Monkeygrease is a very simple servlet filter that will allow a web developer to inject JavaScript, CSS or other elements within a web page. This concept was inspired by the popular Greasemonkey extension for the Mozilla Firefox browser. Greasemonkey empowers a user to alter and enhance any web page by allowing them to execute user scripts (JavaScript) on any page.

Monkeygrease serves the same purpose as Greasemonkey, however, instead of being a user-based, client-side solution, Monkeygrease is a proxy based, server-side solution. This allows all your users to benefit from enhancements you deploy to your site through Monkeygrease. You might be wondering, “why not enhance the underlying web page or web application?” Consider all of the packaged web applications you have deployed. Many of these web applications are not that easy to enhance. Some web applications are just not conducive to being customized. Also, some of these web applications are “black-boxed” or closed source products that just can’t be customized. Other products are just too complicated and require expert knowledge to carry out interface based customizations.

With Monkeygrease, you can forego customizations to the underlying web application. Instead, you can rely on the power of JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets as a means to customizing a web application’s interface. A few examples of interface enhancements may include:

• Changing the look and feel of a web application
• Adding DHTML/AJAX features/effects on your site
• Adding WYSIWYG editing to any textarea field on your site
• Enhance pages by contextually adding content from external providers
• Fix usability issues on any page

The enhancements you can make to your site with Monkeygrease are limitless. Monkeygrease will enable you to move your web application to the Web 2.0 world. Forget about waiting for the next release of a packaged web applications. Take matters into your own hands with Monkeygrease without jeopordizing your existing web applications.