1325827 - Permit GNOME Shell Integration plugin until an equivalent WebExtension is available

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Attachment: Temporarily permit "GNOME Shell Integration" under Linux only.

I fully expect this to be WONTFIX'd.  However, I would like to point out that if we don;t do something here it is likely that we end up with a hundred different workarounds for this either by individuals or the hundreds of different Linux distros.

This would not be a good situation.

My feeling is that if we do not think that doing this would delay the development of the alternative WebExtension solution, we should just do it.

If we don;t want to do that then I still feel this bug has use just to post a reasonable tested patch that should work and not cause other issues so that those who need to workaround at least are not going out on their own coming up with things that cause more issues.

Further, even after this is marked WONTFIX (if that is what transpires) it could still be a lace for people to raise and fix issues with the patch I propose here.

Comment 1

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

BTW I have nighlty-like builds that include this patch (among some other things) available at http://www.wg9s.com/mozilla/firefox/

Comment 2

[Yuri Konotopov]

Firefox support was added to GNOME Shell integration for Chrome.

WebExtension was approved by Mozilla team recently.
Version 8 of chrome-gnome-shell will be release on Jan 4, 2017 with Firefox support.

See also:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=754316
https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShellIntegrationForChrome/Installation

Comment 3

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Attachment: Temporarily permit "GNOME Shell Integration" under Linux only

Ooop! issues converting or and and form negative to positive multy test if.

Comment 4

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to Yuri Konotopov from comment #2)
> Firefox support was added to GNOME Shell integration for Chrome.
> 
> WebExtension was approved by Mozilla team recently.
> Version 8 of chrome-gnome-shell will be release on Jan 4, 2017 with Firefox
> support.
> 
> See also:
> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=754316
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShellIntegrationForChrome/Installation


I tried installing the version currently available on AMO and it fails miserably.

Comment 5

[Yuri Konotopov]

> I tried installing the version currently available on AMO and it fails miserably.

For current AMO version of extension you should install native host messaging app from git master branch of chrome-gnome-shell.

Please read this [1] blog post and this bug report [2] for more information.
First chrome-gnome-shell version with Firefox support will be available at Jan 4, 2017.

[1] https://blogs.gnome.org/ne0sight/2016/12/25/how-to-install-gnome-shell-extensions-with-firefox-52/
[2] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=754316

Comment 6

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

BTW if you do come up with something that actually works it should be included by default just like the H.264 ****.

Comment 7

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Attachment: Screenshot of visting extensions.gnome.org with this extension

This is what happens using this extension when trying to visit the GNOME extensions website

Comment 8

[Yuri Konotopov]

> should be included by default

Where?
It's GNOME-covered project [1][2], it's exists at AMO [3], it's included in some distros [4], it's on the way to some other distros [5].

> This is what happens using this extension when trying to visit the GNOME extensions website

As I said already - you should install native host manifest for Firefox manually. Please read links I provided if you want to get it work today. For now you just need to install chrome-gnome-shell >= 7.1 for you distro and drop manifest file to proper localtion (look to this bug report [6]).

First release with Firefox support (with included manifest) will be available at Jan 4, 2017.
After a week or so after Jan 4, 2017 it will be avaialble in Arch, Debian, Fedora Copr, Gentoo and Ubuntu.


[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShellIntegrationForChrome
[2] https://git.gnome.org/browse/chrome-gnome-shell/
[3] https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/gnome-shell-integration/
[4] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShellIntegrationForChrome/Installation
[5] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1343710
[6] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=754316

Comment 9

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to Yuri Konotopov from comment #8)
> > should be included by default
> 
> Where?
> It's GNOME-covered project [1][2], it's exists at AMO [3], it's included in
> some distros [4], it's on the way to some other distros [5].
> 
> > This is what happens using this extension when trying to visit the GNOME extensions website
> 
> As I said already - you should install native host manifest for Firefox
> manually. Please read links I provided if you want to get it work today. For
> now you just need to install chrome-gnome-shell >= 7.1 for you distro and
> drop manifest file to proper localtion (look to this bug report [6]).
> 
> First release with Firefox support (with included manifest) will be
> available at Jan 4, 2017.
> After a week or so after Jan 4, 2017 it will be avaialble in Arch, Debian,
> Fedora Copr, Gentoo and Ubuntu.
> 
> 
> [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShellIntegrationForChrome
> [2] https://git.gnome.org/browse/chrome-gnome-shell/
> [3] https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/gnome-shell-integration/
> [4]
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShellIntegrationForChrome/Installation
> [5] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1343710
> [6] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=754316

This sounds awfully complicated.  It would be so much easier if it were just included in the release Linux version of Firefox.

Comment 10

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

IF this is not going to work in my default browser (the one I build myself) just as the old plugin did without any extra work, then it is not really a replacement for the plug-in.

