1389872 - no easy way to test extension behavior across restarts

Status: REOPENED

(WebExtensions :: Developer Tools, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

I have a bug reported in my extension that it's not functioning after browser restart. 

There's no easy way to test that. Maybe we have a button in about:debugging that leaves development extensions installed *only* if you restart by hitting that button. Or something like that.

Comment 1

[Andrew Swan [:aswan]]

You need to install your extension permanently to test the behavior across restarts.  Which probably means disabling signing, which requires either Nightly, dev edition, or an unbranded build.

Comment 2

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Please don't close bugs like this preemptively.

I've filed this bug because we need to make testing across restarts *easier* and it should be built into the WE development workflow.

This means adding things like the suggestion in made in comment #0, and adding it into the web-ext CLI.

A command-line parameter saying to leave development extensions installed would probably be needed to implement both of those approaches.

Disabling signing is a hack that we don't want to encourage. Testing WE across restarts is something we *do* want to encourage.