What language(s) do I need to know to develop plugins/extensions for Firefox? Also, any useful tools (as far as IDE or SDKs)?
+3
A:
Plugins and extensions are two very different things. Plugins are like Java, Adobe Reader, etc. Extensions are the more common of the two and typically what you find on addons.mozilla.org.
mozdev.org has some good resources for creating extensions. You don't really need an IDE or SDK's as it is primarily JavaScript unless you want to implement something like XPCOM.
developer.mozilla.org is also a good resource.
ryan
2010-07-24 01:55:06
note for the curious: XPCOM is Firefox's basic interface with the OS (such as Windows).
Camilo Martin
2010-07-24 02:39:58
Uh, no, XPCOM is not Firefox's basic interface with the OS. It's technically "cross platform COM" and it's just a set of interfaces to do various things. Yes, some of that has to deal with the operating system, but the vast majority of it doesn't.
sdwilsh
2010-07-24 22:59:48
+3
A:
Firefox uses XUL, a anguage similar to HTML. If you know HTML, XUL will be easy to learn. In fact, Firefox is completely made in XUL.
Take a look at this link inside Firefox: chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
And basically an add-on is like a much more powerful web page (actually you can make an application based in XUL just like Firefox is... and use XULRunner to run it on any OS (and even from the web!), with all of Gecko's rendering power for free).
Links:
Camilo Martin
2010-07-24 02:33:18
A:
You would want to have an idea of how markup languages work. The development of extensions or add-ons is done in XUL and XPCOM (I am assuming you did not mean plugins, pardon me I am wrong and this answer then would be only half of what you want to know.)
This is a handy guide to developing add-ons from Mozilla's website.
Ashish
2010-07-24 02:46:07
+2
A:
HTML, XUL, Javascript, C (if you're forced to use XPCOM).
Pick your favorite editor.
jeffamaphone
2010-07-24 02:58:28