Techno Barje

How to Write a New WebAPI in Firefox Desktop, Mobile, OS - Part 1 ?

Mozilla teams recently wrote tons of new API in a very short period of time, mostly for Firefox OS, but not only. As Firefox Desktop, Firefox Mobile and Firefox OS are based on the same source code, some of these API can easily be enabled on Desktop and mobile.

Writing a new API can be seen as both complicated and simple. Depending on the one you want to write, you don’t necessary need to write anything else than Javascript code (for example the settings API). That makes such task much more accessible and easier to prototype as you do not enter in compile/run development cycles, nor have to build firefox before even trying to experiment. But there is a significant number of mozilla specific knowledges to have before being able to write your API code.

The aim of this article is to write down a simple API example from ground and try to explain all necessary things you need to know before writing an API with the same level of expertise than what did Firefox OS engineers.

The example API: « CommonJS require »

Let’s say we would like to expose to websites a require() method that act like the nodejs/commonjs method with the same name. This function allows you to load javascript files exposing a precise interface, without polluting your current javascript scope.

So given the following javascript file: Liquid error: undefined method `join’ for #<String:0x00000002648e88>

Any webpage will be able to use its hello function like this: Liquid error: undefined method `join’ for #<String:0x00000002647e98>

Simpliest implementation possible

In this first example I stripped various advanced features in order to ease jumping into Firefox internal code. I bundled this example as a Firefox addon so that you can easily see it running and also hack it. You can download it here. Once installed, you will have to relaunch Firefox, open any webpage, then open a Web console and finally execute the navigator.webapi.require code I just gave.

Now let’s see what’s inside. This .xpi file is just a zip file so you can open it and see three files:

  • install.rdf:

A really boring file describing our addon. The only two important fields in this file are: <em:bootstrap>false</em:bootstrap> and <em:unpack>true</em:unpack> required when you need to register a XPCOM file. More info here.

  • chrome.manifest:
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# Those two lines allow to register the Javascript xpcom component defined in
# `web-api.js`
component {20bf1550-64b8-11e2-bcfd-0800200c9a77} web-api.js
contract @mozilla.org/webapi-example;1 {20bf1550-64b8-11e2-bcfd-0800200c9a77}

# That line registers the xpcom component in the "JavaScript-navigator-property"
# category which add it to the list of components that inject a new property in
# `navigator` web pages global object. The second argument defines the name of
# the property we would like to set.
category JavaScript-navigator-property webapi @mozilla.org/webapi-example;1
  • web-api.js:

And last but not least. The Javascript XPCOM file. XPCOM is a component object model overused in Mozilla codebase. More info here Let’s analyse its content by pieces:

Liquid error: undefined method `join’ for #<String:0x00000002646de0>

I let you discover the implementation of the require method, but it will be your job to implement such method. Now, you have the very minimal set where you can tweak the returned value of the init method and expose your own API to webpages.

Now note that this is a very minimal example. I’ll try to continue blogging about that and eventually talk about:

  • interfaces definition,
  • custom event implementation,
  • other XPCOM categories (in order to inject on other object than navigator),
  • how to implement a cross process API (mandatory for Firefox OS),
  • prototyping via the Addon SDK,
  • …

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