Hacking on TabFern

At the moment, TabFern has a split personality: the master branch and the switchover branch are different.

master branch

This one is easy. All you need is a Git client and a Web browser.

1. Install Git.
2. Fork this repo and clone your fork to your local machine.
3. git checkout -b mybranch origin/master
4. Load the tabfern/ tree as an unpacked extension.
5. Hack away!
6. After you make changes to files in tabfern/, refresh the TabFern or settings window to see them.

The master branch is currently only receiving security updates or small releases.

Ignore the webstore/ tree --- that is updated manually on release.

switchover branch

This is the main branch of development. It is called that because we are switching over from the model above to a Brunch-based workflow. See below for why. Developing on the switchover branch involves:

1. Install Git.
2. Install npm.
3. Fork this repo and clone your fork to your local machine.
4. git checkout -b mybranch origin/master
5. At a command prompt (cmd or bash, whichever works), cd to the directory where your fork is.
6. Run npx brunch w. This will build app/ and the other directories in the branch into public/. It will also leave brunch running.
7. Load public/ as an unpacked extension.
8. Hack away! As you make changes, brunch will automatically rebuild the files in public/.
9. After you make changes to any files, refresh the TabFern or settings window to see them.

Why all the extra complication? Two reasons:

1. It permits us to use npm packages much more easily. (It also permits more easily keeping those packages up to date!)
2. It gives us flexibility to adjust the build for other targets, such as Firefox (#100).

Once you have experience with this workflow, I think you will find it works fairly well.