Translation extension?

[djgpp]

A quick search with the term "translate" give nothing on Pale Moon's extension site. I need an extension similar to Google Translate on Chromium. Please help me. Thanks.

[moonbat]

A quick search with the term "translate" give nothing on Pale Moon's extension site

And of course you didn't search the forum because how could anyone else have possibly asked about a translation extension?

[palem]

IMHO question @djgpp is reasonable, because in fact today the only translations plugins come from old FF.
However, the question fell in this thread, not in another where Tobin asked not to write about the service or jetpack extensions, so @djgpp did not break any rules.

And by the way, without jetpack the service type extensions PM will look poorly compared to other browsers.

In my opinion, it would be necessary to restore the time when PM enjoyed the greatest interest, because it supported all FF plugins and the PM team added him the functionality doing it better than FF.

Waterfox has already followed this route, creating Waterfox G3 (which uses WebExtensions).

So maybe it's time to change the direction in PM?

[moonbat]

So maybe it's time to change the direction in PM?

You're under the impression that PM is on some quest to capture marketshare from other browsers and become popular. It isn't, and there is no pressure to conform to the simple minded preferences of the Chrome and Web extensions crowd, given that web extensions are heavily castrated compared to existing XUL extension technology, and are little more than hyped up Greasemonkey scripts. You can get the same functionality with Greasemonkey or Guerilla scripting installed and write your own custom scripts to change the look of a site, or adapt a web extensions one, assuming you don't back out with the excuse of not being a programmer, because several non programmers have stepped up and ported or created original extensions already.

My earlier comment was in response to the fact that several people have asked about translation extensions and there are tweaked working versions available of S3 Google Translator.

[jobbautista9]

Also, palem, please stop your forum shopping. This is not a grocery store.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Well I guess in addition to not being a programmer palem will now signal how they aren't a lawyer either.

There seems to be no start to their talents.

[palem]

Tobin, you're 50% wrong in your guessing when it comes to my person. But.. You have the right. No problem.

What worries me deeply is the direction in which the PM is heading - my main browser for the last few years.

Unfortunately, the PM does not work properly on more and more sites (sometimes the developers of the site are to blame, but increasingly Goanna, based on already outdated solutions and not keeping up with the latest trends, despite the great efforts of Moonchild and the PM Team).

And then there is the outdated XUL technology, introduced by FF about 15 years ago as a standard.
However, when FF, for legitimate reasons, moved away from this technology and most developers did likewise, sticking to XUL in PM led to current problems with extensions in PM (small amount of extensions and lack of many functionalities).
If now PM users will not be able to use the old FF extensions (and in the absence of their own PM extensions), then the functionality of PM will fall very much, which certainly won't be good for PM.

Therefore, the best solution I see for PM is a return to the former state (as it was few years ago) when PM was fully compatible with FF (both in terms of engine and extensions) and the PM team gave the browser additional functionalities (as it is currently the case in Waterfox G3 or Librewolf).

[Moonchild]

Goanna, based on already outdated solutions and not keeping up with the latest trends, despite the great efforts of Moonchild and the PM Team

The problem is not that Goanna is based on "outdated solutions", and in fact, Goanna is a general-purpose layout and rendering engine that is extremely powerful and versatile (thanks to the flexibility and power of XUL, which is, in fact, about as "outdated" as any other XML-based language which is still used and extended every day).

Mozilla moving away from XUL (which was not "introduced by Firefox" at all, look up your history before you make statements presented as fact) had nothing to do with objective technological reasons, no matter how they would like to dress it up as such.

There are also no "current problems with extensions in PM" -- in fact if you have paid attention in the past week or two you will have seen how easy people who had no experience prior with extension technology made extensions natively compatible with Pale Moon. If you think there aren't enough native Pale Moon extensions then by all means, step up.
Sure, there will be people who will leave Pale Moon when we finally do away with this extension crutch. No doubt about it. Will it be a majority? I don't think so. I'm also not going to repeat why it is absolutely necessary to move forward, and there is no way UXP or Goanna can be developed further by "turning back the clock". If you want a Google-clone rebuild based on current Firefox, then you are in the wrong area here.

So, you can stop repeating the same half truths and opinions in the hope that someone will believe it if you repeat it enough. It's not going to work.
If you feel Pale Moon is failing for your use, then by all means, move on to the Librewolf rebuild or adcompany-backed Waterfox, and let us continue our work in peace.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

This was always the path that Pale Moon was going to take the moment the decision was made to change the GUID and do Pale Moon 25. A choice made in 2014 years before you joined this forum.

The question then was to jump to ESR 31 or stay on our advanced codebase that went beyond what it was after a year of solid development. Either would have been attainable then but if it wasn't for the then new generational garbage collector that resulted in ESR 31's unsuitability we would have proceeded with the vNext project I pioneered.

