browsh/contrib/setup_mac_build_environment.md

How to setup Browsh's build system for Mac

Install Go

Follow the install guide. Note that there is an installer for Mac.

Ensure your GOPATH is set

Open your terminal of choice. Run echo $GOPATH. You should see something like /usr/local/go. Inside this folder, there will be a src folder. If there isn't one created yet, run mkdir $GOPATH/src.

Clone Browsh

Fork Browsh to your Github account. Clone this fork of Browsh to your $GOPATH/src folder you just created.

Install Firefox

Follow Firefox's guide to installing Firefox on Mac.

Add the Firefox app to your PATH

Browsh needs to be able to create new instances of Firefox. Add the Firefox app to your path. It's probably something like /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS. To add this to your path, edit your path file by running sudo nano /etc/paths. Add the path to Firefox in here and save the file.

Install Node

Install Node. The currently recommended version of Node for working with Browsh is v8.11.4.

Install NPM packages

Navigate to browsh/webext. Run npm install.

Install web-ext globally

Run npm install -g web-ext. This is Mozilla's handy tool for working with Firefox web extensions.

Run the build script

Navigate to the root of your Browsh project. This should be $GOROOT/src/browsh. Run ./interfacer/contrib/build_browsh.sh. This will install several required packages.

Running Browsh from source

Now that you have all of the required dependencies installed, we can run Browsh. First, open 3 terminals.

Terminal 1

This terminal will build the Javascript. From the browsh/webext folder, run npx webpack --watch. This will create a dist folder inside the webext folder.

Terminal 2

This terminal will handle the Firefox web extension. From the browsh/webext/dist folder, run web-ext run --verbose.

Terminal 3

This terminal will display Browsh. From the project root, run go run ./interfacer/src/main.go --firefox.use-existing --debug.