1403183 - upgrading legacy to WE sidebar does not (re)open sidebar

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(WebExtensions :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

I was running 56 beta with the TreeStyleTabs add-on. I updated to Firefox Quantum Beta, and the add-on auto-updated to version 2.0 (which is compatible with 57+). However, I didn't actually get the tab tree showing up in a panel on the left. I re-installed TST 2.0 from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ and still nothing. Disabled and re-enabled and still nothing. I had to actually *uninstall and reinstall* TST in order to get it working.

Since the add-on does actually work with 57+ and auto-updates to the WebExtension version it would be great if it didn't require uninstalling and reinstalling. However I'm not sure if this needs to be fixed on the Firefox side or the add-on side.

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

I assume the add-on is using a sidebar. Normally, we show it automatically when the add-on is installed (but not for enable/disable, and, I assume, not for upgrades - Shane?). I don't know what TST was using before, but if there isn't a hybrid add-on, I assume there's no way to have an upgrade path (I doubt it was using a sidebar before, and even if it was, it wouldn't have the same ID, and Firefox can't do anything about that because it has no way to correlate the previous sidebar to the new one).

It should be trivial to show/hide the tabs sidebar by using any of the many sidebar UI entrypoints, though, one of which is now in the navbar by default (others include the toplevel View > Sidebar menu, and there are separate entrypoints for some of the other builtin sidebars - once any sidebar shows, there's a switcher menu at the top to open others).

TBH, I think this is invalid/"cantfix", but if there's stuff we can reasonably do here that is upliftable to 57 that other people can come up with, eh.

Comment 2

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

Just to confirm, the new version of the addon does use a sidebar (it adds a "Tree Style Tab" sidebar to the switcher at the top). I'm not sure what the old one did.

Is there a hook that the add-on could implement to show the sidebar after an upgrade?

Comment 3

[Botond Ballo [:botond]]

(In reply to Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail]) from comment #2)
> I'm not sure what the old one did.

The old one changed the CSS styles / properties of the native tabbar itself to make it be vertically oriented.

Comment 4

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

a) sidebar is only auto-opened via session restore or on installation of a new extension.  upgrades to not auto-open.
b) I'm not clear if the "old" version OP was on was a legacy addon or webextension.
c) If it was a webextension this is a session restore bug.  
d) if it was upgrading legacy->webextension that's unfortunately not handled, but it should be fixed if there is a simple fix
d) comment 2, no, we don't and wont provide those kind of hooks for anything, even if we would it wouldn't be uplift-able to 57.

Comment 5

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

(In reply to Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy) from comment #4)
> b) I'm not clear if the "old" version OP was on was a legacy addon or
> webextension.

I was on the legacy addon previously.

Comment 6

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy) from comment #4)
> d) if it was upgrading legacy->webextension that's unfortunately not
> handled, but it should be fixed if there is a simple fix

If we could determine if startup is an upgrade from legacy to webextension, we could in theory treat it the same as a 'new' install, but that would cause surprises for users using sidebar add-ons that they *weren't* actually using (ie weren't open) before the upgrade, and there's no way to determine what the "old" sidebar id was and if it was open.

Comment 7

[Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy)]

(In reply to :Gijs from comment #6)
> (In reply to Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy) from comment #4)
> > d) if it was upgrading legacy->webextension that's unfortunately not
> > handled, but it should be fixed if there is a simple fix
> 
> If we could determine if startup is an upgrade from legacy to webextension,
> we could in theory treat it the same as a 'new' install, but that would
> cause surprises for users using sidebar add-ons that they *weren't* actually
> using (ie weren't open) before the upgrade, and there's no way to determine
> what the "old" sidebar id was and if it was open.

Yeah, that could create more chaos to try and address this.  I guess it will be up to the extension author to provide some kind of documentation (via opening tab or something).

Comment 8

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

(In reply to Shane Caraveo (:mixedpuppy) from comment #7)
> Yeah, that could create more chaos to try and address this.  I guess it will
> be up to the extension author to provide some kind of documentation (via
> opening tab or something).

Let's move this to Tech Evangelism then.

Comment 9

[Botond Ballo [:botond]]

(In reply to Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail]) from comment #8)
> Let's move this to Tech Evangelism then.

It probably makes sense to file a corresponding Tree Style Tab issue?

Comment 10

[Kartikaya Gupta (email:[e-mail])]

Done: https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/issues/1369

Comment 11

[Jorge Villalobos [:jorgev] (he/him)]

Closing this bug since there's nothing else to do on our side and there's an issue filed for the add-on.