Of course, that research would later prove essentual in not just Tycho (27) but again for UXP. I also made a promise back then that come hell or high water I would help anyway I can NOT JUST to ensure Pale Moon STAYED Pale Moon but to endure any obsticals and try to overcome them any way I could.

I have done so time and again. That is not to say it couldn't have happed without me or someone else couldn't have done everything I have.. That we all have since that choice was made. They sure could and in a lot of areas actually did but I was the person who helped crystalize the path. To help us as a group to define it and give that push that allowed others to focus on and accomplish it just that little bit easier.

We would not be here without everyone that did all the things we did and certainly not have endured the cost of those pseudo-stagnent benefits that have held us back since Tycho's birth to at almost any cost to try and keep unmaintained or older versions of Firefox extensions that went Australis and later WebExtensions from busting en mass because louder voices than your's with stronger but just as flawed arguments that for a time also ACTUALLY DID CONTRIBUTE IN OTHER AREAS made. Even I bought into or perhaps merely acceeded to that for a limited time.

However, you palem, you and your JustOffian manipulative bullshit mimicing all our enemies from Mozillazine to Muttway to KaiRo to sun-glasses to AUR to BSD to reddit does not strengthen your point of view but weakens it. Considering us old and insecure Firefox and degreading all of us and all we accomplished and all you claim you want to benefit from by your dismissal and condemnation of the very technology that MAKES ALL THIS possible.

If Pale Moon was not a XUL application if it was pure cpp or pure java or pure anything else we would very likely not have anything remotely like what you pretend to cherish let alone something that we could maintain as PURE Pale Moon. The classical (lowercase-m) mozilla technologies that non-jetpack extensions use is the same technology Pale Moon, the application, uses. It went up the line twenty-eight Mozilla-reletive release codebases in two very large jumps and it DID bust.. Badly. Both times it was fixed and changed pretty substantually from its comparitively minorly modified incarnation that started with Firefox 24. Still it remains essentually Pale Moon and LIKE the application did it is now time that the majority of Firefox Extensions that users use do the same.

We have reached the limits of not doing that and have gone well beyond every messure of reasonable lifespan of them and they must evolve along with us going forward. If I can single handedly get Pale Moon building with 10-25 percent of it basically inoperable but running on a platform codebase that wasn't designed for it or developed along with it TWICE and then a small handful of us get it fully operational AND maintain that platform codebase then ANYONE with a spark of intelligence and a vague willingness to learn and pick up minor skills along the way can fork an otherwise functional extension or 12 and make them live well into the future.

Doing so can also help Pale Moon's core development because the technology is the same and promotes a natural progression from extensions and themes to the application its self. You expand your capabilities the more you learn and thus your potential to contribute. So in effect you can help us help you help us all.

But you won't will you, palem? You will never contribute anything of substance to help anyone. That is all too clear.

You want victory here? One over me? The only way to achieve it is to prove me wrong on that final point. Do it. I dare you.

Heh, you won't.

[djgpp]

I know I will not contribute anything to PM so I have no voice to you at all. I'm going to quit, though. You guys have the attitude of the world is against you. It's a bit paranoid but it's a needed mindset for a project like yours, which is against the world. I have spent days reading many extensions' code, from NoSquint to some of moonbat's extensions and my conclusion is Chromium's extension is way more clear, simple and elegant than yours. Reading a random extension of Chromium on github I could understand it well. But it's not the case with PM's extension. Your JavaScript coding style is a mess and your extension is full of boilerplate code. It's too complicated so I understand why Mozilla invented Jetpack which you are against. Don't tell me it's a easy to fork a Firefox extension for PM. You are not actually doing anything other than replace the ID to fit with PM. It's far from coding something from scratch. You just take people's code and hack it, it's all. Developing extension for PM is a painful task that should be assisted by automated tools to help the developer create the skeleton code and to test the code on the fly. None of this is available now. I know it's on your list albeit low priority since you barely able to keep up the UXP platform with the ever changing Web technology world. I don't blame you. I found UXP is not suitable for my job and I choose Electron and CEF technology. Bye.

[Moonchild]

We're not against the world (that mere notion is actually quite ridiculous), nor are we paranoid.
But you are entitled to your opinion, of course.

Good luck with whatever alternative you end up with.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

There are few accusations I want to address from our "you can only code javascript with a [high level and complex] integrated development environment" fellow.

First off the Add-ons SDK's deficiencies are well documented but I will quickly summerize that as an abstraction layer they do not teach you how anything unerlying works.. Like many frameworks you only ever get to learn to code to the API.

Though I will give it this one point. Though it is not standard within the scope of a proper jetpack extension.. If you were determined enough you could smash your way through the abstraction limitations and in a very disjointed way get your code to do nearly anything a toolkit extension does. Of course this was almost never done and the result of working around jetpack's design limitations did negate any of the easy-to-code advantages otherwise promised by the technology.

