FUEL Project Status

FUEL is the little library that John Resig and I are working on which should make developing extensions a little easier. It’s been a while since we last talked about it so I thought an update was in order.

FUEL now has a place in the Mozilla CVS tree (browser/fuel) and development is happening in a branch (FUEL_DEVEL_BRANCH). We have been tweaking the API (0.1 and 0.2) a little over the past couple weeks. We have also added some information on the testing plan. We are using the Mochitest framework to run our unit tests.

So far, we have the basics parts in place, including:

• Global Application object.
• Ability to associate user data with the Application and Extension. No more hidden window hacks.
• Easy access to preferences, again global with Application and per extension with Extension. The extension-based preferences automatically use an “extensions.your-ext.” branch.
• Simple events for Application (“start”, “ready”, “quit”) and Extension (“install”, “uninstall”). Events can also be used to watch for changes on preferences and storage items.

We hope to get the code and tests ready for review this week. Then we can get something pushed to the trunk after that. As always, feedback is welcome - comments, email, IRC, or Wiki.