607384 - Need to add an unloadOverlay method to nsIDOMXULDocument

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: DOM: Core & HTML, defect, P5)

Description

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

Given that we're starting to heavily promote the notion of bootstrapped extensions, which don't load overlays automatically, an obvious solution to this would be to support letting them use the nsIDOMXULDocument method loadOverlay() to load overlays.

But since these extensions need to be able to dynamically unload, they can't use this method, since there's no method provided for unloading overlays.

We need to add an unloadOverlay() method. Doing this would turn bootstrapped extensions from a neat idea to something easily usable for complex add-ons. Until something like this is done, I'm not sure we'll see much adoption of bootstrapped extensions.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Loading an overlay creates a bunch of nodes and puts them in various places in the DOM.  After that, the window's scripts manipulate the DOM in various ways (possibly cloning the nodes inserted via the overlay, moving them around, adding new kids to them, etc).  

So what would it meant to unload an overlay, exactly?  

If we need this sort of capability, we really need to move from overlays to something else that doesn't munge the DOM and can therefore be excised from it.  We could call it an extensible binding language or something?

Comment 2

[Eric Shepherd [:sheppy]]

Yeah, I didn't say it would be easy, and maybe it's not realistic. But it seems fairly clear that a way to load and unload overlays (or some equivalent) to add and remove stuff to the UI would make extension development easier -- especially in a world where we hope to encourage restartable addons.

Comment 3

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1472046

Move all DOM bugs that haven't been updated in more than 3 years and has no one currently assigned to P5.

If you have questions, please contact :mdaly.

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Overlays are long-gone.