[0427] Are you forking Firefox Extensions? Because time is almost up!

[Ziko577]

I haven't yet updated Pale Moon, but I use LastPass 3.3.4 and I'm assuming it will stop working. Is there a compatible version?

Vendor- and service-specific extensions will have to be updated by the vendor or service provider to target Pale Moon if they aren't yet.
If your extension in 29.1 is currently giving a warning with it, then it will no longer be compatible with 29.2 -- and in that case you should contact LastPass.

I emailed them just a sec ago and told them about this very matter. Currently, there's nothing like this extension which gives so much to me and my family and I hope they will address this somehow.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

They won't. You simply chose incorrectly in their eyes. You must only use what they approve of else using your centrally managed password store is at risk as it belongs to them now.

Why someone would be dup'd into giving a profit-making company all their credentials I will never understand. Especially in this day and age when one wrong opinion can get you blackballed from a whole string of seemingly unrelated but actually colluding web services.

[Moonchild]

Has there been a Pale Moon-targeted Flash extension yet? I'm also new to the forums, and I've converted my entire ESL Institute to use Pale Moon for the Flash capabilities.

Flash is a plugin, not an extension. Flash support has not been affected at all by this; you should be able to continue using it as normal.

[michawen]

They won't. You simply chose incorrectly in their eyes. You must only use what they approve of ...

Is it just me or sounds this a bit similar to the decision that Pale Moon no longer supports extensions that are not targeting Pale Moon directly?

I'm using Pale Moon for at least 5 years because it gave me as an experienced user more flexibility and possibilities how to use it (unlike Firefox or Chrome for example). No nanny-like guidelines, which settings you should better not be able to make at all or only in a cumbersome way. Or that self-operated sync servers could overwhelm you and therefore they are no longer an option.

But only up to version 29.2.0!

I read all the posts that the legacy support would only be a temporary solution and it must end eventually. Of course there are many extensions that are no longer maintained. For which there is no alternative at Pale Moon Addons.
I am not a developer and I have neither the time nor the leisure to fork the extensions I like to use a lot, even if I am able to roughly understand the code of most of the extensions I use. Adapting the install.rdf was not a challenge for me but it made me wonder why it had to be done in the first place.

Sure, you can blame the developers of the extensions for that.

But in many posts from the Pale Moon development team, the blame is passed on to the users because they either don't use the existing Pale Moon extensions or don't show enough initiative to fork the extension, even though they are so important to them.

It is amazing how much energy the Pale Moon development team puts into the project. That's why I've been supporting the project financially for some time now.

But due to the fact that you guys took a wrong turn with the addons and especially with the handling of the users' needs, I will end the support for now.

[Moonchild]

You don't seem to get the issue. It's the inverse from what you assert.

We aren't blaming users; users like yourself are blaming us, however, which is totally misplaced. We are telling users they need to step up if they want to continue using the extensions that their original authors have abandoned. There is no blame seeking from our end, just relaying of facts.

If you are "blame seeking" (in other words wanting have the question answered who is responsible) then at the most shallow level you can hold us responsible for making change (any change, in the broadest sense of the word) but that isn't very realistic, is it? The web isn't unchanging; the browser needs to change and so do the extensions as a result, as they are extending a changing browser. Extension maintenance is a thing, and always has been.
Now, you can demand and/or expect that we do everything we can to remain compatible with Firefox extensions forever, but that is rather silly, don't you think? We've done a lot of work for years to that effect but it's just not possible. Extensions extend the browser, not the other way around -- any question of compatibility will therefore fall squarely on the extensions themselves and whomever is maintaining them. If that is "nobody", then the extensions are what they are, and properly labeled as "abandoned". Is it suddenly our responsibility to be accountable for every abandoned extension out there?...

So looking a little deeper the original extension authors are then responsible because they didn't make Pale Moon compatible versions or chose to wholesale abandon them. But are they really? Can you expect from volunteer users (not so different from yourself) that they target anything other than the browser they originally created it for? Certainly not. Some will, but the majority won't.

Bottom line is: who is responsible for inaction in this case? Who is responsible for not doing what is needed while all the signs were there for a long time?

That leaves just the users who have this demand of the impossible (since we can't very well fork 19 thousand extensions ourselves, that were all created by users like yourself) and need to step up to take care of their little part of the ecosystem, but would rather go on a trip of blame seeking for the most shallow and unrealistic view of what is going on (see above).
So you can imagine that if we are blamed for this, that we respond with "you yourself need to step up for having these extensions available and maintained". We're not blaming any of the users for global change since that is just silly, but the reality is that if nobody does the work, the extensions are simply not going to be there.
You can't reasonably ask for something we can't realistically provide.

[fifonik]

How is it that there are NO extensions for Pale Moon going forward to enable Mouse Gestures?!?!

I'm in the same boat. Cannot use browser with no gestures.
I do not believe PaleMoon devs do the same as Mozilla did (I understand that it might be technical reasons for that that). Looks like it is time to switch to vivaldi. Sad.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

If you are that quick to abandon us over non-standard functionality that was provided by an extension written for another application years ago.. functionality that is so niche that no one has taken up the responsibility YET to continue providing then what motivation do you expect us or currently active extension developers and those looking to start such a journey to have to cator to yourselves and your personal whims, eh?

