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[El Guru (Al)]

I was helping out a person earlier via e-mail who had posted on my blog they were having difficulties installing the Splash Add-On in Thunderbird.  We ended up exchanging a few e-mails as my first directions failed to take into account the add-on developer makes you accept an EULA before you can get to the download link.  The least e-mail they commented that it seemed 'flimsy' that Thunderbird couldn't handle automatic add-on installations (not have a DL manager).  As I was reply to the messaging I got to thinking about a couple things.  Here is part of my reply...

I know not having automatic XPI installs for add-ons in TBird is a pain.  I am really hoping when TBird 3 comes out (late 2007/early 2008) that will be a feature.  Of course part of the problem is how does Firefox know if the add-on is for Firefox or TBird?  I suppose they could design it as such that TBird uses a different file extension.

I don't spend as much time on the Thunderbird Build forums/sites as I do for Firefox.  Heck I only used TBird 3 briefly when the tabs feature landed on the trunk just to see what that was like.  So I am wondering if this is something in the works or would it even be feasible to have automatic add-on installs in TBird?

[El Guru (Al)]

Okay, we ended up exchanging some more e-mails about this topic.

Well, this should not be very difficult, although I am not a programmer, so a bit of layman's reasoning:

1st. as you mentioned, Tbird and Ffox using their own extensions, or:

2nd. all Tbird extensions are stored in a different webpage, so if Tbird
is the program which at a certain moment is asking ext's of themes, it
communicates with the opened Ffox browser "keep off, these are mine", so
I think it should be a new feature in both Ffox 3 and Tbird 3 versions as well then.

3rd. let both Tbird and Ffox read (quickly, e.g. only the header) the
file to be downloaded and give each file a build tag indicating to which
it belongs: to Ffox, to Tbird of Lightning and so on or maybe all of
them or just two, which resolves the problem with themes you me like to
use for both Ffox or Tbird.

Although probably I am overlooking technical problems with one or the other solution, at least I think technically it should be no problem at last, anyway me liking the last one most.

Now when this message came in I had just finished writing about ThunderBrowserThunderBrowser, which turns the TBird preview/reading pane into a mini-web browser. Now if they could get that going in TBird 3 and setup the XPI install that way it could work.  This would eliminate Firefox having to differentiate between  an extension it should install or pass on to TBird.   Of course I am not a programmer either so I am probably making it sound way too simpler than it would really be.

[Ryan Wagner]

Thunderbird 3 is going to solve this problem when it is released, which is part of the reason I think they implemented tabs. They haven't announced whether they are going to integrate a lightweight browser into the email client or just make it easier to install them from within Firefox, but they have said that they will make it easier.

[Nogg3r5]

Arent they xml based?

so...

<extensiontype>
  <tbird>
     <true>
  </tbird>
  <ffox>
     <false>
  </ffox>
</extensiontype>

Might be an idea.

[Ryan Wagner]

I think you're right, but the problem they have right now is that Firefox doesn't recognize the extension type when it is associated with Thunderbird, which is ironic if you ask me.