1478781 - Allow to create more than one browserAction in a single extension

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(WebExtensions :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Alistair Buxton]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:61.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/61.0
Build ID: 20180704192850

Steps to reproduce:

1. Read the APi docs for browserAction (again.)


Actual results:

I found that there is no API to create multiple browserActions from a single extension.


Expected results:

I should have found an APi to add multiple browserActions in from a single extension.

Comment 1

[Andrew Swan [:aswan]]

Additional information about when/why you would do this would be helpful in evaluating this proposal.

Comment 2

[Alistair Buxton]

This (and also 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362741) is required to recreate the user interface of live bookmarks with a web extension without abusing the bookmark system to create toolbar buttons and menus.

See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1477667

Comment 3

[Oriol Brufau [:Oriol]]

Another use case: https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/tab-counter-plus/reviews/1159151/

> I have two Tab counter addons installed, one that shows th
> total open tabs and one that shows total open tabs in any window :D

If I could create multiple browserActions (or maybe just a wider one), users wouldn't have to install another tab counter add-on, which is sad because mine is the best one XD

Comment 4

[David Durst [:ddurst]]

NI to product.

Comment 5

[Mike Conca [:mconca]]

While admitting there are valid use cases for this request, allowing extensions to create multiple browserActions opens the door to abuse. Maintaining a single-button-per-extension policy allows users to clearly identify each extension that has modified their toolbar, while simultaneously promoting a clean Firefox UX since extension authors cannot overpopulate the toolbar with dozens of buttons.