palewire / beyond_the_paywall

Stanford "Beyond the Paywall" Study

Study: Beyond the Paywall

This repository contains the extension code for Greg Martin and Shoshana Vasserman's study to be hosted by Mozilla Rally.

What's in this repo?

• /schemas
  • This directory contains files that outline the data being sent to Mozilla's servers, and examples of that data.
• /src
  • This directory contains the source code for this extension
• /tests/integration
  • This directory would contain integration tests
  • It's currently (as of 5/11/21) just the template scripts
• manifest.json
  • This file contains important permission information, as well as the location of the background script to run
• package.json
  • This file contains important information about dependant packages and npm scripts
• web-ext-config.js
  • This file contains information to run the extension locally
  • The use of Firefox nightly is configured in this file

How do I run this extension locally?

• Start by cloning this repository
• You might need the Firefox nightly build, which can be downloaded here
• You'll also need to install node and npm locally.
• In the root directory of the repo, run npm install to install all dependency packages
• In the root directory of the repo, run npm run build and ensure there are no errors
• Once you've built the package without errors, you can run npm run watch to start the extension. A version of Firefox with the extension should start automatically.
  • In about:debugging, you should see your extension under "This Firefox"
  • If you click "Inspect", you'll be guided to a debugging site for your extension
  • The data should be available under Storage > Extension Storage > moz-extension://......
  • If you want to dump the current data, type let data = await browser.storage.local.get() in the debugging console, and then print the data variable. You can copy the object from there
    • Note: This command must be run from the about:debugging -> Extension Console. It won't work from the normal Firefox console.

Note: These instructions are written for a MacOSX user. They'll likely be very similar for a Linux user, but not for Windows.