ISMIS Helper — Firefox Extension Design

Date: 2026-08-18 Status: Approved Target site: https://ismis.usc.edu.ph (USC ISMIS student portal)

Overview

A personal Firefox extension (Manifest V3, no build step) that improves the USC ISMIS student portal experience. It provides three features:

Auto-login — auto-fill and auto-submit the login form from a saved profile.
Auto-accept Privacy Policy — dismiss the recurring privacy-policy modal.
Study Load PDF — generate a PDF of the student's study load, replicating the official ISMIS document, including course descriptions looked up from the Offered Courses endpoint.

A single master toggle disables all extension behavior on the portal.

Architecture

Single MV3 extension, plain JavaScript, no bundler.

ismis-helper/
├── manifest.json          # MV3 manifest, permissions, content script, popup
├── background.js          # service worker: message routing + PDF generation
├── content.js             # runs on ismis.usc.edu.ph: auto-login, privacy, scraping
├── popup.html             # popup UI
├── popup.js               # popup logic
├── popup.css              # popup styles
├── libs/pdf-lib.min.js    # vendored pdf-lib library
└── icons/                 # extension icons (16, 32, 48, 128)

Permissions (manifest.json)

storage — persist profiles and the master toggle.
downloads — save the generated Study Load PDF.
activeTab — access the current tab for scraping.
Content script matches https://ismis.usc.edu.ph/*.

Content script runs on https://ismis.usc.edu.ph/Account/Login.
Reads the active (first enabled) profile from browser.storage.local.
Locates the username and password input fields (by common name/id values such as UserName, Password, username, password).
Fills both fields, then submits the form (auto-submit).
If no profile is enabled, or the master toggle is off, does nothing.

Component 2 — Auto-accept Privacy Policy

On any portal page, if the privacy modal #myModal is present and visible:
- Check the #Confirmation checkbox ("I have read and understood the Privacy Policy Statement").
- Click the #Submit button (Continue), which is disabled until the checkbox is checked.
Gated by the master toggle.

Component 3 — Profiles

Stored in browser.storage.local under key profiles as an array of: { id, name, username, password, enabled }.
Popup provides add, edit, delete, and enable/disable per profile.
The first profile with enabled === true is used for auto-login.
Master toggle stored under key enabled (boolean).

Component 4 — Study Load PDF

Scrape

On the Study Load page, parse the course table with columns: Group #, Course Code, Schedule, Faculty, Units, Status.
Read the total-units footer (e.g. 12.00 Units / Total Units: 18.00).
Header info (full name, student ID, program, year level, semester) is scraped from the My Profile page (/Manage/Student), which exposes: Full Name, Student ID, Program, Year Level, and current semester. If the profile page is not available, the header fields are entered manually in the popup before generating the PDF.

Description lookup

For each unique course code, POST to https://ismis.usc.edu.ph/CourseSchedule/CourseScheduleOffered with form data:
- Courses=<course code>
- AcademicPeriod=<selected value>
- AcademicYear=<selected value>
- __RequestVerificationToken=<token from page>
- plus the AjaxFormVM.* fields observed in the HAR capture.
Parse the returned HTML table to extract the Course Description for the course.
If lookup fails for a course, leave the description blank and continue.

Manual fallback

If scraping finds no table, the popup shows a manual entry form for the same fields (including optional course descriptions).

PDF generation

background.js uses pdf-lib to build the PDF replicating the official layout:
- Header block: semester, "STUDENT'S STUDY LOAD", date range, date enrolled, student ID, name, program, year level.
- Course table: Course, Course Description, Units, Teacher, Group, Note (status: REGULAR/PARALLEL/DISSOLVED), Schedule.
- Footer: total units, printed-by line.
Downloads the PDF via the downloads API.

Data flow

popup ──message──▶ background ──message──▶ content (scrape + description lookup)
   ▲                                              │
   └────────────── data back ◀────────────────────┘
        │
        ▼
   pdf-lib → download

Error handling

Master toggle off → no extension behavior on the portal.
No enabled profile → no auto-login.
Description lookup fails for a course → blank description, PDF still generated.
Scrape fails entirely → manual entry form in the popup.
Login fields not found → log a warning, no crash.

Testing

Load via about:debugging → "Load Temporary Add-on".
Verify auto-login on the login page.
Verify privacy modal auto-accept.
Verify profile add/edit/delete/toggle and master toggle.
Verify Study Load PDF generation: scrape, description lookup, manual fallback.

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