174497 - Install extensions to .phoenix rather than the phoenix install directory

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[bsaylor]

When Phoenix is installed in a system-wide, read-only location (e.g.
/usr/local/phoenix owned by root), attempting to install the tabbed browsing
extension reports success, but does nothing (restart the browser, it's just not
there).  Upon changing the owner of /usr/local/phoenix to my normal user, the
installation works, but installs to /usr/local/phoenix instead of ~/.phoenix. 
If I change the owner back to root and try to start up the browser, it says

*** Failed to load overlay chrome://tabextensions/content/globalOverlay.xul

and I get nothing but an empty grey window.  Looks like chrome/tabextensions.jar
is readable only by its owner.  However, it should go in ~/.phoenix anyway so
normal users can install their own extensions.

Comment 1

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

updating summary and sending to hyatt. 

Dave, I remember you mentioning that you thought that installing to the profile
would be a good thing. 

Comment 2

[David P James]

*** Bug 176175 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[David P James]

Is this related to bug# 172891 (Phoenix should look for plugins under
~/.phoenix/plugins)?

Comment 4

[Ryan Shaw]

Mozilla has just decided not to fix this bug, which is a HUGE mistake IMO. I
hope that the Phoenix developers will do the right thing, as they have so many
times before. Extensions are a very nice feature of Phoenix, and Linux users
shouldn't need root access to take advantage of them. 

Thanks for a great browser!

Comment 5

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

The summary of this bug doesn't really make sense. Extensions can install
themselves to where ever the XPI specifies. That they currently install to the
Phoenix install directory is an issue that the extension authors own. That
Phoenix doesn't check the user profile for extensions is an issue Phoenix
authors should probably own. There's a third issues which is extensions silently
failing to install to a dir not owned by the current user.

Comment 6

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

There's a patch to have the chrome registry enumerate XUL overlays installed
into the user's profile dir at bug 162960. See also the older (and probably not
a bug since I think it actually works) report at bug 125610.

Comment 7

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

Is this fixed now that extensions can install themselves to the profile chrome
dir?  Or is the reporter holding out for the browser figuring it out, and not
the extension install script?

Comment 8

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

this is no longer valid.

Comment 9

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Mass-verifying of old bugs.