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Using third-party modules (jpm)

In This Article
  1. Summary
  2. Details

Add-ons using the techniques described in this document are considered a legacy technology in Firefox. Don't use these techniques to develop new add-ons. Use WebExtensions instead. If you maintain an add-on which uses the techniques described here, consider migrating it to use WebExtensions.

From Firefox 53 onwards, no new legacy add-ons will be accepted on addons.mozilla.org (AMO).

From Firefox 57 onwards, WebExtensions will be the only supported extension type, and Firefox will not load other types.

Even before Firefox 57, changes coming up in the Firefox platform will break many legacy extensions. These changes include multiprocess Firefox (e10s), sandboxing, and multiple content processes. Legacy extensions that are affected by these changes should migrate to WebExtensions if they can. See the "Compatibility Milestones" document for more.

A wiki page containing resources, migration paths, office hours, and more, is available to help developers transition to the new technologies.

The Add-on SDK includes a command-line tool that you use to initialize, run, test, and package add-ons. The current tool is called jpm, and is based on Node.js. It replaces the old cfx tool.

You can use jpm from Firefox 38 onwards.

This article describes how you can use third-party modules with jpm.

To follow this tutorial you'll need to have installed jpm and learned the basic jpm commands.

To install menuitem you'll need to have git command. If you have error related to git, check you have latest git command installed.

The Add-on SDK is extensible by design: you can use the modules that ship inside Firefox, but you can also create your own modules and make them available for anyone else to use. Before the jpm tool was available, there wasn't any package manager for these community-developed modules, so it wasn't obvious where to find community-developed modules, or how to install and update them.

With jpm, we use npm as the package manager for SDK modules that don't ship inside Firefox. Module developers can publish SDK modules to npm, and add-on developers can install them from npm and build them into their add-ons.

This article explains how to use npm-hosted third-party SDK modules with jpm. We'll use the menuitem package to add a new menu item to Firefox.

Summary

First, while in the root of your add-on, install the package that contains the modules you want to use:

npm install menuitem --save

Now you'll see a new directory in your add-on root called "node_modules" that contains a directory "menuitem". In your add-on code, you can require() modules by passing a path to the module starting from, but not including "node_modules":

var menuitems = require("menuitem");

Details

Create a new directory called, for example, "my-menuitem", navigate to it, type "jpm init" and accept all the defaults:

mkdir my-menuitem
cd my-menuitem
jpm init

Install the menuitem package from npm:

npm install menuitem --save

This will install the package in the current directory, under a directory called "node_modules". The --save argument instructs npm to add this package to the dependencies key in the add-on's package.json file.

You'll now see a new directory in "my-menuitem" called "node_modules". It will contain a single directory "addon-pathfinder", and the modules included in this package will be somewhere in that directory:

  • my-menuitem
    • index.js
    • node_modules
      • menuitem
    • package.json
    • test

We're interested in using the "menuitem" module, which is at "addon-pathfinder/lib/ui/menuitem". Open "index.js" and replace it with this:

var menuitems = require("menuitem");
var menuitem = menuitems.Menuitem({
  id: "clickme",
  menuid: "menu_ToolsPopup",
  label: "Click Me!",
  onCommand: function() {
    console.log("clicked");
  },
  insertbefore: "menu_pageInfo"
});

Now run the add-on:

jpm run -b nightly

You should see a new menu item in the Tools menu labeled "Click Me!". Click the button, and the message "clicked" is logged.

Note: In more recent versions of Firefox, the Menu Bar may not be visible by default. To show the Menu Bar, click on the Open Menu icon and select "Customize". Then, under Show / Hide Toolbars, enable the Menu Bar. Finally, click the green bar "Exit Customize"

 

