If any of you have tried developing Mozilla Firefox plugins before – you’ll know that whilst they are loosely based around technologies such as HTML, there is a certain amount of navigation away from the technologies towards XML and RDF. You also have to worry about packaging your plugin in XPI format for installation by other users.  Launched today – Mozilla Jetpack looks to change all of that.  If you have coded before with javascript frameworks such as  JQuery – you’ll be right at home with Jetpack features out of the box. JQuery as a library is really starting to change the web as we know it – and is my own weapon of choice. Microsoft also recently started shipping it as standard for the ASP.NET MVC framework.

JetPack API

The jetpack api itself  is the main point of contact for Features with the rest of Firefox. The API is intended as a lightweight backwards-compatible facade to the underlying Mozilla platform, which means that if you write a Feature using the Jetpack library, you won’t have to change your code as Firefox continues to evolve. It also has support for some other libraries such as the Twitter API – so writing your first in browser Twitter client should be a snap.

Friendly Architecture

The Mozilla team have moved towards a much more friendly architecture to control the features of the browser, and you can write your first Jetpack add-on in about five minutes. I had a quick play about with it, and after installing the plugin in the browser was able to manipulate a few things quite quickly. Interestingly the Bespin editor that I’ve mentioned previously – is now integrated into some of Mozilla’s demo pages, so you can see the results of your Jetpack code changes without leaving the browser.

All in all this is a good day for developers looking to further enhance the browsing experience for other users. And makes developing plugins for your favourite browser that bit easier. Check it out.

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