Firefox.next : a new extensions manager

The next major version of Firefox will benefit from a new extensions manager.

The future Firefox release continues to be unveiled little by little. A nightly release of Firefox 3.7, sometimes referred to as Firefox.next although the end result will be Firefox 4.0, has brought with it a new extensions manager. This is a project which Mozilla has been thinking about for a long time.

At this time, the extensions manager is a little bit hidden. To access it, you have to go into the Tools menu so that you can open a window in which the users are able to manage their extensions, themes and plug-in’s. The new manager will open directly on a tab in Firefox, while also adding additional functions through search engine management. It appears that this manager will allow the user to manger all add-on’s in Firefox.

The interface will be made easier so as to improve the user experience. The new manager will use JavaScript and a side bar which will provide access to content displayed in the manager. The way that this manager will be integrated into Firefox hasn’t yet been clearly defined, but it will allow for the user to know how many system resources each extension uses.

For the developers at Mozilla, a very important aspect is the user interface, with all elements of the machine being reviewed so as to make future improvements easier to implement. It is also likely that this work is in preparation for the Jetpack project, with this surely being to build a strong base on which these other projects can then be built.

Jetpack has the aim of providing future Firefox extensions with a profile so that they can also be designed and managed by Google Chrome. With Jetpack, the Firefox extensions are developed in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These can be installed without the browser being restarted, while also resolving problems with extensions that are incompatible when changing the version of Firefox. The Jetpack technology should be integrated into Firefox 4.0.

At this time the new the new Firefox extensions module still contains a number of bugs, with nothing being finalised (appearance, call method). A preliminary version has been integrated into the Firefox 3.7 nightly build pre-alpha 5, with it being possible to test the function by entering about:addons into the address bar.

While we were running our own tests on this function, it appears that the manager has been removed from the latest nightly version released on the 2nd of May. Updates to nightly versions are relatively frequent though, so it possible this will return in the near future.