Feature Request: Firefox Port

[eberhardweber]

Firefox uses the same WebExtension standard as Google Chrome with minor differences, so porting and publishing - while a considerable task - wouldn't mean rewriting the extension completely in order to support a new platform.

Adding Firefox support would also help with using Discogs on Android phones, as Firefox supports add-ons on the mobile version.

I currently have to use an installation of Vivaldi just for this add-on so Firefox support would be fantastic! :)

[salcido]

@eberhardweber
Yes, Firefox uses the same standard as Chrome but there are enough differences to make the task of creating a separate version laborious with little to no ROI for myself.

I tried for several months back in 2016 to get Discogs Enhancer into the Firefox Add-on store. The code reviewers were largely unhelpful, refused to answer my questions, and repeatedly sent me deprecated documentation, while simultaneously requesting I update their outdated documents myself. The process was quite frustrating and left me with little interest in developing extensions on the Firefox platform.

Even when ignoring the reasons above, there are other issues preventing Discogs Enhancer from being accepted into the Add-On store. Mozilla will not allow extensions to use the innerHTML method. That means large portions of the codebase (this for example) would need to be rewritten using document.createElement to generate the necessary markup. This approach makes maintaining, augmenting, and debugging the extension significantly more tedious.

Another big factor is time. I've been working on this extension for close to 4 years now and it's grown quite a bit. It takes a large amount of time and energy to put out new versions. Anytime there is a new feature I need to:

• write the logic
• test it
• write unit and functional tests for it
• update the readme
• update the change log
• create the images and documentation for the learn page
• update the toggle and submenu logic in the popup
• update the website
• update the list of features on the Chrome store page
• make a new release here on Github
• make an announcement post in the group on Discogs.com

Adding Firefox into the mix means even more time doing the aforementioned list of tasks with each new release.

Money also plays a role. Discogs Enhancer uses its own currency conversion API that costs me $72/year to host. The extension is free but I ask for donations. Occasionally generous people will donate a few dollars which helps to offset the cost of hosting. Unfortunately, I only receive around $35 dollars a year in donations. Essentially about enough to cover half of the cost of hosting the API.

I love Discogs and I enjoy working on this extension but the amount of time it takes to maintain it is substantial and I don't receive enough in donations to make the additional time and energy required to support a Firefox version worth it.

[eberhardweber]

Appreciate the definitive answer. Good luck with maintaining the add-on! Disheartened to hear you received poor support. Unfortunately, the Firefox add-ons WebExtension conversion seems to have been coupled with a fair bit of unfortunate streamlining. It often feels to me like add-on developers are seen by the corporate as a nuisance, or a pest, instead of a positive, transformative force.

[slatkin]

Just a note that currently porting this is very easy, at least in the latest Firefox versions.

In manifest.json just needs to rename "service_worker" to "scripts", and add the following new setting (adding one's own GUID):

"browser_specific_settings": { "gecko": { "id": "{--GUID--}", "strict_min_version": "58.0" } }

Then sign the dist build using Firefox's web-ext tool.

[salcido]

Hey thanks! I haven't looked into this in a number of years but I'll take another look and see how feasible it is.

[nd-]

Oh, that would be so cool :)

[Madslaw]

As mentioned by slatkin, I don't think it's as tedious as you might think. I currently have a working version of the extension on my Firefox browser. I was able to do it by adapting the format of manifest.json so that it's compatible with the one use by Firefox.

I did it in early June for version 3.9.3, and now with all the changes made to the UI of Discogs, I was able to make it work for version 3.9.4 by transferring my version of the manifest.json to your updated source code.

I added it to Firefox by doing the following steps (which I don't think are very different for Chrome):

• Compiled the source code with npm run build
• Saved it as a .zip file
• Changed the extension to .xpi
• Submitted it via https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/ (I did not make my version publicly available since I made it for my own personal use)

Performance wise, everything seems to be working just fine. So far, I have not noticed any bugs.

I've attatched bellow my version of the manifest.json if you want to reuse it for a possible official Firefox release. Just note that the id in my file "discogs-enhancer@example.com" was just to make it work, and you might want to change it to something else.

Also as mentionned by slatkin, it may be good practice to add the "strict_min_version": "58.0" after the ID. For my personal use it worked without, but it might cause problems for others.
See this link for more details: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/browser_specific_settings

manifest.json

{
  "manifest_version": 3,
  "name": "Discogs Enhancer",
  "short_name": "Discogs Enhancer",
  "description": "Enhance your Discogs experience with dark themes, seller tools, price comparisons, currency conversion, powerful filters, and more!",
  "version": "3.9.4",
  "author": "Matthew Salcido",
  "homepage_url": "https://www.discogs-enhancer.com",
  "browser_specific_settings": {
  "gecko": {
    "id": "discogs-enhancer@example.com"
    }
  },

  "action": {
    "default_icon": {
      "16": "img/icon_16.png",
      "32": "img/icon_32.png",
      "48": "img/icon_48.png",
      "128": "img/icon_128.png"
    },
    "default_title": "Discogs Enhancer",
    "default_popup": "html/popup.html"
  },

  "background": {
    "scripts": ["js/extension/background.js"]
  },

  "content_scripts": [
    {
      "matches": ["*://*.discogs.com/*"],
      "js": ["js/extension/user-preferences.js"],
      "css": ["css/dark-theme.css"],
      "run_at": "document_start"
    }
  ],

  "permissions": [
    "activeTab",
    "contextMenus",
    "storage",
    "scripting"
  ],

  "host_permissions": [
    "*://*.discogs.com/*"
  ],

  "web_accessible_resources": [
    {
      "resources": [
        "css/*",
        "js/extension/dependencies/*",
        "js/extension/features/*"
      ],
      "matches": ["*://*.discogs.com/*"]
    }
  ],

  "icons": {
    "16": "img/icon_16.png",
    "32": "img/icon_32.png",
    "48": "img/icon_48.png",
    "128": "img/icon_128.png"
  }
}

[salcido]

@Madslaw Thanks, there is still quite a bit of work to do on the extension to get it to pass Mozilla's code review. I'll need to remove all mention of Chrome from the documentation (shouldn't be too tedious). There's a lot of refactoring involved due to the innerHTML issues I mentioned above (unless Mozilla has changed their position on that in recent years). And I'll need to make some changes to Webpack in order to try and get it to render specific manifests for both Chrome and FF when the build command is run.

If anyone is up for helping out with these tasks please feel free to submit a PR!

[Madslaw]

I don't know if this can help you save some time, but here are the results of the Mozilla's code review for my modified version of the 3.9.4 release (so just the manifest.json that is different). I had to go through this process to install the extension permanently in my browser.

While it found 140 warning messages in the general tests (which most of them are the innerHTML issues) it still got the "Add-on passed validation" mention. I don't know if a public release gets more scrutinized than one marked as unlisted as I've never published a Firefox extension. I'm guessing it may be best practice and safer to correct them regardless.

Discogs Enhancer 3.9.4 - Firefox Code Review.pdf

[salcido]

Thanks! I've got some time off coming up so I'll take another look at this.