Best way to keep user.js up to date, when you also have modifications? about user.js

[Kakadu]

@nodiscc We can make a stronger change that splits user.js into categories and allows to override settings in per-category manner. The final user.js will be constructed from partial settings and custom 'override' scripts via Makefile. I made it for myself, diff of Makefile looks like this:

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index ec68613..05918bc 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -118,3 +118,42 @@ toc:
        anchor=$$(echo "$$line" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | sed 's/ /-/g' | sed 's/\?//g'); \
        echo "* [$$line](#$$anchor)"; \
        done
+
+.PHONY: user.js
+USER2_FILES=
+define PART_RULES
+.PHONY: u.$(1)
+u.$(1):
+       $$(eval USER2_FILES += [email protected])
+user.js: u.$(1)
+endef
+PARTS=
+#PARTS=header html5 misc extensions antifeatures autoconn caching  ui cryptography cypher_suites css crandel
+PARTS+=header
+PARTS+=html5
+PARTS+=misc
+PARTS+=misc.override
+PARTS+=extensions
+PARTS+=antifeatures
+PARTS+=autoconn
+#PARTS+=caching
+PARTS+=ui
+PARTS+=ui.override
+PARTS+=cryptography
+PARTS+=cypher_suites
+PARTS+=css
+PARTS+=crandel
+
+$(foreach i,$(PARTS),$(eval $(call PART_RULES,$(i)) ) )
+#$(info $(USER2_FILES))
+
+user.js:
+       echo "" > $@
+       for number in $(USER2_FILES); do \
+               if test -f $$number; then \
+                       cat $$number >> $@; \
+                       echo "" >> $@; \
+               else \
+                       printf "Copying of $$number \x1b[1;31mskipped\x1b[0m\n"; \
+               fi \
+       done

[nodiscc]

splits user.js into categories

It will not work as some settings could fit in multiple categories. Keep it simple.

@pyllyukko would you accept a patch adding what I described?

[Kakadu]

It will not work as some settings could fit in multiple categories. Keep it simple.

I don't see a problem. It can easily support master setting and relaxed settings on top of them.

[pyllyukko]

@pyllyukko would you accept a patch adding what I described?

Sounds good. This is also unintrusive in such a way, that if you don't have/want any customizations you can keep using it as usual and nothing breaks. So it would be an additional helper for those who needed it (any maybe relaxed if we do it the same way).

The custom.js (or whatever it will be called) should also be added to gitignore.

[nodiscc]

I have been experimenting with the proposed custom.js system, a limitation is that it does not allow you to disable/remove prefs that were set in the main user.js. For example I use this in my current config:

// PREF: Disable Service Workers (disabled)
//user_pref("dom.serviceWorkers.enabled",				false); 

It does not override the uncommented, user_pref("dom.serviceWorkers.enabled", false); value in the original user.js when loaded into Firefox.

I don't want to set it explicitly to true, just use Firefox defaults for this pref.

I will keep looking

[nodiscc]

I am no longer working on this.

But this requires some knowledge of git, and the history tends to get quite unreadable over time (unless you also know how to use git rebase). Another disadvantage is that your custom branch needs manual maintenance/regular merging and sometimes conflict resolution.

I no longer see this as a problem. I have been maintaining https://github.com/nodiscc/user.js for many years with some modifications [1] on top of pllyukko/user.js, using git merge from time to time to merge upstream changes to my fork (I also maintain a Debian package for it at https://nodiscc.gitlab.io/toolbox/).