Your saved bookmarklet won't load the SWA flight search page, you have to load the page first, then apply the bookmarklet to the page. To do that every time without making it a two-step process, use the Customize Your Web add on mentioned above (or GreaseMonkey). (I downloaded the "Dive Into GreaseMonkey" pdf and started to read it, but haven't gotten to the point of writing a GM script yet, which is why I am using CYW for now.)
There is a way to make bookmarklets appear as a links on a web page that you can right click, then use the "Bookmark This Link" function from the context menu. Neither the board software nor the wiki software offer a way to display that kind of link, however.
You can manually edit the bookmark you already made, change the name to something descriptive (like ZAP SWA Flight Page Ad Carousel), and change the location to be just the entire bookmarklet (including the javascript: portion, which, like http: or ftp:, tells the browser what protocol to use to handle the rest of the characters).
Or copy this script and paste it to the URL line:
Code:
javascript:"<html><head><title>Bookmarklets for SWA</title><style> a.bml { border:1px solid black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 80%; text-decoration: none; color: black;}li {margin-bottom: 5px;}body{margin: 5%; background-color: snow}</style></head><body><p>Right click any of these bookmarklets to save for reuse on SWA's flight search request page. <br>You can also drag them the bookmarks menu or a bookmarks toolbar.:<ul><li><a class=bml href=\"javascript:void($('#center-content').fadeOut(3000))\">Fade Out Center Column</a></li><li><a class=bml href=\"javascript:void($('#center-content').hide())\">Hide Center Column</a></li><li><a class=bml href=\"javascript:void(document.getElementById('center-content').innerHTML='')\">ZAP Center Column</a></li><li><a class=bml href=\"javascript:void($('#center-content').show())\">Unhide Center Column</a></li></ul></body></html>"
Your saved bookmarklet won't load the SWA flight search page, you have to load the page first, then apply the bookmarklet to the page. To do that every time without making it a two-step process, use the Customize Your Web add on mentioned above (or GreaseMonkey). (I downloaded the "Dive Into GreaseMonkey" pdf and started to read it, but haven't gotten to the point of writing a GM script yet, which is why I am using CYW for now.)
May 18, 2011, 9:38 am
#14
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 68
ftnoob...
Thanks so much for the links. I bookmarked the "Flexible Date Award Search" and did a practice run the AM for when the new schedule opens for my dates. This may prove to be helpful info for me.
I need to book 6 standard award r/t's and I fear that, given my dates, my "survival odds" for this venture are grim.
Is there no way to book more than 1 award at a time? Any other tips would be greatly appreciated. TIA
Thanks so much for the links. I bookmarked the "Flexible Date Award Search" and did a practice run the AM for when the new schedule opens for my dates. This may prove to be helpful info for me.
I need to book 6 standard award r/t's and I fear that, given my dates, my "survival odds" for this venture are grim.
Is there no way to book more than 1 award at a time? Any other tips would be greatly appreciated. TIA
May 23, 2011, 4:04 pm
#15
Moderator, Southwest Airlines and Choice Privileges
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 3,036
From a different thread:
Instead of a configuration option, I could go with a tabbed interface, borrowing tabbed styles already in use. So instead of the current interface visible to the left of the expert mode interface, as shown previously:
the page could look something like this:
Then the configuration option would be used to set the default, and it would be easy to switch for any one particular use, without going to the script configuration dialog. Feel free to comment by PM.
Last edited by ftnoob; May 23, 2011 at 11:03 pm Reason: Mostly formatting