wegewerk / lobbyradar-extension

The Lobbyradar browser plugin shows you connections of persons and organisations connected to lobbying activities.

Lobbyradar

Lobbyradar is a Browserextension which uses Data available on lobbyradar.opendatacloud.de Lobbyradar is meant to run on Chrome, Safari and Firefox. It is built using the BabelExt Project. BabelExt simplifies cross-browser development of Extensions. It abstracts Message passing between background- and foreground scripts. Background scripts are run in the Context of the Extension. They have access to the extension data, here: settings and lobbydata. Foreground scripts are injected into the current page and can modify the DOM and interact with the UI. BabelExt comes with an unusual Build-Script based on PhantomJS.

I had to modify BabelExt for lobbyradar, so browser abstraction is somewhat lost.

Directories

lib/: Background and Foreground scripts, settings files (settings.json, local_settings.json) test/: Test-Page with many names and an iframe. Serve this directory with a web server to test your extension. build/: Installable Extensions generated by the build script.

Chrome/: the Chrome-Extension. This Directory is modified by the build script. Safari.safariextension/: the Safari extension. Modified by build script and Safaris extensions builder (Info.plist) Firefox/: the Firefox extension. Modified by Build script and Firefox-SDK.

Do not delete the Extension directories! The build script generates only part of the files.

Files

fg_page.js: Injected into the Page. The same for all Browsers bg_*.js: Background Scripts. One Version for Chrome/Safari, different for Firefox.

Background-scripts for Chrome/Safari are modified in lib/. Background-scripts for Firefox are modified in Firefox/.

I strongly recommend to understand the build script.

Build process

Download PhantomJS (http://phantomjs.org), which is used to build and deploy browser-extensions. You need to have the Chrome Browser installed to build the Chrome extension.

In UNIX-based OSes, run ./bin/build.sh

The build system hasn't been tested under Windows yet - your best bet is probably to look at the scripts and write a Windows equivalent. If it's any good, please send in a patch!

IMPORTANT SAFARI NOTE: If the extension directory does not end in ".safariextension", it will not be recognized by Safari. Symlinks inside the extension directory are not allowed.

Instructions for loading/testing an extension in each browser

• You need to build the package before you start - the initial build process configures some files that aren't stored in git

Chrome / Opera

• Go to about://extensions

• Check "Developer Mode"

• Click "load unpacked extension" and choose the Chrome directory

• You're good to go! If you just want to try out the BabelExt kitchen sink demo, navigate to http://babelext.com/demo/

• Further Chrome development information can be found at http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/index.html

Firefox

• Install firefox developer edition

• Install Auto-Installer Extension https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/autoinstaller/

• Further Firefox development information can be found at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/latest/

Safari

• Click the gear icon, and choose Settings -> Preferences -> Advanced

• Check the box that reads "Show Develop menu in menu bar"

• Click the menu button (left of the gear icon), and choose Develop -> Show Extension Builder

• Click the + button at the bottom left, and choose "Add Extension"

• Choose the Safari.safariextension folder from lobbyradar

• Further Safari development information can be found at https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/#documentation/Tools/Conceptual/SafariExtensionGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html

Releasing packages

You need to release your extension by hand in each Extension store.

LICENSE

MIT (X11) license. See LICENSE.txt