Prerequisites:
- Python 2.5, 2.6 or 2.7.
- Firefox.
- Firefox addon-sdk. Obtain the latest stable version of the SDK as a tarball or a zip file.
Installation of addon-sdk:
Installation on OS X, FreeBSD, Linux. For other options visit firefox addon-sdk installation.
Extract the file contents, and go to the root directory of the SDK with a shell/command prompt. For example:
1. tar -xf addon-sdk.tar.gz
2. cd addon-sdk
Then, if you're a Bash user, run:
1. source bin/activate
or If you're a non-Bash user, you should run:
1. bash bin/activate
You can see a command prompt similar to the following:
1. (addon-sdk)~/your-folder-path/addon-sdk >
Run the following command at prompt:
1. cfx
If everything is ok it should produce output something like the below line, followed by many lines of usage information:
1. Usage: cfx [options] [command]
Using this project:
Now you can clone this repository using git clone command. Then cd to the project folder.
You can test this boilerplate in following two ways:
1. Within the project folder run cfx run. It runs a new instance of Firefox with the add-on installed, so we can try it out. Or
2. We can package it as an XPI file. This is the installable file format for Firefox add-ons. To build an XPI, execute the command cfx xpi from the project's directory. Then to install it by selecting the "Open" item from Firefox's "File" menu. This will bring up a file selection dialog; navigate to the "xxxx.xpi" file, open it and follow the prompts to install the add-on.
3. Open your gmail account.
4. Run these commands from developer console: var gmail = new Gmail(); gmail.get.user_email();
5. You can see your email-id as the output.
However if you wish to start from an empty project, follow this Getting started tutorial.
For details on apis used, see [High-Level APIs] (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/High-Level_APIs)