This project is moving to Sourceforge. Find it at https://aguide-viewer.sourceforge.io/.
AGuide Viewer Copyright 2023-2024 Robert Kidd
See the end of the file for license conditions.
AGuide Viewer is an open source reader for AmigaGuide documents implemented as a browser extension. It works with Firefox* and Chromium* on all platforms.
- Tested on Windows and Linux
Firefox:
- Download the release build aguide-0.3.xpi
- Tools > Add-ons
- (Gear icon) > Install Add-on From File...
- Choose aguide-0.3.xpi
Firefox (development build):
- Browse to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox
- Choose Load Temporary Add-on...
- Load aguide.xpi or manifest.json
Chromium:
- Chrome requires loading an unpacked extension. You can either clone the git repo or download and unzip the .xpi file.
- Clone git repo:
- git clone https://git.code.sf.net/p/aguide-viewer/code aguide-viewer
- Unzip aguide.xpi
- mkdir aguide-viewer
- cd aguide-viewer
- unzip ../aguide.xpi
- Choose More tools -> Extensions
- Load the aguide-viewer directory as an unpacked extension
The extension installs hooks to detect downloads of files with a .guide filename extension or that start with the '@database' sequence. AmigaGuide documents downloaded from the web are automatically rendered in the browser. This behavior can be configured; see below.
The extension supports viewing local files. Open a local file using any method supported by the browser, entering a file:/// URL, use the File->Open menu option, or use the operating system's file manager to open a .guide file with the browser.
Alternatively, AGuide Viewer can be launched by clicking the AGV icon in the browser's toolbar. If the current page is an AmigaGuide document, it will be displayed. Otherwise, a new tab will open with an empty viewer. The interface mimics that of the AmigaGuide or MultiView utilities.
Navigation buttons (Contents, Retrace, Browse) work as they do in the native Amiga readers. The browser's native history commands also work as normal.
Click the Preferences... button in the toolbar to change settings.
- Detect by filename: Detect downloads of files with a filename extension of .guide and display in the viewer.
- Detect by signature: Inspect the first 9 bytes of each download and display in the viewer if the file starts with '@database'.
If all auto-detect options are disabled, AmigaGuide documents will load as plain text. Click the AGV icon in the toolbar to render the document as hypertext.
Links from one AmigaGuide document to another may not work as expected when browsing local files in Firefox. Firefox blocks direct links to local files from the extension. To open such a link, right click, open the link in a new tab or window, then reload the new tab to render.
The extension doesn't need to be built to test changes. Follow the installation procedure above and select manifest.json or the directory that contains manifest.json, depending on browser.
Building the extension bundle requires the following packages.
- make
- zip
To build the extension bundle % make
Tagging and packaging the extension for distribution requires additional packages.
- git
- jq (https://stedolan.github.io/jq)
To tag and package for distribution % make dist VERSION=vers
Contact for bugs, patches, etc Robert Kidd robert.kidd@gmail.com
AGuide Viewer is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
AGuide Viewer is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with AGuide Viewer. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.