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Add-on Builder 1.0 is Ready for Liftoff!

3 responses

After a year in incubation we’re ready to remove the beta tag from the Add-on Builder! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this fantastic tool, Add-on Builder is an online development environment that allows developers with knowledge of HTML, JavaScipt and CSS to rapidly create add-ons for Firefox using the Mozilla Add-on SDK. You can think of it as the jsFiddle of add-on development and debugging.

Add-on Builder leverages the Add-on SDK to produce add-ons that users can install without restarting Firefox. In addition, add-ons created with Add-on Builder are automatically repackaged with Add-on SDK updates – which ensures that Builder-based add-ons will continue to work for users without interruption, regardless of Firefox API changes.

Add-on Builder provides many features specifically tailored to help add-on authors develop add-ons:

  • a simple online interface for writing your code
  • live, one-click add-on testing
  • access to a repository of third-party add-on libraries
  • jsFiddle-like sharing and collaboration
  • instant upgrade options for new versions of the Add-on SDK
  • integrated features for publishing to addons.mozilla.org

If you haven’t yet developed an add-on for Firefox, we suggest you give the Add-on Builder a try. With a simple interface and many helpful tools, it truly is the quickest, easiest way to create add-ons for Firefox!

3 comments on “Add-on Builder 1.0 is Ready for Liftoff!”

  1. Bradley Rosenfeld wrote on

    This is great! I have been using the Addon Builder since it was first put online a while back (when it was called Flightdeck). It is a really useful tool for creating addons with the SDK.

  2. Nick Baggott wrote on

    A really fantastic utility which makes it so straightforward to develop add-ons.

    I am struggling with debugging my add-ons, though. I can do lots of console.log() to show where I am in the code and the properties of various objects but it would be so much easier if I could debug interactively – step through code, examine variables etc. Is it possible to do this? Am I just missing something obvious?

    1. Daniel wrote on

      Hey Nick,

      We’re spec’ing out that exact feature (among others to help add-on developers) on the Mozilla Dev Tools team right now. It is probably a couple quarters away, but it is on the radar and being actively planned.