Are little apps that add new functionality to Thunderbird (extensions) or change its appearance (themes). This article shows you how to install an add-on to your Thunderbird.
Table of Contents
The ideal case
In an ideal world, all the add-ons you would want are officially vetted, approved, and can be found on the official website, addons.thunderbird.net.
For add-ons that fall into this category, you can simply go to the Add-ons Manager tab in Thunderbird by clicking the menu button followed by Add-ons and click on the Extensions panel on the left to display the search box in the top -right corner. Enter the add-on"s name or enough of it to limit the search results returned to a manageable number and press EnterReturn or click the magnifying glass icon.
Once you have done your first search, a new Search category appears in the panel on the left. You can keep refining your search until you find what you want.
Here is a search for add-ons that mention "Contacts":
Once you locate an add-on you like, click on Install , wait for it to be downloaded, then click on Restart now if prompted.
A slightly less ideal case (Install from a downloaded XPI file)
You may have been given an URL for the add-on, or the add-on you want isn't on the "official" page. Searching for it, as shown above, doesn't locate the add-on.
Visit the webpage in your browser, right-click the download link with your mouse, select Save Link As… and save the XPI file to a location on your computer that is easy to remember. As the download is temporary, it is suggested you use either your Downloads folder or your desktop.
If you are using older versions of Firefox, a left-click on the download link will cause the browser to try and install the add-on into Firefox itself. This invariably results in an error about compatibility, as the add-on is designed for Thunderbird. If you"re using another browser, a left-click might result in your browser attempting to download and "open" the XPI file. This is basically a small program, so it is not meant to be opened. It has to be saved to disk.
To install a downloaded XPI file into Thunderbird, you have two options.
Download
Right-click the link and select Save As… or Save Link As… as described earlier.
You will be invited to download and save the file. Most browsers have a default download location. Make a note of where it downloads to, and what it"s called. Some add-on files may have silly names like "latest-234.xpi", which is not very helpful when you"re trying to find it later on.
Open the Add-ons Manager tab in Thunderbird. There"s a button to the left of the search box. Click this and select Install Add-on From File… from the subsequent menu.
You will need to navigate to where you saved the XPI file using the file picker and select it to complete the install.
This guide is step by step instructions to create a simple extension. We will try to add another small panel with the phrase “Hello, World!” to the status bar.Preparing the environment
Extensions are packaged and distributed as zip files or packages with an XPI extension.Here is an example of a typical internal structure of an XPI file:
ExampleExt.xpi:
/install.rdf
/components/*
/components/cmdline.js
/defaults/
/defaults/preferences/*.js
/plugins/*
/chrome.manifest
/chrome/icons/default/*
/chrome/
/chrome/content/
We need to create a directory structure similar to this. To begin, create a root directory for the extension (for example, C:\extensions\my_extension\ or ~/extensions/my_extension/). Inside this directory, create a chrome directory, within which create a content directory.
IN root in the extension directory, create two empty text files named chrome.manifest and install.rdf. The resulting directory structure should look like this:
install.rdf
chrome.manifest
chrome\
content\
More information about setting up your environment can be found at this link.
Installation script
Open the install.rdf file and add the following text to it:Save the file.
Browser extension using XUL
Firefox's user interface is written using XUL and JavaScript. XUL is a subset of XML that allows you to create elements user interface, such as buttons, menus, control panels, trees, etc. All user actions are processed using JavaScript.To "extend" the browser, we modify parts of the Firefox user interface by adding or modifying widgets (controls). We add widgets by adding new XUL DOM elements to the browser window and control their behavior using scripts and event handling.
The browser interface is defined in the browser.xul file ($FIREFOX_INSTALL_DIR/chrome/browser.jar contains content/browser/browser.xul) In browser.xul we can find a status bar description that looks something like this:
Open the file chrome.manifest, which was created in the root directory of your extension. Add the following code:
Content sample chrome/content/
(Don't forget the closing slash, "/"! Without it, the package will not be registered.)
Let's look at each element:
- chrome package type
- chrome package name (must be in lower case because Firefox/Thunderbird version 2 and earlier do not support mixed case names - bug 132183)
- hosting chrome package files
Please note that the content, locale and skin files must be located inside the content, locale and skin directory of the chrome subdirectory respectively.
Save the file. Now, when you launch Firefox with your extension (described below), the chrome package will be registered.
Registering a Layer
Now you need to link your layer to the browser window. To do this, add the following lines to the chrome.manifest file:Overlay chrome://browser/content/browser.xul chrome://sample/content/sample.xul
These two lines tell Firefox to associate sample.xul and browser.xul when loading browser.xul .
Testing
First, we need to tell Firefox about our extension. During development for Firefox version 2 and higher, you can specify where to get a new extension from, and the browser will load it after each restart.- Go to your home directory, and then to the directory containing the Firefox profile you want to work with (for example, Firefox/Profiles/
Default/). - Go to the extensions/ directory, if it doesn't exist, create it.
- Create text file and put in it the full path to the directory with your extension (for example, C:\extensions\my_extension\ or ~/extensions/my_extension/). Windows users should be mindful of the direction of slashes, be sure to add a trailing slash and remove any trailing spaces.
- Save the file with the extension id as its name (for example, [email protected]). No file extension.
Launch Firefox. Firefox will automatically find the directory with your extension using the text link and install it. After launching the browser, you will see the inscription “Hello, World!” on the right side of the status bar.
You can make some changes to the .xul file, restart Firefox, and you will see the result immediately.
Creating a package
Now that the extension is working, you can create a package for later distribution and installation.Pack with an archiver zip contents directory with your extension (not the extension directory itself) and change the archive extension from .zip to .xpi.
