about:debugging is now listing all "search" providers as webextensions.

STRs:

• open about:debugging
• select This Nightly / This Firefox

ER: Only (mostly) user installed extensions should be displayed
AR: Extensions category is polluted with all the "search" webextensions (google, bing, duckduckgo etc)

If possible, we should filter them out, behind a pref.
Similar to what is done for system addons:
https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/search?q=devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons&path=
(behind devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons)

Hi Dale!

You implemented converting the builtin search to webextensions in Bug 1486820. We would like to filter them out by default from about:debugging, since they will most likely be irrelevant to our users. Do you have any suggestion on which field we could use to perform the filtering?

All extensions seem to have an id ending with @search.mozilla.org so that could be an idea. I also see that they are all defined with hidden: true. Maybe we should simply hide such extensions by default?

Hey Julian, CC'ing Shane who fixed this recently for about:addons as well in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1543204, I do think that you want to use the addon.hidden property to filter out these and potentially other addons.

Depends on D28629
Follows exactly the same pattern as showSystemAddons. Enabled by default for local builds, disabled otherwise.

Depends on D28630

Harald, can you confirm you're ok with this from a product perspective:

• hide "hidden" webextensions by default in about:debugging
• users can toggle devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons to show them (need to reload about:debugging)

This is exactly what we do for system addons.
Follow up tasks: make sure this is documented (dev-doc-needed) and maybe a follow up bug to surface a filter UI in about:debugging if we feel like it might be useful.

SGTM. Should we use the same pref that also enabled listing system addons or are there meaningful differences between them?

Shane, during the review we realized all system addons seem to have hidden set to true as well. Can we just rely on hidden to filter out system addons and "hidden" extensions or is it possible to have a system addon that has hidden set to false?

Thanks!

(In reply to :Harald Kirschner :digitarald from comment #8)

SGTM. Should we use the same pref that also enabled listing system addons or are there meaningful differences between them?

It looks increasingly like we should use only one pref to hide both.

Hi Irene! We are slightly modifying a behavior currently documented on MDN at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/about:debugging#Opening_the_aboutdebugging_page

Whether or not system add-ons appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

In Firefox 68, the preference will be renamed devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons. The behavior for the old about:debugging remains the same. For the new about:debugging however this preference will now toggle the visibility of both "System addons" and "hidden" webextensions. We can't really expect regular users to know what both of those concepts are so maybe we should call them "internal extensions (system add-ons and hidden extensions)". Maybe the extensions team has coined a better term for them?

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #10)

Hi Irene! We are slightly modifying a behavior currently documented on MDN at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/about:debugging#Opening_the_aboutdebugging_page

Whether or not system add-ons appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

In Firefox 68, the preference will be renamed devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons. The behavior for the old about:debugging remains the same. For the new about:debugging however this preference will now toggle the visibility of both "System addons" and "hidden" webextensions. We can't really expect regular users to know what both of those concepts are so maybe we should call them "internal extensions (system add-ons and hidden extensions)". Maybe the extensions team has coined a better term for them?

I have created an issue in MDN/Sprints - Sprints #1392

And will make the changes in the next sprint which begins on 6 May 2019.

Irene

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c33e07c9d821
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/26048370172d
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/836d02c18692

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #9)

Shane, during the review we realized all system addons seem to have hidden set to true as well. Can we just rely on hidden to filter out system addons and "hidden" extensions or is it possible to have a system addon that has hidden set to false?

IMO It's useful to see these in about:debugging, but preferably in a separate section to themselves.

Ok thanks, I filed Bug 1544372

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #15)

Ok thanks, I filed Bug 1544372

That points to this bug.

You probably meant to write bug 1548464

Thanks, clipboard + morning :)

Verified as fixed on Firefox Nightly 68.0a1 (2019-05-19) on Windows 10 x 64, Mac OS X 10.14 and on Ubuntu 18.04 x64.

Added this note to the release notes using the language suggested in Comment 10:

The preference that controls the visibility of internal extensions (system add-ons and hidden extensions) on the about:debugging page has been changed from devtools.aboutdebugging.showSystemAddons to devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons (bug 1544372).

And used the following language to describe that on the about:debugging documentation page:

Whether or not system extensions appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

I did not mention the change here because if they are on this page for the current version of about:debugging, then they don't nee/probably won't care about the old name. But if you think I should mention it, I will.

Sorry, forgot to add a need-info to ask you to review my changes.

Thanks Irene, I think this looks good, just one minor comment on

Whether or not system extensions appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

I think we might just want to settle on "internal extensions" rather than system add-ons or system extensions. System add-ons are just a specific subset of the extensions that get hidden if this preference is set to false. Not necessarily important to fix it for the current about:debugging documentation, but we should keep it in mind when writing the documentation for the new about:debugging.

(In reply to Julian Descottes [:jdescottes] from comment #21)

Thanks Irene, I think this looks good, just one minor comment on

Whether or not system extensions appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons preference. If you need to see system add-ons, navigate to about:config and make sure that this value is set to true.

I think we might just want to settle on "internal extensions" rather than system add-ons or system extensions. System add-ons are just a specific subset of the extensions that get hidden if this preference is set to false. Not necessarily important to fix it for the current about:debugging documentation, but we should keep it in mind when writing the documentation for the new about:debugging.

You're right! Thanks for catching my error. This is the new paragraph:

Whether or not internal extensions appear in the list on this page depends on the setting of the devtools.aboutdebugging.showHiddenAddons preference. If you need to see these extensions, navigate to about:config and make sure that the preference is set to true.

Looks good, thanks!