Important extension checkins

I hope someone with permissions can update the packaging guide with this information:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/extensions/packaging/extensions.html

As well as the new stuff from Bug 295247, Bug 295265 and Bug 281988.

FP, I plan to add information on the patches I wrote ( and the platform specific components) to http://developer-test.mozilla.org . The packaging docs are being migrated to there, as well.

Note that the final syntax will look more like WINNT_x86-msvc, i.e. includes the processor type. This is required for Linux especially, but also when there will be Macs based on x86 and PPC architecture.

make that:

(<em:targetPlatform> and the platform specific components)

Please note that the platform-specific extension subdirectories don't work yet, because I haven't checked in the TARGET_XPCOM_ABI patch yet.

Also note that the searchplugins/ subdirectory doesn't work yet, as the final patch in the bug is not yet reviewed.

Comment by Benjamin Smedberg at June 8, 2005 02:31 PM | Permalink

"If your extension only works on Windows you can now have this in your install.rdf file"

I'm not sure I like that idea. Who's going to remember to include FreeBSD or Darwin in their list?

Why not a list of OSes where it's known _not_ to work?

Comment by Gerv at June 9, 2005 09:17 AM | Permalink

...then again, if it's about ABI compatibility, maybe a whitelist is better. I guess I don't know enough about this technically, but what if an OS has e.g. a Linux ABI compatibility layer? Or does that only apply at the whole-application level rather than the plugin level?

Comment by Gerv at June 9, 2005 09:30 AM | Permalink

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Comment by il Fastidio at June 10, 2005 03:23 PM | Permalink

Gerv: this is indeed targeted at ABI compatibility, plus at extensions that use things like the Windows registry. Mozilla doesn't take into account any ABI compatibility layers; if an OS has one by default, extension authors could just include that OS, too. This stuff is clearly optimized for the common cases, and is still a huge improvement over the current situation.

For regular XUL/JS extensions: I don't think authors will restrict their extensions to Windows just because they develop and test on Windows. Well, and even if they do, it's only a matter of changing/removing one line in the install.rdf to fix it - I think the average linux user (who is more tech-savvy than the average win user) should be able to manage that, and can then tell the author to include his OS in the list.