I have developed a Firefox toolbar in XUL, which uses javascript to manipulate the DOM.
I'd like to export this to IE.
I know that IE doesn't support XUL, but wonder:
(1) is there an easy way to use the existing javascript code for the IE toolbar as well?
(2) is there a IE installer that easily creates all necessary registry values for creating a toolbar?
I'd be grateful for any help. If anyone can point me to a sample IE toolbar code, with several buttons, drop-down menus and perhaps even a search box, that'll make things much easier as well.
Thanks!
Try AmpleSDK by using this you may port your toolbar to ie
Writing an IE toolbar requires C++, the Windows API and Microsoft COM. If you have the paid version of Visual Studio then you can also use ATL to simplify some of the work.
You won't be able to re-use your JavaScript code. Unless perhaps JavaScript code for manipulating the DOM of the currently loaded webpage.
This article is what got me started:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776819.aspx
I found this to be a helpful sample.
I want to warn you though that creating an IE toolbar can be quite painful. If you are serious then I recommend that you learn and understand the basics of COM and ActiveX first. (I did not do this and spent many hours messing around getting nowhere.)
An alternative option would to embed XULRunner in IE. It would allow you to port most of your code. I have never tried this myself though.
Well the company www.softomate.com is focused on porting existing FF plugins to IE and other browsers. We were able to port my existing Security related plugin to IE and Safari with them.
Related
I'd like to develop an Internet Explorer extension that changes the content of a specific webpage, like content scripts in Google Chrome. (eg. when I go to the website Google and I search for "car" I'd like to have a div created on the page with the word "car" inside).
I've been looking on SO but haven't found clear evidences if this kind of thing is possible.
What I'm specifically looking for is a clear tutorial or some example of how to do this.
Bruno,
That is exactly what GreaseMonkey for IE is made for http://www.gm4ie.com/
I have answered a similar question, but the answer is in C#. It describes how to create a fully working project to accomplish exactly what you asked: changing page contents!
How to get started with developing Internet Explorer extensions?
It covers other topics too:
running javascripts from the addin
how to register IE addins
saving data (addin configurations)
You can read more about Internet Explorer Extension from MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa753587(v=vs.85).aspx
Extensions in IE are not created using web technologies, they are created using C++/.NET. Such as ActiveX
Similar to "GreaseMonkey for IE" is Trixie:
Trixie is to Internet Explorer as Greasemonkey is to Firefox. It lets you remix the Web via scripts. You may do this to either make it more readable, fix bugs or to even add little features to make the site more usable to you. Trixie by itself does none of this. It is just a plugin for Internet Explorer that enables executing chunks of JavaScript code and thus lets you use the Web the way you want to use it.
This is one of the best I found. http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/dev.asp It has give sample scripts as well. Which will help you.
Another one is open source and stable version : firebreath
same kind question is also asked How to get started with developing Internet Explorer extensions?
This is a working example of manipulating the DOM from microsoft. This is a BHO development with MS Visual Studio. Check it out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250489%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
Is there a way to port a chrome extension to other browsers, without having to entirely re-write the code? My chrome extension uses the browser_action command to open "popup.html" in the extension window...
Update: I found adblockforchrome port.js and found it only somewhat helpful for porting to Safari...
Apple provides some guidance on how to port convert a Chrome extension to Safari, but the problem you're going to run into is that each browser has a different set of allowed functionality for extensions. Even with Chrome to Safari, there are things you could do in Chrome you can't do in Safari, and visa versa.
It depends on the type of the extension, but not really. To answer your question more clearly, you need to specify what your extension is about: modify some pages (like userscripts/userstyles), extend browsers' features, or something else.
There are a few portability notes, however, that could help you to simplify this process:
Don't write browser specific code. In some modern browsers you're able to use HTML5 features, like Web SQL Database API. It is difficult to emulate such behaviour on IE, for instance.
Keep your JavaScript modular; don't use vendor specific JavaScript methods, and your code will be portable and will not rely on TraceMonkey or V8;
Separate HTML from CSS and Javascript, don't make your code dirty and complicated.
Jumping in a bit late.
Our company - Slice Factory (full disclosure here!) does provide a browser extension conversion service: http://gallery.extensionfactory.com/labs/conversion/
In most cases your chrome extension will work seamlessly in FF and Safari.
The service is still in beta trial, and Firefox conversion is working better than Safari one.
I can't fully disclose what's our technical solution, but this being an SO answer, I can add a few details: we have re-developed a full javascript api stack that mimics most of chrome extension APIs for Safari and Firefox; in Firefox we base our work on JetChrome. Plus we have wrappers that re-package the chrome extension adding our library and rewriting manifests and so on.
Beyond that, it's mostly a few good ideas, trial and error, and a LOT of development time.
As an example:
Safari 5.1 just introduced a popup corresponding to Chrome's browser_action, but we have already an alternative solution that works for previous versions. Firefox does not support HTML5 WebSQL, but we have an API for it. We also provide a way to bring webapps to FF, and soon to Safari.
The objective is to have Chrome API as a reference, and mimic it on all the other browsers.
Without pushing you towards our solution, I might add that the time to fully cover the Chrome API on both Safari and Firefox is probably not worth it - unless you plan to convert several extensions. So for just one or two extensions I would advise making your code as modular as possible, and just creating three extensions - or trying our service!
Yes, it's possible with Webextension API using webextension-polyfill.
I made use of it to build this where I only had to change the callback methods to Promises and using browser.something instead of chrome.something to call the browser APIs.
I'm developing a web application that uses lots of Javascript and CSS, both of my own creation and through third-party libraries. These include jQuery and Google Maps & Visualization JS APIs.
