462111 - Use extension manager for (Firebug) extensions

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, enhancement)

Description

[Jan Honza Odvarko [:Honza] (always need-info? me)]

Since there is a quite a lot of extensions for Firebug (see http://getfirebug.com/extensions), it's obvious that Firebug needs some kind of management tool, which enables:

- Displaying list of installed Firebug extensions.
- Searching for existing Firebug extensions.
- Enabling/Disabling/Uninstalling 

I believe that it would be interesting to utilize existing Firefox extension manager and adapt it for Firebug needs. If it would be possible to specify a filter to deal only with specific extensions (i.e. for Firebug in this case), the searching capability would be immediately very useful for users.

Related bug is also:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=382312

Honza

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

We're not going to include something specifically for Firebug, but this has come to my attention previously and I have some ideas for how we might make this available, but it's a little way down the road yet.

Comment 2

[Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee)]

Could be something like an extension manager service which lets add-ons register themselves as extensible? I'm betting there's some corresponding dependency in Amo to back this all up that would need to be created.

The alternative would be to create a mini extension manager in Firebug and figure out a way to list known firebug extensions. Maybe through an external (to Amo) list on getfirebug.com. Might be able to reuse large chunks of the existing extension manager that way, but wouldn't benefit other extensions.

Comment 3

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Well all add-ons are extensible really. Other add-ons can already mark themselves as dependent on other add-ons. The UI just isn't terribly good for the user right now, something we want to correct.

I had missed the point about searching for add-ons to download and install, I'm not sure that would happen in the core UI for some time, and certainly the AMO API we use would have to be updated quite a bit to support it anyway. I'm pretty sure the AMO db doesn't know anything about dependencies yet either.

Comment 4

[Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Well all add-ons are extensible really. Other add-ons can already mark
> themselves as dependent on other add-ons. The UI just isn't terribly good for
> the user right now, something we want to correct.

yeah, of course. I was just thinking in terms of the existing extension manager UI. I didn't remember any facility for looking for extensions of an extension.

> I had missed the point about searching for add-ons to download and install, I'm
> not sure that would happen in the core UI for some time, and certainly the AMO
> API we use would have to be updated quite a bit to support it anyway. I'm
> pretty sure the AMO db doesn't know anything about dependencies yet either.

Probably a fairly limited-use feature for extensions, but I could see it being of great use for Firebug or maybe Greasemonkey if we ever started hosting user scripts. Or Ubiquity for that matter, though they seem to be going their own route with script management.

Comment 5

[John J. Barton]

I've already discussed this with Firebug folks, but for Dave's attention, I want to try an "opt-out" process for Firebug extensions once we have a our test framework and build in place. We'll create a fat download with Firebug extensions in active development and let users uninstall/disable the ones they don't want.

Comment 6

[Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee)]

it would still be nice to manage extended add-ons using the download manager. Just found this during triage and wondering if it's on anyone's roadmap for The Future?

attempting to cc: Nick

Comment 7

[Rob Campbell [:rc] (:robcee)]

sorry, I meant Extension Manager in C#6.

Comment 8

[Andy McKay]

With most of Firebug being incorporated into developer tools, I don't think this is relevant any more. There is no plan to provide "manage extended add-ons using the download manager" as per comment 6.