851768 - Add-on SDK tutorial for setting about:config entries

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Add-on SDK Graveyard :: Documentation, defect, P3)

Description

[arky [:arky]]

Please provide tutorial to toogle about:config entries (http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries)

Comment 1

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

Is the preferences/service documentation sufficient? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/latest/modules/sdk/preferences/service.html

Comment 2

[arky [:arky]]

(In reply to Wes Kocher (:KWierso) from comment #1)
> Is the preferences/service documentation sufficient?
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/latest/modules/sdk/
> preferences/service.html

Yes, That is good.  Perhaps we make it into a tutorial here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/latest/dev-guide/tutorials/index.html

Comment 3

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

Will, what do you think?

Comment 4

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

I think there are 2 reasons to have a tutorial on something as well as an API reference page:

1) primary reason: to provide a simple way into a complex API such as panel or page-mod.


2) secondary reason: to help make content discoverable: someone who wants to add a button might not find the "widget" module, so having a page that lists common tasks like this makes it easier to get started. Having a search function makes this reason matter less.

I'd be interested to know why Arky thinks a tutorial is needed as well as the preferences/service API page. I think it's too simple an API to need a tutorial for reason (1), so perhaps it's reason (2) - that it was hard to find the reference page? If so, maybe just adding a reference to "about:config" in the API page would do it, since then a search would turn it up?

I think we could more usefully have a tutorial on simple-prefs, since that is a more complex API. And that could mention preferences/service too. But I think users see these as very distinct APIs, although they share the implementation - one is for my settings, the other is for configuring the browser.

Comment 5

[arky [:arky]]

I agree that API is quite simple. Just learnt of its existence in this bug.  This is most common request I got after my Addon-SDK workshop.

Comment 6

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

Attachment: add reference to about:config

Comment 7

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

So here's my suggested patch for this: I've added a line of text to the start of the API reference for preferences/service that mentions about:config.

From your bug report, arky, it sounds like people were specifically looking for "about:config": this change ought to cause the page to show up in a search for about:config, so should make the API more discoverable.

Comment 8

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

Comment on attachment 738549 [details] [diff] [review]
add reference to about:config

Review of attachment 738549 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Happy to take as-is though see what you think about my suggestion.

::: doc/module-source/sdk/preferences/service.md
@@ +15,4 @@
>  
>  To define preferences for your own add-on and expose them to the user in
>  the [Add-on Manager](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Addons/Add-on_Manager),
> +you can use the [simple-prefs](modules/sdk/simple-prefs.html) module instead.

Instead doesn't sound exactly right to me as really it's "in addition to". I wonder if this paragraph would be better written something like:

While `preferences/service` gives you full access to the preferences system you can also use the simple-prefs module to access just the preferences for your own add-on and expose them to the user in the Add-on Manager.

Comment 9

[arky [:arky]]

Comment on attachment 738549 [details] [diff] [review]
add reference to about:config

Looks good +1

Comment 10

[arky [:arky]]

Comment on attachment 738549 [details] [diff] [review]
add reference to about:config

Looks good. Thanks!
r+

Comment 11

[Will Bamberg [:wbamberg]]

Updated, finally, here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Low-Level_APIs/preferences_service .