Creating a Firefox extension is nothing short of an adventure. I was able to get started pretty quickly, thanks to this web-based quick-start wizard, all the boilerplate code was generated in literally no time.

Now, onto the actual functionality of the extension. I have to implement a protocol handler for the 9P protocol, which essentially means you type in ninep://sources.cs.bell-labs.com/ and start reading files right off the browser window. (ninep:// because a URL can’t start with a number)

This page provides some useful insights and code snippets on the subject of adding a new protocol handler. I was able to get as far as displaying a Glenda image whenever you type in a URL beginning with ninep.

The way this works is you create an XPCOM component that implements a standard interface. Specifically, the newChannel() method is where all the action is. It receives a URL and you do something and return an nsIChannel. Mozilla provides standard nsIChannel implementations for popular protocols such as http, ftp and even the ubiquitous file://.

The intuitive thing to do here would be to do all my 9P processing in the newChannel() implementation and return a stream in a standard channel. However, that’s not going to work, since newChannel() would then block and the UI would actually freeze until the 9P transaction completes. Sub-optimal.

The “proper” way to do this would be to create my own implementation of nsIChannel. That way I just create a new nsIChannel in newChannel() and be on my way. nsIChannel would then take care of firing callbacks as and when data arrives. There’s somewhere I can start with, and that’s the Mozilla implementation of the finger protocol. It’s written in C++, however, and I need to figure out how I can map the same to JavaScript (via XPConnect).