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This is one advantage of the world switching to webapps over desktop apps. It’s trivial for me to create a chrome extension that enriches or modifies the UI of

This is one advantage of the world switching to webapps over desktop apps. It’s trivial for me to create a chrome extension that enriches or modifies the UI of a bought product. Add an extra menu of common tasks- no problem. Add a datalist dropdown of options to a textbox where the options come from another service dynicamlly? - again no bother but usability of the vendor product went up substantially.

agumonkey 5y ago
Potentially only, where i work, browsers are managed by IT, no way to patch stuff, no devtools. Also depending on the design, adding your code may never work unless you reverse the whole codebase (the app in place is extremely stateful, all a.href are replaced by procedural js calls). Don't laugh but I had more results scripting mouse/keyboard automation on 90s oracle GUIs [0] than the app I mentioned above. [0] I could prefill half the stuff and help the rest with powershell, it gave me 70% time reduction on most tasks
- CraigJPerry 5y ago
  Ahh that sucks royally. I've been in similar and it's soul sucking! <flippant-comment-from-a-random-hn-poster-who-doesnt-know-your-circumstances> The job market's great right now </flippant-comment-from-a-random-hn-poster-who-doesnt-know-your-circumstances> :-) Hopefully more usefully as a comment - browsers are super hackable, you might be able to use a javascript bookmarklet to effect some improvements. Something like this https://caiorss.github.io/bookmarklet-maker/ https://caiorss.github.io/bookmarklet-maker/ (there are others) makes life easier for creating these.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I don't mind the comment above, he's somehow right that html/js is more open to ad-hoc patches than native code. Except when admins forbid you to. bookmarklets don't allow for injections into the app so it wont work
pbhjpbhj 5y ago
I'd be interested in seeing implementation examples of adding 3rd party data from one (3rd party) web source to another for form completion, if you have them please? Presumably this has to hack around cross-site restrictions nowadays (it's a couple of years since I did any website JavaScript).
- plorntus 5y ago
  Extensions can request a higher level of permisions so you typically wont run into that issue.
- CraigJPerry 5y ago
  Here's one i made just now: https://gist.github.com/craigjperry2/83b81b7eaf5cf68ca042a9a0c638a00e https://gist.github.com/craigjperry2/83b81b7eaf5cf68ca042a9a... 1. Clone that repo 2. Run my fake vendor app - in this case an html page with an empty text box - npx http-server 3. Add the browser extension - tested in firefox - then refresh the page Now you should see the title fields from https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts in a dropdown that's now been added to the input field of the fake vendor app page.
jfrunyon 5y ago
This is an advantage of open-source (as in source that you can read and modify, not necessarily FOSS), not web, IMO. Webapps are just necessarily open-source (at least the client-side portion).
- CraigJPerry 5y ago
  Yeah i suppose, if everyone switched to rendering on a canvas element instead of to the DOM then this advantage would shrink away

agumonkey 5y ago

Potentially only, where i work, browsers are managed by IT, no way to patch stuff, no devtools. Also depending on the design, adding your code may never work unless you reverse the whole codebase (the app in place is extremely stateful, all a.href are replaced by procedural js calls). Don't laugh but I had more results scripting mouse/keyboard automation on 90s oracle GUIs [0] than the app I mentioned above. [0] I could prefill half the stuff and help the rest with powershell, it gave me 70% time reduction on most tasks

CraigJPerry 5y ago
Ahh that sucks royally. I've been in similar and it's soul sucking! <flippant-comment-from-a-random-hn-poster-who-doesnt-know-your-circumstances> The job market's great right now </flippant-comment-from-a-random-hn-poster-who-doesnt-know-your-circumstances> :-) Hopefully more usefully as a comment - browsers are super hackable, you might be able to use a javascript bookmarklet to effect some improvements. Something like this https://caiorss.github.io/bookmarklet-maker/ https://caiorss.github.io/bookmarklet-maker/ (there are others) makes life easier for creating these.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I don't mind the comment above, he's somehow right that html/js is more open to ad-hoc patches than native code. Except when admins forbid you to. bookmarklets don't allow for injections into the app so it wont work

pbhjpbhj 5y ago

I'd be interested in seeing implementation examples of adding 3rd party data from one (3rd party) web source to another for form completion, if you have them please? Presumably this has to hack around cross-site restrictions nowadays (it's a couple of years since I did any website JavaScript).

plorntus 5y ago
Extensions can request a higher level of permisions so you typically wont run into that issue.
CraigJPerry 5y ago
Here's one i made just now: https://gist.github.com/craigjperry2/83b81b7eaf5cf68ca042a9a0c638a00e https://gist.github.com/craigjperry2/83b81b7eaf5cf68ca042a9a... 1. Clone that repo 2. Run my fake vendor app - in this case an html page with an empty text box - npx http-server 3. Add the browser extension - tested in firefox - then refresh the page Now you should see the title fields from https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts in a dropdown that's now been added to the input field of the fake vendor app page.

jfrunyon 5y ago

This is an advantage of open-source (as in source that you can read and modify, not necessarily FOSS), not web, IMO. Webapps are just necessarily open-source (at least the client-side portion).

CraigJPerry 5y ago
Yeah i suppose, if everyone switched to rendering on a canvas element instead of to the DOM then this advantage would shrink away