nohamelin
commented
7 years ago A whole different beast is how to manage future updates, due to the add-on supporting other applications besides Firefox.
If I submit to AMO a WE build as an update for the add-on, then AMO will not accept legacy builds as future updates, leaving me then with no way to push updates relevant to Thunderbird and SeaMonkey users (as these apps don't support WE yet, and maybe they never will). I still have to confirm if the blocking of AMO is done comparing version numbers or submission dates; in the former case I will can manage the updates around that fact successfully. In the latter case, I think that I simply will not push any WebExtensions update, and I will submit to AMO the WebExtensions build as a separated add-on, leaving to Firefox users with the task to do the change manually...
yfdyh000
This so-called legacy add-on it's not possible to install in Firefox 57 and later versions. Only WebExtensions add-ons are supported by Fx.
Until now, add-ons have been able to switch the user interface of Fx toggling the value of some about:config preferences. By design, WebExtensions add-ons aren't allowed to have arbitrary access to about:config flags (much less switch these), except some very specific cases.
An specific WebExtensions API around UI language is needed, but it's not available. I filled bug 1352884 asking for it: the request was accepted, at least.
All the UI integration with the Languages pane of the Add-ons Manager will be lost, as, upstream, it's being considered currently only for system add-ons. Also, this goes against some sort of upstream trend to not easily let to WE add-ons doing changes not clearly attributable to the add-on doing it. So, I would need to move all the UI to a new html-based pane attached to a toolbar button, or a full in-content page: the usual UI choices left to WE add-ons.
To figure the proper destination in the Mozilla archive servers for the "Get more Language Packs" command, I need enough information about the Firefox build being run, mainly: OS, application version number, application updates channel. Most of these are available via runtime.getBrowserInfo, except the latter: I filled bug 1386076 for it.
The "Manage Languages" command can't be implemented yet, due to the url parameter of
tabs.create()not accepting it being an privileged url. Waiting for bug 1269456.I guess that I can start forgetting to support some of the advanced preferences. Anyway, these probably aren't used by anyone (besides me).