Dec

Firefox Add-ons and Useful sites for creating Add-ons

Arpi

First of all we understand what is the meaning of Firefox add-ons and use of them.

Firefox Add-ons is a very popular feature to the firefox browser. It allows a user to change the behavior of the browser, often in the form of extra toolbars, context menus, themes or UI to customize the browser.

Add-ons is an installable file having an .XPI (Cross-Platform Installer Module) extension. Many of us are aware and use many of the well know extensions. To name a few, we have Web Developer, Error Console, Firebug, Facebook Toolbar, Alexa Toolbar and many more.

Types of Add-ons:

Extensions

Extensions modify the way Firefox works.

Appearance(Theme)

Themes modify the Graphic User Interface – the appearance of the browser window.

Plug-in

A plugin is used to incorporate third-party programs (media players, PDF readers, etc) into the program session.Plugins are the “links” to external programs that handle files that Firefox doesn’t, like audio and video such as Flash or Java, or document platforms such as PDF files.

Some of the plugins that we use or at least we know- Realplayer Plugin, QuickTime Plug-in 7.5.5

Uses:

Adding New Features to browser
Modify How User Views The Web Browser using Themes

Benefits of using Toolbar:

Immediate Access
Self-explanatory
Recognizable and distinguishable

This all are basics for the Firefox Add-ons.

Extension and Add-ons both can be used interchangeably.Some times they also refered as Plugin eventhough all of them stands for some different functionality.

Now some useful sites for creating Firefox Add-ons,

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL_School

This is the main site that one can use for creating the Extension.This site contain all the needed detail about creating Extension.

http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/toolbar-tutorial/

When i had created my first Extension i have searched a lot for just understanding the file structure used for creating the Extension. I found this site and i really like the way they have presented the content.It had help me a lot in the starting Phase when i just have the knowledge about Firefox Extension and nothing more than this.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/applications/basicintrofirefoxaddon.aspx

This is the first site that i have used when i have started to develop my small extension.

http://devilsworkshop.org/shortest-tutorial-for-firefox-extensiontoolbar-development/

Very short and sweet guide for creating Firefox extension.

http://www.ar-ent.net/dar/arlib32/out/html/man/xul/index.html

This site is not very attractive but it contain very useful information for the developer of Firefox extension.It contains each and every feacher that one can include as the Firefox extension.We can add as many feacher as we want using this site’s contains.Its realy very useful site.

Arpi

hiii friends… i am doing msc in computer application and information technology. we are here to share our knowledge and idea on shareprogrammingtips.com.