Prepare for Liftoff Jetpack & the Future of Add-on Development

Genesis it's too hard to make and use add-ons... most potential developers don't know XUL Firefox updates can break add-ons installing add-ons requires restarting Firefox add-ons have full control over system, even though most don't need it

Goals simplify add-on development via high-level APIs that use common web technologies keep add-ons working across Firefox upgrades (a.k.a. Write Once, Run Everywhen!) make add-ons installable/removable without a restart limit add-on privileges to the set they actually use

Spring 2009: Experimental Prototype Firefox add-on a dozenish core APIs in-Firefox development via built-in web page add-ons as simple scripts install/remove without restarting Firefox (no privilege limiting)

Findings simple development/bundling model great, especially for casual developers restartlessness great for users bootstrapping into Firefox & compatibility across Firefox updates problematic no way to harness third-party APIs

Fall 2009: Reboot web application for casual developers SDK for professional developers w/existing toolchain traditional XPI bundles + APIs bundled with each add- on (akin to static linking) to solve bootstrapping problem CommonJS Modules implementation for code sharing via third-party libraries

Spring 2010: Debut initial preview release of web app to limited audience initial release of SDK project enters “incubation” phase (transition from Mozilla Labs experiment to production-level effort)

Today five releases of SDK high-level APIs (context-menu, localization, page- worker, private-browsing, request, selection, self, simple-storage, tabs, widget) restartless on Firefox 4 nightlies/beta unit testing harness & documentation tool second preview release of web app create add-ons and libraries instant testing via helper add-on

Demo!

What's Next? continue releases of SDK (0.6 this month, 0.7 in August, 0.8 in September), with goal to reach a beta quality release by the end of Q3 continue releases of web app (schedule TBD... minor update next week?) build out the web app team and figure out the roadmap for 2010 and beyond complete the “incubation” transition from a Mozilla Labs experiment to a product-grade effort (plans, processes, server infrastructure, communications channels, etc.) release SDK 1.0 by the end of the year!

SDK 1.0 a carefully selected set of APIs that satisfies the common use cases of many add-ons a sublime developer experience vastly superior to the traditional add-on development model a robust security infrastructure that restricts access to unnecessary privileges the execution of add-ons in separate processes for app performance and responsiveness a coherent plan and process for maintaining API compatibility across multiple Firefox releases

Try builder.mozillalabs.com Participate jetpack.mozillalabs.com Thanks!