The extension does two things:
- Synchronizes metadata from the browser to the shared Arcs system.
- Provides an entry point to Arcs.
The first point is worth re-emphasizing. The extension sends metadata from pages you visit to a public firebase. We've limited the extent of data shared to allow the extension to be tested while we continue working on the platform.
Load the extension as an 'unpacked extension' at chrome://extensions.
As mentioned above, Arcs consumes metadata from the browser in the background at Arcs extensions startup and when a new page loads.
The extension is visible in two places:
- A browser action (an icon to the right of the address bar). Clicking this will read additional data from the current page (like the address) into the Arcs context and will open Arcs in a popup.
- Opening a new tab will open Arcs.
Custom actions may be visible on some pages that you visit. Try the index-with-arcs in the arcs-custom-events repository.
To restrict what's sent to firebase, most entities are stripped out in event-page.js#filterResponse(). Notable inclusions are (but not limited to) Product and Event.
The extension automatically tags [Product] with #shortlist.