User:Nickolay/FAQ

From MDC

Questions that I feel are asked rather frequently. Don't edit or I'll be unhappy.

• Platform
  • Threading and concurrency in general and in JavaScript in particular [1]
  • Talking to external applications (you can't communicate via stdout/stdin without installing 3rd party binary components; sockets)
  • Manipulating Firefox from an external application (e.g. read DOM of a loaded page)
  • XPCNativeWrappers-related issues: how do I access variables defined in content, how do I call methods in a page
  • How do I use C++ / other non-JS code from frontend JS. (We have documentation on XPCOM, but having a short answer in the FAQ would be useful). Same for implementing XPCOM components (pointers to overviews and other docs).
  • Handling notifications (need to explain different methods that are used to handle various notifications, or events, and have a comprehensive listing of available notifications). [2] [3]
  • Troubleshooting XPCOM components registration
• Extensions
  • Working with tabbrowser (stuff on Code snippets:Tabbed browser, opening new tab, detecting page load)
  • We need a document clearly explaining and comparing all the ways that can be used to listen for document loads (capturing load listener, DOMContentLoaded, web progress listener). There are gotchas with all of these and I haven't seen a clear explanation a single time. Heck, I can't even provide one.
  • Open a tab/window with your generated text in it (not very common, but was asked a few times)
  • Checking if an extension is installed from a web page ([4])
• Misc
  • Not a development question, but comes up pretty regularly: Screengrabber utility / save web page as image.
  • Running an executable from a web page ([5])