Redirection Before Page Load - safari

I have an injection script--a start script--whose ultimate goal is to redirect to a different URL. That injection script needs to access the extension settings, so it sends a message to a global HTML file. That global file checks the settings and redirects to the appropriate URL by setting the safari.application.activeBrowserWindow.activeTab.url property.
What I'm finding is that all too often, the interim page loads first making for an annoying UX at best and introducing errors at worst. I'm assuming that this is a result of the asynchronous nature of messaging, but I haven't been able to find a way to stop it.
Is there any way to prevent the default behavior (loading the originally requested page) while still reading from extension settings?
Thanks.

It looks like this simply isn't possible given the current state of the Safari extension API.

Related

Vuejs avoid changing data in production mode by using DOM

I have a beginner question about produciton mode in vuejs. I'm using the minified version of vue and i have a Question. How can i avoid accessing and changing the value of data by using DOM here an example: for accessing -> document.getElementsByClassName('VueInstance')[0].__vue__.$children[0].$data.foo and for changing document.getElementsByClassName('VueInstance')[0].__vue__.$children[0].$data.foo = "bar" ? Its there any possibility to do it ?
You can't.
Client-side JavaScript isn't secure by design, i.e. user has full control over the script that runs in user's browser. Considering that a user has enough access rights locally, the code always can be read and modified. Security measures that are applicable to client-side code only make this process more complicated.
Never trust anything from the client. The client can change whatever they desire, and can even edit the data that's going to the server. If you wish to ensure they can't do something, then you will have to put checks on the only thing they can't change
How to prevent the user from changing values in the HTML or the JavaScript
Can react state be tampered with to bypass security measures?

Pulling in different images to css based on requesting URL

I have a website which specify's a background image from the CSS.
The client has asked us if it would be possible to have different backgrounds for each page (category technically). let call their site clients.com
Unfortunately we don't own the website, simply manage it for a client and as such have very limited access... We can update the CSS but not much in the way of HTML (or .aspx technically).
My idea was, we may be able to specify the background image source from somewhere else, perhaps another server at resources.clients.com Ideally the other server would return different images based on the URL which requested the data. Perhaps I'd have a database of URLs and the returned image file, with unspecified URLs loading a default...
Any thoughts on how this might be achieved, or other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am intrigued about how this could be done on a personal level, not just for this project/clients sake.
Thanks :D
I'm afraid your idea won't work. There are several reasons for that. The request for resources mentioned within a style sheet file is made by the page visitor's browser. This browser won't send any information on which page was visited.
You'd be better off asking the developers of the application to add category specific CSS classes to the body of the page. So you can define according styles.
Another reason why your approach won't work is browser caching. Referencing one image in a CSS file without any other information will make the browser cache this file (I suppose caching headers are not disabled on the application server). So when the visitor is heading for another category page, the browser will still serve the picture loaded for the previous category.

How to use regular urls without the hash symbol in spine.js?

I'm trying to achieve urls in the form of http://localhost:9294/users instead of http://localhost:9294/#/users
This seems possible according to the documentation but I haven't been able to get this working for "bookmarkable" urls.
To clarify, browsing directly to http://localhost:9294/users gives a 404 "Not found: /users"
You can turn on HTML5 History support in Spine like this:
Spine.Route.setup(history: true)
By passing the history: true argument to Spine.Route.setup() that will enable the fancy URLs without hash.
The documentation for this is actually buried a bit, but it's here (second to last section): http://spinejs.com/docs/routing
EDIT:
In order to have urls that can be navigated to directly, you will have to do this "server" side. For example, with Rails, you would have to build a way to take the parameter of the url (in this case "/users"), and pass it to Spine accordingly. Here is an excerpt from the Spine docs:
However, there are some things you need to be aware of when using the
History API. Firstly, every URL you send to navigate() needs to have a
real HTML representation. Although the browser won't request the new
URL at that point, it will be requested if the page is subsequently
reloaded. In other words you can't make up arbitrary URLs, like you
can with hash fragments; every URL passed to the API needs to exist.
One way of implementing this is with server side support.
When browsers request a URL (expecting a HTML response) you first make
sure on server-side that the endpoint exists and is valid. Then you
can just serve up the main application, which will read the URL,
invoking the appropriate routes. For example, let's say your user
navigates to http://example.com/users/1. On the server-side, you check
that the URL /users/1 is valid, and that the User record with an ID of
1 exists. Then you can go ahead and just serve up the JavaScript
application.
The caveat to this approach is that it doesn't give search engine
crawlers any real content. If you want your application to be
crawl-able, you'll have to detect crawler bot requests, and serve them
a 'parallel universe of content'. That is beyond the scope of this
documentation though.
It's definitely a good bit of effort to get this working properly, but it CAN be done. It's not possible to give you a specific answer without knowing the stack you're working with.
I used the following rewrites as explained in this article.
http://www.josscrowcroft.com/2012/code/htaccess-for-html5-history-pushstate-url-routing/

