Extensions and custom buttons for UXP browsers - Corrections, modifications, adjustments, and special recommendations

[UCyborg]

On 7/16/2023 at 12:07 AM, VistaLover said:

1. Go to "about:config"
2. Locate "plugins.always_show_indicator"
3. Toggle its value (from false -> true)

Right, I'm sure I would've figured it out...eventually.

Reading some documentation on https://udn.realityripple.com/, I discovered browser.preferences.instantApply pref, enabling it makes preferences dialog non-modal and changes get applied instantly, those dialogs then have only Close button instead of OK/Cancel. Never knew this was behind a pref, but noticed this behavior many years ago on Linux versions of Firefox, where it was default.

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After some trial and error, I got PassIFox running on SeaMonkey (the web browser part), both the official version and UXP-based version by roytam1 called IceApe. It kinda works on 2.57a1 even, the only 2.57 compiled build found here, at least if extension's prefs are manually added to about:config because it doesn't load them from the supplied JS file in the addon for some reason. If it'll ever be done, 2.57's been mentioned 5 years ago at least and it's still not released. Who knows how much that build reflects potential final release as far as this extension's dependencies go.

passifox-1.2.3b1-fx+sm+pm.xpi

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Did anyone ever try to change tab height on SeaMonkey (or IceApe) and if successful, how? At least on Windows, it seems to be tied to one particular resource/image in the Windows' .msstyles file. I prefer the height I get with Windows 10's default theme, but I actually use Windows 11 RTM theme with Windows 7's resources transplanted into it + some found here and some manually augmented. If I remember correctly, the image that covers the appearance of tabs is normally used to skin buttons and on Windows 7, that image has bigger height, so it makes the tabs' height in SeaMonkey bigger as well since they inherit visual appearance from that image. I tried editing that image once, but only made a mess when tried to make it have Win10's size back when I was putting the theme together, so I'm wondering if there's a CSS trick to override the tab height.

Edited August 5, 2023 by UCyborg

[AstroSkipper]

Hello to all extension "forkers" or experts! 

What has to be considered if one wants to fork old, abandoned extensions, which are free and non-commercial, whose code only exists in the form of their xpi file under the MPL-2.0 licence, and which are now exclusively available via the Classic Add-ons Archive or the Wayback Machine? TBH, I am never really sure about things like that.  I personally am not really a coder but rather a code recycler, fixer, modifier and batch programmer.  Therefore, any ideas or assessments are welcome. 

Cheers, AstroSkipper 

Edited August 4, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[AstroSkipper]

On 8/3/2023 at 8:56 PM, AstroSkipper said:

Hello to all extension "forkers" or experts! 

What has to be considered if one wants to fork old, abandoned extensions, which are free and non-commercial, whose code only exists in the form of their xpi file under the MPL-2.0 licence, and which are now exclusively available via the Classic Add-ons Archive or the Wayback Machine? TBH, I am never really sure about things like that.  I personally am not really a coder but rather a code recycler, fixer, modifier and batch programmer.  Therefore, any ideas or assessments are welcome. 

Cheers, AstroSkipper 

What would be the easiest way to make a fork of an extension available to the general public without creating a GitHub repo? I already made a proper fork with my own branding and identification. I also kept the reference to the MPL-2.0 licence. And I would provide links. One to the original source files and a second to the changed files. What other information would have to be provided in order to avoid trouble? And what is the most simple way to do this all under the MPL-2.0 licence?  Further ideas and opinions are still welcome. 

Edited August 5, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[UCyborg]

I don't know, post the link in the dedicated forum thread? Have you read this?

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/FAQ/

Also, extensions aren't compiled executables, so technically most of the source is already in the .xpi file, so you're already providing the source that way, exception being binary components (if any exist) and I guess whatever other resources that aren't code. At least that's my understanding, taking into account the past drama between Mozilla/Debian developers and MCP/FreeBSD developers/roytam1/feodor2.

Hosting it on GitHub or the like would allow the public to see the history of code changes that were made and the ability for users to get future updates to the extension directly through browser's Add-ons Manager. The latter requires update.rdf to be hosted on some web server, not necessarily GitHub, though if you use the latter to host the code repo, it makes sense to also use it for clients' ability to check for updates.

