The Mozilla Add-on SDK 1.0b3 for Restartless Firefox Extensions Is Now Avaialble

Mozilla has announced the release of the third beta of the upcoming Add-on SDK 1.0 for Firefox. This latest release focuses on bug fixing and stability, but it also includes a couple of changes and new functionality. If everything goes according to plan, this should be the last beta release of thew new add-on platform.

"The Jetpack team is pleased to announce the release of Add-on SDK 1.0b3. This version, the third in the series of beta releases of Mozilla’s downloadable software development kit for building Firefox add-ons, includes better documentation, new features, and a bunch of bug fixes," Mozilla announced.

At this point, the Add-on SDK 1.0 Beta 3 should be more than usable for deploying easy to build extensions for the upcoming Firefox 4. The final release of the SDK 1.0 is slated for early Q2, meaning next month at the earliest.

Mozilla listed some of the notable changes in the latest release:

- The documentation has been reorganized, restyled, and expanded to make it easier to browse and more comprehensive.

- The new Annotator example add-on shows you how to use a number of APIs to interact with users and web content.

- The new Tab.attach() method lets you create a Page Mod worker on-demand for a given tab.

- It is now possible to specify a 64×64 pixel icon for your add-on’s Details view in the Add-ons Manager.

Building add-ons with the new SDK only requires knowledge of standard web technologies like JavaScript. Add-ons created with the new SDK also have the advantage of not requiring a browser restart.

The SDK has been in the works for a year now and is the continuation of work done with the Jetpack Labs experiment. The technology is now ready for the prime time, though the platform is not meant to replace the current add-ons platform. Rather, it will complement it and make it easier for more developers to start building for Firefox.

Mozilla Add-ons SDK 1.0b3 is avaialble for download here.