I guess this belongs here. Mods?

Beyond having gotten into the extension thing on a user level I've been actively involved with SnapBack as a beta tester, and I've got a major gripe about the manner in which extensions and their updates are distributed, i.e. in the .safariextz format (and that's only if you d/l from developers' websites).

My issue is that current distribution procedures are incompatible with maintaining an archive of d/l's, which I like to do up to a point, because not every update works as expected/is to my liking... D/l an extension/update and the file disappears when you double-click on it...update via Safari and you never even see the file.

My solution is to visit developers' websites, d/l extensions/updates to my Desktop, and use option control-click > Compress to create permanent .zip files for archiving.

I hope others find this useful.

Hmm...Do you have your Option key set to perform a Control key action in System Preferences' Keyboard prefpane -> Modifier Keys... sheet (if that even accurately describes what a 10.6.x laptop user sees)?

I ask because AFAIK it's Control- or Right-clicking which invokes the Finder's contextual menu offering the Compress option.

BTW, thanks for the suggestion.

I think this may be the same issue many of us have with Software Update: Apple's attempt to provide a streamlined/simplified user experience reduces the available options for those more technically adept.

(Of course, one can always simply disable/re-enable extensions of questionable merit as needed until a determination has been made as to whether they have enough value to be worth keeping, and then uninstall those which fail to make the cut; disabling and uninstalling can both be done from within Safari's Extensions pref.)

Good catch; thanks!

(Already edited)

> (Of course, one can always simply disable/re-enable extensions of questionable merit as needed until a determination has been made as to whether they have enough value to be worth keeping, and then uninstall those which fail to make the cut; disabling and uninstalling can both be done from within Safari's Extensions pref.)

That works for testing newly installed extensions, but not for bouncing back and forth between versions.

I just completed my experimentation and found that both installing an update via Safari > Prefs > Extensions and installing a d/l'ed extension overwrite both enabled and disabled extensions.

If you want to go to the trouble, though, the currently installed version of any extension (the .safariextz) can be found at /Users/Your short name/Library/Safari/Extensions.

(Another extension related gripe is that .safariextz files are invariably, in my experience, anyhow, distributed without version numbers.)