Quote:
Originally Posted by foosion
Out of curiosity:
You can't just run the javascript in the plugin? Or run something like selenium to imitate a browser?
|
Not an expert in the field, but my understanding is : it usually not worth the effort if the website designers are making
deliberate changes to stop you from doing something.
When a company has an API to access their servers (whether officially documented or not) there is usually an expectation that it will not change very often. Quite often the api is used by mobile and desktop applications and if the api changes it would force users to upgrade their device. Since some users could be running on computers that are decades old, it is quite common that new versions of the app would not even install on their machine and they get locked out much to their disgust (It generates a similar reaction to the reaction people are having with the news that Overdrive are going to stop providing MP3 downloads for audiobooks).
But websites are totally self-contained and can be changed in my ways without the end-user noticing. So if someone was to decode the way the website currently works, there is nothing to stop Libby from changing it. Hence you could get into a game of 'whack-a-mole' where you constantly need to update the plugin. But the effort required to work out what libby changed is sometimes much, much greater that the effort they need to put in to make the change.
It gets even worse in that the website that you see may be different from the one I see. It is common for companies to test changes on some users - sometimes this is initially rolled out in one country only. Amazon are reported to regularly use A/B testing to serve different websites to different users.
So if Libby are making this changes deliberately, then this is a losing strategy and whilst it is probably legal in some countries to do this for yourself, it may be illegal to publish a method that allows other people to do it (Not a lawyer.)
Just to be clear, I don't have any workaround for this.