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Bundles

From MDC


XULRunner applications, extensions, and themes all share a common directory structure, and in some cases the same bundle can be used as a standalone XULRunner application as well as an installable application extension.

Contents

[edit] Basic Structure of a Bundle

A bundle may include any of the following files: 

/install.rdf                        Extension/Theme Install Manifest
/application.ini                    Application Launch Manifest
/components/*                       Component and XPT Files      (>=1.7)
/defaults/preferences/*.js          Default Preferences          (>=1.7)
/plugins/*                          NPAPI Plugins                (>=1.8)
/chrome.manifest                    Chrome Registration Manifest (>=1.8)
/chrome/icons/default/*             Window Icons                 (>=1.8)

Of course, an extension need not (and normally won't) have all of these directories. Themes are limited for security reasons, and can normally only provide a chrome.manifest which registers the theme and a JAR file.

[edit] Platform-specific Subdirectories

In some cases a single extension or application may wish to include binary component or plugins for multiple platforms, or theme authors might want to include multiple platform-specific JAR files. To facilitate the first case, the extension/app loader has special sub-directories specifically for platform-specific files (starting with Toolkit/Gecko 1.8, Firefox/Thunderbird 1.5). The platform string is defined during the toolkit build process to a value unique for the combination of operating system, processor architecture and compiler. The format of the platform string is: 

{OS_TARGET}_{TARGET_XPCOM_ABI}

All of the files which are loaded from the main extension directory are loaded from the subdirectory 

/platform/{platform string}

if it exists. For example, if a plugin vendor wanted to make a plugin available for consumer computers running Linux, Macintosh, and Windows, it would provide the following files: 

/platform/Linux_x86-gcc3/plugins/libMyPlugin.so
/platform/WINNT_x86-msvc/plugins/MyPlugin.dll
/platform/Darwin_ppc-gcc3/plugins/libMyPlugin.dylib

Because XPT files are not platform-specific, any associated XPT files would go in the generic components directory: 

/components/MyPlugin.xpt

If an extension has non-binary platform-specific code (such as code which uses the windows registry from script), it can also use just the operating system identifier as a platform-subdirectory: 

/platform/WINNT/components/registerDoctype.js

When platform-specific JAR files are used, each platform directory should have its own chrome.manifest file: 

chrome.manifest
chrome/mytheme-base.jar
platform/Darwin/chrome.manifest
platform/Darwin/chrome/mytheme-mac.jar
platform/WINNT/chrome.manifest
platform/WINNT/chrome/mytheme-win.jar

The app/extension loader processes the base directory first, followed by the applicable platform directories (first /{OS_TARGET}/, then /{OS_TARGET}_{TARGET_XPCOM_ABI}/). When default preferences are defined in several directories, the ones loaded later overwrite the earlier ones.

[edit] Application-specific Extension Files

In addition to the extension files listed above, applications may read additional files from extensions. For example, Firefox 1.5 and greater will read Sherlock search plugins from 

/searchplugins/*.src

Firefox 2 and greater will additionally read MozSearch and OpenSearch plugins from 

/searchplugins/*.xml

and Myspell dictionaries from 

/dictionaries/*.{aff|dic}

[edit] Official References for Toolkit API

Retrieved from "http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Bundles"