Story Monitor Extension

Information for Developers

Story Monitor is an open source product developed under the Mozilla Public Licence. It is written entirely in interpreted Javascript and XML. The development project is hosted on Sourceforge.

• Story Monitor Project Homepage on Sourceforge
• Sourceforge Homepage

Obtaining the source code

The source code is available via the Sourceforge CVS servers:

• View CVS files in your browser
• Use anonymous CVS to download sources

Alternatively, you can extract the source from the downloaded XPI file as follows:

1. Rename the XPI file extension to ZIP.
2. Extract the ZIP archive.
3. Inside the "chrome" folder you will find a "storymonitor.jar" file. Rename this to "storymonitor.zip".
4. Extract the 2nd ZIP archive.

Version Numbering

As of version 0.8, the extension is delivered in two XPI packages a "beta" package and a "stable" package. Until the first non-beta release is made, these will be identical other than the beta package will configure Firefox Update to download future beta releases and the stable package will configure Firefox Update to download future stable releases. The user can choose which type of release to receive using the options window.

The version number policy will be the same as that used for the Linux Kernel. The first full release will be numbered 1.0.1 and any bug fix releases will be numbered 1.0.2, 1.0.3, etc. Version 1.0.1 will be followed by a new beta release with additional features. This will be version 1.1.1 and subsequent releases will be 1.1.2, 1.1.3, etc. Once the new beta version is stable, it will be released as version 1.2.1 and the pattern will be repeated. Hence even releases (1.0, 1.2, 1.4, etc.) will be stable versions and odd releases (1.1, 1.3, 1.5, etc.) will be beta versions.

Building From Source

If you have downloaded the CVS source files and you are using Windows, a batch file "build.bat" is provided to generate both a beta release package and a stable release package. This script requires that the 7-zip archiver software is installed in its default location. If you use a different OS or different archiving software, it should be a relatively trivial exercise to create a similar build script.

If you have extracted the XPI you need to follow the manual build process:

1. Create a zip file inside the "chrome" folder containing all the files in the folder. "content","locale" and "skin" should be top level folders in this zip archive.
2. Rename this zip file to "storymonitor.jar ".
3. Return to the parent folder and create a zip file that contains the "storymonitor.jar" file inside the "chrome" folder, the "defaults" folder and the "install.rdf" file. Note: the files other than "storymonitor.jar " in the "chrome " folder need not be in this zip file.
4. Rename this 2nd zip file to "storymonitor.xpi "

Once you have built the XPI file through either method you can install it by dragging it from explorer onto a running copy of Firefox.

It is recommended you use a separate Firefox profile for development. Create a copy of your shortcut to Firefox and add to the command line arguments "-profile <foldername>" where foldername is an empty folder you have created.

CVS Branches and Tags

A branch is created for each set of stable releases. The first of these is tagged "Release_1-0". Each point release made on the branch will be tagged "Release_1-0-1", "Release_1-0-2", etc. but all releases will come from the same branch. The branch will be merged back into the trunk at regular intervals, but the branch will remain open after a merge until the next stable release branch is made from the trunk - "Release_1-2". Beta releases will be made directly from the trunk and will be tagged "Release_1-1-1", "Release_1-1-2", etc.

Contributing to Story Monitor

If you have experience with Firefox extension development or XUL in general and are interested in assisting with Story Monitor please visit the Sourceforge development team page.

Home  

 •   •   •