Developing the Flickr Uploader Bar

Getting the source

1. Make sure you've uninstalled the extension - restart firefox and make sure it's not on the extensions list
2. Grab a copy of the source package
3. Unzip it on your local machine
4. Edit the file 'flickrbar@moz.code.iamcal.com' to point to the location you unzipped the files in. Ensure you leave the trailing slash intact.
5. Open up your Firefox profile folder. On windows you can do this by typing this in the 'Run' box: "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles". There'll be a weirdly named folder (or two) there - inside that, there's a folder called 'extensions' (if not, create it).
6. Copy the 'flickrbar@moz.code.iamcal.com' file into the extensions folder.
7. Restart firefox - the extension should now be 'installed'.
8. Any changes made to the source are now availabale in Firefox without reinstalling.

Tips and tricks

• Download the Extension Developer Extension - it lets you reload chrome without restarting. That means no more restarting Firefox when you make a change to the source.
• Set up these debugging preferences (through about:config):
  • browser.dom.window.dump.enabled = true
  • javascript.options.showInConsole = true
  • javascript.options.strict = true (may overwhelm you with errors)
  • nglayout.debug.disable_xul_cache = true
  • nglayout.debug.disable_xul_fastload = true

Packaging the extension

I currently do this with an ant script - i'm going to try and automate this a little better before sharing it.

Known bugs / obviously missing features

• Drag and drop doesn't seem to work on OSX - no idea why
• Error conditions are handled badly, when they're handled at all
• We should copy dragged files to a temp folder to avoid them being deleted out from under us
• We should persist the photo queue between browser restarts
• Styling of the hover state for the thin bar is awful
• The main bar current has no good drag state / drop indicator
• Settings dialog looks like ass on OSX - the headers don't render
• 'Auto clear' option should explain that it doesn't delete the source file
• Sometimes thumbnail generation hangs, blocking the thumb queue
• Logout link should probably log you out of flickr too
• 'Off' state graphic for scrolling arrows look like ass
• Need a greyed-out version of the status icon from when the uploader is hidden
• Need a preference for a toolbar button and to completely hide the bar when not in use (toolbar or status bar icon triggers the whole thing)