Setting Up Your Development Extension

If you want to develop either the content server or an extension, you'll need to install the development versions of the extensions. Each extension has a different means for working with changing code.

Cloning a Git repository is a bit more advanced, but it makes it easier to keep your code up to date. The Firefox development version is the most up to date extension at this time, but unless you are developing the Firefox extension, you can work with any of the browsers listed below.

Firefox Extension Development Installation

If you don't need to work with the latest and greatest version of the extension, download it from Mozilla's store and skip these steps. There are two options for working with development versions of the Firefox extension.

Option 1: Clone the Git Repository

Only install the extension this way if you know, or want to know the version control system Git.

First get the current code by cloning it from Github: git@github.com:privly/privly-firefox.git

Instead of constantly preparing and reinstalling your extension, there’s a simple way to add a pointer from your Firefox extensions directory to your code location. To do this, you must first find your profile directory. The profile directory is where you will find all the settings for your Firefox profiles, including extension information.

Find your Profile Directory

Find profile directory on Windows

In Windows 2000 and XP, open Explorer and go to C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles and in Vista, go to C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Roaming.

Find profile directory on Mac

Open the Terminal and type in "cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/profiles/". There you will find your Firefox profiles, and they will be named with letters and numbers, followed by a dot (.) and then your profile name, e.g. 12a3bc4d.dev.

Find profile directory on Linux

Open a terminal and type in "cd ~/.mozilla/". In that location, you will find all your Firefox profiles, and they will be named with letters and numbers, followed by a dot (.) and then your profile name, e.g. 12a3bc4d.dev.

Pointing to an extension

In your development profile folder, you will find a folder named extensions. Change to the extensions directory. In it, you will have code for all your installed extensions. Instead of placing your code there, you can create a pointer file. Do that by creating a file with a unique name for you (this will have to be the same as you chose for your em:id value in your install.rdf file – more on that below).

In the case of our Privly, create a file named privly@priv.ly (inside of the extensions folder), without any extension, and in it just point it to where you will have your code, e.g. C:\extensions\ (Windows) or ~/Sites/privly-firefox/ (Mac).

Option 2: Download the Extension Periodically

This is the easiest way to install the development extension, but it won't automatically stay up-to-date. To stay current you will need to periodically uninstall the extension and visit this URL in Firefox: http://dev.privly.org/PrivlyFirefoxExtension.xpi

Chrome Extension Development Installation

1. Download the extension.
   1. GitHub hosts the source code, and you can download it by cloning the repository, or clicking the "ZIP" button on this page: Chrome Repository
2. Open Chrome and click the wrench icon
3. Select "Extensions"
4. Click "Load Unpacked Extension..."
5. Select the directory containing the chrome extension

Opera Extension Development Installation

Download the source and drag the config.xml file into your Opera browser to install it.

GitHub hosts the source code, and you can download it by cloning the repository, or clicking the "ZIP" button on this page: Opera Repository

Safari Extension

Double click "privly_build.safariextz" and it should install the extension.

GitHub hosts the source code, and you can download it by cloning the repository, or clicking the "ZIP" button on this page: Safari Repository

You have your development extension running, now what?

Head over to our wiki on GitHub, where you will find much more detailed information about how Privly works.