{"id":8086,"date":"2017-03-13T10:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T17:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/addons\/?p=8086"},"modified":"2017-03-16T09:04:49","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T16:04:49","slug":"webextensions-firefox-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/addons\/2017\/03\/13\/webextensions-firefox-54\/","title":{"rendered":"WebExtensions in Firefox 54"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firefox 54<\/a> landed in Developer Edition this week, so we have another update on WebExtensions<\/a> for you. In addition to new APIs to help more developers port over to WebExtensions, we also announced a new Office Hours Support<\/a> schedule where developers can get more personalized help with the transition.<\/p>\n

New APIs<\/h2>\n

A new API for creating sidebars was implemented<\/a>. This allows you to place a local HTML file inside the sidebar. The API is similar to the one in Opera. If you specify the sidebar_action<\/code> manifest key, Firefox will create a sidebar:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To allow keyboard commands<\/a> to be sent to the sidebar, a new _execute_sidebar_action<\/code> was added to the commands API which allows you trigger the showing of the sidebar.<\/p>\n

The ability to override the about:newtab<\/a> with pages inside your extension was added to the chrome_url_overrides<\/code> field in the manifest. Check out the example<\/a> that uses the topSites<\/a> API to show the top sites you visit .<\/p>\n

The privacy<\/a> API gives you the ability to flip certain Firefox preferences related to privacy. Although the preferences in Chrome and Firefox aren\u2019t a direct mapping, we\u2019ve mapped the Firefox preferences that makes sense to the APIs. Currently implemented are: networkPredictionEnabled<\/code>, webRTCIPHandlingPolicy<\/code> and hyperlinkAuditingEnabled<\/code>.<\/p>\n

The protocol_handler<\/a> API lets you easily map protocols to actions in your extension. For example: we use irccloud at Mozilla, so we can map ircs:\/\/<\/code> links to irccloud by adding this into an extension:<\/p>\n

  \"protocol_handlers\": [\r\n    {\r\n      \"protocol\": \"ircs\",\r\n      \"name\": \"IRC Mozilla Extension\",\r\n      \"uriTemplate\": \"https:\/\/irccloud.mozilla.com\/#!\/%s\"\r\n    }\r\n  ]\r\n<\/pre>\n
When a user clicks on an IRC link, it shows the application selector with the IRC Mozilla Extension visible:<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
This release also marks the landing of the first sets of devtools APIs<\/a>. Quite a few APIs landed including: inspectedWindow.reload()<\/code>, inspectedWindow.eval()<\/code>, inspectedWindow.tabId<\/code>, network.onNavigated<\/code>, and panels.create()<\/code>.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an example of the Redux DevTools extension running on Firefox:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
Backwards incompatible changes<\/h2>\n
The webRequest<\/code> API will now require that you’ve requested the appropriate hosts’ permissions<\/a> before allowing you to perform webRequest<\/code> operations on a URL. This will be a backwards-incompatible change for any extension which used webRequest<\/code> but did not request the host permission.<\/p>\n
Deletes<\/a> in storage.sync<\/code> are now encrypted. This would be a breaking change for any extensions using storage.sync<\/code> on Developer Edition.<\/p>\n
API Changes<\/h2>\n
Some key events were completed in some popular APIs:<\/p>\n