Making Winword plugin work with Waterfox

puritangurl
I've just downloaded waterfox 9, and for me it is a huge improvement on the 32-bit version of firefox. The zotero browser plugin appears to work fine with it: I can access all my citations and add new ones without a problem. However, when I try to use word processor plugin in Word, I get an error message telling me that "zotero could not load the component required to communicate with your word processor."

I tried editing the macros in zotero.dot in the Word startup folder so that "Waterfox" is listed as a possible program name and so that a directory path points to waterfox, but it didn't work. But I'm not exactly fluent in visual basic (or whatever the code is called--sorry!), so I'm assuming I did something wrong or am missing a step.

Any advice?
  • Simon
    There is no binary release of the 64-bit XULRunner SDK for Windows, so you would need to compile the 64-bit XULRunner SDK and then compile the Zotero Word for Windows XPCOM component against it. Based on that error message, Zotero.dot probably doesn't need to be changed.
  • puritangurl
    Okay, I don't speak code, so I have been googling those terms and I am trying to understand what you're saying. So I'm genuinely asking in ignorance: if SDK is a toolkit for building java-related firefox extensions, and there are no SDK builds for 64-bit windows, then why do all the other extensions that I used previously with my 32-bit copy of firefox 9, including the zotero browser extension, work with 64-bit waterfox for windows?

    I appreciate any time you're willing to give in explaining this stuff. Thanks.
  • Simon
    Most Firefox extensions, including the Zotero browser extension, are written in JavaScript. The Zotero Word for Windows Integration extension is written in C++, because it requires facilities not available to JavaScript in order to communicate with Word. This means that it needs to be recompiled for every new Firefox version and platform against the appropriate Firefox platform libraries (the XULRunner SDK). These are different for 64-bit releases.

    Mozilla provides the XULRunner SDK for Win32, but they don't provide the XULRunner SDK (or released Firefox versions) for Win64, and neither does anyone else to my knowledge. In theory, you could compile a 64-bit version of the XULRunner SDK the same way the Waterfox people compiled a 64-bit version of Firefox and then compile the Word for Windows Integration extension against it. We don't do this because it's a non-negligible time investment in an unsupported platform. When Mozilla officially supports Win64, they will provide XULRunner SDK builds, and we will provide Word for Windows Integration builds against those SDK builds.
  • AlecTaylor
    Just ran into this same problem... until Firefox releases official x64 builds I'd recommend using Zotero Standalone version

    :)
Sign In or Register to comment.