Recently I had a requirement to track some numbers from a website for every 10 seconds. At first, I had two choices for doing this : the first one was to open that web page and do a manual refresh for every 10 seconds. As you might have guessed, this is not a optimal solution as this is completly blocking me from doing any other work.
The other one was to install a Reload Every firefox extension which automatically reloads the page for every (5,10,30) seconds. Even though this is convenient, again I had to stay on that page to see what’s the latest value. So, the second solution was also out of the league.
What I wanted was a Firefox extension which automatically fetch the latest numbers from the web site and then updates the value in the Firefox statusbar, so that I can continue with my work plus I can keep track of my numbers. Apart from the status tracking, I had to apply some business logic to the numbers, before showing them up in the statusbar.
But, for my custom requirement, I found no extensions in Firefox Extensions Gallery. So, I ended up with a decision to build one by myself. After starting with the Firefox extension development, I struggled initially to undertsand XUL, but then once that part is clear, the rest of the development went smoothly. I was able to complete my new extension in just two days (because the requirements are limited and small) and it worked flawlessly!
So, here I am, planning to write a series of posts for the beginner to get started with Firefox extension development. And a series of anything needs a small bit of introduction (prologue!?) and I hope that this post solves that. Keep watching this blog for the upcoming posts.
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