Integration of Mozilla firefox addon with drupal

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skbohra's picture

A proposal to integrate tool with drupal to create mozilla firefox addon for the every site created by any user based on drupal. It can be implemented by integrating a feature at the installation process, to ask the user if he/she wants a mozilla firefox addon for his/her site then it will ask further details about what features user wants to add in the addon. The addon using drupal API will show content from the site based on drupal. Since the API is same in all case, a common process for every site will be used.

This will add a unique feature to the website of user as his/her visitors will be able to download and install the addon through which they can be kept updated with the content of site without browsing the site.

I know PHP and have experience of making addons which requires knowledge of XUL and JavaScript mostly.
I would like to work on this project in GSOC 2008.

Comments

This sounds very cool

christefano's picture

This sounds very cool indeed. Such a project could also include a Drupal module that generates an OpenSearch XML document for the Firefox search box (like Rob Loach's OpenSearch module) and a handful of RSS feeds that the Firefox extension would automatically detect and display in various ways. Another possibility is a simple uptime test (like my Statanus module) that works similar to the Nagios extension.

Making it easy for the

skbohra's picture

Making it easy for the drupal users to get firefox addon specially for their site is what exactly I want. Many features can be there in the addon. We can make available many options like you suggested such as live RSS feed etc; during the installation user will choose few useful features from them according to his/her need. The project at the initial stage may consists of few essential feature but will certainly grow with the contribution of the community.

Another FireFox Addon idea.

dldege's picture

Another FireFox Addon idea. I was talking to Moshe at Drupalcon Boston 2008 after his presentation about the themer module for Drupal6 which is part of the devel module - http://drupal.org/project/devel. The way this module works is very similar to the "Inspect mode" of the Firebug FireFox add-on where you rollover an DOM item and get information in the variousl FireBug tabs. It dawned on me and Moshe agreed that the themer module could be hooked directly into the FireBug add-on and a "drupal theme" tab could be added to the display options when doing an inspect. This would move the themer module UI out of the JS in the page and into FireBugs UI. It would be very cool IMO. A project like this, again, IMO , would take a lot more knowledge of XUL, JS, and FireBug then pure Drupal knowledge. A mentor with Drupal knowledge could direct a student skilled in the latter. I think this would be a very cool project.

Does this sound interesting? Could it be part of your idea? Could you integrate your addon idea with FireBug instead of a completely new addon?

Dan DeGeest
Software Developer
Somewhere or Another

i now think that your idea

skbohra's picture

i now think that your idea is more worthy than mine please give review at http://groups.drupal.org/node/10234

Yes!

skbohra's picture

Yes! this is my immediate answer as I have knowledge of XUL and JS. Our ideas are different but both related to firefox addon. My idea is like adding a new feature and your suggestion is i think like extending it to existing thing both seems me equally cool. I am now taking a look at the themer module, after your suggestion.

a part of the very initial draft of my soc application

skbohra's picture

Google summer of code:
Project: Creating a Firefox add-on making module for drupal content management software

What exactly the project idea is:
creating a module for drupal to make add-on making easier for site administrators. As a module it can be added during the initial installation or can be added later if required. In a very simple language we can say that the project when completed will add a unique feature to drupal of adding an easy process for site administrator for making Firefox add-on exclusively for his website.
My idea is that like there are Firefox add-on for many popular websites such as MySpace, face book, orkut etc., that provides an advantage to these sites over others; it is a unique feature which is till now limited to only big sites. The project’s aim is “an add-on for each and every site based on drupal”. Addon in my opinion is something like a web 2.0 sort of thing as you need not to browse site still you will be updated by content of the site.
One very important component for the add-on is live RSS feed. The add-on will provide user with live RSS feed, many features like this can be included, such as a login button for the site, or search bar exclusive for that site.

Why an add-on for each site and why especially Mozilla Firefox add-on?

Mozilla Firefox is browser from open source community and is really a great browser and millions of people are using it. Initially I was looking at drupal soc groups for proposed ideas list, I had nothing in mind related to any project, then I looked at example sites based on drupal there were many social networking sites and frankly talking I had Firefox add-on in my mind as I was working on it from a little while so I thought of merging two of the internet’s most used products to increase usability of both.
As a site administrator you always worry about visitors of the site, if they are looking at the sites content or not with an add-on for your site you can be sure of that.
Drupal provides a very easy way of creating fully fledged websites, the expertise of drupal can be used to make a similar easy process of making a Firefox add-on.

