Any plans to actually work on this add-on? -general discussion about funding project

[birdie-github]

It no longer works in Firefox 53. Says: "I'm disabled".

[sierracircle]

We have been discussing Firefox, and their plans to discontinue XUL-based add-ons (which is what lazarus uses).

I personally have switched to Palemoon Browser, and plan on continuing the work on Lazarus, and adding it to the Palemoon Add-ons site.

Matt, the other guy working on this, sounds like he has grown dis-heartened by Firefox's plans and is re-evaluating what he wants to do.

Lazarus in its current form works fine in Palemoon. I have been working on removing the Donate nags and hope to have that completed soon.

[birdie-github]

Too bad lazarus v3 disappeared without a trace - I was under the impression that it wasn't based on XUL.

[sierracircle]

I made multiple attempts to contact the original developer, but never heard back.

Once this version is polished up a bit I might look into what it would take to migrate it to the new format...but at first glance it looks like there is no local storage allowed in the new add on design, which lazarus relies on to store your form entries...which means it would need to be online storage, which brings up a lot of security issues.

[birdie-github]

no local storage allowed in the new add on design, which lazarus relies on to store your form entries

This is certainly not true, otherwise WebExtensions couldn't allow to have any settings.

See browser.storage.local.set() and browser.storage.local.get()

https://developer.mozilla.org/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/storage/local
https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/storage#property-local

[birdie-github]

Actually instead of porting the old add on, you could try reusing the Chrome's add-on: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lazarus-form-recovery/loljledaigphbcpfhfmgopdkppkifgno

It's barely usable right now, but it has most of the features already implemented so it's just the case of fixing its compatibility with modern Firefox.

Lazarus-Form-Recovery_v3.0.6.zip -- here's its copy straight from Chrome's Add-on Store (the original file extension is CRX, but github doesn't allow it, so I renamed it to zip).

Still I would be glad if you tried to make the old add-on work, because the new (Chrome's) one looks awful and behaves quite differently.

[sierracircle]

..are you interested in working on this project, or just making suggestions? I do not mean that in a snarky way..genuinely asking..

[birdie-github]

I'd be glad to do it all by myself but I literally know nothing about JavaScript and I'm not a programmer per se, so I hope you understand what I'm hinting at. Yes, these are mostly hollow suggestions to maybe ease your life and work.

[sierracircle]

I am more of a plain-speaking type of person, so hints do not work so well on me.

[birdie-github]

Gotcha ;-)

Hints aside, I'd love to help, but I won't since my programming skills are too basic for this kind of work.

What I find really strange is that very few people use this absolutely indispensable add-on. Or maybe only few of them use Firefox beta/alpha, which means the public outcry is yet to begin.

[sierracircle]

I think that many people use the extension, but are not aware of the coming extension-apocalypse which looks like is planned for November. From Slashdot:
Firefox 57, which will be preliminarily released on the 28th of Novermber, 2017, will only run WebExtensions: which means no XUL (overlay) add ons, no bootstrapped extensions, no SDK extensions and no Embedded WebExtensions. In other words by this date the chromification of Firefox will have been completed. If you depend on XUL add ons your only choice past this date will be Pale Moon.

Also, it is probably an intimidating thing to volunteer for if you are not a developer of any sort. I am a web-developer, so I have only some basic understanding, but I so far I have been able to muddle through enough.

We will see how it goes. For now, I am happy enough with Palemoon browser, and I am guessing Palemoon will get more support when November rolls around.

[birdie-github]

Palemoon in theory looks nice, in practice its web standards support is already light years behind all other major web browsers, and I don't see how this situation might change, considering that this browser has very few savvy developers. It will be impossible for Palemoon devs to sync their code base with modern Firefox because they've diverted too much.

[sierracircle]

Palemoon works for me, and solved a few issues I was having with Firefox crashing, plus Lazarus works fine in it, so I am not complaining at all..

[scytheria1001]

The plugin already stopped working in FF 53. I can't switch to a different browser because I use it for work. I found your comment on the Lazarus plugin page but it looks like you're not planning on trying to get Lazarus working on Firefox any more?

Installing TextCache caused FF to crash repeatedly for me so I had to uninstall it, so at this point there's no working alternative.

[sierracircle]

Hi. We can certainly look into it; however, it is going to involve completely re-writing the plugin from top-to-bottom. First priority is cleaning up the existing plugin for those of us who have stuck with Palemoon or other branches of FF.

