Hello everyone! I'm the developer of Gmail Checker. Figured I'd chime in on some stuff I've learned and some questions raised here.
First off though, I'm really glad to see so many people use my extension. The amount of traffic to my website has increased exponentially since yesterday I'm gonna have to upgrade my account if this goes on
I also just added support for Google Apps Domains. If you've already got the extension installed, all you have to do is let it update automatically or from the extension preferences in Safari.
This plugin is obviously not for those people who choose to IMAP their Gmail.
ok so after having to search online on just how to even enable extensions so i can install it.. i finally got the gmail extenuation installed right. Now, i want to know how to tell it which account to fetch. I have a few, and I need to know how to tell it which one I want it to check....
anyone here had any luck figuring that out?
The extension will check whatever account you're currently logged in to.
I've been looking into multi-account support (or even just specifying credentials in the preferences for checking a specific account). Unfortunately this awakens the anger of the WebKit bug noted at the download page (well it's only really a problem if you can't be arsed to enter correct login details).
Furthermore, for multiple account support, the current settings system is not customizable enough I'm afraid. We can't have a variable number of fields or even multiline inputs, so there's no real way to add accounts. I guess I
could make my own preferences thing but yeah...
Okay, call me paranoid or whatever...but how do I know that if I install that little Gmail checker extension and put in my account and password that it's not just going to take that info an steal my account? I mean, this plug-in is just out there in the wild, right? No vetting process?
Just wondering.
A valid concern! I can promise you that my extension is safe in this regard, however. Not only do you never actually type your password into it (so it can't really steal it) I've also set its domain policies to only allow connections to *.google.com. Unfortunately the latter doesn't seem to be anything that shows up for the end user. The source code is also for everyone to see at github.com
Generally, you should obviously always be wary of downloading stuff from the Internet. But that's a general concern with the Internet, methinks
It should be noted though, that ALL extensions must be signed by the developer with a key issued by Apple. If they discover a malicious extension, they should be able to track the developer down (and probably disable the extension as well). That said, there is no vetting process per se for getting a key...
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Is this possible? Can a developer chime in, and/or make an extension? I used to Use Detour for this, but it died when we switched to Intel.
About mute button: Extensions can "inject" (this is the official term but it nevertheless sounds malwarish to me) javascript into web pages that you visit. This should make it possible to stop <audio> tags from playing. Controlling Flash would generally be more difficult I believe controlling Flash from Javascript requires a compatible SWF. Just some thoughts.
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As for the development of extensions: It's amazingly easy! I've never done it before (for other browsers) but the API provided is very straightforward and easy to use. I managed to put this thing together in a couple of hours, with no previous extension experience. The API is still young, and has a couple of issues.
I'm mainly missing more flexible extension settings and the possibility to play audio (for notifications). Oh, and documentation that's not incorrect...
We'll probably see a lot of ****** extensions popping up. While it will be possible to install "off-site" extensions, Apple will soon release their Extension Gallery. Apple being Apple, I'm assuming this will be mother of walled gardens. The agreement for signing up for the gallery is ... well, one-sided. For good or bad.
