"Go parent folder" firefox add-on.

[JohnLukeBentley]

Hi @alice0775. Your very handy "Go parent folder" add-on no longer works in Firefox 57, due to the new WebExtentions architecture.

Does userChrome.js include functionality from your "Go parent folder" firefox add-on (I'm unclear what userChrome.js does in general)? Do you have any plans to update the "Go parent folder" add-on for Firefox 57 and above?

[shangles]

Show Parent Folder is an extension for Firefox that I heavily relied on. I do hope you can make this work for Firefox 57!

[aaFn]

Hello @alice0775, your "Sidebar bookmark search plus" XUL extension (and its accompanying "Show parent folder" and "Go parent folder" ones) was so much missing to me in the new world of restricted Firefox Web extensions, that I created a Web extension follow up for it. I hope you don't mind,

I called it "Bookmark search plus 2" in reference and in continuation to yours = https://github.com/aaFn/Bookmark-search-plus-2 If this creates a problem, let me know.

(posting here as you do not seem to be active anymore on AMO)

[JohnLukeBentley]

@aaFn, @alice0775 doesn't appear to be active here either. So I think it is good of you to take over these sorts of projects.

Could you tell me why your "Bookmark search plus 2" asks for permission to:

• "Access your data for all websites".
• "Access browsing history".

?

Can you remove these permissions with losing functionality?

I'm otherwise keen to install "Bookmark search plus 2" and see what it does.

[NicolasWeb]

@aaFn Thank you for doing that ! I posted an issue on your guithub account about go-aprent-folder only as a WebExtension and/or a Firefox feature : https://github.com/aaFn/Bookmark-search-plus-2/issues/1

[aaFn]

@JohnLukeBentley, I guess we should have that discussion on the "Bookmark search plus 2" repository for others to benefit, however, here are the answers :-)

• "Access your data for all websites" -> Mozilla / Firefox in their Web extension API's kindness didn't give us access to the sqlite DB of favicons .. so to retrieve the favicons, there is only one way )= go and fetch them directly from the sites. I know that some add-on devs are using things like www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain_url= for that, but as I wrote on the add-on description page, I do not want to do that as I see that this is leaking info to google, and anyway I do not see why we should depend on google for that. Therefore, I wrote a quick parser of my own, not really semantic, to retrieve from the bookmarked HTML pages the favicon info, and then to fetch the favicon itself and store it in URI base64 encoded form inside local storage. The only way to do that is to request the "all_url" permission.

EDIT: I realize that maybe this "Access your data for all websites" cryptic message is related to the "tabs" permission in fact .. if so, this the same kind of reason anyway = the extension needs the tabs permission to be able to retrieve the favicon URL directly from tab browsing, without having to refetch and reparse the HTML on its own .. exactly like the normal Bookmars sidebar is doing .. whenever you access a site, it immediately updates the favicon in bookmarks (in case it changed since it was last stored).

• "Access browsing history" -> This is again linked to restrictions of Web Extensions = there is no way to open Modal Dialogs in Web Extensions. However, I need that to provide people with a way to edit bookmarks title / url on keyboard ... and to stick to as close as possible to the original design of the add-on, or even to the normal Bookmarks sidebar behavior. Then the only way is to open a web page which more or less looks like a dialog (but is not modal), using an HTML/CSS/js page in my extension = popup.html, popup.css and popup.js. Well, guess what ? This is polluting the browsing History by adding then links to moz-extension ... popup.html each time we click on Properties of a bookmark :-( Then I need to request history access to cleanup the record as soon as it is created, so as to keep history clean ... and I didn't invent it, I got it from the excellent Mozilla site https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/user_interface/Extension_pages :-)

Hope that clarifies. And if you try the add-on, I will welcome any feedback (maybe a little slow as I am business traveling ..)

[JohnLukeBentley]

@aaFn thanks very much for that.

Taking you at your word and given your explanation, it is easy to see how the permissions design (by mozilla) is forcing you to use some spookily broad permissions (or at least spookily broad sounding).

I have installed Bookmark Search plus 2. In summary you've done great job reproducing the old functionality of Go Parent Folder ... with the added bonus that you also search folders!

@NicolasWeb I think identifies two important issues in "Go parent folder" feature only as a WebExtension/Firefox core feature #1 ... so I'll continue in that thread.

[giorgiogio48]

goParetFolder addon no more needed. There's a workaround. See here

[aaFn]

Hello @giorgiogio48 , interesting thanks much. In which vesion of Firefox do you see that ? It is not on my FF version 65.

[giorgiogio48]

Thanks for congratulations. I am surprised by your question. You don't see bookmarks library? Anyway, I am using Waterfox, a browser Firefox derived. With Waterfox I am having no safety problems or other

[aaFn]

I see the bookmarks library in Firefox, but not the columns that you mention. So it would look like a Waterfox specific then ?

I got a quick look at it, it seems Waterfox branched out of Firefox some time ago and maintained then the support for old XUL and other extensions (XPCOM), which is not the case of Firefox Quantum+, from what I read here -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfox

In terms of safety, this may be arguable then .. the new add-on system in Firefox is quite limiting, but I do have to recognize it is safer than the past system. If one does not use add-ons / extensions in Waterfox, I guess this is not a problem though.

Anyway, thank you for the info, this is useful to know.