In the previous post, How To Develop Firefox Extensions – Intro, we discussed the Chrome document’s DOM. In this post, we’ll learn how to create an add-on that can be installed. In this post, we’ll learn how to access the Chrome document’s nodes, and to organize an XPI (Cross Platform Installer) file.
XPI files are ZIP files
A file having an ‘.xpi’ suffix, is a compressed file in ‘.zip’ format. If we use Firefox as the opening program for those files, it will install an extension. We can refer to a zipped file as a root directory, containing files and sub-directories.
Following is a recommended directory structure:
- /
- install.rdf
- chrome.manifest
- content/
- <filename>.xul
- <filename>.js
- locale/
- <language code>/
- <language code>/
- .
- .
- .
- skin/
The XUL File
The XUL file is located in the content directory. XUL is an acronym for *XML User-interface Language’. The XUL file is a data file that makes the development of Mozilla extensions easier. The following example is an Overlay XUL file, i.e. an XUL used for adding a component to the browser’s Chrome, the great UI container.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE overlay SYSTEM
"chrome://imageinnewtab_extension/locale/browserOverlay.dtd">
<overlay id="imageinnewtabextensionOverlay"
xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">
<script src="imageinnewtab_extension.js">
</script>
<menupopup id="contentAreaContextMenu" >
<menuitem id="context-imageinnewtab"
label="&phpandmoreimageinnewtab.image-new-tab.label;"
oncommand="ImageInNewTab.BrowserOverlay.openInNewTab(event)"
insertafter="context-viewimage"
hidden="true"
/>
</menupopup>
</overlay>
This overlay contains the required data for adding an “Open Image In New Tab” option to the context-menu that pops up when you right-click in the HTML document area. This file contains a link to a script and instructions to add a new menu item to the popup menu with the unique id ‘contentAreaContextMenu’.
Note that the value of the label attributes begins with an ampersand(‘&’) and ends with a seni-colons; this means that the value is variable. The actual value is translated according to the definitions found in the DTD file specified in the ‘!DOCTYPE’ tag.
The ‘oncommand’ attribute defines how Firefox should response to command events, i.e. the function called when the menu item is selected either by a mouse click or by a keyboard shortcut.
Learn more about XUL here.
The Javascript file
In this example, ‘content/imageinnewtab_extension.js’, the Javascript file, defines an object that response to the ‘command’ event. The object is initialized as a response to the “load” event, i.e. after the UI components has completed loading. When the Chrome document has completed loading, the new menu item is defined. The ‘init’ member is a function that defines what callback function to call when the context menu pops up.
Following is the code:
if ("undefined" == typeof(ImageInNewTab)) {
var ImageInNewTab = {};
};
ImageInNewTab.BrowserOverlay = {
hideIfNoImage: function(event){
var element=document.popupNode;
var whatWasClicked = document.getElementById("context-imageinnewtab");
whatWasClicked.hidden = !(element instanceof Components.interfaces.nsIImageLoadingContent &&
element.currentURI);
},
init: function (event){
var contextMenu = document.getElementById("contentAreaContextMenu");
contextMenu.addEventListener("popupshowing", ImageInNewTab.BrowserOverlay.hideIfNoImage, false);
},
openInNewTab: function (event){
gBrowser.addTab(document.popupNode.src);
}
}
addEventListener("load",
ImageInNewTab.BrowserOverlay.init,false);
The Install RDF file
The ‘install.rdf’ file includes information for the browser. The information includes information shown to the installing end-uder, and for the browser to know if the extension supports the current browser version.
Following is an example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<RDF xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:em="http://www.mozilla.org/2004/em-rdf#">
<Description about="urn:mozilla:install-manifest">
<em:id>imageinnewtab_extension@phpandmore.net</em:id>
<em:name>Image in New Tab</em:name>
<em:version>0.1</em:version>
<em:description>Add a new Menu Item in the context menu to view an image in a new tab.</em:description>
<em:creator>Amit Yaron</em:creator>
<em:homepageURL>https://phpandmore.net/</em:homepageURL>
<em:type>2</em:type> <!-- type=extension -->
<em:targetApplication>
<!-- Firefox -->
<Description>
<em:id>{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}</em:id>
<em:minVersion>3.5</em:minVersion>
<!-- Since Firefox's numbering scheme is unpredictable, users
are encouraged to edit this field to the current max value.
-->
<em:maxVersion>999.0.*</em:maxVersion>
</Description>
</em:targetApplication>
</Description>
</RDF>
Note: don’t change the ’em:id’ tag value.
Learn more about the install.rdf here.
The Chrome Manifest
The ‘chrrome.manifest’ file is a simple text files that contains instructions on how to access Chrome URL addresses (beginning with ‘chrome://’.
Following is an example manifest:
content imageinnewtab_extension content/
skin imageinnewtab_extension classic/1.0 skin/
locale imageinnewtab_extension en-US locale/en-US/
locale imageinnewtab_extension he-IL locale/he-IL/
overlay chrome://browser/content/browser.xul chrome://imageinnewtab_extension/content/imageinnewtab_extension_overlay.xul
- The ‘content ‘ instruction tells Firefox where to find ‘chrome://imageinnewtab_extension/content’, where the XUL and code are found.
- The ‘skin ‘ instruction tells Firefox where to find ‘chrome://imageinnewtab_extension/skin’, where the CSS files are found.
- The ‘locale ‘ instruction tells Firefox where to find ‘chrome://imageinnewtab_extension/locale’ according to the ‘LANG’ environment variable, This is where the DTD file, used for label translation, is found.
- The ‘overlay’ instruction tells Firefox the role of the overlay XUL file, which extends the great UI container.
Learn more about the manifest here.
The Example Add-on
The example add-on, that opens an image in a new tab, can be downloaded here.
PHP & More 