Github release download count – Chrome Extension
GitHub tracks the number of downloads for all assets (files) that are attached to a release, but GitHub currently makes it very hard for users to get at this information. The number of downloads is currently only accessible through the API.
I noticed this many months ago when wondering how many people were downloading the new C++ version of Huggle. At the time I started coming up with some odd little script that I could set running somewhere checking the download counts and updating a static list, I even thought about just uploading the build files to some other site that tracked this information.
A few days ago I took my first look at developing chrome extensions for a referencing tool for Wikidata, and thus today I thought, why not just make an extension for chrome that adds the download counts to the GitHub releases page!
The extension
The extension runs a little bit of JavaScript on all pages that match:
*://github.com/*/*/releases
This JavaScript queries the relevant part of the GitHub API and gets the information for all releases before shoving the download count back into the DOM of the GitHub page as you can see below.
I hope some people will find this useful or interesting to keep an eye on! I know I will!
Links
- The code can be found on GitHub
- The extension can be found on the Chrome Store.
Hi!
I found this extension to chrome but I can’t make it work. I don’t know if it’s still supported but it will work for me!
Thanks in advance
Hey!
I just checked and it is still working for me. Do you get any errors in your JS console when loading the releases page?
Also this can only show the download counts for custom files added to the releases, and not to the automatic “Source Code” tar and zip! (As these download numbers don’t seem to be tracked anywhere.
This is an awesome extension. Thanks!
how do i get this to work
Hi there
Just install it from the Chrome store @ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/github-release-downloads/ncgomhdgmkicjeclohgokhciihpfdlhi
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I install the extension but unable to open the extesion. Its showing disabled, nothing is happening.
Hi there,
It’s possible GitHub have changed something once again to cause the extension to stop working,
I’ll be able to take a look in the coming month to see if I can patch it if that is the case!