Jetpack was a working group which wrote a
software development kit
A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific t ...
for
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
add-ons. They produced the Add-on SDK, a set of
APIs, a
runtime, and a command-line tool for creating and running add-ons, and the Add-on Builder, a Web-based
integrated development environment
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...
which used the SDK.
Add-ons developed with the SDK were written in
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
,
CSS, and
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior.
Web browsers have ...
using
CommonJS
CommonJS is a project to standardize the module ecosystem for JavaScript outside of web browsers (e.g. on web servers or native desktop applications).
CommonJS's specification of how modules should work is widely used today for server-side Jav ...
conventions. They did not require the user to restart Firefox when they were installed or uninstalled. The SDK's APIs were high-level, task-oriented, and designed to insulate developers from changes across Firefox versions.
Mozillians running the project made a tool called the Jetpack Prototype. APIs provided by the Jetpack Prototype were not compatible with the Add-on SDK.
References
External links
Jetpack Project PageAdd-on Builder and SDKAdd-on SDK Documentation
Mozilla
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