I've been testing everything in Firefox 3. Things are peachy until it turns out the main target of this webapp is (cue sad trombone) IE7. I'm looking for caveats, advice, libraries, or other references to help make this transition as easy as possible (not that it's actually going to be easy).
I've already tried IE7.js though it hasn't yet shown itself to be the silver bullet I was hoping for. I'm sure that it works as advertised, I think it's just not as all-encompassing as I'd like (example: colors like #4684EE and #DC3912, which are correctly rendered in FF3, are rendered as black in IE7, with or without IE7.js). Are there other libraries out there to help bring IE7 (more) in line with FF3?
A corollary question: what debugger would you recommend for IE7? I'm currently using Firebug Lite, but it runs painfully slowly. Is there anything out there with similar features that I might have missed?
As far as libraries go, jQuery is compatible across all major browsers, so at least you've got that going for you. Without knowing exactly which plugins/modules/libraries you're using, I can't recommend alternatives that are cross-browser compatible.
You could take a look at the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar. It isn't nearly as good as Firebug, but it's better than nothing.
Get the IETab add-on for Firefox so that you can fire up IE right inside the same tab you test Firefox in. Get the FULL version of Firebug. It will be perfect for you to deal with HTML, CSS, and scripting. HTMLValidator for validating your HTML and CSS. The Web Developer toolbar is a MUST if you don't have it. I can't even go into a fraction of the benefits it has, from images to source viewing to validating scripts it has a lot.
I use a separate stylesheet for IE7. It doesn't have many changes from the original stylesheet, but enough to make viewing in IE7 close to FF. I try not to do ANYTHING for IE6. In fact I encourage the "downfall" of IE6. It's almost ten years old, and full of bugs, and unsupported now!
Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't really want to be on the same page as the W3C and developers that want web standards so that you don't have deal with what you're going through right now. Regardless of what they SAY, they're still "competing" against the other browsers for control, and it's hurting the developers.
Writing cross browser code is a big topic - you can't really generalize it into "don't float left and padding-left" statements and be done.
Separate stylesheets for ie are messy and not needed IMO.
Generally speaking, firefox fixes broken code in a good bit of cases, so there is a chance that at least some of your stuff looks bad in IE because of open tags that firefox is fixing for you.
Re-slicing a site that's already done might be your easiest way. You should be able to completely redo the CSS from scratch in a few hours tops.
But all this is advice that may not apply - it would be easier to see the code you're talking about.
I have developed a html file. It is working fine in IE6 and IE7. When I run the same html file in IE8, the design is not the same and the Javascript is not working properly. It is showing browser's "Compatibility view"?
How do I fix this?
It is difficult to really help you as you are not giving us enough information. Your question is very broad in the sense that getting your website to display the same in all browsers is a lot of work and the reasons why a particular layout is not working in a particular browser are just about infinite.
A few important things to get you started on your journey, though:
Use a DOCTYPE or you'll throw browsers into quirks mode.
Reset your CSS so you can apply the styles you want to elements.
Use a Javascript library - the popular one around these parts is jQuery, and it is the one I personally recommend. However, it doesn't really matter which one you go with as long as you use one. A lot of smart guys have put a lot of hours into taking care of all the incompatibilities between browsers. Trying to do a lot of dynamic stuff on your website with pure Javascript is bordering on masochistic.
Once I started doing these things, making my site work the same across browsers got a whole lot easier.
Give this a read, it details the things that cause IE8 to switch to compatibility mode, and how to fix them.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/03/12/site-compatibility-and-ie8.aspx
You must give us some example codes (or even working website) and do something like:
Website validation (html markup, css and javascript)
Test it on another modern browser (opera, firefox, chrome, safari, etc)
Do you adhere to web standard when building web?
Do you rely on CSS hacks?
Did you know that Trident rendering engine on IE6 & IE7 didn't even pass ACID 2 test? which mean have a lot troubles with CSS implementation...
Then we might be can help you
I do web site debugging with Internet Explorer (as well as other browsers), but my problem is with Internet Explorer, as it is the browser I usually use for regular browsing.
In order to debug you need to turn on debug mode in the advanced options. OK, fine. It's turned on. But the issue I have, that is quite annoying, is that it seems 30% of websites have JavaScript errors, and Internet Explorer in debug mode causes a popup. This is now also the case with Stack Overflow as well, where I spend a lot of time now. Every time I edit I get a JavaScript error pup up.
I guess it comes down to this: Is there a way to QUICKLY enable and disable debug mode, such as a Hokey, or an add-in, so you don't have to go into Advanced Options to enable and disable?
I should mention I do mainly ASP.NET development and use Visual Studio. I do already use Firefox/Firebug for some scenarios and non Internet Explorer-related issues. I'm not really looking to switch around what I do or how I do it, mainly looking for a solution to the problem at hand. Even a workaround that doesn't involve using other browsers/debuggers.
The quickest way I can think of would be to write a small utility to:
Close all IE windows
Toggle the REG_SZ registry value HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Disable Script Debugger (from "yes" to "no" or vice versa)
Optionally restart IE
As far as I know, there's no way to make IE recognize the changed registry value without restarting it, even using an IE plugin.
As an aside, unless the IE/VS integration is critical for you, you may want to look into the combination of Firefox and Firebug for Javascript debugging: I find it much nicer in general, and debugging can easily be enabled or disabled, either interactively or on a per-site basis.
I recommend using Firefox + IE Tab, which would allow you to easily and quickly change the rendering engine used for sites that require IE. This way the bulk of your browsing can be done in non-IE tabs and you can avoid the debug popups.
Have a look at debugbar. It's free for personal use, and it has a 60 days trial for commercial. It works a bit like fireug for Firefox, but obviously it's going to cost to use.