[nh2]

Can you make a donation page (for example Bountysource or Patreon) where people can donate to the effort of making Lazarus (or its functionality including storing the stored forms encrypted) work with the current and upcoming Firefox releases, and then advertise it big time?

I'd be in with 100 $.

[sierracircle]

I would be hesitant to take donations until I came up with an actual project outline for something like that so I could assess how much time/effort it would take.

I will consider working on a project outline this summer.

[guysoft]

I'd fund/suggest decently explained kickstarter/indiegogo.

[chickendude]

Over at Reddit a few months back some folks also discussed opening a bounty to fix Lazarus for the latest Firefox. I think this is something a lot of people would be willing to donate for if there was a real chance of it getting updated.

I'm not a professional JavaScript developer by any means, i just have some familiarity with it through using JS and jQuery in websites, but i would be interested in helping make it compatible with the latest Firefox versions. Unfortunately i am not familiar at all with making extensions and have no idea what would be necessary. Lazarus is simply too useful to let it go...

[sierracircle]

@chickendude In another week I will have some time to write up a project-outline, meaning studying and writing up what it would take to get the plugin converted to the new FF format (if it is even possible).

I feel like if we first explored it first we could better determine if it is even possible. You are welcome to co-write that with me. Once we have that, then we could discuss making a kickstarter or GoFundMe for the project.

I would not be comfortable taking donations until that document was written, in case it is not possible. We might start writing and discover it is a simple task.

[chickendude]

@sierracircle Sure, i'd be happy to look into that with you (and browse through the current code to figure out what exactly it's doing).

[sierracircle]

@chickendude great. I sent an invite to join the team. I can start next week.

[chickendude]

@sierracircle Alright, cool, I'll talk to you then, then. :)

[dartraiden]

at this point there's no working alternative

Try the userscript (fixed version of this script).

[franzalex]

@dartraiden Thanks for showing the userscript which offers a similar functionality.

I have modified it to capture and backup all input fields as well as include a right-click context menu.

The new version with my modifications is available here.
Direct URL to userscript: https://gist.github.com/franzalex/6bea78d9809ecb43886ad272cabff0ac/raw/TextArea_Backup_with_Expiry_Fix.user.js

[nh2]

Can you clarify, does this userscript encrypt the data and put it behind the Firefox master password?

[franzalex]

@nh2 No, it does not encrypt the captured data.

Though it may be possible to perform some sort of encryption, I don't think an encryption will be worth the effort as anyone with access to your modified script will have access to your encryption key. Also, I have not found GreaseMonkey can access Firefox's master password so I doubt that could be used to encrypt the entries.

[guysoft]

Can anyone explain where this comes from? And can it help us in any way?
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lazarus-form-recovery/loljledaigphbcpfhfmgopdkppkifgno?hl=en

[franzalex]

@guysoft I have no idea whether the extension you refer to was developed by the same person who made the version for Firefox.

Anyway, the discussion here concerns Firefox's add-on so let us limit ourselves to that unless there is something of interest specifically in the Chrome extension you'd like to point out.

[sierracircle]

@chickendude I have been looking around but cannot find a way to PM members. My email is adam@sierracircle.org if you want to drop me a line.

[Tormen]

As there seems no password protected alternative ff addon,
and firefox built-in form-saver does not seem to do the job either [1], I would really love to see a current ff compatible version as well.

But would starting off of version 3 [2] not be better? - especially as this seems to work in ff ... [3]

Also: The approach of this addon is very nice (to have) [4]. IMHO a merge between the two with an option if one uses the built-in ff form store or a encrypted store would be the nicest solution ;)
... maybe this could allow to join forces with the seemingly active developer(s) around [4].

Willing to chip in money. Maybe willing to help with the code on limited aspects.

[1] https://www.berrange.com/posts/2011/06/22/firefox-form-data-history-a-goldmine-of-unencrypted-sensitive-personal-data/
[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lazarus-form-recovery/loljledaigphbcpfhfmgopdkppkifgno?hl=en
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/5w9yxc/best_replacement_for_lazarus_form_recovery_addon/
[4] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/form-history-control/

[nihaals]

I think contacting Mozilla to get ownership of it could be possible

[nihaals]

What are you actually using to build the XPI? I tried 7z a -tzip -mx9 -mm=Deflate -mfb=258 -mmt=8 -mpass=15 -mtc=on ^ ..\dist\lazarus-recovery-dev.xpi * -r from the batch file, but Firefox is saying it's corrupted, yet https://sierracircle.org/files/lazarus_form_recovery-3.2.2.692-an+fx.xpi works fine

[sierracircle]

@OrangutanGaming
To create an XPI, mozilla wants it to be signed, so you have to create an Mozilla account, upload the zipped files in proper format, and then run it through their validator. It then spits out and XPI that you can install.

