How to make Groowe toolbar plugins

Last update: 2006-10-28

I hope that I will develop some toolbar builder in the future, but in the meanwhile if you know a little bit of XML, you can easily make your own Groowe plugin.

Feel free to send me all interesting plugins you develop and I will be happy to host them on plugin page so other Groowe users can use them. I will also be happy to host additional logos and icons that come with your plugin.

• Make plugin XML file
• Install plugin XML file

Make plugin XML file

The best way to explain XML file is on example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Toolbar Name="Icerocket" Category="Search Engines" Language="en-us" Version="1.00">
   <Icon IconID="http://www.icerocket.com/favicon.ico" />
   <Logo LogoID="http://groowe.com/ff-plugins/logos/icerocket.png" />
   <Items>
      <Item ID="1" Caption="Search Blogs" Hint="Search Blogs" IconID="WebSearch"
            URL="http://blogs.icerocket.com/search?q=$utf8query">
         <Item ID="2" IconID="WebSearch" Caption="Web search" Hint="Search web"
            URL="http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=web&amp;q=$utf8query"/>
         <Item ID="3" IconID="GoogleNews" Caption="News" Hint="Search news articles"
            URL="http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=news&amp;q=$utf8query"/>
         <Item ID="4" IconID="Search" Caption="Images" Hint="Search images"
            URL="http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=image&amp;q=$utf8query"/>
         <Item ID="5" IconID="MediaPlayer1" Caption="Multimedia" Hint="Search multimedia"
            URL="http://www.icerocket.com/media/search?tab=media&amp;q=$utf8query"/>
      </Item>
      <Item ID="6" IconID="SearchUtil" Caption="Advanced search" Hint="Advanced Blog search"
         URL="http://www.icerocket.com/advancedsearch?tab=blog&amp;q=$utf8query"/>
   </Items>
   <Order>1;0;6</Order>
   <Hosts>
      <Host>icerocket.com</Host>
   </Hosts>
   <KeywordsFieldName>q</KeywordsFieldName>
</Toolbar>

Notes

Keep in mind that XML attributes should be encoded. Usual mistake is to use & instead of & in URLs. For example:

<Item ID="2" IconID="WebSearch" Caption="Web search" Hint="Search web"
   URL="http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=web&q=$utf8query"/> <!-- WRONG -->

<Item ID="2" IconID="WebSearch" Caption="Web search" Hint="Search web"
   URL="http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=web&amp;q=$utf8query"/> <!-- OK -->

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Toolbar />

Root toolbar plugin element.

<Toolbar Name="Icerocket" Category="Search Engines" Language="en-us" Version="1.00">

<Icon />

Specify toolbar plugin icon.

<Icon IconID="http://www.icerocket.com/favicon.ico" />

<Logo />

Specify toolbar plugin logo.

<Logo LogoID="http://groowe.com/ff-plugins/logos/icerocket.png" />

<Items />

Collection of toolbar buttons (items).

<Item />

Definition of toolbar button.

<Item ID="2" IconID="WebSearch" Caption="Web search" Hint="Search web"
   URL="http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=web&q=$utf8query" />

If <Item /> element contain <Item /> sub-nodes, like in the example from the beginning of this specification, Groowe will make a drop-down button. Otherwise, it will be only a regular menu button.

<Order />

Default order of buttons. Semi column separated string of button IDs that represents default order of buttons. Use 0 to insert separator.

<Order>1;0;6</Order>

If <Order /> is not specified, natural order of buttons in XML will be used.

You don't have to include all of the buttons in <Order />. In that case, that button won't be displayed by default in toolbar, but user can always add the button, as well as he can change the buttons order or exclude some button in Groowe "Customization & Option" dialog.

For example:

<Order>1</Order>

<Hosts />

Collection of <Host /> elements. Not required. Enter all the hosts which are in relation with the site. When user visits some site which can be fount in Hosts collection, it will immediately switch to this toolbar.

<Hosts>
   <Host>icerocket.com</Host>
</Hosts>

<KeywordsFieldName />

Name of the URL variable which specify the search keywords. Not required.

Example: http://www.google.com/search?q=groowe%20toolbar

<KeywordsFieldName>q</KeywordsFieldName>

If specified, Groowe will automatically extract keywords from URLs and put them into search box history. Of course, this is used if you have launched search from web site or on some other way, searches launched from Groowe are automatically placed into search box history.

Installing plugin XML file

There are two ways to install Groowe plugins. First way is also used on Groowe plugin page. You should navigate your Firefox browser to this URL:

http://groowe.com/firefox-plugin-dl/?url=url_of_your_plugin

http://groowe.com/firefox-plugin-dl/?url=http://www.myblogsite.com/myplugin.xml

http://groowe.com/firefox-plugin-dl/?url=file:///C:/plugins/myplugin.xml

http://groowe.com/firefox-plugin-dl/?url=http://localhost/myplugin.xml

Navigating to this kind of URL will trigger Groowe to load plugin from specified URL.

If specified XML is regular Groowe plugin XML file, it will be loaded into toolbar; otherwise, the error will be reported.

GrooweFiles folder

Groowe saves plugins to GrooweFiles directory. This folder is created when you download your first Groowe plugin, so you won't find it if you haven't installed any plugin yet.

GrooweFiles folder location depends on your system. On Windows, location is usually:

C:\Documents and Settings\<user-name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ip7i05a5.default\GrooweFiles

On linux, location is usually:

/home/<user-name>/.mozilla/firefox/sjnfe6j6.default/GrooweFiles

You can also save your plugins manually to GrooweFiles folder and they will show up on next Firefox restart. If you place XML file which is not regular Groowe plugin XML or XML with syntax errors, Groowe will ignore your plugin, without any error message.

$ chmod 700 /home/<user-name>/.mozilla/firefox/sjnfe6j6.default/GrooweFiles