Mozilla straps on Jetpack

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 21 May 2009 at 15:20

Mozilla Labs has begun demonstrating a new API that could drastically simplify the way add-ons are created for Firefox.

Dubbed Jetpack, the API allows developers to create adds-ons using web technologies including HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

According to Mozilla, the big advantage of add-ons created in Jetpack is that they won't break every time the browser gets a major overhaul - at a stroke removing one of Firefox's biggest annoyances.

Jetpack features can also be installed, toggled off and on, and debugged without needing to restart the browser. The switch to web technologies also means that add-ons can easily be ported to other Mozilla projects, such as Thunderbird, Songbird and its mobile browser, Fennec.

There's no doubt that the 12,000+ add-ons are one of the biggest draws of Firefox and by turning to web technologies, Mozila's hoping to entice more developers to create add-ons.

"We want to grow our community of developers by orders of magnitude through making add-on creation much more accessible, and yet more powerful by developing it as an extensible platform for innovation itself. Many useful Jetpack Feature's can be written in under a dozen lines of code," says Mozilla developer Aza Raskin on the company blog.

"Jetpack will be an exploration in using web technologies to enhance the browser with the goal of allowing anyone who can build a website to participate in making the web a better place to work, communicate and play."

There's already a few sample add-ons created in Jetpack to play with, including a simple ad blocker program and Gmail notification extension.