Bootstrap add button to BrowserPalette and make it persist

Question

I am curious about something. I am able to add a button to the BrowserPalette and then move it to a toolbar with this code, can copy paste to scratchpad and run.

var doc = document;
var win = doc.defaultView;

var toolbox = doc.querySelector('#navigator-toolbox');

var buttonId = 'bpMyBtn';
var button = doc.getElementById(buttonId);
if (!button) {
    button = doc.createElementNS('http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul', 'toolbarbutton');
    button.setAttribute('id', buttonId);
    button.setAttribute('label', 'My Button');
    button.setAttribute('tooltiptext', 'My buttons tool tip if you want one');
    button.setAttribute('class', 'toolbarbutton-1 chromeclass-toolbar-additional');
    button.style.listStyleImage = 'url("https://gist.githubusercontent.com/Noitidart/9266173/raw/06464af2965cb5968248b764b4669da1287730f3/my-urlbar-icon-image.png")';
    button.addEventListener('command', function() {
        alert('you clicked my button')
    }, false);

    toolbox.palette.appendChild(button);
}

var targetToolbar = doc.querySelector('#nav-bar');
//move button into last postion in targetToolbar
targetToolbar.insertItem(buttonId); //if you want it in first position in targetToolbar do: targetToolbar.insertItem(buttonId, navBar.firstChild);
targetToolbar.setAttribute('currentset', targetToolbar.currentSet);
doc.persist(targetToolbar.id, 'currentset');

however the doc.persist is not working, once i restart the browser the button is gone. is it possible to use persist to just add a button on first time of bootstrap addon and have it persist?

this also leads to the question how to remove the button and persist that? (ie on uninstall remove compltely from palette, and another ie: just remove from toolbar so in other words just send it back to the palette and persist that)

i got the persist code from here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Code_snippets/Toolbar#Adding_button_by_default

Answer 1

I'm using library that originally found in one of the contributions by Erik Vold who is my main source of knowledge for bootstrap development. It works wonderfuly:

/* ***** BEGIN LICENSE BLOCK *****
* Version: MIT/X11 License
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* Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
* of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
* in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
* to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
* copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
* furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
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* The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
* all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
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* IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
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* LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
* OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
* THE SOFTWARE.
*
* Contributor(s):
* Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> (Original Author)
* Erik Vold <erikvvold@gmail.com>
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(function(global) {
  let positions = {};

  /*
   * Assigns position that will be used by `restorePosition`
   * if the button is not found on any toolbar's current set.
   * If `beforeID` is null, or no such item is found on the toolbar,
   * the button will be added to the end.
   * @param beforeID ID of the element before which the button will be inserted.
   */
  global.setDefaultPosition = function(buttonID, toolbarID, beforeID) {
    positions[buttonID] = [toolbarID, beforeID];
  };

  /*
   * Restores the button's saved position.
   * @param {XULDocument} doc XUL window document.
   * @param {XULElement} button button element.
   */
  global.restorePosition = function(doc, button, toolbox) {
    function $(sel, all)
      doc[all ? "querySelectorAll" : "getElementById"](sel);
    ($(toolbox) || $("header-view-toolbox") || $("navigator-toolbox") || $("mail-toolbox")).palette.appendChild(button);

    let toolbar, currentset, idx,
        toolbars = $("toolbar", true);
    for (let i = 0; i < toolbars.length; ++i) {
      let tb = toolbars[i];
      currentset = tb.getAttribute("currentset").split(","),
      idx = currentset.indexOf(button.id);
      if (idx != -1) {
        toolbar = tb;
        break;
      }
    }

    // saved position not found, using the default one, if any
    if (!toolbar && (button.id in positions)) {
      let [tbID, beforeID] = positions[button.id];
      toolbar = $(tbID);
      [currentset, idx] = persist(doc, toolbar, button.id, beforeID);
    }

    if (toolbar) {
      if (idx != -1) {
        // inserting the button before the first item in `currentset`
        // after `idx` that is present in the document
        for (let i = idx + 1; i < currentset.length; ++i) {
          let before = $(currentset[i]);
          if (before) {
            toolbar.insertItem(button.id, before);
            return;
          }
        }
      }
      toolbar.insertItem(button.id);
    }
  };

  function persist(document, toolbar, buttonID, beforeID) {
    let currentset = toolbar.getAttribute("currentset").split(","),
        idx = (beforeID && currentset.indexOf(beforeID)) || -1;
    if (idx != -1) {
      currentset.splice(idx, 0, buttonID);
    } else {
      currentset.push(buttonID);
    }
    toolbar.setAttribute("currentset", currentset.join(","));
    document.persist(toolbar.id, "currentset");
    return [currentset, idx];
  }
})(this);

Then in install function use:

setDefaultPosition("my_button_id", "navigator-toolbox", null);

(for easy test you can add it into startup function with:

if (reason == ADDON_INSTALL)
{
    setDefaultPosition("my_button_id", "navigator-toolbox", null);
}

Finally to add the button itself use something like this in your window loaded function:

let toolbarbutton = document.createElement("toolbarbutton"),
toolbarbutton.id = "my_button_id";
toolbarbutton.setAttribute("label", "My toolbar button");
restorePosition(document, toolbarbutton, "navigator-toolbox");
unload(function()
{
    toolbarbutton.parentNode.removeChild(toolbarbutton);
});

(unload() is again another library function from Erik Vold)