Firefox & Thunderbird Add-on Converter for SeaMonkey

[Lemon Juice]

Here's your bookmark:

http://addonconverter.fotokraina.com/?a ... 0converted

[Anonymosity]

I noticed that suffix, but I thought -SM- would be better, since it is shorter.

I chose "converted" so that it was clear to everyone what this means, I think new users might not know what -SM- stands for. Actually, there were even longer suggestions in this thread like "converted from Firefox" But you can bookmark this link for yourself if you have your own preference:

http://addonconverter.fotokraina.com/?appendName=-SM-

Nifty! I like it.

[Rollo_Tommasi]

Another add-on converted:
Toggle animated GIFs 1.2.1.
Tested in a page with a lot of gif images, seems working fine.

[NanM]

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;[...]
converted'.

That one was going nowhere and didn't even specify SeaMonkey in the name!

maybe this one then, for those with paranoid refugee tendencies, who ken not the SM sign:

Code: Select all

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! - converted

[therube]

1. All converted extensions will get a suffix appended to the name. The default is [converted]

When I read that, I assumed that the (downloaded) filename would include converted.

So:

> disable_dhe-0.1.1-fx.xpi
becomes
> disable_dhe-0.1.1-fx_converted.xpi

But I see it is only the internal file name that has converted appended to it.

I think it would be beneficial if the downloaded filename were changed too, to differentiate it from what you may have otherwise already downloaded say from AMO. I've always manually added -LEMON on files I've run through the converter. (And particularly useful for those who tend to archive xpi's. Pack rats, you know.)


(Disable DHE 0.1.1 works, by the way.)

[Lemon Juice]

Toggle animated GIFs 1.2.1.
Tested in a page with a lot of gif images, seems working fine.

(Disable DHE 0.1.1 works, by the way.)

Added to the list!

I think it would be beneficial if the downloaded filename were changed too

Yes, I agree, I'll get to it some day!
_______________________________________________________

There is a plan to create an AMO browsing extension that will be shipped with SeaMonkey releases. The main purpose of it would be to provide links/buttons to the converter when browsing AMO so that users know they can install those Firefox extensions that convert well. More detail is in bug 1145026.

I'm mentioning it here because I need to find a good place (server) to host the list of working Firefox extensions after conversion - the AMO browsing extension will then periodically contact the page and download the list so this would need to be a URL that will be fairly reliable and not likely to change in the future. Initially, we thought about the Mozilla wiki page at https://wiki.mozilla.org/SeaMonkey/AddonCompat but maintaining and editing large tables in the wiki markup or html is inconvenient and error prone. I can make an online tool for maintaining this list in an easier way but I need some place to host it. Would it be possible to get a tiny bit of space on one of the SeaMonkey related sites like seamonkey-project.org or mozdev.org? If not do you know any stable free host? I once read about some host for open source projects that was considered by SeaMonkey for some purpose but I can't remember its name.

The requirements are fairly low and pretty light on server resources:

Option 1 (minimum) - the server would host one html file with the compatibility tables and possibly a css file and maybe a few small images. The html file would be fetched periodically (once a day or a few days) by each SeaMonkey installation with the AMO browsing extension (installed by default). Since SeaMonkey is not extremely popular and the installations would only fetch a static html file I would expect very little strain on the server both in terms of bandwidth and CPU usage.

Option 2 (best) - same as above but with the ability to run a server side language (preferably php) so that I could install a simple backend for editing the list in the same place.

I can host the editing backend on my server or somewhere else but I'd like to keep the main html file with tables (to be pinged by the extension) in a more official place.

If some of you have any ideas for that or could help with this in any way it would be great

[LoudNoise]

OSU Open Source lab? http://osuosl.org/services/hosting It might be a good idea to have one of the SeaMonkey folks approach them.

[Lemon Juice]

Yes, that was it. However, they state that they don't want to host small projects and the compatibility tables alone would be certainly a very small project... But it wouldn't hurt to try.

[LoudNoise]

Yeah, I read that too. I thought it might be small enough, and painless for them, they might.

[lynxcat]

Not work for ExQuilla...

after converted & installed, when i try to add Exchange account it said:

XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: chrome://exquilla/content/ewsAccountWizard.xul
Line Number 81, Column 13: <label class="label, serverLabel" id="emailFieldLabel" value="&email.label;"
------------^

actually i want to find a Seamonkey add-on which supports MS Exchange...