Edited August 5, 2023 by UCyborg

[AstroSkipper]

On 8/5/2023 at 11:18 PM, UCyborg said:

I don't know, post the link in the dedicated forum thread? Have you read this?

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0/FAQ/

Also, extensions aren't compiled executables, so technically most of the source is already in the .xpi file, so you're already providing the source that way, exception being binary components (if any exist) and I guess whatever other resources that aren't code. At least that's my understanding, taking into account the past drama between Mozilla/Debian developers and MCP/FreeBSD developers/roytam1/feodor2.

Hosting it on GitHub or the like would allow the public to see the history of code changes that were made and the ability for users to get future updates to the extension directly through browser's Add-ons Manager. The latter requires update.rdf to be hosted on some web server, not necessarily GitHub, though if you use the latter to host the code repo, it makes sense to also use it for clients' ability to check for updates.

Thank you for your thoughts and tips! I already read the MPL-2.0 FAQ. As far as I understood all correctly, the measures I have listed should actually satisfy the MPL 2.0 licence conditions:

On 8/5/2023 at 5:26 PM, AstroSkipper said:

I already made a proper fork with my own branding and identification. I also kept the reference to the MPL-2.0 licence. And I would provide links. One to the original source files (original xpi file) and a second to the changed files (my forked xpi file).

Or, have I missed something? What do you think? 

[UCyborg]

None that I'm aware of. But honestly, I have the impression that there's only a handful of people out there that are nitpicky to the last detail about licensing and branding when it comes to these extensions, eg. there's a fork of DownThemAll! and GreaseMonkey out there adapted for SeaMonkey, none of them have their name or icons changed and nobody makes a fuss about it.

Edited August 6, 2023 by UCyborg

[NotHereToPlayGames]

Agreed.  But one of them was a guy we know as "MAT" and the Pale Moon versus New Moon saga.

I'm sure that Astro doesn't want involved with one of these drama scenes so better safe than sorry by dotting i's and crossing t's.

[AstroSkipper]

19 minutes ago, UCyborg said:

None that I'm aware of. But honestly, I have the impression that there's only a handful of people out there that are nitpicky to the last detail about licensing and branding when it comes to these extensions, eg. there's a fork of DownThemAll! and GreaseMonkey out there adapted for SeaMonkey, none of them have their name or icons changed and nobody makes a fuss about it.

I just want to make sure I am spared any trouble. When you provide something voluntarily, you don't want to be punished for it. 

Edited August 6, 2023 by AstroSkipper

[AstroSkipper]

@VistaLover and @UCyborg! Thank you very much for your hints and opinions! The fork from one of my favourite extensions will be released here in this thread as soon as possible. 

Cheers, AstroSkipper

Edited August 8, 2023 by AstroSkipper

[AstroSkipper]

Check My IP Address & Location - A fork of the HMA! IP Checker extension, made by AstroSkipper

HMA! IP Checker, created by HMA, was my favourite extension for checking the external IP and displaying its location. It directly showed the external IP and the corresponding country flag of its location by clicking onto its toolbar icon. Furthermore, it was able to alert external IP changes and to log them. HMA stopped developing this extension in 2015 and has not been offering it for many years. It seems to have been completely removed from their website in 2015. Unfortunately, HMA! IP Checker stopped working properly some months ago. It was no longer able to show the associated country flag of the external IP. Therefore, I decided to fix this extension in the form of a private project. But first, a few commented screenshots of HMA! IP Checker 2.0.2 for a later comparison to my fork:



The red arrow points to the missing, associated country flag.



The red arrows point to advertisement and to a link to the HMA website.



Here, you can see, not all entries are available easily in the dropdown menu which is unfortunately displayed truncated (red arrow).

