Jetpack and Webextensions

[Alex white]

I'm a bit confused about the state of the addon sdk. 

Is the webextensions that are planned on becoming the new standard, are they going to completely replace or merely supplement the jetpack system?

Is jetpack going to be around for a while, or will I be needing to migrate the addon I'm developing to the new system soon?

I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to ask, or if this question comes about sounding as though I'm uninformed and didn't make the effort to look for it, but there doesn't seem to be any definitive answer in the docs at the moment.

Anyways, thanks.

[William Bamberg]

No, it's a very reasonable question. The only thing I know for sure is that you should not rely on certain low-level SDK APIs, in particular require("chrome") and any APIs that give you direct access to content (e.g. window/utils) or XUL objects (e.g. tab/utils).

Beyond that, I haven't seen a clear public statement about the future of the SDK either. I'm cc-ing Amy Tsay, who might have better information than me.

Will

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[William Bamberg]

Thanks for the reply, Amy.

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 9:37 PM, Amy Tsay <at...@mozilla.com> wrote:

Thanks for forwarding, Will. I'm also cc'ing Jorge in case he has something to add.

Alex--WebExtensions are going to become the standard for add-on development, and depending on your add-on the migration could be simple (i.e. if it is an SDK add-on using high-level APIs), or more complicated (and perhaps even impossible if it is a certain type of XUL add-on). We are still fixing critical SDK bugs, but we are not adding new features, and I think once WebExtensions are in a good place support for SDK will end. I don't have exact dates right now, but the transition is expected to be complete by the end of 2017.

We've documented what we know so far on this wiki page. A good way to get started is to see if your add-on is affected by using the lookup tool.

We're here to help in the #addons channel on irc.mozilla.org and the dev-addons mailing list--please feel free to reach out.

Thanks,
Amy

William Bamberg

April 22, 2016 at 8:38 PM

[Matěj Cepl]

On 2016-04-25, 06:13 GMT, William Bamberg wrote:
>> Alex--WebExtensions are going to become the standard for
>> add-on development, and depending on your add-on the
>> migration could be simple (i.e. if it is an SDK add-on using
>> high-level APIs), or more complicated (and perhaps even
>> impossible if it is a certain type of XUL add-on). We are
>> still fixing critical SDK bugs, but we are not adding new
>> features, and I think once WebExtensions are in a good place
>> support for SDK will end. I don't have exact dates right now,
>> but the transition is expected to be complete by the end of
>> 2017.

More pressing question right now is, in my opinion, when the
WebExtensions start to be useable in an ordinary Firefox? Are
they supported in FF48, will they be supported in future
releases of Firefox? Which ones?

Best,

Matěj

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[Alex white]

Thanks for all the responses. I've subscribed to the mailing list for now and plan on migrating as soon as I determine which parts will need to be replaced or swapped out.

[William Bamberg]

Cross-posting to dev-addons, where you will probably get more answers.

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 3:01 AM, Matěj Cepl <mc...@cepl.eu> wrote:

On 2016-04-25, 06:13 GMT, William Bamberg wrote:
>> Alex--WebExtensions are going to become the standard for
>> add-on development, and depending on your add-on the
>> migration could be simple (i.e. if it is an SDK add-on using
>> high-level APIs), or more complicated (and perhaps even
>> impossible if it is a certain type of XUL add-on). We are
>> still fixing critical SDK bugs, but we are not adding new
>> features, and I think once WebExtensions are in a good place
>> support for SDK will end. I don't have exact dates right now,
>> but the transition is expected to be complete by the end of
>> 2017.

More pressing question right now is, in my opinion, when the
WebExtensions start to be useable in an ordinary Firefox? Are
they supported in FF48, will they be supported in future
releases of Firefox? Which ones?

From Firefox 46 (I believe) Firefox users can install WebExtensions from AMO. So you can write WebExtensions now, that target Firefox 46.

Whether it is usable depends on which APIs you need. The API overview page (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API) summarises the status of all APIs, but describes the state in Nightly. The individual API pages (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/webRequest#Browser_compatibility) give you more fine-grained info on which APIs are supported in which version.

(Maybe we should have a single page that includes all the browser compat tables for all APIs?)

Will

 

Best,

Matěj

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A GOOD name is rather to be chosen than great riches.
   -- Proverbs 22:1

[Matěj Cepl]

On 2016-04-25, 18:36 GMT, William Bamberg wrote:
> Cross-posting to dev-addons, where you will probably get more answers.

Ehm, what's that? I see on https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo
only https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/addons-chromebug and
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/addons-user-experience .

Matěj

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public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
-- R. P. Feynman's concluding sentence
in his appendix to the Challenger Report

[William Bamberg]

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 10:00 PM, Matěj Cepl <mc...@cepl.eu> wrote:

On 2016-04-25, 18:36 GMT, William Bamberg wrote:
> Cross-posting to dev-addons, where you will probably get more answers.

Ehm, what's that? I see on https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo
only https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/addons-chromebug and
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/addons-user-experience .

https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-addons

 

Matěj

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https://matej.ceplovi.cz/blog/, Jabber: mc...@ceplovi.cz
GPG Finger: 89EF 4BC6 288A BF43 1BAB  25C3 E09F EF25 D964 84AC

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over
public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
    -- R. P. Feynman's concluding sentence
       in his appendix to the Challenger Report

[Matěj Cepl]

On 2016-04-26, 06:00 GMT, William Bamberg wrote:
> https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-addons

Thank you. Oh well, yet another email list I won't follow,
because it is not on Gmane.

Matěj

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to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no
longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and
uncontrollable events.
-- Winston Churchill, 1930

[Dietrich Ayala]

Is that list mirrored on Google Groups?

[Matěj Cepl]

On 2016-04-27, 00:59 GMT, Dietrich Ayala wrote:
> Is that list mirrored on Google Groups?

No idea, why do you ask? Gmane can of course perfectly well with
mailman-based lists.

Matěj

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happened.
-- Michel de Montaigne

[William Bamberg]

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 4:34 PM, Jorge Villalobos <jo...@mozilla.com> wrote:

+1 on that idea.

On 4/25/16 4:39 PM, Bram Pitoyo wrote:
>     (Maybe we should have a single page that includes all the browser
>     compat tables for all APIs?)
>

There's now a first attempt at such a page, here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Browser_support_for_JavaScript_APIs.

 

>
> This is a great idea. One of the things that developers have told us on
> the interviews is wanting to find out what APIs are available on the
> version of Firefox that their users are using – in other words, release
> channel. Even if – let’s say – very few APIs are supported on release,
> this tells developers what channel they should develop in, and how long
> until they can release their WebExtensions add-on to the public.
>
> On 26 April 2016 at 06:36, William Bamberg <wbam...@mozilla.com

> <mailto:wbam...@mozilla.com>> wrote:
>
>     Cross-posting to dev-addons, where you will probably get more answers.
>
>     On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 3:01 AM, Matěj Cepl <mc...@cepl.eu

>         <mailto:mc...@ceplovi.cz>

>         GPG Finger: 89EF 4BC6 288A BF43 1BAB  25C3 E09F EF25 D964 84AC
>
>         A GOOD name is rather to be chosen than great riches.
>            -- Proverbs 22:1
>
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