IF THIS IS SO CRITICAL TO HAVE why don't you help secure a place for you and any fellows that popup wanting this by taking up the burdon of providing it?

If this extension were to have busted naturally would you still be so quick to jump ship? Would anyone have considered forking it then?

You guys come about and make broad and incorrect assumptions and generalizations about our motives and character.. some of the most vile implications imaginable in the slim hope you get your way but you fail to understand that we all control our own destiny and what we make or don't make of it shapes the future.

I can tell you this: I am not personally motivated to go to any special effort for anyone who in all likelyhood would just find something else as nitpicky or minor to abandon us over anyway.

[Moonchild]

If you are that quick to abandon us over non-standard functionality

I guess in 2021, patience is no longer a virtue.

[jobbautista9]

I like how Pale Moon is getting compared to Mozilla here. Mozilla pushed a forced rewriting of perfectly working XUL code into WebExtensions. The 29.2.0 update doesn't force you to rewrite the whole fucking extension. In most cases, a simple change to the install.rdf should be enough.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Yeah, fork, adjust, share, stand by for any incremental changes that need to be made which we as a community will do our best to help a prospective developer in the course of legitimate and reasonable evolution of the Application and Platform. Maybe you can even make improvements to the extension as you learn. Solve old and longstanding bugs and quirks along the way.

What could be better? Ain't like we are asking for every single one to be rewritten like Mozilla did with restricted APIs that can't do 85% of what was possible before.

[Tharthan]

I am not a developer and I have neither the time nor the leisure to fork the extensions I like to use a lot, even if I am able to roughly understand the code of most of the extensions I use. Adapting the install.rdf was not a challenge for me but it made me wonder why it had to be done in the first place.

You do not have the time to fork extensions, but you do somehow have the time to make bad faith comparisons of the Pale Moon team to Mozilla.

Funny how time works, isn't it?

No time whatsoever to do something that inconveniences you, but plenty of time to badmouth a dedicated group of people who work very hard, because you are sore about not being able to use some other program's unmaintained add-ons with Pale Moon forever.

[Moonchild]

What upsets me more than anything about this whole thing is that I wrote about this in unmistakable terms in 2016 already.
See: "Extension compatibility and Pale Moon"
That post has been stickied in the extension board for 5 years. Many subsequent posts and announcements have been made since then.

Even if you don't "regularly visit the forum" or aren't keeping up with "the latest news" about software you use every day, there is really no excuse that can support the ignorance to the facts that has been claimed by several people (some of whom have come into the forum now, immediately, clearly knowing the forum exists and where to post... with tirades as first posts that have been denied for obvious reasons).

We've done everything we could to give people advance warning. We've been abundantly clear about our direction and our extension compatibility and lack of such compatibility with Firefox extensions over time. So there really is no reason whatsoever to come in stomping like a spoiled child that wants their precious extensions right now "or else".
You want to stop using Pale Moon over this? Sure, go ahead. Your browser, your choice. Just don't expect that you can leave a turd on our doorstep in the form of a flaming post on your way out hoping that someone else will step in it -- because that is really how petty it has become for some people.
Of course where we have no custodianship, those turds will remain forever *cough*reddit*cough* but at least over here we can keep things clean. So, be nice and keep it clean and focused -- and there won't be any need for wasting time on endless debates about something that is already done and won't change. Time much better spent on shaping the extensions we all want to have for the future.

[Mom-Kat]

Today I sent an email to the person who does Colorful Tabs. Despite the popularity of that particular extension, Firefox is not the least interested in doing anything to make it possible for the author to make the extension work in Quantum.

I just told them that here was a place where their extension could continue and live on, as opposed to being a wishful thinking nothing on Firefox (especially since it still works fine.)

Maybe they'll come over, maybe not, But at least I tried.

[Figueroa]

by Mom-Kat » 2021-04-29, 15:58
Today I sent an email to the person who does Colorful Tabs.

Have you looked at Color My Tabs?
https://addons.palemoon.org/addon/color-my-tabs/

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Btw, I dunno if you realized this.. but time is up.

[Mom-Kat]

by Mom-Kat » 2021-04-29, 15:58
Today I sent an email to the person who does Colorful Tabs.

Have you looked at Color My Tabs?
https://addons.palemoon.org/addon/color-my-tabs/

Not the same at all. Colorful tabs allow you to choose the color. Color my Tabs chooses color based on the Favicon, which in some cases is less that helpful.

Btw, I dunno if you realized this.. but time is up.

I'm sorry. I was under the impression that bringing a dev over here to make their extensions specifically for Pale Moon was OK. My bad.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

It is I mean for the reason this thread was created to do stuff BEFORE last Tuesday. Sorry for the confusion.

[MaxusR]

What I needed was the code

Code: Select all

gBrowser.reloadTab(gBrowser.selectedTab);

which I inserted in the existing microGestures extension and made it work as I want. Now the browser is usable again for me.
Thank you for the inspiration. Good luck.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

And how does this help ANYONE but yourself?

[Moonchild]

And how does this help ANYONE but yourself?

It doesn't.
But at least they posted here. More than others might do who would just take the solution and not tell anyone, period.