Firefox plug-in "LargeThai" by esoteric sw- is it kosher ?

Esoteric Eric

There was a plug in for firefox which made Thai language script on webpages larger if you right clicked and selected the option. It was called Large Thai Script. It is no longer compatible with firefox as of version 49

I have just found an alternative called LargeThai (oneword). It claims to be an update of the earlier software and lists esoteric software as the developer. Your website doesn't make any mention of it and nothing relevent is returned by searches on your site.

I'm just here to ask whether this plugin is kosher and actually made/managed by you, or is it ไหม่ดี and going to make my computer ill ?

thanks

Esoteric Eric

Nate

I made that Firefox extension a long time ago. It's legit, should work fine. 🙂

Esoteric Eric

Ah, great - thanks for the clarification. I'll install the new(er) one.

It is very useful, by the way - thanks for your work 🙂

Nate

Cool, hope you like it. 🙂 I was annoyed at the time by how small browsers render Thai script.

Esoteric Eric

Hi - sorry to bug you again, but I have read that Firefox is going to ditch old-school extensions in Firefox Version 57 (?December 2017) and all future extensions need to be "WebExtension compatible". Are you, perchance, thinking of updating it to comply?

thanks heaps 🙂

Nate

I probably won't be updating the extension since I don't use much Thai anymore, sorry. Though I imagine it wouldn't be super hard to update to whatever FireFox is doing. Or just avoid updating FireFox. Most people use FireFox because the extensions allow it to be customized, whereas Chrome extensions are much less powerful (no MRU tab switching! Chrome is junk!). If FireFox really throws out support for all existing extensions, I can see it dying.

Esoteric Eric

Hi I'm not completely sure the extent of the throwing out. This article from this month's Webuser magazine make it sound rather terminal:

As you may be aware, Mozilla is planning to ditch traditional Firefox add-ons soon in favour of newfangled WebExtensions that work across other browsers. Some developers have updated their tools accordingly, but many haven’t got round to it yet, which means their add-ons won’t work in future versions of Firefox. You can find out if a favourite tool is in jeopardy by visiting its page on the Mozilla Add-ons site (addons.mozilla.org) and clicking the Permissions link next to the ‘Add to Firefox’ button. If you see a message that says: “Please note this add-on uses legacy technology”, that means a WebExtension version isn’t yet available. There’s still plenty of time for the developer to create one, so don’t panic, but you’ll want to keep an eye on the page. WebExtensions are set to take over completely when Firefox 57 is released in December.

whereas this says systems other than WebExtensions will be 'deprecated'
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/What_are_WebExtensions

Is your source code public? Could someone else pick it up (I did some Basic programming at school in 1983!!)

Nate

Sure, just look at the extension. It's JavaScript.

Esoteric Eric

Sorry, when I click on "View the source" at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/largethai/versions/
I get :

Oops! Not allowed.

You tried to do something that you weren't allowed to.

I also had a peek inside the installer .xpi file, but couldn't see anything likely looking.

I couldn't tell which of the .xpi s in my C:\Users\XYZ\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\hfm57ssd.default-1477019155767\extensions was it...

Nate

Right click "Add to FireFox" here, Save As, extract the XPI like a ZIP file, extract the JAR as a ZIP file, find the JS and XUL files.

Esoteric Eric

Got it, thanks 🙂

Edit: this is a new post in 2020, three years later. The forum appended it to my previous post.

Hi
Just a courtesy note to say that I have finally found someone to revise the extension to meet Firefox's current (post FF57/Dec 2017) standards.

It's now up at :
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/thai-text-enlarger/?src=search
I hope that's OK.

also, there is another option (it achieves the same result as the above option) :
-install the 'greasemonkey' extension from
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/

-then add the thai-enlarger script from :
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/408634-thai-enlarger

They both run in the background - there is no 'right-click-to-invoke' feature. I guess you can turn them off when you're not reading Thai if you like.

all the best

Nate

Cool, thanks for sharing!

Esoteric Eric

p.s. The code/files for the extension is here, if anybody wants it:
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/09903784e61331cc2db6d92ef440a22420200813223506/327212
(link valid until 20 Aug 2020)

all the best