Compatibility cross over and XUL

[chillfan]

Hey everyone,

I'm just wondering what kind of "cross over" there might be between pale moon compatible extensions and those for firefox or it's rebrands. I tried to use some of the extensions listed on the pale moon website, and they don't work in plain firefox. Is there a chance some of them do work in firefox?

Thinking about possibly trying to backup extensions somehow if the original developers aren't considering keeping them around. Any thoughts on that? I notice some extensions you can't just 'grab' the whole thing because it's in a web format where you get the option to download just one file at a time.

Thanks

[wost_]

I don't think Mozilla has abandoned XUL completely yet, so usually these extensions should work in Firefox. The thing is they are packaged with metadata containing only one target application which is Pale Moon (at least few extensions that I've checked). That's the reason they can't be even installed on Firefox when compatibility checking isn't deactivated. There might be also a problem with recent Mozilla's requirement that is extension signing because Pale Moon doesn't force this whole thing.

[chillfan]

I don't think Mozilla has abandoned XUL completely yet, so usually these extensions should work in Firefox. The thing is they are packaged with metadata containing only one target application which is Pale Moon (at least few extensions that I've checked). That's the reason they can't be even installed on Firefox when compatibility checking isn't deactivated. There might be also a problem with recent Mozilla's requirement that is extension signing because Pale Moon doesn't force this whole thing.

Thanks for the reply,

I'll have a try with the compatibility checker off, and see how that works out.

[chillfan]

What (firefox) versions of extensions are most likely to work in pale moon? just as a reference to what meta data should look like when converting

[wost_]

I've checked Firefox 43 and the first barrier is the extension signing case. To turn if off you have to open about:config and toggle entry xpinstall.signatures.required from true to false. Then it'll be possible to install unsigned extensions. If disabling compatibility check won't work you'll probably have to modify the metadata of the extension.

Example for Change Referer Button from Pale Moon Add-ons website. You have to download the .xpi file manually, open with some kind of .zip archiver, extract install.rdf file and open it with a text editor. Then just add target application info for Firefox under Pale Moon's entry:

Code: Select all

// some properties at the top

		<!-- Pale Moon -->
		<em:targetApplication>
			<Description>
				<em:id>{8de7fcbb-c55c-4fbe-bfc5-fc555c87dbc4}</em:id>
				<em:minVersion>25.0</em:minVersion>
				<em:maxVersion>30.*</em:maxVersion>
			</Description>
		</em:targetApplication>
		
		<!-- Firefox -->
		<em:targetApplication>
			<Description>
				<em:id>{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}</em:id>
				<em:minVersion>25.0</em:minVersion>
				<em:maxVersion>43.*</em:maxVersion>
			</Description>
		</em:targetApplication>
		
	</Description>
</RDF>

Save changes in the file and put it back into opened .xpi archive (confirm overwriting). You should be able to install this example extension also in the newest Firefox.

[chillfan]

Thanks, should be enough for me to experiment a little

[chillfan]

How would I get firefox to recognise an extension as being verified? I get an error about that when trying to use the above, am I maybe just missing something there?

Looking at Mozillas docs on this, packages can be signed with the 'jpm' tools but it doesn't look ideal and needs an account with them.

[LimboSlam]

How would I get firefox to recognise an extension as being verified? I get an error about that when trying to use the above, am I maybe just missing something there?

This might be what your looking for: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=14437205#p14437205 Though I think wost_ already mention half of this.

[chillfan]

How would I get firefox to recognise an extension as being verified? I get an error about that when trying to use the above, am I maybe just missing something there?

This might be what your looking for: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=14437205#p14437205 Though I think wost_ already mention half of this.

Thanks will check it out. I take it pale moon doesn't need the signing?

[Moonchild]

We don't do this distribution-platform-signing nonsense, which isn't really a guarantee for anything to begin with and just makes extensions a walled garden.
Pale Moon will check the signatures if present but definitely doesn't enforce any of that.

[chillfan]

We don't do this distribution-platform-signing nonsense, which isn't really a guarantee for anything to begin with and just makes extensions a walled garden.
Pale Moon will check the signatures if present but definitely doesn't enforce any of that.

Nice, it does seem a little much that mozilla wants only their own signed extensions being used.

Anyway cheers, think that about covers it for me