yalcinakyol / tcs_notifier

A simple chrome extension that notifies you about ...?

tcs_notifier

A simple chrome extension that notifies you about ...? ( Depends on you ;) )
The extension will send a request every x minutes to a specified URL and will pass the response data (array of objects) to a Handlebars Template which you can modify for your purposes.

Specification

It's an extension for the Browser Google Chrome.
Don't even try running this extension in Firefox, it won't work! (Well, i guess, you can't even load it.)

Installation

1. Get the Extension from github

git clone https://github.com/catyphram/tcs_notifier

2. Better make a copy of the folder since you may modify the files (especially the template)

cp -aR tcs_notifier copy_of_tcs_notifier

3. And change into the directory

cd copy_of_tcs_notifier

4. Install the depencencies via npm

npm install

5. Modify the template (optional)

The enclosed template example expects an array of { title: '', date: '', subscriber: 0 } objects.
Since your api node may most likely response with different objects you need to modify the template to display the desired attributes. See here for further instructions.

6. Rebuild the source files (optional)

If you modified any source files ( all files that are in src/ ) you need to rebuild the build folder. See here.

7. Load the extension into Google Chrome

• Type chrome://extensions/ into your Google Chrome browser
• Check the developer mode checkbox
• load unpacked extension and select copy_of_tcs_notifier/build

8. Celebrate!

Template

To define which data should be displayed in the popup (The window that open when you click the icon.) you need to modify the Handlebars template src/popup.hbs The response of the requested api node will be passed to the template, so you can define which data to be displayed.

The whole object passed to the template:

{
	data: {
		items: [] # The response from the api node
	},
	buttonURL: '' # The URL the button will lead to
}

Visit http://handlebarsjs.com/ for the Handlebars Syntax.

Don't forget to rebuild the extension!!

Build

If you manually change the source files ( everything in src/ ) you need to rebuild the build/ folder. Gulp will do this work for us.

You can either install gulp global (if not already installed) via

npm install -g gulp

or use the local version already downloaded with the npm install before.

Run global version:

gulp

Run local version:

./node_modules/.bin/gulp

The build/ folder is completely built from the src/ folder. Please only modify the files in src/!

API Node

The api node defined via the exstension setting 'Request URL' will be requested with an empty GET request.

Example Requeset:

GET host:port/your/node/

The API needs to respond with an array of objects (pure JSON, not stringified). The attributes of the objects are not defined and can be handled in the Popup-Template. If there are no objects available, please respond with an empty array.

Example Response Array (directly passed to the template) :

[
	{ title: 'First Object Title', 'count': 5 },
	{ title: 'Sedond Object Title', 'count': 7 },
	...
]

Extension Settings

• Request Interval
  The time in minutes the extension will request the data from the specified URL.
• Request URL
  URL to the api node that will return an array of objects.
• Popup Button URL
  URL that will open in a new window when clicked on the Button in the Popup-Window.
• Browser Button Action Action that should be performed when clicked on the button in the browser bar.
  • Open Popup Window (internal: openPopup) Open the Popup Window with the list of available items.
  • Open Popup Button Link (internal: openLink) Open the link specified in Popup Button URL in a new tab.
• Notification Title
  Title of the desktop notification, displayed above the item list.
• Enable Notifications
  Whether to display a desktop notification or not when new data is available.

settings.json

This JSON formatted file contains the default values of the extension settings.

If you have never saved your settings ( value of a option is undefined ) these settings will be used instead. ( Note: Empty Strings are not undefined. )

That means: If you load this extension the first time these settings will be loaded till you once saved the extension settings in the settings page.

Feel free to modify them, so you don't need to reconfigure your settings every time you reinstall the extension.