[ext] Add-ons Manager Dialog for FF4 (no restart*)

[avatar.ds]

Well, I think the addon is ripe for release so I pushed version 1.0 for full review at AMO.
Changes:
- Added quite a bunch of keyboard shortcuts for easier navigation (see addon info for reference).
- Can now set AMO homepage as default web site to Get Add-ons (see dialog menu).
- Focussing on the addon search field will now also reveal the Search Tab unless it's not empty.
- Restricted Get Add-ons tab from loading as the initial view (this improves dialog opening time).
- Can now set a Restrained Visual Style for the dialog (see dialog menu).
- Compatible with Firefox 8a Nightly.
- Added (a rudimentary) context menu for Get Add-ons browser.
- Fixed a bug that could (rarely) prevent browser url bar from working correctly with this addon enabled.

The file is already available on AMO.

Keyboard shortcut reference:

Esc, Ctrl-W: close dialog
Ctrl-B: switch back to the most recent browser window
Ctrl-Alt-R: restart Firefox

F, / or Ctrl-F: focus on search field (also reveals Search tab if it contains any results)
E: switch to Extensions
A: switch to Appearance
F1-F12: switch to tab at respective position (visible tabs only)

Ctrl-U: check updates for current addon
Ctrl-Shift-U: check updates for all addons

Ctrl-O: pick addon package file to install

Ctrl-Shift-T: toggle tab titles

(Note: these work on Windows, but some of them may be unavailable on other platforms).

If you choose to use AMO as the homepage, note than it will still open some links in the browser tabs. This is true for insecure links and links outside of http://addons.mozilla.org 3-rd level domain.

[MarikaR]

Hi,

thanks a lot for your hard work with this add-on. I really appreciate the flexibility it gives for viewing my many installed add-ons, especially the ability to collapse the huge category tabs. However I have a slight problem with the latest version.

Ever since Firefox 4 I've had about:addons bookmarked for easy access to add-ons manager. With version 1.0b4 when I left clicked the bookmark the add-ons manager opened in a new window and if for some reason I wanted to open it in a tab I would middle click. With the 1.0 version add-ons manager opens in a tab even when left clicking and the only way to open in a new window is to use either the tools menu or the Firefox button.

Is this intended behavior or is there some setting that I'm missing? If not could this be fixed in future versions.

I'm using a Finnish language version of Firefox 5 and have tested that the same thing occurs with a new profile.

[fred_gaou]

Config test:

- Firefox 5.0 in windows xp pro sp3
- Add-ons manager dialog returns 1.0
- Firebug 1.7.3

reproduction test:

(Firefox must have a start web page)
Run firefox and wait. Firefox is now opened with one default tab containing a default start page. You didn't touch anything in firefox yet and however firefox takes 50% of the cpu and this will never down until either:

- you close the tab
- you browse another page in the tab

I had the very same issue in the past with a conflict between firebug et foxlingo. I had to delete foxlingo. It seems that firebug is allergic to some of its comrade.

Please could you try to isolate the problem and maybe see with them.

[avatar.ds]

MarikaR,

The original idea was to suppress any possibility of opening Manager in a tab in order to prevent any internal processes and addons to mess with the dialog as the only place where addons are managed. I actually thought I pretty much succeeded in the stated task so it is refreshing to know that middle-clicking a about:addons bookmarks actually was not intercepted until 1.0 - I never used a middle-click in Firefox so that possibility simply escaped me But the change you see was not intentional. I believe it may be a side effect of version's 1.0 fix 'Fixed a bug that could (rarely) prevent browser url bar from working correctly with this addon enabled.' I even don't know for sure what middle-clicking a bookmark does, though I guess it just forces it to open in a new tab... I'll need to play around with it to see how it works and what can be done to "restore" the opt-out choice of opening Manager in a tab with a middle-click. This sounds like a useful idea but I can't just revert the fix in 1.0 because it deals with a very ugly (if rarely encountered) issue.

Thanks for posting this.

[avatar.ds]

fred_gaou,

I'm not sure I am fully understanding your test conditions. What is the "default" start page? Is it the default "about:home" tab or is it the two first-run web pages that Firefox opens up when after instantiating a new profile? Also, if there's only a single tab in the window (and this appears to be what you are suggesting), it can't be closed, so I also cannot fully understand how you are resolving this issue.

I'm not seeing any problems or CPU utilization issues when running Firebug with this addon, but possibly I just can't reproduce some peculiar conditions that could bring a potential conflict to light, so I need a precise and unambiguous definition of the test case...

[fred_gaou]

Yes "about:home", yes the one last tab can't be closed on a normal firefox (not on mine but I forgot that point).

