I think Protozilla should stay as an extension for a while at least. Just to clarify
...
Protozilla does not require an UI to be useful. If you copy a protocol handler script
to the protozilla
subdirectory in the user's profile, the protocol will automatically be registered.
This is sort of like
autoregistration of components, except that protocols are registered. The UI is there
simply to make it
easy for the user to add/delete protocols. You can also add/delete protocols using any
file manager!
However, Protozilla is a bit of a hack. It uses numerous workarounds to achieve
generic protocol
handling. If I had the approval (and expertise) to modify any part of mozilla, I would
implement
generic protocol handling quite differently. It would be better to build external
protocol handling
capabilities directly into the mozilla URL handling process; however, I don`t believe
this will happen
anytime soon. Having Protozilla around as an active extension might help keep up the
pressure to
actually make these changes to mozilla.
In any case, the generic protocol handling part of Protozilla is a pure Javascript
component, and a
fairly large one, about 3K lines (shaver: that should please you!) Since it doesn't
need to be
compiled, it won't bit-rot as quickly as the IPC portion of Protozilla, even if it
stays an extension.
Saravanan
Mike Shaver wrote:
> Doug Turner wrote:
>
> > Mike Shaver wrote:
> >>What sort of UI does protozilla require, and how does it meaningfully
> >>differ from the other protocols' UI requirements? (I confess to never
> >>having used Protozilla. Bad me.)
> >
> > Core protocols require very little use to be useful. Protozilla requires UI to
>just to be useful.
> >
> > http://protozilla.mozdev.org/screenshots.html
>
> Those look like configuration screens, much like our protocol pref
> windows (send-email-as-FTP-password, etc.). svn: is it possible to use
> protozilla protocols without any having to bring up those windows,
> assuming that you have the proper configuration entries in ?
>
> (Why is the presence of a UI requirement -- above and beyond nsIPrompt,
> of course, which most of our protocols use -- a barrier to entry into
> the hallowed netwerk/protocol/ tree? I'm not unhappy with it being an
> extension, I'm just not clear on what the criteria are.)
>
> Mike
