How do you use a firefox plugin within a selenium webdriver program written in java?

Question

I was trying to run a selenium script that clicks on one of my firefox plugins in my toolbar. Is it possible to do this?

Answer 1

Actually you can't click on the element since it's not a web page element. However you can create a profile for firefox and include addons in that profile that is launched by the webdriver applications. This will allow you to have access to Firebug or other addons. I'm not sure of the interaction between the addons myself since I don't use this but the way you set a profile and extend the profile with the addon api is like so:

File file = new File("firebug-1.8.1.xpi");
FirefoxProfile firefoxProfile = new FirefoxProfile();
firefoxProfile.addExtension(file);
firefoxProfile.setPreference("extensions.firebug.currentVersion", "1.8.1"); // Avoid startup screen
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(firefoxProfile);

Referenced - http://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/FirefoxDriver