Automator Application for Building a Firefox Add-On (Mac OS Only)

If you're an add-on developer you already know that the XPI format used by Firefox is simply a ZIP file with a different extension. While developing you probably get sick of creating an archive (or zip file), changing the extension to XPI and then double-clicking the file to load the extension into Firefox. In and of itself, it does not take too long to do this, seconds at most. But, while in the fury of development, this "few seconds" adds up.

To help make things easier for you, I'm releasing the simple Automator application that I use when working on add-ons, specifically Ping Fire. The automator application does the following:

1. Creates an archive of any files dragged onto its icon.
2. Changes the extension from .ZIP to .XPI
3. Launches Firefox so that the XPI can be installed.

Note: This Automator application will create a pingfire.xpi but you can easily change that.