And here are download links for HMA! IP Checker 2.0.2 which are also the source files for my fork:

Download link for HMA! IP Checker 2.0.2 via Classic Add-ons Archive: https://caa.zetamex.com/xul/410/410358/hide_my_ass_ip_checker-2.0.2-fx.xpi?origin=caa&action=download
Download link for HMA! IP Checker 2.0.2 via Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20170914162156/https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/latest/hide-my-a**-ip-checker/type:attachment/addon-410358-latest.xpi?src=dp-btn-primary

While fixing the extension HMA! IP Checker, I noticed a further bug in the size of the Log & Alert window. And I decided to remove some code and to add new functions. All this led me to the decision to make a fork of HMA! IP Checker. And although the project was actually of a private nature, I nevertheless decided to make it available to the public. Therefore, I tried to make a proper fork with my own branding and identification. I also kept the reference to the MPL-2.0 licence. As already mentioned in the headline of this article, the name of my fork is Check My IP Address & Location and will be available in the version 1.2 (Edit: The latest version is from now on 1.3, see further below). If you are now wondering why the version number is 1.2, it is because the previous versions were purely private. But first of all, a few screenshots of Check My IP Address & Location 1.2 together with corresponding explanations:



As you can see, the associated country flag is shown again.



Here you can see the changes I made by adding the service Geotool. Clicking onto the button Show leads to this new tab:



The service Geotool provides a lot of information about the geographic location of the current external IP.



The Log & Alert window was enlarged by me.



I added a 1 Min and 5 Min interval for checking as requested by users of the abandoned HMA! IP Checker extension long time ago. And you can see, all entries are now available in the dropdown menu which is no longer displayed truncated. All is shown by the red arrows.



This is the standard toolbar icon of Check My IP Address & Location.



And this is what the toolbar icon looks like when an IP change is alerted.

List of all features of Check My IP Address & Location:

• Check current external IP.
• Show the associated country flag.
• Show the geographic location of the external IP.
• Show more information provided by the service Geotool in a new tab or window.
• Alert if the external IP changes.
• Set different time intervals for checking of IP changes.
• Have a look at the log of the last external IPs.

Changelog of Check My IP Address & Location 1.2, compared to HMA! IP Checker 2.0.2:

• Missing country flag in the IP Address window fixed.
• Unnecessary code removed.
• Service Geotool added to the button Show in the IP Address window.
• Wrong size of the Log & Alert window and truncated dropdown menu fixed.
• New time intervals for alerting added.
• Compatibility entries to different browsers updated and added.

Changelog of Check My IP Address & Location 1.3, compared to Check My IP Address & Location 1.2:

• Four further time intervals for checking IP changes added: 1 Sec, 5 Sec, 10 Sec and 30 Sec. Here is a screenshot:
  
  

Here is the link to the MPL-2.0 licence I kept when I created my fork: https://opensource.org/license/mpl-2-0/

And here you can get the latest version of my fork Check My IP Address & Location:

Download link for the extension Check My IP Address & Location 1.3: https://www.mediafire.com/file/xvmk2ntk0f4i2e7/Check_My_IP_Address_%26_Location-1.3-pm.xpi/file

Version history:

• Check My IP Address & Location 1.0 (14-10-2022) 
  Initial, private build
• Check My IP Address & Location 1.1 (04-08-2023) 
  Private build
• Check My IP Address & Location 1.2 (08-08-2023) 
  First public release. 
  Download link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/72755xbjfipa5h3/Check_My_IP_Address_%26_Location-1.2-pm.xpi/file
• Check My IP Address & Location 1.3 (11-09-2023)
  Second public release
  Download link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/xvmk2ntk0f4i2e7/Check_My_IP_Address_%26_Location-1.3-pm.xpi/file

The extension Check My IP Address & Location is my fork of the extension HMA! IP Checker. I tested it successfully in New Moon 28, Serpent 52 and Serpent 55. After months of testing, I didn't notice any problems or bugs. The extension Check My IP Address & Location, contrary to the original HMA! IP Checker, is fully working.  For all those who want or need to know exactly which external IP they are connecting with, especially all users of VPN services, this extension is absolutely perfect.  My recommendation for setting the time interval to check IP changes is the 1 Sec interval (only available in the version 1.3). If you use this interval, the detection of an IP change takes place without any significant delay (at most 5 seconds for VPN connections, almost no delay for direct connections).  However, if you find errors or other problems, please report them here in my thread! Any feedback in the form of commenting, liking or upvoting is of course welcome at any time.

Greetings from Germany, AstroSkipper

Edited September 12, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[VistaLover]

Many thanks for your overall efforts and for (finally ) going public with this! 