How drupal’s feature will be utilized in this project?

The API of drupal will be used to feed all the content in the add-on and to access any feature of site directly. The functions of drupal will be exhaustively be used for implementing the connection between add-on and the drupal, during the process of creating add-on.

How I will execute the project?

The project can be divided into two main parts the Firefox add-on part and the drupal part. In the first part I will be using XUL and JS mainly and for latter I will be using drupal API and functions. Initially I will work on module that will be added into drupal; it will be like any other module of drupal very much similar to them. After that I will work on the add-on making part and then connecting the two processes. The add-on is a zipped folder with XPI extension consisting of several other folders and files. a standard structure of folders and files is used in compressing the XPI, it remains almost same for all the XPI files the change will be in JavaScript files and XUL files , depending on what features user includes. The XUL and JS files will be generated using writing in FILE, and then the main task will be the packaging according to the standard format. This task required of a tool that will be used to complete this task.

The phases described above will be mandatory and completion of them will result into inclusion of a very unique and new feature in drupal. Along with above tasks we have some optional tasks that can be taken if time permits for them:

  1. Localization of add-on using RDF files , which will require extra effort for inclusion of support for various languages,

  2. Various skins of add-ons based on the sites theme, this can be implemented by including various CSS files as CSS files control the look of add-on.

  3. To make this feature as an independent module for drupal which can be installed any time after the installation of drupal based site as for initial stage we are making into as it to be included along with installation of drupal.

Please give me suggestion for improving the application.

@skbohra: "The API of drupal

ezra-g's picture

@skbohra:

"The API of drupal will be used to feed all the content in the add-on and to access any feature of site directly...The project can be divided into two main parts the Firefox add-on part and the drupal part. In the first part I will be using XUL and JS mainly and for latter I will be using drupal API and functions."

It's not clear to me what specifically your project will provide that will facilitate the construction of Firefox Addons for Drupal sites. Can you expand on that?

Also, it's my understanding that building a general addon builder is your project, and not the theme developer addon mentioned by dldege@drupal.org, correct?

a little bit ambitious, but definately a drupal project

skbohra's picture

Yes! I want to work on general addon builder project.

i think that this project is a little bit ambitious but is truly a drupal project. Firefox addon changes the way browser behaves, and my idea is to use this facility in extending reach of drupal and increasing usability of drupal for the end user. Creating addon for any site is like creating a container, in which food is provided by site it self. And making a site's addon is a like repeating similar process. By making this addon making module i want to allow site administrator to get rid of this process.

Drupal+firefox can be killing combination.

@ezra-g@drupal.org: "what

skbohra's picture

@ezra-g@drupal.org:

"what specifically your project will provide that will facilitate the construction of Firefox Addons for Drupal sites. Can you expand on that?"

ans:

a firefox addon is a zipped file with xpi extension, our module will make this by first asking user to select from the available features that can be included in addon after user will select his/her desired features those features will be included in addon, as the functionality of addon is controlled by JS file and XUL file, these files will be written in the runtime according to the features user has selected and i think which can be done by FILE concept. A simple if-else structure will be followed to get desired features written in JS and XUL file.

can you be a mentor for this project?

This is a a lot different

dldege's picture

This is a a lot different then I thought it was - you are talking about building a Drupal module that autogenerates the XUL/xpi package for a given site based on the users choices in form on the site. This is a very interesting idea to use PHP to generate the JS/XUL, etc. and letting the user install the add-on right from there. Anyway, so I get the basic idea now and like ezra-g I'd like more information on the specific types of things the user would be allow to include in the addon, what you expect the client side UI to look and feel like, and how the addons are managed if the user wants to make a change to a previously generated add-on.

Also, I still like the idea of themer module support in Firebug - does anyone else? We could start a new thread for that idea on its own.

