1130529 - Add a way to load modules in child processes and wrappers around the message managers

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Add-on SDK Graveyard :: General, defect, P1)

Description

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

We now have a few pieces of SDK code loaded in the child processes and that is only going to grow. The current framescript mechanism is a little clunky so I'm working on a replacement which will simply allow any add-on to load any module in the child process.

Irakli's framescript/manager is a good start here but it has a few flaws:

- Every add-on shares the same loader in the child process
- Doesn't handle add-on unload correctly
- Doesn't include nice mechanisms for messaging

The API I have implemented uses zombie's work for creating add-on specific module loaders in the child processes but makes everything nicer:

sdk/remote/parent:

Used by the main add-on code. Provides message passing with:

processes:
  A list of child process. Fires events when processes are created/destroyed. Includes message ports for communicating through the process message manager.
frames:
  A list of child frames. Fires events when frames are created/destroyed. Includes message ports for communicating through the frame message managers.
remoteRequire:
  Loads a module in every child process. Each process gets its own loader per add-on. Once required once the module will load in every new child process that starts.

sdk/remote/child:

Used by modules in the child process for message passing:

parent (needs a better name):
  A message port that communicates through the process message manager (pipes to processes in parent).
frames:
  A list of frames in this process. Fires events when frames are created/destroyed. Includes message ports for communicating through the frame message managers (pipes to frames in parent).

Comment 1

[[github robot]]

Commits pushed to master at https://github.com/mozilla/addon-sdk

https://github.com/mozilla/addon-sdk/commit/abdeb4048f95bbda2ca07448cbf210da16d0e8a7
Bug 1130529: Add a way to load modules in child processes and wrappers around the message managers. r=erikvold

https://github.com/mozilla/addon-sdk/commit/fd681b5b84959eddd1df8670606df86e846b9668
Bug 1130529: Switch the tabs, worker and context-menu APIs to use the new remote APIs. r=erikvold