So I made a new test on a fresh profile and it appears that there is no problem, no conflict with the 2 add-ons that would hang on the CPU. But, I don't know why yet, but on my profile if these two add-ons are enabled, there's a problem with CPU for sure. Though, all the other add-ons were disabled during test so I don't know why my tab kept the ability to be closed.

I will investigate.

[avatar.ds]

fred_gaou,

Whether the close button is visible on the only single tab can be controlled with a standard browser preference named browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab. Although its main purpose is to control whether a browser window is to be destroyed when the last tab is closed, it also prevents the close button to appear on the last tab (so that the window can only be manually closed with its own dedicated close button). You probably used some addon to change this preference, and it's not automatically reset. You can check to see if this preference is changed from default state using about:config. If it is highlighted in bold and says 'false' then I would guess there's nothing to worry about (in connection with the CPU utilization problem, at least).

[avatar.ds]

(PS) I also just checked to see if changing that preference causes any troubles between Firebug and my addon, and didn't see any performance problem (same setup as yours: winxp/sp3 + ff5).

[avatar.ds]

MarikaR,

I think I misunderstood the problem you described when giving my previous reply. The dialog does not open from a bookmark anymore, indeed. This is not intended, just an unfortunate omission due to the fix to the nasty bug that could render the url bar broken altogether. So the addon now only intercepts manually entered about:addons location and skips the address supplied programmatically by the bookmark. I will investigate how this issue can be resolved efficiently without a negative "ecological" impact on the rest of the browser. This may take some time so until it is fixed I can suggest several (admittedly, quite imperfect) workarounds like using an addon that installs a toolbar button for addons manager (Toolbar Buttons 1.0 comes to mind first, though it also installs am overwhelming amount of other buttons), or using keyboard (Ctrl-Shift-A). I can't really recommend switching back to v. 1.0b4 though, because internally it had a few rough edges that have been polished since.

[fred_gaou]

Hey guys, you know what, just pay attention to that.

So if you have firebug and [Add-ons manager dialog returns or foxlingo] enabled you may have a CPU hang on issue at firefox start if the fallowing condition is true.

I have 2'013 lines in my prefs.js because I have 74 installed add-ons. And there is only one line that you just have to pay attention to solve the problem. Yes, I found it among 2'013 lines. Which is it? Suspense...

Here is it:
user_pref("javascript.options.strict", true);

Just delete it or put it to false and the problem will vanish.

This line doesn't exist by default. I don't remember to have added it but maybe.

So if you're not a developer you don't need these lines too. Check if they're and delete it or put them in a user.js so you'll be easily able to disabled it when it's not needed for development purpose.

Code: Select all

user_pref("nglayout.debug.disable_xul_cache", true); // désactive le cache XUL
 user_pref("nglayout.debug.disable_xul_fastload", true); // lié au précédent, facultatif
 user_pref("javascript.options.strict", true); // active l'affichage de toutes les erreurs d'exécutions
 user_pref("javascript.options.showInConsole", true); // active l'affichage de toutes les erreurs de syntaxe
 user_pref("browser.dom.window.dump.enabled", true); // active le dump sur la console

cheers

[avatar.ds]

fred_gaou,

Good you found out how to solve this. This preference should *never* be enabled for casual browsing.

[MarikaR]

Hi avatar.ds,

thanks for your reply. You're right the problem I was asking about was the inability to open the add-ons manager in a new window through a bookmark.

I appreciate that you're willing to investigate the issue but it's not really a big problem, I just got so used to the bookmark before I found this extension that it seemed weird that the behavior suddenly changed after beta version. I'll be using the tools menu from now on, as it's only one click more or maybe I'll try to remember the keyboard shortcut.

[avatar.ds]

Add-ons Manager Dialog Returns 1.0 is now fully approved at addons.mozilla.org.

If you have an older version and the update does not get downloaded and installed automatically, you should update manually. This build is immensely improved compared to pre-release versions. For release notes, please see this post: viewtopic.php?p=11041337#p11041337.

[custom.firefox.lady]

On Firefox 12 Nightly, this add-on crashes Firefox almost immediately after the Add-ons Manager is opened. Tested in a new profile, with no other extensions installed. Since Add-ons now default to compatible, I thought I should report this.

[avatar.ds]

custom.firefox.lady:

You are right, compatibility with FF12 is severely broken and the browser will crash each time the AOM Dialog is launched.

Which means:

PLEASE DON'T ENABLE IN FIREFOX 12 UNTIL ADDON IS UPDATED!

Thanks for raising the issue here, I was unsure whether to report it myself since it's just a nightly still.

I have not figured why this happens yet but I hope it will be relatively easy to fix in an update.