2018 Conference and Developers Day

Developers Day

Browser-based applications have many advantages over traditional desktop applications. One that's often overlooked is the inherent malleability of the platform they run on. The WebExtensions API allows us to change how web apps look, read their state and interact with them or external resources, using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. In the case of Alma, we could apply visual tweaks, automate repetitive tasks or even interact with its APIs. After our migration to Alma in 2017 we had to 'scan in' several thousand items, so I had an excuse to explore the latter idea. While developing an extension to solve that particular issue at my institution, I started thinking about what a modular, versatile extension could look like. Something like a multitool, that others could use to solve a number of different issues. Naturally, that train of thought led me to write a Lisp interpreter that runs in your browser...

Alma