The Library Detector18

I’m happy to announce my first Firefox extension called Library Detector. Similar to a greasemonkey script I published to the jQuery mailing lists a couple months ago that showed if jQuery is running (which proved to be pretty useful to extend the Sites using jQuery page), the library detector is able to detect multiple libraries, currently including the following:

If one of these is found on the current page, it displays their favicon in the statusbar, and if you hover it, a tooltip will show with additional information (In most cases the version of the library, in the case of jQuery UI the plugins being used, and for Dojo if Dijit is being used).

Of course, there’s one catch in some libraries: If the developer renamed the scope of the Library (i.e. window.dojo) to something entirely different, the test fails (however, usually that’s not the case).

So, if you want to know what websites use your favorite library (or which do not), go ahead and grab the Library Detector from its download page.

Additionally, I’d love to see feedback, and if you think there’s a library missing, or if you have an idea how to improve a test / show additional information, please leave me a comment.

Cheers!

18 Comments

Khaled  on December 20th, 2008

Very nice, sometimes you don’t have the time to look at the source or in firebug!
while you browsing you’ll see the icon of the library.

Cloudream  on December 20th, 2008

Chinese translation
Description:

探测网页中使用了哪些JavaScript框架，并在状态栏中显示其图标，鼠标悬停在图标上可显示详细信息。

Long Description:

探测网页中使用了哪些JavaScript框架，并在状态栏中显示其图标，鼠标悬停在图标上可显示详细信息。目前支持jQuery、jQuery UI、Prototype、Scriptaculous、Dojo、YUI、Qooxdoo、MooTools和Spry。

The Library Detector | Rapid Prototype Info Blog  on December 20th, 2008

[...] See the original post here:  The Library Detector [...]

Glen Lipka  on December 20th, 2008

Looks cool, but I cant install it on FF 3.1b2. :(

Oskar Krawczyk  on December 20th, 2008

As in a browser specific version of my WTFramework bookmarklet ;-) Good job.

Simon Brüchner  on December 21st, 2008

@Oskar: yes you are right, but I like this one more, because its visible all the time.

Brian  on December 21st, 2008

Could you add base2 support, please?

if( base2 )
base2.version

Social networking - All our thoughts on social media  on December 22nd, 2008

This is a very cool FF extension, congratulations and keep it up Paul!

renearaujo  on December 22nd, 2008

great add-on. congratulations dude! thanks!

cssProdigy  on December 23rd, 2008

Very nice. thanks.

temp  on December 24th, 2008

Detection of extjs would be cool… http://www.extjs.com

if (Ext && Ext.version) …

Danny B.  on January 4th, 2009

I have FF 2.0.0.18 and the version 1.0.1 does not work here. I suppose it may interfere with some of my little more than 100 extensions. Are there any known issues?

Dylan Schiemann  on January 16th, 2009

Paul,

Any chance you can get this working with iframes? Would be cool to be able to easily detect the toolkit that various Facebook apps use, etc.

Regards,
-Dylan

Paul  on January 17th, 2009

@ Dylan: I guess that’s a little too difficult, at least for me. If you know somebody experienced with writing FF plugins, you’re invited to contribute :)

Miguel  on February 12th, 2009

Thank for the pointer, i currently use Wappalyzer.

Danny B.  on February 17th, 2009

1.0.2 fixed the problem I’ve reported above (no icon displayed at all).

There’s smallish bug – the tooltip shows some unprintable char which I guess should be the newline? (FF 2.0.0.18 @ WinXPsp3)

E. Myller  on March 5th, 2009

Hey, great extension.

I am the creator and main developer (for now) of a new JavaScrip library, called utm (http://utmproject.org/). I was focused in its code and plug-ins, and now preparing to spread it out. Docs are being wrote, a new site too. And I’d like to see the utm in the Library Detector’s library list, if possible.

core:
check for utm and utm.version;

plug-ins:
they are collected in the utm.modules object;

plug-ins information:
(example) utm.modules.pluginName.version
[version is the minimal information];

Thank you. ;)