I think for consistency, and since we will be contacting Mozilla about taking over the Lazarus add-on page, we should have one person who handles that account, creating XPIs and contacting Mozilla about the old Lazarus add-on page.

Does anyone want to volunteer for that? You should have good writing and communication skills since you will be interacting with Mozilla Foundation.

[nihaals]

Well I was planning on creating a script that for now, would pull from git, then make an XPI and install it for me until it's added to the store

[sierracircle]

if you were just de-bugging then it is not neccessary to have an xpi. To check it in firefox open this about:debugging#addons - click Load temporary addon and choose manifest.json from the un-zipped files.

[nihaals]

Isn't it then deleted after restarting?

[sierracircle]

@OrangutanGaming correct. it is removed from FF after re-starting, but in some ways that is what you want if you are working on it directly, as it allows you to make changes to your files while working..then you can reload it without restarting:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Temporary_Installation_in_Firefox

[maphew]

Well I was planning on creating a script that for now, would pull from git, then make an XPI and install it for me until it's added to the store That was my plan too. The existing build script in the code repo is from before FF changed to only allowing signed XPI's. There used to be an `about:config` preference to turn that off. Now I believe you have to running Firefox Nightly or Developer edition in order to use unsigned XPI's.

[maphew]

... we should have one person who handles that account, creating XPIs and contacting Mozilla about the old Lazarus add-on page. +1

[nihaals]

When this person is decided, I can use their API stuff to have it automatically update the plugin on the page from the current GitHub build

[mausalimi]

https://sierracircle.org/files/lazarus_form_recovery-3.2.2.692-an+fx.xpi

the server doesn't seem to be working.

[maphew]

https://sierracircle.org/files/lazarus_form_recovery-3.2.2.692-an+fx.xpi the domain doesn't seem to be working. You can get the xpi from here also: https://github.com/lazarus-recovery/original_ff/releases

[mausalimi]

thanks i even knew this, but it wasn't there when i checked first time (must have been 8 days ago, just between the posting from sierracircle above and the upload to github)... today i came back and only checked the sierracircle link. my fault.

so yes, 3.2.2.692 is available.

[sierracircle]

..sorry about the sierracircle.org link not working. My DNS server was having issues while I was out of town. It is fixed now.

[sierracircle]

we should have one person who handles that account, creating XPIs and contacting Mozilla about the old Lazarus add-on page.

Do we have any volunteers for the position?

[nihaals]

I guess I don't mind. I did try to find a way to contact them on their site a while ago but couldn't find anything. Only thing is a public forum, which I don't think is the place for this.

[sierracircle]

Actually, it looks like they have re-vamped the Add-ons section, and it does NOT include Lazarus in the listings as far as I could see.

I think this will make things easier, as you can probably now just start an account and add the new add-on.

It would be good if you shared the login information of that account with me and @maphew so we don't get locked out if something ever happens to you.

So for now, just take the approach that this is a new add-on. Create an account and upload it to the Mozilla Add-ons and we can start updating it from there.

[nihaals]

Seems like there's an issue with their site and posting add-ons. I'll try again tomorrow as soon as I wake up. I also intend on having a Discord for it so support can be easier, and to talk to other devs for e.g. distributing logins

[nihaals]

I have a lot of experience with Discord, and think it's the perfect platform right now for something like this

[sierracircle]

any luck @OrangutanGaming with the Mozilla Account?

[nihaals]

[sierracircle]

Ok. We can wait for a while longer before uploading. Honestly, we should probably clear out the buttons for "Check for Updates" and such before uploading to Mozilla.

[nihaals]

Yeah, #9 is probably the highest priority

[maphew]

... we should probably clear out the buttons for "Check for Updates" and such before uploading to Mozilla. +1

[maphew]

I have a lot of experience with Discord, and think it's the perfect platform right now for something like this

Discord is new to me, but I'm willing to check it out. There's also Gitter.im which is nice because it integrates with GitHub, auto-linking to issues etc. I just created an instance for Lazarus so people can check it out: https://gitter.im/lazarus-recovery/... We should settle on just one to advertise front and centre though.

[nihaals]

I've seen a lot of people use gitter, but I'm not really a fan. There's a lot of nice features missing from it, and I don't think GitHub integration is too important

[sierracircle]

This discussion is closed. Start new threads for new issues please