docspell/website/site/content/docs/tools/browserext.md

+++ title = "Browser Extension (Firefox)" description = "An extension for firefox to upload files from your browser via right-click → upload to docspell." weight = 40 +++

The idea is to click on a file in firefox and send it to docspell. It is downloaded in the context of your current page. Then handed to an application that pushes it to docspell. There is a browser add-on implementing this in tools/webextension. This add-on only works with firefox.

Installation is a bit complicated, since you need to install external tools and the web extension. Both work together.

Install ds.sh

First copy the ds.sh tool somewhere in your PATH, maybe /usr/local/bin as described above.

Install the native part

Then install the "native" part of the web extension:

Copy or symlink the native.py script into some known location. For example:

ln -s ~/docspell-checkout/tools/webextension/native/native.py /usr/local/share/docspell/native.py

Then copy the app_manifest.json to $HOME/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/docspell.json. For example:

cp ~/docspell-checkout/tools/webextension/native/app_manifest.json  ~/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/docspell.json

See here for details.

And you might want to modify this json file, so the path to the native.py script is correct (it must be absolute).

If the ds.sh script is in your $PATH, then this should work. Otherwise, edit the native.py script and change the path to the tool. Or create a file $HOME/.config/docspell/ds.cmd whose content is the path to the ds.sh script.

Install the extension

An extension file can be build using the make-xpi.sh script. But installing it in "standard" firefox won't work, because Mozilla requires extensions to be signed by them. This means creating an account and going through some process…. So here are two alternatives:

1. Open firefox and type about:debugging in the addressbar. Then click on 'Load Temporary Add-on...' and select the manifest.json file. The extension is now installed. The downside is, that the extension will be removed once firefox is closed.
2. Use Firefox ESR, which allows to install Add-ons not signed by Mozilla. But it has to be configured: Open firefox and type about:config in the address bar. Search for key xpinstall.signatures.required and set it to false. This is described on the last paragraph on this page.

When you right click on a file link, there should be a context menu entry 'Docspell Upload Helper'. The add-on will download this file using the browser and then send the file path to the native.py script. This script will in turn call ds.sh which finally uploads it to your configured URLs.

Open the Add-ons page (Ctrl+Shift+A), the new add-on should be there.