Mozilla has released a new version of their new add-on development platform, the Add-on SDK (Jetpack). This new version, v1.1, has several optimizations including a new feature to reduce the add-on file size by default. Along with the new release, the Jetpack team has also announced to follow rapid release cycle similar to that of Firefox: “We will be releasing a new version of the Add-on SDK about two weeks before each new release of Firefox”.

This announcement ensures rapid development of Add-on SDK, which means better compatibility of add-ons with the newer versions of Firefox. As Firefox is now following rapid release cycle, the add-on developers can improve and update their add-ons in advance to work smoothly with the upcoming versions. The above announcement also indicates that the jetpack platform is going to have new APIs very soon. This will finally result into more powerful add-ons developed on jetpack platform – which is the future of extensions for Firefox and other Mozilla products.

Easy to Port!

Another important feature introduced in Add-on SDK 1.1 is the integration of better transition/porting of modules that use “Components” to help developers porting traditional XUL/XPCOM add-ons to the Add-on SDK. This will enable developers to port their existing add-ons to Jetpack platform easily. As the Jetpack platform is aimed to create much secured and less resource-consuming add-ons, we expect more developers to switch to it. As of now, only 22% of the new add-ons submitted to AMO are developed on jetpack platform.