The Extension Manager has been extended repeatedly to add new features. There is now large scope for cleanups and improvements with refactoring the core code and APIs as well as integrating the other add-on types into a unified API that the frontend can use to display the UI.
- Project lead: Mossop
- Project members: Boriss, Unfocused
- Potential reviewers: sdwilsh, bsmedberg, robstrong
- QA contact: tchung, whimboo
Status
- IN FLIGHT
- Implementation in progress in a user repository
- Most functionality complete, need to integrate installs from webpages to the new backend, taking advice from platform and e10s teams
Goals
- Replace extensions.rdf with a sqlite based datastore
- Implement a new API for accessing all types of add-ons
- Implement a type of XPI extensions that can be installed without restarting
- Create a clean separation between the UI and the backend of the add-ons manager
- Lay the groundwork for supporting different types of install manifests in XPI extensions
- Lay the groundwork that will help us give startup performance improvements
- Reduce the number of unecessary EM restarts
Non-Goals
- Improve startup time
- Make current XPI extensions install without restarts
Timeline/Milestones
- 2009/10: [Complete] API Design complete and reviewed
- 2009/12: [Complete] Implementation usable enough for UI work to proceed
- 2010/03: Land on a project branch to monitor performance impact
- 2010/03: Test review with QA
- 2010/03: Preliminary security review
- 2010/03: Land on trunk with near feature parity
- 2010/04: Complete feature parity and additional metadata
- 2010/04: Final security review
Delivery Requirements
- Requires an add-on compatibility changing application version increment
- Requires messaging to add-on and application developers to explain how to switch to the new APIs
- Must be complete before the first beta of the target delivery vehicle
Dependencies
Testing
- Majority of tests will be xpcshell based with some mochichrome testing for ssl support.
- Existing add-ons manager unit tests will be replaced, ported or no longer applicable to the new API.
Related Projects
- Extension Manager:UI Update is the work to replace the frontend add-ons UI