Massive Extender

[LoudNoise]

^^ Good lord Phil. If anyone asks you to type about:config in the address bar for the love of god don't!

Nice number of downloads being out less then a month.

[avatar.ds]

^^ Good lord Phil. If anyone asks you to type about:config in the address bar for the love of god don't!

Nice number of downloads being out less then a month.

That's why experimental status I didn't want to go through the update spree after it has been made public, and I was sure it would need some polish since I knew almost nothing of xul, javascript and sql just 2 months ago... (It's just a toy project and I'm not a pro hacker. Using sql in this extension now seems like a bit of an overkill, but I had to try it out, and now that it's there there's no point in dropping it )

As far as I understand I will not be able to iron out all the small defects at the same rate once it's public, due to add-on review queue at AMO (and being used to the much stricter C++ I do find javascript quite prone to mishandling).

[pompeyrodney]

Hi
I am using Windows 7 64 bit and seem to have a snag that I do not have with 32 bit. I have version 1.1.1 of the addon collector and version 0.9.1 of massive extender, which I thought were the latest builds until I saw your post. The problem I have is that massive extender is saying it requires additional items not is not specifying what. How can I debug this please Dimitri?

[avatar.ds]

pompeyrodney:

Add-on Collector 1.1.1 is just released and there is a guard against updates to A.C. in M.E. That is, 0.9.1 is compatible with 1.1.0, not 1.1.1.

I need to check for any compatibility issues and patch M.E. to enable support for A.C. 1.1.1. Stay tuned, it should not take long.

[avatar.ds]

I pushed a compatibility update on AMO but note that

There are currently 109 other add-ons in the nomination queue.

If this process proves to be too slow I will setup an account at mozdev so you can download and install this update sooner than AMO review is complete.

[pompeyrodney]

Thanks for your help Dimitri

[avatar.ds]

You can grab the 0.9.2 compatibility update at mozdev now.

Here.

It works under Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey and is compatible with the latest Add-on Collector release 1.1.1.

(Don't mind the "massive collector" name popping here and there on mozdev, it served as one of the older names for this project before I published it, renaming to massive extender - pun intended;)

[pompeyrodney]

That has fixed my issue thanks a lot.

[wysocki]

I'm running FF 3.6.3 with Add-on Collector 1.1.1 and Massive Extender 0.9.2 (which got rid of the "requires additional items" message). But now the Options button is dimmed - unusable. I've uploaded a couple of extensions separately using AOC successfully.

[avatar.ds]

I'm running FF 3.6.3 with Add-on Collector 1.1.1 and Massive Extender 0.9.2 (which got rid of the "requires additional items" message). But now the Options button is dimmed - unusable. I've uploaded a couple of extensions separately using AOC successfully.

There's no options dialog for Massive Extender. I didn't feel the need for it and tried to keep things simple. The only "option" available is to switch between simple and advanced menu modes. To access is, right click on the M.E. toolbar header (where it reads "BATCH:"), and a pop-up will appear that will then let you choose the alternative menu mode. That's all there's is to it.

[avatar.ds]

I'm pleased to tell you that Massive Extender 0.9.2 is now public at AMO. If you have v.0.9.2 downloaded from mozdev, you don't have to reinstall it until I publish a new version, however note that I will now be able to push automatic updates through AMO, so you may want to do that now to be sure that you always have the latest update as soon as it is available.

Kind regards.

[avatar.ds]

Version 0.9.3 now at AMO with experimental (sandboxed) status (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addons/versions/89648).
---
NEW:
* Right-clicking on a collection name or description now produces a menu allowing to sort add-ons by name (as well as by age in collection, which is default for Add-on Collector).

RESOLVED:
* Compatibility with Firefox 3.7a5pre.

FIXED:
* Very minor random bugs (unreported).

KNOWN ISSUES:
* Questionable compatibility with Mac OSX (possibly in advanced mode only).
* No support for Thunderbird or SeaMonkey. Use v.0.9.2 until this issue is resolved.
---

Users of Thunderbird and SeaMonkey please be patient, I will restore support for both apps soon. Support for FF 3.5 will probably return as well, though that is of a lesser priority.

Check out the new screenshot of the new add-on sorting capability here (direct AMO link): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/images/p/45275/1272586817.

Cheers.

[avatar.ds]

Version 0.9.4 is now released to AMO. It restores compatibility with Thunderbird, SeaMonkey and Firefox 3.5.

Release notes:

RESOLVED:
* Compatibility with Thunderbird and SeaMonkey.
* Compatibility with Firefox 3.5.
CHANGED:
* Alphabetic sort of add-ons introduced in v.0.9.3 no longer places add-ons freshly added to the collection on top of the list.
KNOWN ISSUES:
* Incomplete or missing compatibility with Mac OSX (possibly in advanced mode only).
* Compatibility with Firefox 3.7a5pre is only ensured for the nightlies with the 'classic' Extension Manager window (before April 30, 2010).

Since I'm going to withdraw the recently published and yet unreviewed v.0.9.3 from addons.mozilla.org in order to speed up the review process, here are the changes that were introduced in that update:
NEW:
* Right-clicking on a collection name or description now produces a menu allowing to sort add-ons by name (as well as by age in collection, which is default for Add-on Collector).
RESOLVED:
* Compatibility with Firefox 3.7a5pre.
FIXED:
* Very minor random bugs (unreported).

Version 0.9.4 will be pushed to current users through automatic updates once it has been reviewed at AMO.

<geckospeak on='true'>
[Re: compatibility with other Mozilla apps ]
Apparently despite the 'same' engine behind the current set of Mozilla apps, SeaMonkey 2.0 and Thunderbird 3.0 share an older javascript implementation with Firefox 3.5 which appears to throw on suicide getters without explicit delete, i.e. object = { get field() object.field = 'deferredvalue' }. And I used them generously during the latest clean-up of the code behind, mainly for xpcom stuff. Firefox 3.6-3.7 (js 1.8.2 ?) is fine coercing data values in place of a suicide getter unless one is supplied by a prototype (in which case even explicit delete on the inheriting object will not work, anyway).
</geckospeak>

[Justs]

Is there an eta for FF 4.0 compatability?

[avatar.ds]

Justs,

Short answer: No! FF4.0 has no ETA itself! Massive Extender is compatible with FF4a5pre which was actually F3.7a5pre back when it actually mattered, which was some 7 months ago Since Add-on Collector is not compatible with anything released later than that, Massive Extender cannot be either.

To be frank I have some doubts whether the amount of work required to move to FF4 will be justified because there's a whole lot of changes under the hood and in the GUI in FF4. Besides I'm utterly disappointed with Add-on Collector's performance when dealing with larger collections, making it really a pain to use Massive Extender for what it was meant for - to sync large add-on collections between computers and profiles. I have other ideas which may provide a better alternative, such as saving and syncing add-on collections/batches via Xmarks or Weave. This would open up new possibilities and provide freedom from Add-on Collector's approach which is better suited for discovery and sharing rather than heavy duty private maintenance. Since moving Massive Extender to FF4 seems like re-writing a lot from scratch, I may choose to go the other route and write something different, but more suited for the task I originally envisioned for it.