Comment 11

[Yuri Konotopov]

> It would be so much easier if it were just included in the release Linux version of Firefox

FYI NPAPI plugin do not included "in the release Linux version of Firefox".
However it's included in GNOME Shell.

While I'm agreed with you (chrome-gnome-shell should be included in GNOME Shell, but not chrome-gnome-shell should be included in Firefox) I can only suggest you to fill new request to GNOME Shell developers at GNOME bugzilla [1] and ask them to include chrome-gnome-shell's native messaging app in GNOME Shell.

[1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=gnome-shell

Comment 12

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to Yuri Konotopov from comment #11)
> > It would be so much easier if it were just included in the release Linux version of Firefox
> 
> FYI NPAPI plugin do not included "in the release Linux version of Firefox".
> However it's included in GNOME Shell.
> 
> While I'm agreed with you (chrome-gnome-shell should be included in GNOME
> Shell, but not chrome-gnome-shell should be included in Firefox) I can only
> suggest you to fill new request to GNOME Shell developers at GNOME bugzilla
> [1] and ask them to include chrome-gnome-shell's native messaging app in
> GNOME Shell.
> 
> [1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=gnome-shell

NO, it is NOT included in the release version of Firefox, but since the release version loads all plugins in /usr/lib64/mozilla/plugins/  it gets loaded in my default build. This is what I want if I am running a version of Linux that includes this extension in their version of Firefox then I want it to automatically load with the one I build, without me having to do much special if it does not do that then it does not replace the plug-in.

Perhaps it should be built-in optionally with an "ac_add_options --enable-gnome-shell-extension"

Comment 13

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

To make it clear, the way it worked before you only needed to have the plug-in installed and it worked with any version of Firefox you ran.  It does not sound like this new extension works that way and it sounds like manually installing it is a main-in-the-ass.

Comment 14

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

This will be a real issue with trying to do an hg bisect on bugs related to this extension.

Comment 15

[Yuri Konotopov]

Bill, while I can not help you to "make things work now as before" I would be glad to help you to setup chrome-gnome-shell to work in Firefox.
For that I need to know which Linux distro do you use.

Feel free to contact me by email (ykonotopov at gnome dot org) or using chrome-gnome-shell's bug tracker [1].
As for NPAPI plugin future in Firefox - Mozilla team will make a decision.

Best regards, Yuri.

[1] https://github.com/nE0sIghT/chrome-gnome-shell-mirror/issues

Comment 16

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

(In reply to Yuri Konotopov from comment #15)
> Bill, while I can not help you to "make things work now as before" I would
> be glad to help you to setup chrome-gnome-shell to work in Firefox.
> For that I need to know which Linux distro do you use.
> 
> Feel free to contact me by email (ykonotopov at gnome dot org) or using
> chrome-gnome-shell's bug tracker [1].
> As for NPAPI plugin future in Firefox - Mozilla team will make a decision.
> 
> Best regards, Yuri.
> 
> [1] https://github.com/nE0sIghT/chrome-gnome-shell-mirror/issues

OK my issue is that I don't use a distro version of Firefox.  The version of Firefox I use is the one i build on my build system every night to be the Nightly equivalent with extra patches I am working on.  I also make these build available to others.  TO have to go to a version of Firefox not the one I (or they ) ever run just to go to the shell extensions site is a severe regression form how things used to work, so I need to figure out how to get my nightly builds to include this extension.  Perhaps I should wait until after Jan 4th and see what is available then to make this work before compaining.

Comment 17

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Actually from what you say this is not different from trying to run nightly builds.  It sounds like they will no longer work with the extensions site either.  This is a severe regression in functionality.

Comment 18

[Jeremy Bicha [:jbicha]]

(In reply to Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s] from comment #16)
> (In reply to Yuri Konotopov from comment #15)
> > For that I need to know which Linux distro do you use.
> OK my issue is that I don't use a distro version of Firefox.

It does actually matter which distro you are using, if you're asking for the chrome-gnome-shell functionality to be available in all GNOME distros.

For instance, Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 Alpha now includes chrome-gnome-shell by default. I am working to get chrome-gnome-shell in to older versions of Ubuntu GNOME also before Firefox 52 is released to everyone. https://launchpad.net/bugs/1652538

That's just the system helper though; users currently still need to download the extension themeselves from addons.mozilla.org . Distributing the Mozilla extension is more complicated because Firefox enforces extension signing by default, which does not work with a 100% public build-from-source system package framework. (The private signing key can't be public.) As a workaround, some distros currently disable the extension signing requirement for extensions installed in system directories.

Comment 19

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

This is my problem why i thought an extension signed and included in the Firefox distribution, so would also be included in my builds, but if it requires another package then it is more of an issue.

Comment 20

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Regardless of how exactly you package the extension, we're not going to continue supporting the plugin. We're actively removing a bunch of the supporting code for plugins that aren't Flash, and it's better to make a clean cutoff.