I have it installed in latest Serpent 52 (32-bit) since an hour ago, and, AFAICT, everything works according to the advertised functionality!

5 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

I added a 1 Min and 5 Min intervall for checking

The "1 min" check interval (might want to correct your typo there ) is very handy when you launch your VPN service and want to be quickly notified about your "new" (spoofed) external IP address ; what would be even handier is a function/button to "Check Now" , rather than have to wait for that "one  minute" to go by; would this be technically feasible? Thanks in advance !

Addendum: In a similar vein, in Serpent 52/55 I use myself the WebExtension Firefox add-on IP Geolocator:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ip-geolocator/

Latest v2.1.0 works fine in St52, if using the default browser theme:

As you can see, the IP flag (and country's two-string code) is displayed inside the toolbar button itself, this means one less click to "view" it (compared to the extension kindly offered here ); another screenshot, this one with the add-on's settings:

The IP change alert is done via browser notification, e.g.:

The main problem I have with IP Geolocator on St52 is that its toolbar button becomes gigantic when using the third-party complete theme Photonic (my preferred one on St52):

; thus, when on Photonic, I'll be switching to Check My IP Address & Location (of course, since IP Geolocator is a WE, it can't be used with NM28 ) ...

Kindest regards ...

Edited August 8, 2023 by VistaLover
added missing screengrab

[AstroSkipper]

4 hours ago, VistaLover said:

Many thanks for your overall effort and for (finally ) going public with this! 

I have it installed in latest Serpent 52 (32-bit) since an hour ago, and, AFAICT, all works according to the advertised functionality!

You're welcome! Glad to hear it is working for you as advertised by me. 

4 hours ago, VistaLover said:

what would be even handier is a function/button to "Check Now" , rather than have to wait for that "one  minute" to go by; would this be technically feasible? Thanks in advance

In the moment, when you click onto the toolbar icon, your current external IP is shown directly. Therefore, a button such as "Check Now" does not really make sense to me.  What I can do is to try adding further time intervals as fractions of a minute. For example, 0.05 Min for 3 Sec.  Interested?

Edited August 8, 2023 by AstroSkipper

[VistaLover]

37 minutes ago, AstroSkipper said:

In the moment, when you click onto the toolbar icon, your current external IP is shown directly.
Therefore, a button such as "Check Now" does not really make sense to me

OK, you're right, many thanks - just being pedantic , but the "is shown directly (i.e. immediately)" part is only true with my real/default (Greek) IP address; when I fire up my paid-for VPN service (and its app notifies me it has successfully connected to the desired VPN node), clicking on the green/white "IP" toolbar button will take from 10-15sec to display the VPN node's IP address; of course, way less than a full minute!

37 minutes ago, AstroSkipper said:

try adding further time intervalls as fractions of a minute. For example, 0.05 Min for 3 Sec.  Interested?

I think that won't be necessary, as I'll be using the "method" you suggested above (i.e. click on the toolbar button and wait for it to display "new" IP address and flag); thanks once more!

Planning on any Sommerferien yourself? You probably know how the English saying goes: "All work and no play makes Jack..." ; you do deserve some break, given your many past contributions here ...

Keep well !

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by VistaLover

[AstroSkipper]

16 hours ago, VistaLover said:

OK, you're right, many thanks - just being pedantic , but the "is shown directly (i.e. immediately)" part is only true with my real/default (Greek) IP address; when I fire up my paid-for VPN service (and its app notifies me it has successfully connected to the desired VPN node), clicking on the green/white "IP" toolbar button will take from 10-15sec to display the VPN node's IP address; of course, way less than a full minute!

I also noticed this behaviour in the past. I assume it depends on the VPN provider and the established VPN connection. Sometimes, it happens very quickly and sometimes, it takes a few seconds longer. 

And I can confirm, with my real/default (German) IP address, the current external IP is shown immediately. 

Edited August 9, 2023 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[AstroSkipper]

37 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

Planning on any Sommerferien yourself?

Not reallly! The weather here in Germany has been rainy and stormy for weeks. It's no fun to go anywhere. 

40 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

you do deserve some break, given your many past contributions here ...

Keep well !

Thanks! I'll do my best. And keep well, too!