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<p>I absolutely agree 100% with everything Jörg said. I think I
would have somehow liked to express this, and that's exactly why
we need a show an tell for Add-on authors, so show / explain to
<b>core developers </b>what we do with our Add-ons. I think
just relying on one of them discovering and using one of our
Add-ons gives us only a very slim chance to be regarded.</p>
<p>Also, at the moment I would not know how to convert most of the
things I do into APIs... I use a lot of XPCOM functionality (I
think up to 50 different XPCOM interfaces, for some only one or
two functions others absoultely deep diving), so the question
is, <b>what of this can be "safely" exposed</b> to a web
extension?</p>
<p>This was also one of the reasons why I thought " if it is <b>unsafe</b>
for an Add-on <b>to use XPCOM</b> <i><b>why is it safe for
Thunderbird JavaScript core code</b></i>?". <br>
</p>
<p>As a Core Developer, please ask yourself: if the Thunderbird
"Scripted layer" was <b>forced </b>to go through an API (not
allowed to use XPCOM idls anymore), would you <i><b>design it
differently</b></i>?</p>
<p>Axel<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>
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<div id="mySignature"> <b class="myName"><a
href="mailto:axel.grude@gmail.com">Axel Grude</a></b> <br>
Music Production and Composition <br>
Thunderbird Add-ons Developer <span class="AddonList">(<a
href="https://addons.thunderbird.net/thunderbird/addon/quickfolders-tabbed-folders/">QuickFolders</a>,
<a
href="https://addons.thunderbird.net/thunderbird/addon/quickfilters/">quickFilters</a>,
<a
href="https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/quickpasswords/">QuickPasswords</a>,
<a
href="https://addons.thunderbird.net/thunderbird/addon/zombie-keys/">Zombie
Keys</a>, <a
href="https://addons.thunderbird.net/thunderbird/addon/smarttemplate4/">SmartTemplate⁴</a>)</span>
<br>
Visit my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/thunderbirddaily">YouTube
Channel</a> for email productivity tips <img
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rgba(20, 20, 20, 0.4);" moz-do-not-send="false" class="myLogo"
src="cid:part8.1A030148.10D092E8@gmail.com" alt="Get
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<div id="newHeaderAG1" style="font-size: x-small; padding:1em;
background-color:rgba(220,220,240,0.4); border-radius:3px;"> <b>Subject:</b>Re:
Intent to de-support: traditional add-ons<br>
<b>From:</b>Jörg Knobloch <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jorgk@jorgk.com"><jorgk@jorgk.com></a><br>
<b>To:</b><a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:tb-planning@mozilla.org"><tb-planning@mozilla.org></a> <br>
<b>Sent: </b>Thursday, 10/3/2019, 22:42 22:42 IST +0100 [Week
40]<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:eafa0281-1e59-849b-3d65-6953d577ffaf@jorgk.com">
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01 Oct 2019 15:02, Magnus Melin
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:2bb9a19f-904c-e50c-33f1-eecabcc8b860@iki.fi">As an
author of a traditional add-on, what should you do? There are
two routes: A) convert your add-on to a MailExtension. If the
API you need doesn't exist yet, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Thunderbird&component=General">tell
us about it</a>.</blockquote>
<p><tt>I think this is not the right way to go about it.</tt></p>
<p><tt>What we should do is look at selected set of add-ons and
see what they do. This is not hard, since developers are also
add-on authors and many add-on authors are also volunteers.</tt></p>
<p><tt>Take some examples:</tt></p>
<p><tt>Quick Folder Move written by Philipp: Changes a context
menu, the one for "Move To", takes a search string in popup
that pops up from the context menu, searches for folders
matching the string, presents a menu with the result, lets the
user pick one, moves the messages. Doable with today's set of
APIs? If not, there's something missing.</tt></p>
<p><tt>Shrunked image resizer written by Geoff: Observes the
message body and attachment bucked of the compose window for
images being added, offers to resize those images in a
notification in the status bar, resizes them and changes the
item in the message body or attachment bucket. IOW, it messes
with the message body. </tt><tt>Doable with today's set of
APIs?</tt></p>
<p><tt>ThunderHTMLedit written by me: Adds a tab to the compose
windows' body, lets switch to the tab to display the HTML of
the message. It doesn't need to be a tab, it could be another
toggle. Lets user edit the HTML in a 3rd party HTML editor,
and when the user switches back to the message body, replaces
the body with the HTML. </tt><tt><tt>Doable with today's set
of APIs?</tt></tt></p>
<p><tt><tt>Various add-ons add a custom column to the thread
pane/message list. Doable with today's set of APIs?</tt></tt></p>
<p><tt><tt>If I spent 10 more minutes on this, I could come up
with another set of "common" scenarios. I'm sure, Axel could
provide a list of what his complex add-ons do. I don't know
much about them, but they do some stuff already mentioned
above. I think messing with the message being composed is
very common to many add-ons, like the ones mentioned or
QuickText or SmartTemplate.</tt></tt></p>
<p><tt><tt>In summary: It's not efficient to let add-on authors
discover that is needed, it's more efficient to go through
some common functionality and check whether it is covered by
APIs or not.<br>
</tt></tt></p>
<p><tt><tt>Jörg.<br>
</tt></tt></p>
<br>
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