Dynamic url shortening script for text input

We are looking for script, which automatically detects url, as you type and shorten it, in text input window, before press "submit". The shortening service used is http://yourls.org/
Have you tried implementing one yourself? Deploy the shortener to your own web site (it's written in PHP, as far as I can see from a cursory glance at the web site) and provide a simple Ajax endpoint which will dynamically perform a shortening conversion, then implement calls to that from the main page using JavaScript.
You might want to impose a reasonable delay to allow the user to finish typing, to avoid performing lots of unnecessary conversions of bogus URLs (which may require, e.g. writes to a file or database - I haven't looked at how the library referenced does things).
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve; if you create new shortened URLs for each substring before the user has finished typing the full URL, you will just proliferate your database.
I don't see how shortening a URL before it's finished makes sense.
If you want to relieve the user from the arduous task of clicking the submit button, then initiate the submit using javascript (jQuery, or something). I'm not sure if that's what you want to do.
http://monkeytooth.net/2010/12/htaccess-php-how-to-wordpress-slugs/
simple means of implementing the concept its a lot more easier than one would think. Querying a DB or some other means of matching the slug/id with the that of which is found in the URL wouldn't be all to hard either. The linked article doesn't really go in depth as what to do next but catching and breaking the URL apart is the essential process of making it work. I have person used the method myself on several sites and it works like a charm for me and the sites it was used on.

Refresh browser via cron(or not) to a different page on remote request?

I need to display pages in a tutorial fashion. I looked in to netsupport, beamyourscreen and other possibilities but, I do not want the viewers to download anything. I cannot use gd / send screenshots due to audio / video instructions embedded in some of the pages.
Basically, I need the ability to "refresh" a users browser window to a different page via an interface on my end. Whether via a form submission, javascript or any other type of "controller" that allows me to change the page on the viewers browser. PERL preferred but, PHP / javascript whatever works and is cross browser. I set up a simple javascript page forward timer that "works" but, page load times and conversation interruptions are a huge factor.
The entire tutorial website will be developed around this ability.
I was looking in to curl / cron / wget methods but, found little information.
I have seen forum and chat scripts that basically perform a similar task but, there must be a simple(ish) solution in leau of hacking up another script to suit my needs.
I do not want others to control the pages either. The site really, only needs to be accessable during the tutorial however, It "could" remain web accessable as long as user interaction was normal unless (being controlled).
The initial site concept is based on instructing people how to properly introduce new pets into a home. Will be operated by a veteranarian that saved my pets life. I wanted to give something back.
Possible? I really appreciate simple examples etc...
You have no other way but to keep polling the server for "instructions" using javascript. No, you can't send nothing to the end user browser, neither curl nor wget.
Mainly, you'll have to set up a simple request/response protocol between the browser and the server.
If you want to go deeper, you can use something like cometd/meteord/etc. If not, a hidden iframe that reloads himself and receives pages with javascript code for the needed actions can do the trick.
Another alternative.
With javascript dopolling and single character flatfile. Have a simple one character flatfile with a single var. Write it in perl (it is faster and uses less resources than php). The parent script calls a javascript variable in a flatfile. It hits the flatfile and goes wherever the var sets it. The flatfile is written to by the controller. Done.
I guess you could also rename an empty flatfile and use that as the controller. I am usure which is faster, open and read a specific file or hit the directory and return the file name. On the controller side, opening and writing to a file vs renaming a file. Maybe they counter each other in resources and time?
This way the site can act as a normal site. When you want to have remote users see a "presentation" (automatically being shown the site pages at the controllers pace), the controller activates polling and tells the viewers to push a start button. This allows a remote instructor to load pages for the viewers at his leisure.
It is a simple solution that works with nothing really sophisticated going on. No frames are needed either. Just need javascript enabled.
Any better suggestions are welcome!
It occurred to me that what you might want to use is HTML Push technology. Check out the wiki, they have several links. I have never used it myself