301849 - Download extension XPIs from extension manager

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, enhancement)

Description

[John R. Moser]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050524 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050524 Firefox/1.0.4

In some cases I would like to be able to update Firefox extensions on many
machines, or install ones from one machine to a new machine quickly.  I feel
that it would be useful to be able to enter the Extensions manager and select
multiple extensions, then click a button to download the updated XPI files to a
local folder.  This has two major advantages.

 - Users could not only install Firefox on a fresh OS, but also quickly acquire
all of the installers for their favorite extensions and install them as well,
using another machine that already has a properly set-up installaton.  If the
user has but one machine, a quick pull of the installer and the installed
extensions to CD or USB Flash drive could be done before any damaging operations
like an OS reinstall.

 - Firefox evangelists could carry around Firefox and some useful extensions
like BetterSearch, SessionSaver, Resize Search Box, or TrustBar.  These
extensions powerfully enhance the browsing experience, but are not supplied in
the main Firefox distribution.  Updating their copies would be quite easy,
simply update the installed version in the browser and request that the XPIs be
cached in a local directory as well.

I have above suggested that the XPIs be gathered by redownloading the latest
versions.  I do not know if assembling them from the installed files would also
be possible, but I would prefer to redownload personally.  Assembling from
installed would be a nice additional option.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[John R. Moser]

Regard bug as applying to Thunderbird as well; although if desired you could
(and probably will) make a separate bug.

Comment 2

[John R. Moser]

It may also be prudent to assume that the user may have FF-OSX on an Apple,
FF-WinXP on a PC, and FF-Linux on a dual boot.  Cross-downloading should be an
option.

Comment 3

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

There is the ability with the current nightly builds to install an extension and
then copy its directory to another profile on the same or different computer to
install it. See the following:
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Extension_Packaging#Install_Extension_Files_Directly

As for supporting multiple platforms this is up to the extension itself and if
the extension supports multiple platforms then the extensions directory can be
copied to the platforms it supports.