Document Tags and Contributors

Tags: 
  • Addon-SDK
  • JPM
 Contributors to this page: bunnybooboo, wbamberg, backy0175, tofutim, nikolas, OverByThere, evold, Mnosh
 Last updated by: bunnybooboo, Apr 16, 2017, 1:07:26 PM
See also
  1. WebExtensions
  2. Getting started
    1. What are WebExtensions?
    2. Your first WebExtension
    3. Your second WebExtension
    4. Anatomy of a WebExtension
    5. Example WebExtensions
  3. How to
    1. Intercept HTTP requests
    2. Modify a web page
    3. Add a button to the toolbar
    4. Implement a settings page
  4. Concepts
    1. Using the JavaScript APIs
    2. User interface components
    3. Content scripts
    4. Match patterns
    5. Internationalization
    6. Content Security Policy
    7. Native messaging
  5. Porting
    1. Porting a Google Chrome extension
    2. Porting a legacy Firefox add-on
    3. Embedded WebExtensions
    4. Comparison with the Add-on SDK
    5. Comparison with XUL/XPCOM extensions
    6. Chrome incompatibilities
  6. Firefox workflow
    1. Temporary Installation in Firefox
    2. Debugging
    3. Getting started with web-ext
    4. web-ext command reference
    5. WebExtensions and the Add-on ID
    6. Publishing your WebExtension
  7. JavaScript APIs
    1. Browser support for JavaScript APIs
    2. alarms
    3. bookmarks
    4. browserAction
    5. browsingData
    6. commands
    7. contextMenus
    8. contextualIdentities
    9. cookies
    10. devtools.inspectedWindow
    11. devtools.panels
    12. downloads
    13. events
    14. extension
    15. extensionTypes
    16. history
    17. i18n
    18. identity
    19. idle
    20. management
    21. notifications
    22. omnibox
    23. pageAction
    24. runtime
    25. sessions
    26. sidebarAction
    27. storage
    28. tabs
    29. topSites
    30. webNavigation
    31. webRequest
    32. windows
  8. Manifest keys
    1. applications
    2. author
    3. background
    4. browser_action
    5. chrome_url_overrides
    6. commands
    7. content_scripts
    8. content_security_policy
    9. default_locale
    10. description
    11. developer
    12. devtools_page
    13. homepage_url
    14. icons
    15. manifest_version
    16. name
    17. omnibox
    18. options_ui
    19. page_action
    20. permissions
    21. short_name
    22. sidebar_action
    23. version
    24. web_accessible_resources
  9. Add-on SDK
  10. Getting started
    1. Installation
    2. Getting started
    3. Troubleshooting
  11. High-Level APIs
    1. addon-page
    2. base64
    3. clipboard
    4. context-menu
    5. hotkeys
    6. indexed-db
    7. l10n
    8. notifications
    9. page-mod
    10. page-worker
    11. panel
    12. passwords
    13. private-browsing
    14. querystring
    15. request
    16. selection
    17. self
    18. simple-prefs
    19. simple-storage
    20. system
    21. tabs
    22. timers
    23. ui
    24. url
    25. webextension
    26. widget
    27. windows
  12. Low-Level APIs
    1. /loader
    2. chrome
    3. console/plain-text
    4. console/traceback
    5. content/content
    6. content/loader
    7. content/mod
    8. content/symbiont
    9. content/worker
    10. core/heritage
    11. core/namespace
    12. core/promise
    13. dev/panel
    14. event/core
    15. event/target
    16. frame/hidden-frame
    17. frame/utils
    18. fs/path
    19. io/byte-streams
    20. io/file
    21. io/text-streams
    22. lang/functional
    23. lang/type
    24. loader/cuddlefish
    25. loader/sandbox
    26. net/url
    27. net/xhr
    28. places/bookmarks
    29. places/favicon
    30. places/history
    31. platform/xpcom
    32. preferences/event-target
    33. preferences/service
    34. remote/child
    35. remote/parent
    36. stylesheet/style
    37. stylesheet/utils
    38. system/child_process
    39. system/environment
    40. system/events
    41. system/runtime
    42. system/unload
    43. system/xul-app
    44. tabs/utils
    45. test/assert
    46. test/harness
    47. test/httpd
    48. test/runner
    49. test/utils
    50. ui/button/action
    51. ui/button/toggle
    52. ui/frame
    53. ui/id
    54. ui/sidebar
    55. ui/toolbar
    56. util/array
    57. util/collection
    58. util/deprecate
    59. util/list
    60. util/match-pattern
    61. util/object
    62. util/uuid
    63. window/utils
  13. Firefox for Android
  14. Getting started
    1. Walkthrough
    2. Debugging
    3. Code snippets
  15. APIs
    1. Accounts.jsm
    2. BrowserApp
    3. HelperApps.jsm
    4. Home.jsm
    5. HomeProvider.jsm
    6. JavaAddonManager.jsm
    7. NativeWindow
    8. Notifications.jsm
    9. PageActions.jsm
    10. Prompt.jsm
    11. RuntimePermissions.jsm
    12. Snackbars.jsm
    13. Sound.jsm
    14. Tab
  16. Legacy
  17. Restartless extensions
    1. Overview
  18. Overlay extensions
    1. Overview
  19. Themes
  20. Lightweight themes
    1. Overview
  21. Complete themes
    1. Overview
  22. Publishing add-ons
  23. Guides
    1. Signing and distribution overview
    2. Submit an add-on
    3. Review policies
    4. Developer agreement
    5. Featured add-ons
    6. Contact addons.mozilla.org
  24. Community and support
  25. Channels
    1. Add-ons blog
    2. Add-on forums
    3. Stack Overflow
    4. Development newsgroup
    5. IRC Channel