Beta woes
When I migrated to the Firefox beta, most of my extensions did not have a version that worked with Firefox 2 beta. Today, I attempted to install another (Server Spy), and it yielded a notice that it only works with versions 1.0-1.5. So, I tried this:
Linux/OSX directions:
- Download the extension’s xpi, and save it someplace on your computer.
- Open a terminal, and navigate to the directory where you saved it. Type:
$ unzip filename.xpi
$ vim index.rdf - Go down to the line that looks somewhat like this:
<em:maxVersion>1.5.0.*</em:maxVersion>
- See that 1.5.0.*? Change that to something nice and safe, like 3.0.0, and save the file (Escape-:wq)
- Then, zip up the file using this command:
$ zip -r filename.xpi chrome/ chrome.manifest defaults/ install.rdf
- Lastly, drag the xpi file into the firefox extensions dialog, and if you did it right, your extension should install without a complaint from Firefox.
Windows Instructions
- Download the extension’s xpi, and save it someplace on your computer.
- Use your favorite zip-file extractor (xpi’s are basically just zipfiles) to open the xpi file.
- Use Notepad (or another code editor) to open index.rdf.
- Go down to the line that looks somewhat like this:
<em:maxVersion>1.5.0.*</em:maxVersion>
- See the 1.5.0.*? Change it to something safe, like 3.0.0, so Firefox won’t complain, and save the file.
- Add your modified index.rdf to your xpi file (if you extracted the files and are trying to zip them up again, use the filename format “filename.xpi” with the quotes), and drag your modified xpi file into the Firefox extensions manager.
Enjoy!
Update: Turns out somebody already made an actual extension that does the same thing.. but you’d use this one if you’re a l33t h4xx0r!