Getting Started With FireFox Extensions

Now two of my extensions are also available in FireFox – JIRA Issue Opener and URL With Parameter Opener.

Making extensions for FireFox is harder than making them for Chrome. Documentation and tutorials are tricky and the structure of files is more complicated. So writing hello-world extension for FF took me a long time.

But there is one thing, that is more convenient in FF than in Chrome – using properties/preferences/options. In Chrome you should create your own HTML page for that (in FF you can just list properties and they will appear in the standard addon's settings window). And for getting options in Chrome you should use asynchronous functions (which makes you to write ugly code) – in FF options are basically stored in array and it's really easy to get and set them.

I am not sure that I will convert my other extensions into FF (I made these two only because I personally know people who want to use them in FF), but it's really interesting to understand the difference between two browsers. I'd say, if you have free time converting extensions into FF (or vice versa) – it will be quite good time spending. And by "converting" I mean writing it from scratch – you know the functionality, you have some ready JavaScript functions (not all of them you can use), but you need to write whole thing again.

JIRA Issue Opener v1.1

New version of JIRA Issue Opener with better trimming system is available!

• Google Store
• Extension Page
• GitLab

In latest version

• All spaces in the beginning and in the end will be trimmed
• Skype formatting will be trimmed:
  [16.09.2014 13:34:34] Irina Ivanova: KEY-776
  will be recognized as KEY-776

JIRA Issue Opener v1.0

In our project we use JIRA. And sometimes someone in our team doesn't send link to issue, but sends only its key (I don't know why). So I wanted to somehow simplify JIRA issue opening process with its key.

I found 3 existing Chrome extensions that cat do that, but they had their own cons:

• JIRA assistant for Google Chrome
  First of all – it's too complicated. There is a lot of functionality that I don't need. For example, you need to insert not only URL of your JIRA, but also username and password (I don't want to save that info in extension). It also makes address bar in your browser into JIRA console after typing "jira " – I can't use searching because of that (when I want to google something about JIRA I start with "jira..."). And finally, there is no autofocus in field where I can insert key, so I need to do one extra click.
• SearchInJIRA
  Simple, nice (design is very similar to mine), but I didn't understand what king of URL you need to insert into Options. Some magic URL of the JIRA search – I don't know that one.
• GoToJIRA
  Again simple and nice. And again, problem with the URL. In the Options you need to insert URL/browse/KEY-OF-THE-PROJECT (and into extension field you need to insert only final number), which makes impossible to use extension, when you have many projects.

So I did one more extension which simply opens issue in new tab, using your key – JIRA Issue Opener.

You can read details about it on page JIRA Issue Opener v1.0 and find source code on GitLab.

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September 17, 2014 JIRA Issue Opener v1.1