Wildfire

In general, automating various tasks, especially the more complex ones, will eventually lead to an improvement of your workflow.

When it comes to automating tasks while working with web apps, some of you may know all about the popular iMacros browser extension, which, in all honesty, works rather well, even though it's a somewhat oldschool project. Drum roll effect - there's a new kid on the block, and it goes by the name of Wildfire.

In just a few words, Wildfire is a super-useful Chrome extension that allows you to record in-browser actions and thoroughly simulate and even edit them later.

Before we go into the inner-workings, we would like to point out that Wildfire is still a fairly young project. Considering the complexities involved, you should not be surprised by the existence of various little bugs or annoyances here and there.

The first thing that strikes you when starting to use Wildfire is the way it looks and how intuitive everything feels. Hands down, this is a proper, modern and user-friendly automation tool.

With that out of the way, we can move on to its modus operandi. In principle, things are quite simple. You just need to click the extension's icon and select the appropriate option to start recording. Just go about and perform the task, however complex, and then simply click its icon once more to finish the recording.

The extension is capable of recording anything from mouse actions, keyboard actions, all the way up to interactions with various tabs and other web elements. All your recordings and their relevant info (including useful screenshots from the end) are neatly saved and displayed within the "Simulation Log" section, the place where you can also start and manage your simulations.

There are also, two more sections that are worth mentioning. One is the "Event Log, " and it's the place where you can thoroughly analyze the structure of your recordings. There's also a very powerful tool appropriately-named "Workflow Editor" that allows you to create custom events and quickly run simulations.

Its canny accessibility is clearly one of Wildfire's strong points but what's even better is the extent to which it allows you to customize the experience. If you're not convinced by now that this is a very well thought-out and capable tool, then visiting the Settings section will surely do the trick. You are literally spoiled with dozens of useful and easy-to-operate options that can help you get the most out of Wildfire. One other party piece? You are provided with the option to schedule simulations.

In the end, we will admit, learning to work with Wildfire does take a bit of getting used to. While recording straightforward web actions is something that can be performed even by the most novice of users, going for more advanced tasks require a fair bit of trial-and-error, not to mention patience.

Fortunately, there's no need to fret too much since the extension bundles a comprehensive documentation section. Having said all that, one thing is clear: Wildfire is a very useful extension that, with a bit patience, has the potential to increase the productivity of Chrome users by a great extent.