feat: Add reference browser support to the firefox-android extension runner (#1870)

[jonalmeida]

In addition to Fenix support (#1834), we'd like to add Reference Browser as well. 🙂

[Rob--W]

Did you verify that you're able to run extensions in the Reference browser after this change?

[jonalmeida]

Did you verify that you're able to run extensions in the Reference browser after this change?

Yes, I did. It requires a minor change in r-b to allow web-ext to launch the browser which I'll be landing soon. 🙂

[coveralls]

Coverage remained the same at 100.0% when pulling a3f06e0 on jonalmeida:rb-support into de9211a on mozilla:master.

[Rob--W]

I see that you've opened a new pull request at the Reference Browser's repository as well.

Did you know that even without any changes to web-ext and the reference browser, that you are already able to run web-ext with the Reference browser? For example:

web-ext run -t firefox-android --android-device=<device ID here> --firefox-apk=org.mozilla.reference.browser --firefox-apk-component=BrowserActivity

To avoid the need for mozilla-mobile/reference-browser#1096 , you could add

if (!apkComponent && apk === 'org.mozilla.reference.browser') {
   apkComponent = 'BrowserActivity';
}

before

web-ext/src/util/adb.js

Lines 273 to 274 in ffe5726

	const component = apkComponent ?
	`${apk}/.${apkComponent}` : `${apk}/.App`;

[jonalmeida]

It seemed more in line with our other browser apps to follow the activity-alias for .App since we have to add it for other production browsers as well. Keeping R-B in sync with those makes testing reproducible.

[jonalmeida]

Did you know that even without any changes to web-ext and the reference browser, that you are already able to run web-ext with the Reference browser?

Did this work for you? In my testing it wasn't able to launch the activity. So I opted for adding the alias as mentioned above.

[Rob--W]

I did the following:

1. Create minimal extension that opens a new tab:

manifest.json

{
    "name": "Test ext",
    "version": "1",
    "manifest_version": 2,
    "background": {
        "scripts": ["background.js"]
    }
}

background.js

browser.tabs.create({url:"https://example.com"});

2. Launch web-ext with R-B using the command from feat: Add reference browser support to the firefox-android extension runner (#1870) #1871 (comment)
3. Verified that R-B launched, with example.com

(I installed R-B from the Play store just today)

[jonalmeida]

Interesting, this command seems to work for release, but not debug builds. I get this error instead (without the activity-alias):

Error: Activity class {org.mozilla.reference.browser.debug/org.mozilla.reference.browser.debug.BrowserActivity} does not exist.
    at /Users/jalmeida/src/web-ext/node_modules/adbkit/lib/adb/command/host-transport/startactivity.js:57:21
    at tryCatcher (/Users/jalmeida/src/web-ext/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/util.js:26:23)
    at Promise._settlePromiseFromHandler (/Users/jalmeida/src/web-ext/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/promise.js:503:31)
    at Promise._settlePromiseAt (/Users/jalmeida/src/web-ext/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/promise.js:577:18)
    at Async._drainQueue (/Users/jalmeida/src/web-ext/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/async.js:128:12)
    at Async._drainQueues (/Users/jalmeida/src/web-ext/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/async.js:133:10)
    at Immediate.Async.drainQueues [as _onImmediate] (/Users/jalmeida/src/web-ext/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/async.js:15:14)

That's probably because it's sending the intent with the variant (debug) in the package name:

What it's sending: org.mozilla.reference.browser.debug/org.mozilla.reference.browser.debug.BrowserActivity
What it should be sending: org.mozilla.reference.browser.debug/org.mozilla.reference.browser.BrowserActivity

I don't believe that's a bug with web-ext though as we've run into this in Fenix where the IDE would make the same error (mozilla-mobile/fenix#9462 (comment)).

[jonalmeida]

Ping @Rob--W . What do you think about this? The reason it isn't a bug on Fenix variants is because we use the same activity-alias there too.

[Rob--W]

The value of component ends up being used as the value of -n in am start ... -n org.mozilla.reference.browser.debug/.BrowserActivity.

I think that the best course of action is to pass a fully-qualified name instead, without the .debug suffix.

[Rob--W]

@jonalmeida Could you update the PR to implement the above idea, and test whether it also works with other mobile products such as Fenix (and maybe even geckoview_example)?

[jonalmeida]

@jonalmeida Could you update the PR to implement the above idea, and test whether it also works with other mobile products such as Fenix (and maybe even geckoview_example)?

This seems outside the scope of this issue - I can file a follow-up for it if you'd like. In R-B, we have everything we need to land this patch as is.

[Rob--W]

This seems outside the scope of this issue

That's OK, let's not block the merge on my next question.

I can file a follow-up for it if you'd like. In R-B, we have everything we need to land this patch as is.

Has the .debug issue also been solved (#1871 (comment))? If not, please file a follow-up.

[jonalmeida]

Has the .debug issue also been solved (#1871 (comment))? If not, please file a follow-up.

I've filed #1891