Talk:Thunderbird/Add-ons Guide 63

(Please place your question in a separate section, with a relevant heading.)

Removing install.rdf?

Question: "To use this overlay loader... extensions must replace install.rdf file with a ... manifest.json". <- isn't it enough to just add a manifest.json file? Or do I actually need to remove the install.rdf to prevent Thunderbird from mishandling my extension?

Answer:

Name confusion

Suggestion: It seems to me that it would be good to make clear somehow that bootstrapped and restartless are the same things - especially as we talk about overlay legacy addons and bootstrapped legacy addons.

Question: AddonManager.getAddonByID(...) used to be called asynchronously, it seems to not be called anymore?

Answer: It is returning a promise now.

A sample extension?

This sounds good. I'd like to create a WebExtensions addon... but I read this page and it said that a manifest.json file is all that's required. I tried that, did a VERY basic manifest.json and zipped it and tried loading it in TB and was told it looked corrupted!

Suggestion: Could someone create a sample web extension, something like https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Your_first_WebExtension ? Thanks! There are a number of helpful extensions here : https://github.com/thundernest/sample-extensions/tree/master/addressBooks Also if you donwload the extension: Owl for exchange - you need to have a beta version of TB, you'll have a good example of many things.

Need to "create" APIs

Question: Can I write an addon and use the API that are already there... or do I have to create everything?

Answer: You can use the API at https://thunderbird-webextensions.readthedocs.io/en/latest/. That page also provides a link to a document on Web Extensions Experiment with good explanations of details. Under the Address book API there is an example addon.

stringbundle removal and nsIStringBundleService

Question: Thunderbird 63 - does removing XUL stringbundleset/stringbundle, also effect nsIStringBundleService?
Or can this still be used - e.g.:

 let sb = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/intl/stringbundle;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIStringBundleService);

Answer: nsIStringBundleService goes away as well. You need to use

 Services.strings.createBundle(...)

as suggested on the page.

adding a listener via tabs vs via windows

Question: When I try

 browser.tabs.onCreated.addListener(newTab);

that works, and runs newTab. but if I try

 browser.windows.onCreated.addListener(newWindow);

this doesn't work, although these events look exactly the same. What is the difference?

Answer: the windows API is different from the tabs API and so this doesn't work. You can add a listener to a new window with a WebExtensions Experiments addon.