With Firefox releasing version 3.0.1 yesterday, I spent a chunk of last night trying to update the noodle extension. I decided it would probably be a good idea to enable automatic updates so keen users would be able to take advantage of the latest features immediately (or some such marketing gubbins).

Basic extension building itself is unnecessarily complicated in my opinion. For a start, XUL is an extremely clever and powerful tool but has abysmal documentation. I've now done two sizeable projects using it and I still don't have a clue how it works. Once you've got that bit sorted, however, you then need to package up your extension in a very particular way taking care not to forget updating all of the required versioning bits.

If you want to enable automatic updating, you now need to digitally sign it. Not a bad idea, really. It just makes the whole process even more complicated.

My process roughly goes as follows:

• Update Extension


• Update install.rdf with the new version number


• On the terminal, run './build.sh' (automatic shell script to package, zip, remove hidden files, copy, paste, resequence, etc)


• Upload noodle.xpi to this server


• On the terminal, run 'md5 noodle.xpi' (to calculate one of the application hashes)


• copy key to noodle extension post for in-browser installation


• update update.rdf with the new version number


• run 'openssl sha1 noodle.xpi' to generate another application hash)


• update update.rdf with new update hash


• resign update.rdf with McCoy (embeds another application hash)


• upload update.rdf to server


• cross fingers

This process is somewhat more complicated the first time you do it as you also have to use McCoy to digitally sign the install.rdf before you build your extension. McCoy itself is also password-protected.

In total, you have 1 password to run McCoy, 1 extension signature, 1 md5 hash to allow in-browser installation, 1 sha1 hash to allow add-ons menu automatic updating and 1 signed update.rdf. I'm sure I've missed one.

You can either download the Noodle Firefox extension from the Mozilla Addons Site (recommended but requires registration) or below.

Noodle Firefox extension [1.0.5].

If you download from the Mozilla site, you can leave a review and increase the chance it'll get accepted into the public area (no registration required).

It has been tested with Firefox 2 and 3. Surprisingly, it also works fine with both of them, too.

I've removed the comment form from below each post here and replaced it with a Noodle button. I figured there's no sense in making a website devoted to instant commenting if I'm not going to use it myself.

This does coincide with the evil evil spambots cracking my (previously thought to be impregnable) anti-spam system earlier this week but it isn't related. Honest. Darned spam. So it may not have been impregnable but it had a fairly decent run. It lasted seven months and several tens of thousands of attempts to bypass it. Oh well.

At least Noodle uses Google Accounts. If spam starts to come through on it, I'll just remove the ability to post anonymously so everyone will need a google account. I'd rather not do that unless I really have to, though.