14 DAY TRIAL // It's been a couple of years in the making, but the Mozilla Jetpack project has finally reached maturity with the launch of the stable Add-on SDK 1.0 and the Add-on Builder Beta. Both tools enable developers to create Firefox add-ons using just web technology, JavaScript, CSS, HTML along with the APIs provided by the SDK and built into Firefox.
"We’re very happy to announce two new Firefox add-on development tools from Mozilla: the Add-on SDK and the beta release of Add-on Builder," Mozilla announced.
"Creating add-ons for Firefox is now quick and easy. If you’re familiar with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, then you already have the necessary skills to build add-ons using these tools," it explained.
"In addition, all add-ons created with the Add-on Builder or Add-on SDK are restartless by default, meaning users do not have to interrupt their browsing to begin using your add-on right away," it detailed the main advantage for regular users.
The Add-on SDK started out as the Mozilla Labs Jetpack project which was aimed at providing the tools necessary to create Firefox extensions with web technologies, like Google Chrome and later Apple Safari did.
After a series of experimental builds, work was started on what has now become the Add-on SDK, a complete set of tools offering robust functionality which should be enough to compete with the existing set of add-on APIs in Firefox.
More recently, Mozilla also started working on Add-on Builder, an online development environment which should provide developers with everything they need to create Firefox add-ons in the cloud, without installing anything or setting up development environments.
For now, the the Add-on SDK provides quite a lot of functionality, developers can create a custom interface for their add-ons, interact with Firefox's functionality, as well as control the way websites are displayed.
Mozilla Add-on SDK 1.0 is available for download here.