Chickenfoot Scripting

Chickenfoot is a Firefox extension from the user interface design group at MIT that puts a programming environment in the browser's sidebar so you can write scripts to manipulate web pages and automate web browsing. In Chickenfoot, scripts are written in a superset of Javascript that includes special functions specific to web tasks. It uses the MIT license.
 

Synapse makes use of chickenfoot scripts to automate certain tasks including bringing up provider maps, looking up telephone numbers from internet white pages, looking up drug information, and so forth. 

Chickenfoot scripts are called up by clicking on any Firefox icon that appears within the Synapse GUI.  Synapse creates a different web page served up by its embedded web server, and as each page has a unique name, this allows you to trigger the appropriate actions.  Firefox must of course be your default web browser.

We have a tutorial on how to install the sample scripts into Firefox.