Add-on not supported in Firefox 57 and later

[cpeterso]

This add-on will stop working in Firefox 57 (November 14) because Firefox will only support WebExtension APIs. WebExtensions can still call out to native code, like the Voikko DLLs, using the Native Messaging API.

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/09/28/webextensions-in-firefox-57/

[hatapitk]

Thanks for the update! I was already expecting this but it is good to know the exact version where this will happen. Native code would not even be an issue for us since it is now possible to compile libvoikko to pure JavaScript using emscripten. A live example is available here: http://www.puimula.org/htp/testing/js-libvoikko/js-libvoikko-demo.html

But WebExtensions do not support spell checking API yet? At least this bug is still open: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1343551 Without this the add-on will not be useful.

[lliehu]

There is a question in Finnish on https://support.mozilla.org/fi/questions/1183818 about this or a similar issue.

[hatapitk]

@lliehu Yes, the question is most likely related to this issue. The short answer is: Firefox 57 and later do not support spell checker extensions anymore, only dictionary extensions to built-in spell checker. Thus there is nothing that can be done at our side. The potential workarounds that I know at the moment are

• switch to Firefox ESR or
• use a web service such as https://oikofix.com/ to spell check your Finnish or Northern Sámi texts

[hatapitk]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1403735 and https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform/hu0QstgcQLs are also relevant.