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Saturday, July 7, 2007

Howto Design Firefox Addon

Vinod has a filler session on Firefox addons development which
began 2 weeks back as a developers itch.

xulplanet.com has the required information about firefox addon
development. Java script is the core language for designing the plugin.

Plugin extension has the format as .xpi
We require to unzip the file after download to view the code.

Typical extension layout -
install.rdf - installation and setup instructions.
chrome.manifest - defines the content to be installed.
chrome manager - where all chromes are registered.

Actual code is written in .js (java script) files.
If you have an idea about java script , coding plugins would be
pretty straightforward.

For debugging purposes use Firebug to test and fix bugs in the
plugin. Show Chrome errors option needs to be turned on to
catch faults in the code.

Once you are ready use the standard steps mentioned to package
the plugin as a .xpi file. Would require to include certain installer
javascript file which is needed to install the code on firefox.

Piggy Bank Architecture helps integrate java applications as browser
plugins aswell. So enjoy pugin development.

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