Google Chrome Extensions/WebExtensions are, as most know, are incapable of bypassing any design limitations as doing so would (in their mind if not in fact) constitute a security or permissions issue. This is especially true for the kinds of extensions that so many ex-Firefox users want. Extensions that add and change fuctionality of the application its self.

Sure all extension types can modify web content (with a few exceptions/reatrictions) and provide service tie-ins but I think if Jetpack's API did not have the functions to do moderately advanced UI modifications and were restricted to just a button-with-a-panel or in-content html pages like WebExtensions that the technology would have not had the lure it temped many with and would not have been accepted by those in that era especially if it was forced upon everyone as the ONLY way to do things.

Secondly, and this is an avenue rarely taken because it is ludicrously flawed as a means to try and detract from us. I did not anticipate being used here and for that.. Thank you for that rare gift. Nevertheless, the position that any of us have ever done is just take (steal?) other people's code and hack on it is actually a bad thing is patently ridiculous even if it was totally true. As open source developers forks in whole or reuse in part is at the core of what we do. In the scheme and responsibility of continuing these wonderful and powerful classical netscape and (lowercase-m) mozilla technologies it is even more so.

Why destroy what is the lifeblood of what we collectively are trying to accomplish? Why should anyone with a Firefox extension be forced to throw away the work that was lovingly put into it. That is a question Mozilla should have asked in 2017. By the same token why should would-be Pale Moon extension developers have to start from scratch to start exploring the wonderful world that was created for us that despite serious efforts otherwise that simply won't just go quietly into the night?

There is no justification at all. It makes no sense. There are thousands of extensions in JustOff's Classic Add-ons Purgatory waiting to be saved. We know not all of them will be but just because someone does save some doesn't in any way mean they are lesser than a brand new extension never before seen. Of which there are some. Even if an extension isn't forked it could contain a lost secret a key to do something wonderful. Humans tend to start learning best by example and there are over 19 thousand examples to learn from. That sure wasn't the case when all this started. Back then there were no extensions of any kind for a web client. What a wonderful foundation we have to build from some 20 years later. New or reborn does the distinction matter? I think not.

You cite the so called boilerplate or sloppy code of some to accomplish what they have. Tell me.. With your IDE and AI machine learning code generation.. Do you think you could accomplish something like TabMixPlus? Or maybe DownThemAll or how about SQLite Manager maybe FireFTP? Hmm? Can you do those with a chrome extension? Well DownThemAll did but it has serious restrictions that forced it to drop features and change how it was accomplished to be lesser than its original XUL self.

I seriously hope you don't get too overwhelmed with your chrome extension limitations or the webapp focus of CEF. Maybe you can get your IDE and codegen to provide you some passion and soulfulness as well.

As for us, we love what we have even when we come up against some difficulty now and again and given what we are quite lucky to have inherited vs the souless and oppressive dark offerings of the Googlesphere.. I think we are better off.

[vannilla]

For reference, an automated tool to generate an extension skeleton does exist: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=22297&p=169158&hil ... nv#p168824

It's somewhat outdated now but it works as intended.

[moonbat]

There's Developer Assistant on CAA that offers a whole set of tools for XUL extension development. It works fine in my development profile and after unsuccessfully trying to get the original author to publish it here, I'm going to fork it next so that it becomes easier to develop extensions (one major feature it has is not having to restart the browser to test overlay changes) for everyone. Stay tuned.

Don't tell me it's a easy to fork a Firefox extension for PM. You are not actually doing anything other than replace the ID to fit with PM. It's far from coding something from scratch

Oh, on the contrary, of the half dozen extensions I have published here, PMPlayer, PermissionsPlus, RecordRewind and TextFX are brand new, original extensions I wrote from scratch and not forked from anywhere else. Go enjoy the heavily truncated web extensions on Chrome that let you do little more than modify web pages if that's your thing. What you dismiss as complex or boilerplate are used to create powerful extensions that actually integrate with the browser and that are impossible to do with Chrome and modern day Firefox.

[djgpp]

There's Developer Assistant on CAA that offers a whole set of tools for XUL extension development. It works fine in my development profile and after unsuccessfully trying to get the original author to publish it here, I'm going to fork it next so that it becomes easier to develop extensions (one major feature it has is not having to restart the browser to test overlay changes) for everyone. Stay tuned.

I will look forward to your folk. I want the ability to preview XUL too much. If it's WYSIWYG it's the best! Thank you for your passionate. I still choose Electron and CEF over UXP but who know if I could help contributing something, perhaps an extension? I still use UXP based browser (currently Basilisk, but will be Borealis when it's released) so I will continue to be on this forum.

[moonbat]

I've forked it, the support thread is here.

[lczlcz]

I was looking for a translator extension too under PM.
Then guess someone's post reminds me that I can check whether there is any script that can bring google translator back to PM.
I found several under greasy fork and they are working well now.

One of them is this: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/36962 ... lation-bar

Still testing other scripts now.