Tag: Chrome

Thoughts: Where are the mobile browser extensions?

By Ashish Datta | 6 Comments on Thoughts: Where are the mobile browser extensions?

Last week, I was putting together a Google Chrome extension for one of our clients to help debug Javascript events on a page and I started wondering why don’t we have mobile browser extensions? Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple answer but I think looking towards the desktop can help draw analogies to where we are on mobile now.

So this desktop thing?

Looking back to the desktop, arguably one of the strongest drivers of Firefox’s growth was its rich extension ecosystem. Compared to Internet Explorer, Firefox extensions were easier to develop, leveraged web technologies (XUL, JS, CSS), and offered powerful abstractions out of the box. Because of this, developers began building powerful extensions for Firefox which drove “power user” adoption and ultimately helped spur mainstream adoption. Developers built extensions like Firebug, Greasemonkey, and companies like Rapportive inside the Firefox extension ecosystem. Following Firefox, when Google Chrome launched it debuted its own even simpler extension infrastructure and eventually the Chrome Webstore to help distribute and monetize extensions.

Although largely positive, the extensions developed for Firefox and Chrome weren’t always user friendly. Between redirecting search traffic and surreptitiously injecting ads, “greyhat” extensions negatively impacted user experience while generating revenue without generating value. These “greyhat” extensions fueled what’s colloquially known as Israel’s download valley and ultimately millions of dollars in revenue.

Right so what about mobile?

Compared to the desktop, the landscape on mobile is notably different because of an Apple and Google duopoly with Apple primarily monetizing hardware and Google monetizing search advertising. Additionally, compared to the desktop, Apple and Google have an unprecedented level of control over user devices, all but ensuring that devices will arrive with either Safari or Chrome installed.

I think because of this control, Apple and Google have little incentive to open up Mobile Safari or Mobile Chrome to 3rd party extension developers since doing so would compromise the browser user experience for little gain over the competition. But what about Firefox?

Although Mozilla has released a Firefox build for Android, I think they’ve recognized that trying to win market share away from Chrome on Android is a losing battle and they’re starting to seriously pursue FirefoxOS. Because of this, I don’t think Mozilla will invest in Firefox mobile extensions since it’s clear that there’s more opportunity in powering the OS layer of a user’s phone.

BigCommerce Bulk Coupon Code Importer

By Ashish Datta | 17 Comments on BigCommerce Bulk Coupon Code Importer

A buddy of mine has an eCommerce storefront through BigCommerce, a hosted eCommerce solution. He was looking to run a Gilt City promotion, so he would have to import ~150 coupon codes into BigCommerce.

My friend spent some time looking around for an import codes feature and I would have assumed that a solution like BigCommerce would support a CSV import for coupon codes as well. However, we Googl’ed around a bit and it turns out BigCommerce does not support CSV imports for coupon codes. We stumbled upon this discussion on the BigCommerce forums discussing this shortcoming at length.

On the forum thread, someone had previously developed an iMacros script to automate importing the codes. Unfortunately, I tried using the iMacros script without any success. It looks like BigCommerce has updated the HTML on the page which is breaking the script. Anyway, looking at the iMacro and the opaque syntax I decided it would be easier to whip together a Chrome extension to automate creating coupon codes so decided to move forward with that.

Chrome extensions naturally lend themselves to automating things like this since it’s pretty straightforward to use the background page to maintain any state and hold variables and then use a content script to manipulate the DOM of the page and submit any forms that you need to.

You can grab the extension here http://setfive.com/misc/BigComm Importer.crx you’ll obviously need to be running Google Chrome for it to work.

Also, fork it at https://github.com/adatta02/bigcommerce-coupon-importer

What it does is add a “Bulk Import” button to the “Coupon Codes” page on your BigCommerce site – http://[yourstore].mybigcommerce.com/admin/index.php?ToDo=viewCoupons

If you click that button, a copy of the “add code” form will be displayed along with a textbox. You’ll just need to fill out the form, enter a list of coupon codes you want to create – one per line, and then click “Start Import”.

Your browser will automatically go through and create all your coupon codes. Thats it!

As always, let me know if you run into any issues or have any comments.