I want to write something similar to ActiveInbox.
In addition to original ActiveInbox, I need to add logic that will perform some actions on the emails that come.
What language(s) are programs like ActiveInbox written in?
Thank you
Activeinbox is a browser plugin, written in Javascript. It's easy to have a look inside: download the xpi (the Firefox version of the plugin). An xpi file is a zipfile, so open it with your zipfile manager of choice.
After that you should head over to Mozilla's developer site or a Chrome extension development tutorial to learn how to wite a Firefox/Chrome plugin.
Extensions can be written in pure Javascript on Chrome and Firefox.
Related
Is Chrome Dev Tools available only through Chrome extensions? Or is there a way we can use it, for instance, as a library from a JS standalone file?
Update
Chrome DevTools Frontend is now an NPM package that you can take advantage of. It is based from the new DevTools sub-repo in Blink. So you can easily pull in the DevTools assets and keep then up-dated without much work.
Original post
It depends on what you want exactly. You can dig in and rip out bits of the frontend to use. Like Betwixt by Konrad pulls the network panel design out and plugs it up to an OS interceptor. So you can use the network panel you know and love to debug any app on your desktop.
Now, can you easily do this kind of stuff. Even keeping it auto-updated? No, not really. It is fairly complicated and you need to be able to handle ripping the stuff out yourself. That being said, if you want a challenge then the code is open to everyone.
I'd say that the first sentence on the About website is pretty clear:
... built into Google Chrome.
So officially, by Google, it's only for Chrome. It's part of Chrome, not a standalone library. Issues linked to DevTools are part of Chromium, where people can contribute.
How to debug CoffeeScript using the generated source maps? Do I need to include the map file? What else do I need to do? I'm currently including both the compiled JS file and the map file, but my Firefox debugger doesn't seem to be doing anything special....
SourceMap debugging is only available on the next Firefox release, starting from Firefox 23.
You can download the developper preview (google for firefox 23). It should be available as RC during august according to Mozilla website.
In practice, you don't have to include the map file in your html file, you just have to reference your map in the javascript file. But the CoffeeScript compiler does it for you.
If you want to give a try at debugging CoffeeScript with SourceMap, you can try with Google Chrome dev Tools. Be sure to check Enable source maps in the dev tool configuration.
If you need further advices or examples on how to debugg CoffeeScript with Chrome, ask and I'll edit this post.
I want to write something similar to ActiveInbox.
In addition to original ActiveInbox, I need to add logic that will perform some actions on the emails that come.
What language(s) are programs like ActiveInbox written in?
Thank you
Activeinbox is a browser plugin, written in Javascript. It's easy to have a look inside: download the xpi (the Firefox version of the plugin). An xpi file is a zipfile, so open it with your zipfile manager of choice.
After that you should head over to Mozilla's developer site or a Chrome extension development tutorial to learn how to wite a Firefox/Chrome plugin.
Extensions can be written in pure Javascript on Chrome and Firefox.
My question is very simple: Is it possible to pack plugins into extensions for Safari? For instance, the exact NPAPI plugins which work on Google Chrome also work on Safari. However in Chrome I'm shipping the plugins as a part of an extension (a CRX package). This is needed because HTML and JavaScript is injected into a specific web page, and this code uses the plugins. I do not see an option in Extension Builder to specify plugin files and I haven't come across any proper documentation saying that plugins cannot be packed into extensions.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
The first comment:
I don't think that is supported. A workaround could be a custom installer that installs both the plugin and the extension. – Georg Fritzsche
This is the only possible way to do it! FYI: Apple guys are against the idea of extensions accessing native code (ie, plugins). An obvious security loop-hole, but a necessity here! :)
I am looking for a general purpose NPAPI plugin that can used to invoke GetRight/FlashGet/OrbitDownloader/InternetDownloadManager/etc.
Has anyone written that already? It's like FlashGot for NPAPI browsers.
NPAPI plugins are for embedding alternative content into a page, not for generally extending the browser with new functionality.
What you are looking for are extension or addons (sadly and confusingly also sometimes called plugins) and those are mostly browser-specific - search first before writing your own.