______________________________________________________________ > Od: Ben Bucksch <ben.bucksch@beonex.com> > Komu: maildev@lists.thunderbird.net > Dátum: 02.11.2017 15:22 > Predmet: Re: [Maildev] Fwd: Re: Proposal to remove some preferences override > >Jörg Knobloch wrote on 02.11.17 15:15: >> On 02/11/2017 14:38, Ben Bucksch wrote: >>> That will cause massive breakage. >> >> Will it? It affects add-ons that define preferences that way. Looking >> at the add-ons I wrote, there's one affected which can be fixed by >> creating the preference on the fly. >> > >It will break most extensions that I know. > >The extension often queries preferences, and presumes that the >preference is there. If neither a user pref is set, not a default pref, >nor a hardcoded default, then the pref UI throws an exception and the >extension is broken. Hardcoding is bad coding practice. The developer >relies on the preference being there, so the extension was never tested >with the default prefs missing. Errors can happen at any place in the >extension code, anywhere prefs are queried. So, you'd need to exercize >all code paths, or make a static code inspection, to verify that the >extension doesn't break. +1 >For illustration purposes only, try removing thunderbird.js and all >other default prefs from Thunderbird, and try running it. Then try >fixing all breakage. > >Also, about:config will be broken, because users want to *see* the >preferences that are available (even if they didn't change them yet). Exactly. That's what I ask if the 'new' way keeps these old features.