If you are the proud owner of an "Extension Builder", then it can do all the dirty work for you (Tools -> Extension Developer -> Extension Builder). Just go to the directory with your extension and click the Build Extension button. This extension has a lot of tools to make development easier.
Now upload the resulting .xpi file to your server and make sure its type is set to application/x-xpinstall . After this, you can download and install the extension.
Tags: Add tags
The table below provides useful information about the .xpi file extension. It answers questions such as:
- What is a file? xpi?
- What software do I need to open the file. xpi?
- Like a file. xpi be opened, edited or printed?
- How to convert. xpi files to a different format?
We hope you find this page a useful and valuable resource!
1 extensions and 0 aliases found in the database
✅ Mozilla XPInstall Package
Description (in English):
XPI file is a Mozilla XPInstall Package. XPInstall is a technology used by the Mozilla Application Suite, SeaMonkey, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and other XUL-based applications for installing Mozilla extensions that add functionality to the main application. An XPI installer module is a ZIP file that contains an install script or a manifest at the root of the file, and a number of data files.
MIME type: application/x-xpinstall
Magic number: -
Magic number: -
Sample: -
XPI aliases:
XPI related links:
XPI related extensions:
Other file types may also use the file extension .xpi.
🚫 The .xpi file extension is often given incorrectly!
According to Search our site, these typos were the most common last year:
xpo , xpj , api , zpi , xpk, xp , xip , spi , pi , cpi , xpu , xpl , xli , xi , pxi
Is it possible that the filename extension is incorrect?
We found the following similar file extensions in our database:
🔴 Can't open .xpi file?
When you double-click a file to open it, Windows checks the file name extension. If Windows recognizes a filename extension, the file opens in a program that is associated with that filename extension. When Windows does not recognize the file name extension, the following message appears:
Windows can't open this file:
Example.xpi
To open this file, Windows needs to know what program you want to use to open it...
If you don't know how to set up file associations .xpi, check .
🔴 Is it possible to change the file extension?
Changing the file name and file extension is not a good idea. When you change a file extension, you change the way programs on your computer read the file. The problem is that changing the file extension does not change the file format.
If you have useful information o file extension .xpi, !
🔴 Rate our XPI page
Please help us by rating our page XPI in the 5-star rating system below. (1 star bad, 5 stars excellent)
XPI (pronounced Zippy) is a technology used in Mozilla Application Suite, SeaMonkey, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and other XUL-based applications to install Mozilla extensions that add functionality to the software. The Installer.XPI module is a ZIP file that contains the installation script at the root of the file, and a selection of data files. Since Firefox 1.0, XPIS from sites other than Mozilla Add-ons are blocked by default. This was an attempt to prevent malware, How computer viruses, Trojans and spyware, can be installed by novice users. While it is possible to whitelist a site, which limits the areas that XPIS can be installed, malicious sites cannot install extensions in background until the user approves the installation. This is due to a confirmation dialog that must be answered for each extension installation. However, users should still be advised to only install extensions from trusted sources.
In order to install a file locally on the system, the user can drag the file into the open window Firefox browser or use File Firefox | Open menu command. Typically the file will be downloaded through Firefox after the user has searched for new add-ons and will automatically install itself and be available after the browser is restarted.
The XPI extension is also used by LcdStudio, a program that allows users to create programs that display computer performance data on the entire monitor screen. They contain a list of XDS project files for playback in the LcdStudio application, and are used to display dynamic rendering data from live computer performance.
The file with the XPI extension contains archive of data for installing additional Mozilla software. The installation package is an uncompressed archive or a ZIP archive compressed using the "deflate" method. XPI extension name is short for cross-platform installations - XPInstall, which is the name of the technology , used V I process installations This is sometimes called "lightning". XPI packages are used to install, add new features and extend the functionality of such software applications, How:
- Fire Fox,
- SeaMonkey,
- Thunderbird.
An XPI package file can contain plugins, extensions, themes, or dictionaries. The file also stores installation instructions, saved in script file install.js and manifest file install.rdf . Software represents package file. The XPI file may also contain images of media files used by these applications. XPI packages for Firefoxa can be created using the SDK Add-on library. Standard Firefox installation, which installs only XPI files with digital signature Mozilla. The user just needs to drag and drop the XPI into the web browser widow to download the package and once downloaded, open the menu “Tools” - “Add-ons / Extensions / Themes”. If the user wants to install third party packages that are not certified by Mozilla, they must use the developer version of Firefox and set the about:config page parameter xpinstall.signatures.required meaning false. The contents of the XPI package can be viewed by changing the file extension in the ZIP and extracting it.
Programs that support the XPI file
We hope we helped you resolve your XPI file problem. If you don't know where you can download an application from our list, click on the link (this is the name of the program) - You will find more detailed information on where to download the secure installation version of the required application.
What else could cause problems?
There may be more reasons why you cannot open an XPI file (not just the lack of an appropriate application).
Firstly- the XPI file may not be linked correctly (incompatible) with installed application for its maintenance. In this case, you need to change this connection yourself. To do this, right-click on the XPI file that you want to edit, click the option "Open with" and then select the program you installed from the list. After this action, problems with opening the XPI file should completely disappear.
Secondly- the file you want to open may simply be damaged. In this case, it would be best to find a new version of it, or download it again from the same source (perhaps for some reason in the previous session the download of the XPI file did not finish and it could not be opened correctly).
Do you want to help?
If you have additional information about the XPI file extension, we would be grateful if you share it with users of our site. Use the form below and send us your information about the XPI file.
