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How to push out a dictionary extension to all users in a Citrix environment?

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 21 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

RWell
RWell
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Hi all,

As titled I'm looking for a way to push out a Firefox dictionary (specifically English (British) from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/language-tools/) to all users in a Citrix environment. A global silent installation is absolutely preferable. This is because following a recent installation of Firefox users are reporting that spellchecking is not working, which it seems is due to there being no dictionary to check spelling against with the install.

This is in a corporate environment, running XenApp 6.5 hosted desktops from several Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise x64 servers, the installed Firefox info can be found below as gathered by the Troubleshooter add-on pulled from the browser in the test environment with the same specs.

So far I have tried the following from this link: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installing_extensions

"A global installation will install an extension to the application directory rather than within a profile, so it will be available to all users. To perform a global installation you should not activate the .xpi installer file within your Mozilla application. Instead, download and save it to disk and ensure that you close the application completely.

Then follow one of the following options: 

   Copy the .xpi file into the <installation directory>\extensions folder. When you start your Mozilla application again, it displays an installation dialog, asking "The following items were found in your Extensions folder. Do you want to install them?" "

Though it seems the <installation directory>\extensions folder no longer exists at the given location. Did find an <instllation directory>\browser\extensions path but seems it does not behave as said here as I did not receive any prompts. I'm hoping this method is still applicable somehow and I am just unaware of how this is currently supposed to be handled, though unsure if it being a dictionary rather than a typical add-on will have any effect on how global installation can be achieved.

Have also looked at http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2268437 which seems a rather crude option, but this would not only include a lot of work doing it on a user-by-user basis, but there are also security restrictions in place to prevent access to users' AppData folders.

Lastly I was looking at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/740545 to push this out through about:config settings and then use the above method to enforce this on the user's end, but did not find anything myself.

Any help/advice/nudges in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all, As titled I'm looking for a way to push out a Firefox dictionary (specifically English (British) from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/language-tools/) to all users in a Citrix environment. A global silent installation is absolutely preferable. This is because following a recent installation of Firefox users are reporting that spellchecking is not working, which it seems is due to there being no dictionary to check spelling against with the install. This is in a corporate environment, running XenApp 6.5 hosted desktops from several Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise x64 servers, the installed Firefox info can be found below as gathered by the Troubleshooter add-on pulled from the browser in the test environment with the same specs. So far I have tried the following from this link: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installing_extensions "A global installation will install an extension to the application directory rather than within a profile, so it will be available to all users. To perform a global installation you should not activate the .xpi installer file within your Mozilla application. Instead, download and save it to disk and ensure that you close the application completely. Then follow one of the following options: Copy the .xpi file into the <installation directory>\extensions folder. When you start your Mozilla application again, it displays an installation dialog, asking "The following items were found in your Extensions folder. Do you want to install them?" " Though it seems the <installation directory>\extensions folder no longer exists at the given location. Did find an <instllation directory>\browser\extensions path but seems it does not behave as said here as I did not receive any prompts. I'm hoping this method is still applicable somehow and I am just unaware of how this is currently supposed to be handled, though unsure if it being a dictionary rather than a typical add-on will have any effect on how global installation can be achieved. Have also looked at http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2268437 which seems a rather crude option, but this would not only include a lot of work doing it on a user-by-user basis, but there are also security restrictions in place to prevent access to users' AppData folders. Lastly I was looking at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/740545 to push this out through about:config settings and then use the above method to enforce this on the user's end, but did not find anything myself. Any help/advice/nudges in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Chosen solution

It might be easier to extract the two dictionary files (.dic and .aff) from the XPI (ZIP) archive and place the two files in the dictionaries folder in the Firefox profile folder to have them available for all users.

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All Replies (4)

Gingerbread Man
Gingerbread Man
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  1. Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/british-english-dictionary-/
  2. Right-click the Add to Firefox button, choose Save Link As and save the file somewhere.
  3. Rename the XPI file you just downloaded to en-gb@flyingtophat.co.uk.xpi
  4. Place the file in <installation folder>\browser\extensions
  5. The next time Firefox is started, each user will have to confirm the installation of the add-on.

In short:

  • The correct path is <installation folder>\browser\extensions
  • The add-on file name must be the add-on ID. To get the add-on ID, unpack the add-on (it's a ZIP file with a different file extension) and open the install.rdf file in a text editor. The text between <em:id>…</em:id> is the ID.
cor-el
cor-el
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Chosen Solution

It might be easier to extract the two dictionary files (.dic and .aff) from the XPI (ZIP) archive and place the two files in the dictionaries folder in the Firefox profile folder to have them available for all users.

RWell
RWell Question owner
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Thank you both very much for the quick and helpful responses, I've gone with cor-el's method as it was easy and invisible to end users. Seems it's a Firefox default not to check spelling for single-line controls so will likely use the above method to enforce about:config settings to change "layout.spellcheckDefault" to 2 if this is deemed necessary. Thanks again for the help!

cor-el
cor-el
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You can use a mozilla.cfg file in the Firefox program folder to lock prefs or specify new (default) values.

Place a local-settings.js file in the defaults\pref folder where also the channel-prefs.js file is located to specify using mozilla.cfg. 

pref("general.config.filename", "mozilla.cfg");

These functions can be used in the mozilla.cfg file: 

defaultPref();  // set new default value
pref();         // set pref, but allow changes in current session
lockPref();     // lock pref, disallow changes

See: 

pref("layout.spellcheckDefault", 2);