I’ve developed a WebExtension that provides a bridge between a browser and a desktop application, replacing an NPAPI plugin that did the same. As you might imagine, it’s not very useful without the corresponding application, so there’s no point in installing it through AMO.
I’d like to install the WebExtension from the application installer. Is there a way to do this?
See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1317363 and https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Installing_extensions.
The second of those links says it only applies to legacy extensions, not WebExtensions. Is this incorrect?
After testing, I’m sure place the WebExtensions xpi file into like AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Extensions\{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}\bookmarksorganizer@agenedia.com.xpi is still working in the latest Nightly. But it does not seem to pop up a sideload notification in the menu and you have to let the users go to the Add-ons Manager to enable it. I will submit a bug to ask.
If you place the extension’s xpi into the Firefox profile folder’s extensions directory, it works. But your installer may need to traverse these directories, and this may not be an official program.
You can temporarily install the addon by loading it via about:debugging page or you can get your addon signed (unlisted) and then install that just by dragging it into Firefox.
Neither of these is a good choice: I can’t ask thousands of users to do either and expect that more than a few percent of them will get it right, and neither option can be automated for a sysadmin’s use.
It sounds like this is what you want: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise. There’s a mailing list where you can ask questions.
Also, the second link in the first reply should work all add-ons, regardless of them using WebExtensions or not.