Viewhance

A browser extension to enhance the browser's default media viewer.

To try it out (when installed), open a media file (image / video / audio) in a new tab.

Visit one of the extension stores (below) to see the list of features.

Browser support / Installation

Only the latest browser versions are fully supported. It may work on older versions, but extra effort won't be made to stretch the compatibility for the sake of outdated platforms.

• Firefox ~24+ (or its relatives; SeaMonkey, Waterfox, Cyberfox, Pale Moon...)
• Opera 12
• Chromium ~22+ (or its relatives; Chrome, Opera 15+, CoolNovo, YaBrowser...)
• Safari ~5.1+
• Maxthon 4+

Contribution

• Translation: You can use this helper tool for localizing strings. The result can be sent as a pull request on GitHub.
• Code: if you have a bug-fix, or did some tweaks, then you can send a pull request with your changes. Criteria: Try to respect the code styling, use eslint, don't diverge from the main goal - viewing enhancements - (for instance, photo editing capability doesn't belong in this extension).

Build

sh tools/build.sh

Arguments:

no arguments - Generates meta-data (manifest files, locales) into the src directory (all the generated files are listed in .gitignore).

clean-meta - Removes meta-data from the src directory (platform arguments are ignored here, so it will remove all files).

xpi, oex, crx, safariextz, mxaddon - If one of these are set, then the building will apply only for the specified platform (file extensions are used as platforms).

prep - Prepares the project directory for the specified or all platforms, so it can be examined what files will be included in specific extension files.

pack - Creates installable packages for the specified or all platforms. If no prep argument was given, then the platform directory will be removed from build after the package is ready.

Development

In order to start hacking, the meta-data (manifest files and locales) needs to be generated, which can be done by running the following bash script (for Windows, it can be used with Cygwin):

sh tools/build.sh

Without any arguments it will simply run the tools/build_meta.py (Python 2/3) script, which could be used instead as well. This step prepares the src directory, from which it will be possible to install the extension on any browser (see above).

Installing from src allows to test the changes without any building (usually refreshing the page is enough).

Alternatively, the build.sh script is able to create the files for each platform under the build directory, and the extension could be installed from there too (see above how to use the build script). So, in the following installation methods the build/**platform** directory could be used instead of src.

Beside these, the extension can be built into a packaged file, which can be installed too (but that sounds tedious for developing).

Firefox

Create a proxy file, which content will be the absolute path of the src directory, and its name should be the ID of the extension: {00000c4c-fcfd-49bc-9f0d-78db44456c9c}. Copy the created file into the path of your profile/extensions directory.

Opera

For Opera 12: Open the Extension manager (Ctrl+Shift+E), and drag-n-drop the generated config.xml file from the src directory onto the browser window.

For Opera 15+ see Chromium.

Chromium

Open chrome://extensions in a tab, and drag-n-drop the src directory onto the page.

Safari

The extension files need to be placed in a folder named Viewhance.safariextension in oder to be able to load it via the Extension Builder.

Use the build script to generate the build/Viewhance.safariextension platform directory for Safari, which you can use (or in Windows, create a hard link pointing to the src directory, see example at Maxthon below). After that in Safari:

• Settings / Preferences / Advanced, tick the Show Develop menu in menu bar checkbox
• Menu button, and choose Develop / Show Extension Builder
• Click the + button at the bottom left, and choose Add Extension
• Select the Viewhance.safariextension directory, and Install (assuming the developer certificates are already installed)

Maxthon

Since this platform is available on Windows only, creating a hard link under the user's Addons directory will install the extension. Something like this:

mklink /H /D /J Maxthon_install_path\UserData\Users\guest\Addons\Viewhance src

(Of course, don't forget to delete the link if you don't use it anymore.)