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Support for dropping XPI files into the extension install locations might be going away

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Dave Townsend

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May 27, 2010, 6:23:59 PM5/27/10
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For some time now Firefox has supported a way of installing extensions
that involves simply copying the extension's XPI file into one of the
extension install locations. The next time Firefox runs it would pop up
the install dialog for the extension and allow the user to choose
whether to install it or not.

I don't know how many people use this feature and while the code to do
it (at least for the profile folder) isn't terribly complex, it is
additional code that may not be necessary. Right now the new add-ons
manager doesn't support it and I've heard only a couple of people
comment on its absence but nightly testers are by no means
representational so I'm asking a little more widely whether people have
a real need for keeping this working in Firefox 4?

To be clear we aren't talking about the method of installing where you
extract your extension into a directory in the install locations, nor
are we talking about the method where you create a text file in the
install location containing the path to your extension.

Ilia Fainshtroy

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May 27, 2010, 6:42:04 PM5/27/10
to Dave Townsend, dev-ext...@lists.mozilla.org
Extracting the extension into the profile/extensions folder is the only way for user to be able to uninstall it afterwards on window Vista or 7 with UAC on.
Because Firefox is unable to delete the installation folder if it's resides inside c:\program files\firefox\extensions, but only when ran as administrator.

Am I correct ?


 
Ilia Fainshtroy


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Ilia Fainshtroy

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May 27, 2010, 6:54:15 PM5/27/10
to Ilia Fainshtroy, Dave Townsend, dev-ext...@lists.mozilla.org
We have many publishers that installs our product in this way. Can it be preserved?

Ryan Li

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May 28, 2010, 1:32:32 AM5/28/10
to dev-ext...@lists.mozilla.org
I develop several extensions and it's the only way I use to install
local XPI files after packaging.


Ryan Li

Ryan Li

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May 28, 2010, 1:34:06 AM5/28/10
to Dave Townsend, dev-ext...@lists.mozilla.org
I develop several extensions and it's the only way I use to install
local XPI files after packaging.


Ryan Li

On 05/28/2010 06:23 AM, Dave Townsend wrote:

Dave Townsend

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May 28, 2010, 1:43:41 AM5/28/10
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On 5/27/10 22:34, Ryan Li wrote:
> I develop several extensions and it's the only way I use to install
> local XPI files after packaging.

What about using this method do you find more useful than simply
dropping the file onto Firefox after it is running or using the
pointer-file technique?

Mossop

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May 28, 2010, 1:51:29 AM5/28/10
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On May 27, 3:54 pm, Ilia Fainshtroy <I...@conduit.com> wrote:
> We have many publishers that installs our product in this way. Can it be preserved?

Can you help me understand why they install extensions in this way
rather than the recommended method for installing extensions, by
extracting the XPI directly so it doesn't interrupt the user on
startup.

Mossop

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May 28, 2010, 1:49:38 AM5/28/10
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On May 27, 3:42 pm, Ilia Fainshtroy <I...@conduit.com> wrote:
> Extracting the extension into the profile/extensions folder is the only way for user to be able to uninstall it afterwards on window Vista or 7 with UAC on.
>  Because Firefox is unable to delete the installation folder if it's resides inside c:\program files\firefox\extensions, but only when ran as administrator.
>
> Am I correct ?

Somewhat unrelated to this discussion topic, but yes Firefox generally
won't offer to let users uninstall extensions from the system
locations, partly because it cannot write to them.

Ilia Fainshtroy

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May 28, 2010, 2:02:43 AM5/28/10
to Mossop, dev-ext...@lists.mozilla.org
Maybe I've misunderstood something here. We do extract (unzip) the XPI file into the profile/extension folder, so the next time user runs Firefox, it is already installed.
This way it will still working?

Was he talking about copying the XPI without extracting it?


 
Ilia Fainshtroy


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-----Original Message-----

Mossop

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May 28, 2010, 11:05:20 AM5/28/10
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On May 27, 11:02 pm, Ilia Fainshtroy <I...@conduit.com> wrote:
> Maybe I've misunderstood something here. We do extract (unzip) the XPI file into the profile/extension folder, so the next time user runs Firefox, it is already installed.
> This way it will still working?

Yes this way will continue to work.

> Was he talking about copying the XPI without extracting it?

Yes, we're talking about removing support for just plain copying the
XPI file without any extraction.

Onno Ekker

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May 29, 2010, 3:28:16 PM5/29/10
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This way you can install an extension globally, while dropping onto
Firefox always installs per profile.

Robert Strong

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May 29, 2010, 4:25:17 PM5/29/10
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True but I doubt that is used all that widely plus it is a better user
experience to extract the add-on into a directory named with the
add-on's id inside of the app's extensions directory to get the same end
result.

Robert

Alan Baxter

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May 31, 2010, 7:23:12 PM5/31/10
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Dave Townsend <dtow...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>For some time now Firefox has supported a way of installing extensions
>that involves simply copying the extension's XPI file into one of the
>extension install locations. The next time Firefox runs it would pop up
>the install dialog for the extension and allow the user to choose
>whether to install it or not.

Thank you for asking about this, Dave. I pretty much install all new
extensions and updates this way in Fx 3.6.x on Windows XP SP3. That
is, I save the xpi file to disk and copy it directly into the
extensions folder while Firefox is closed. I do it this way for the
following reasons:

1) I close Firefox so I can create a backup of the profile before
changing it with an extension update or new extension. Before
restarting Firefox, I copy the xpi file into the extensions folder.
This is a bit quicker than having to restart Firefox twice and having
to download the xpi file twice (since I want a local copy of the xpi
file) -- especially on my slow Internet connection and slow computer.

2) I use multiple Firefox profiles. Only one download of the xpi file
and only one restart of each profile saves time for me.

3) It facilitates testing and comparing extension interactions in
different profiles since I know they are using identical versions of
an extension.

4) Adding one or more extensions to a new profile from a local archive
is a lot easier than reinstalling them from AMO.

That said, if I won't be able to do this in Fx 4, I'd appreciate a
convenient workaround. Is there one yet?

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