Firefox SDK require regular JS files

Question

Is there a way to include regular javascript files in the Firefox SDK background script? If I just have a script file that defines some variables, include it and access those in the background script.

Its my understanding so far that they MUST be CommonJS modules. I am porting a Chrome Ext that also uses alot of common code with a mobile app, etc which I'd rather not try converting to CommonJS modules.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

Its my understanding so far that they MUST be CommonJS modules.

That's correct.

If you want to include standard JS files that are already structured in some way, you'd either have to inject them into a page worker, which will

Create a permanent, invisible page and access its DOM,

then send in and out the few variables needed and resulting, respectively, using port, as I explained in your last question.

Or you could use some sort of file concatenation (if you minify your files, this should already happen), then save this new JS file in the lib folder, and require/export those same variables.

These approaches only require you to input/output the variables that are needed externally from the system of files you already have in place, so it's less of a pain than converting each file to commonJS.

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NB: I use Angular for my webapp, and have used some modules for both like so

var syncHelper = function() {

  this.filter = function(objects, prop) {
    // do stuff
  }

  this.consolidate = function(local, server, id) {
    //more stuff
  }
}

// app is my angular webapp var
if (typeof app==='undefined') syncHelper.call(exports);
else app.service('syncHelper', syncHelper);