Dan DeGeest
Software Developer
Somewhere or Another

Features that can be included

skbohra's picture

a firefox addon for a site can have various features,

  1. RSS feed
  2. Sign In/ Sign Out buttons for site
  3. Site specific search
  4. jump to specific part of site directly
  5. format text
  6. blogging toolbar
  7. show updates from site
  8. sidebar with data from site
    and many more...

User Interface and features

skbohra's picture

Now i want to talk about user interface of the addon, the addon will be like a toolbar containing various buttons for different tasks and drop down list for RSS feed, side bar for search results and form for login.
since XUL provide a really very easy way for creating cool user interface so it can be implemented quite easily. A form will be there in which various options will be provided for site administrator to select from. And an addon will be generated. and for any change to be made in the previous addon, the similar process can me employed since the changes can be made at the selection time. so if the site administrator has to make any changes he/she has to simply go through the same process and generate a new addon source file

work on the proposal

skbohra's picture

looks like i have now succeed to tell exactly what my project idea is and what features there will be in the addon, and in the previous post i have also written how i will execute the project. Please tell me what more information i can provide related to the project!

Neat Idea

RobLoach's picture

I like the ideas presented in this proposal, but I think they need more structure....

  • What exactly is the feature set you'll be looking for at the end of the summer?
  • What will it look like? Do you have any drafts?
  • What parts of Firefox will be modified?
  • What version of Firefox will the user be required to use?
  • Will this extension allow use on any site using Drupal, or just the site that has the Drupal module enabled?

very basic screenshot of this module

skbohra's picture

to be more specific about what exactly we have with us after the summer:

here is a screenshot of addon creating page :

http://naraye-mastana.blogspot.com/

please give feed back

coupel of questions

snufkin's picture

What would be the "drupal API" that the proposal is expecting to build on?
What is a "live RSS feed"?
This would be a firefox addon, or an addon building platform for Drupal?

As i see this project now it is too specific on a secondary product. I don't really see the need for site specific firefox addons, and as long as the functionality implemented in Drupal does not follow a standard approach (one that doesnt require firefox to use) it would be soon outpaced by other, standard methods, for example new Services using XML-RPC.

Also something similar: http://groups.drupal.org/node/10008

i think that this project is

skbohra's picture

i think that this project is just about adding a new feature to drupal, by using an other very good platform

I can see how this would be

Tistur's picture

I can see how this would be an asset for larger sites. I think it may be worth looking into how to combine different sites into one "bar" - ie, having a bar for my personal site #1, my personal site #2, drupal.org and DrupalPlanet would crowd up my screen very quickly. What else could be integrated? How much of the configuration would be verridable by the user?

status: needs work

skbohra's picture

my project idea status is still: need work, what should i do next, should i submit application

Don't forget

DevElCuy's picture

Don't forget http://groups.drupal.org/soc-xul-based-drupal-manager

Blessings!

--
(3 John 1:2) Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

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Custom Search Box

RobLoach's picture

I noticed that you had "Custom Search Box", well the Open Search Plugin module allows you to add your own search box to people's client browsers from your website. See this screenshot to see what it does.

Spoke with skbohra this evening...

webchick's picture

..who was of the opinion that this idea might be more of an uphill battle than previously thought. So I'm going to mark this "community review complete" .. Please provide feedback to skbohra's new and exciting proposal at http://groups.drupal.org/node/10234 instead. :)

Just a thought

Macronomicus's picture

This proposal did seem a bit far fetched but the reason I found this post made it very interesting to me, I was googling ( drupal mozilla toolbar ) cause basically what I'm looking for is the drupal admin_menu in a firefox toolbar. For several reasons I think this would really compliment the flow of drupal. For starters the menu can remain at the top of the screen without using the annoying float option provided by the module which presents several limitations. Other benefits that come to mind are the oft really really long menu's which are clunky in floated site mark-up but could be handled by sweet mozilla chrome, with scrollpanes & pop-outs & icons etc.

Im not sure how hard it would be to get drupal to rebuild the menu structure and keep that secure to the plug-in... lol I really have to read more mozilla stuff to know whats possible, just seems simple thats all... grab admin_menu stuff in box on screen... whalla!!

EDIT: Nevermind that ... I just found this
http://drupal.org/node/345984

SoC 2008

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