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 fields (student ID, name, program, year level, semester, date enrolled) are scraped when present on the page; otherwise they 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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