[Lemon Juice]

Not work for ExQuilla...

after converted & installed, when i try to add Exchange account it said:

XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: chrome://exquilla/content/ewsAccountWizard.xul
Line Number 81, Column 13: <label class="label, serverLabel" id="emailFieldLabel" value="&email.label;"
------------^

actually i want to find a Seamonkey add-on which supports MS Exchange...

I have updated the converter so that the account window shows properly in ExQuilla - however, I can see some js errors in the console here and there so I don't know if this extension will work at all. You can try - please report your results here!

[Edit] Important: this extension is targeted to specific platforms so if you are on Windows you have to get the Windows xpi into the converter (by default the Linux version is used). When you are at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunde ... -services/ - copy the link under the "Download for Windows" button and paste it into the converter.

[patrickjdempsey]

Wow! This is very ambitious! Especially if you can get it to fix places where AMO is just flat out broken in it's compatibility detection. (Showing addons incompatible that are in fact compatible) could really be a game-changer.

I do have one concern... how will this handle updates? It seems like the extension would have to also modify the addons updater and ping the database as well as AMO, and then pull some updates from AMO and some through the converter. That means increased demand at Gecko version uplift.

[Lemon Juice]

Wow! This is very ambitious! Especially if you can get it to fix places where AMO is just flat out broken in it's compatibility detection. (Showing addons incompatible that are in fact compatible) could really be a game-changer.

Yes, this has a potential of fixing the majority of wrong information regarding SM compatibility on AMO. There are a few different types of false detections but the most common is too low maxVersion - I'm planning to make these extensions appear as compatible (no grey stuff) and a yellow (perhaps) button instead of green, with information that the extension is likely to work but simply hasn't been tested by the author with the newest SM. And small things like that.

But that is for later. First, I'd like to get the extension to put up buttons to the converter. Then fix the broken stuff on AMO and then maybe other things.

I do have one concern... how will this handle updates? It seems like the extension would have to also modify the addons updater and ping the database as well as AMO, and then pull some updates from AMO and some through the converter. That means increased demand at Gecko version uplift.

That is still something to decide in the future, I'm not planning to handle updates at the moment, people will have to do them manually. I'm not sure if converted add-ons should auto-update since at the end of the day they should still be treated as experimental and the potential of breakage is higher than with officially supported ones. Maybe if we had people who were willing to extensively test new versions of add-ons and mark them as reliable in the main database then the updates would work well - this is a large undertaking IMO. But I think at least it would be good to get the Add-ons Manager to report available updates after invoking Find Updates from the context menu.

Yes, getting all this stuff to work well is an ambitious task and I'm not trying to do it all - I'll be taking small steps according to my availability and see how it goes. Of course, contributions are always welcome

[NanM]

The converter has been one of the more helpful projects for SM.
I wonder if Mrs Chee's boy would have the in to allocate some of the SM donation funding for Lemon Juice to develop the proposed AMO-for-SM service?
The unwanted outcome of allocated space on a donated host can often be the sudden loss of service without notice or recourse; extensions to my mind are the core of Moz., and Lemon Juice's plans seem to me to be both conservative and doable.

[Philip Chee]

I completely forgot about this during Tuesday status meeting. So I made a new post in mozilla.dev.apps.seamonkey.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.apps.seamonkey/wSEEuABvn8o

My thoughts:

1. Hosting on seamonkey-projects.org might be the best except that there are some hoops to jump over (setting up a Mozilla LDAP account/password for Lemon Juice). Granting access to seamonkey-projects.org etc. I don't know if PHP is available. Since this is hosted on Mozilla infrastructure security will be managed by Mozilla.

2. I can create a new project on mozdev.org probably something like seamonkey.mozdev.org. The site runs on an older version of PHP but perhaps it would suffice. I can grant Lemon Juice owner access to the project and can add more people when needed. I haven't done this in a while so I'll have to dig up my old notes. Mozdev is hosted at the OSU Open Source Lab http://osuosl.org/about and security is handled by OSUOSL.

3. Renting a VPS/KVM somewhere. Security: unknown.

Phil