Disco Enhancements Browser Extension version 1.3 Released

This release contains a rework of the back-end code to make the extension work with version 11.2 as well as maintaining a fluid experience in both version 10.2 and 11.0/1. It’s actually an improvement in the code, I’ve managed to tidy it up and remove some messy workarounds but not all of them. So the extension does throw up some console errors, but from a user perspective it’s unnoticeable.

It’s a continual game of catch-up with BMC as they tweak their interface for BMC Discovery even on minor releases. Version 11.2 is no exception – the banner has changed, and some CSS form elements ID’s have changed.

To accommodate the CSS changes, the Generic Search Query box has been moved to the top of the page content and expanded. My own experience with copying and pasting queries caused me to find the smaller box more limiting – and of course it makes support across 3 versions of Discovery easier.

The extension has been tested on Firefox in unsigned mode and works without any tweaking. However attempting to upload it for signing to AMO did alert me to errors in the manifest (Chrome Web Store seemed to accept it with the Mozilla required ‘ applications’ key). I guess I’ll have to create a duplicate repository with a separate manifest after all.

There is the thorny security issue around using insertAdjacentHTML(), see this:

if (xhttp.readyState == 4 && xhttp.status == 200) {
  pageDiv.insertAdjacentHTML('afterbegin', xhttp.responseText);

I confess this is hacky workaround to get it to pass some html from a text file to the page. Mozilla security will reject this. I’m not yet smart enough to know how to implement a workaround…. more late night studying ahead for release 1.4 I suspect.

A premium version will be on it’s way. This will add the possibility to view and run the last query under the Generic Search Query box, amongst other functionalities. The core version will remain free and all the code will be published under the MIT license on GitHub.

Get the free extension for Chrome.

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