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Extensions in Firefox 59

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#61

Post by pricechild »

Macha wrote: post #47
JohnTHaller wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that vimperator is mentioned every single time Firefox extensions are brought up on HN even though it only has about 11,000 users out of the hundreds of millions that use Firefox.

(a) It's dispoprotionately used among the tech audience. (b) Users went back and forth between than and pentadactyl for a while, and both have the same issues in a webextension world (c) There are more people who would like to use it but may not have due to the instability.

11,000 users (if true) isn't disproportionate among the tech audience, just HN commenters.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#62

Post by classichasclass »

fenwick67 wrote: post #49
pfraze wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is pretty great. AFAIK it's limited to only redirecting to a handler website, but that's a big step forward for using these protocols in links and etc. We're still hoping to get full protocol-handling with an API similar to https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/v1.8.2-beta.3/docs...

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it sounds like they've made it so you can develop a webextension that handles DAT:// or IPFS:// URLs. They didn't make IPFS:// URLs redirect to http://ipfs.io/ipfs/$hash .

Sort of. I think this is based on the `registerProtocolHandler()` means, and if so, you can redirect this to an internal page in your extension. See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/overbitewx/ (disclaimer: authored by yours truly).

The more pressing concern is how you would speak these protocols because there's still no direct socket support. In my case, the addon just acts as a history and redirect shim and my server does the actual server access and translation. I'm actually thinking of cobbling together a native messaging-based extension as a stopgap since obviously this is suboptimal.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#63

Post by kodablah »

npongratz wrote: post #3

I find this pretty exciting for (hopefully; someday) wider adoption of alternative protocols: Starting with Firefox 59, several protocols that support decentralized architectures are available for use by extensions. The white-listed protocols are: + Dat Project (dat://) + IPFS (dweb:// ipfs:// ipns://) + Secure Scuttlebutt (ssb://)

Why does it require a whitelist? If I make my own, do I have to contact Mozilla or is the user prompted when first access is attempted?

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#64

Post by jopsen »

seanwilson wrote: post #34

If you have an existing Chrome extension that relies on just the WebRequest API, how much effort is it to port to Firefox? Do things generally work without significant modifications? Are there lots of gotchas and small differences?

Take a look at MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions

The API docs all have browser compatibility tables.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#65

Post by joveian »

I hope FavTab will be able to work again. That is the one thing that has really messed up my usage of Firefox (I'm using AutoPinTab to pin everything as a replacement, but it causes flashing when it overlaps the favicon bookmarks I have to the right of the tabs and makes Ctrl-w not work).

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#66

Post by swang »

carussell wrote: post #50
nathcd wrote: post #33

I have a tangential question for anyone who might know more about tab stuff than me. Awhile ago, I looked into making Firefox not do any tab management. Basically, always have one tab per window, middle click always opens a new window, normal click always opens a page in the current tab. (I'd like to do tab management with my window manager instead of browser so I can have a consistent tabbing interface across all of…

> Am I missing something You're not. This was one of jwz's big complaints when he wrote about why he doesn't use Firefox[1] several years back, and nobody has ever fixed it. 1. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/04/why-i-use-safari-instead-of...

don't bother to link to jwz from hn since he redirects you to (what i guess is) a nsfw image

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#67

Post by maccam94 »

nicoburns wrote: post #37
orev wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the old Tab Groups extension does something different. It allows you to switch between different groups like you can switch between virtual desktops.

I beleive the additions in this release should enable that... there's an extension called konex (or is it conex) which I believe does just this.

conex does use the new API now, but it's built on Firefox Containers, so the groups have their own cookie sandboxes.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#68

Post by amyjess »

kzrdude wrote: post #6
shmerl wrote: post #5

Mozilla should fix no exit confirmation for Ctrl+Q. It's just too easy to close the browser this way, and extensions that offered this feature aren't working anymore. It's really a problem in general, there is no way to make an extension that customizes browser behavior itself (rather than page behavior), since WebExtensions can't do that.

I thought the gaining philosophy here was to make "destructive" operations easy to undo, rather than having warnings and confirmations before carrying them out? Quitting Firefox and then starting again and restoring all tabs fits well with easy to undo.

Forget confirmation, Ctrl-Q shouldn't exist in the first place. An keystroke that can close your whole session and is near-identical to another, very common keystroke is a design flaw, period.

Same with the backspace key activating the back button. Using these keystrokes for these purposes should be considered harmful.

Ctrl-Q is so harmful that I've long fantasized about hacking whatever driver in the kernel that controls the keyboard and having it ignore whatever signal the keyboard sends out whenever you press Ctrl-Q and not even pass it on to userspace.

Re: Extensions in Firefox 59

#70

Post by kevingadd »

scrollaway wrote: post #27

Anyone working on this reading the thread? Can we ever expect an extension that will allow the far better tab management that Chrome has? Namely: Being able to scroll between tabs with the scroll wheel, and being able to select multiple tabs with shift/ctrl to drag them/merge them/close them/etc. It's crazy to me that Firefox's original selling point was tab management, and today Chrome's is so much better.

Wheel scrolling for tabs has always worked for me in Firefox on Windows, and still does. Arguably FF handles this better because the tabs don't become 8 pixels wide once you have a bunch of them open.

Is this broken on a specific OS or under a specific window manager maybe? It might be worthwhile to file a bug, since it definitely should work.

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