Some time around 2020, it became apparent that Google will ditch manifest v2 extension some time in relatively near future — right as I was starting to attempt to bring back the in-player UI.
Unfortunately for me, 2020 is also the year I gained some new hobbies. I managed to find a reliable D&D party, which turned into plenty of D&D for a while. Once you’re doing D&D, you’re dangerously close to painting minis. It starts with one dragon and at the start, things don’t look like they’re about to get out of hand. After all, minis cost money, which is a decent incentive to not do it too much.
But then, in early 2022, my D&D group found a small evening costume-party event organized by then-still-small section of a local culture club, which numbered about 20 people at the time. At the event, they advertised their weekly painting sessions, with 3D printed minis provided for free. Which was where my pile of shame started to grow, ensuring my attendance for quite a while.
With me being there every week, I got to learn about the activites the club organizes. Turns out that thematic evenings (costumes welcome) are also happening once every three months … and before I knew it, I’ve taken on some additional duties and hobbies.
At this point you might ask yourself: where does Ultrawidify fit into this?
The answer is pretty obvious.
Pick up that can
The development of Ultrawidify slowed down considerably. The manifest v3 was added to the “new UI” branch of the project very early on, but the “finish and release this” can got kicked down the road … until it couldn’t. Google said manifest v2 extensions will get deprecated starting with July 2024. After this year’s Na Meji Nevidnega (local fantasy/sci-fi convention) in late May, I thus started putting effort into getting the update out …
… and things didn’t really go according to plan. The reception was overwhelmingly negative, and often not very nice in tone. And while the “emergency revert” was pulled pretty early on, the email inbox kept ringing late into the night. Not everything was negative and not everything negative was borderline toxic, but non-negligible amounts of it were.
The thing about resentment is that it absolutely goes both ways — and it stacks. But it’s absolutely not healthy. Which is why I decided to drop everything for a bit, and work on other “debts” I racked up in my club.
July came and went, and nothing happened … so for a brief period of time, it seemed like Google might have forgotten about manifest v2 deprecation. However, in late August:

Well I guess this answers the question “how far can this can be kicked.”
Do I care enough to make it my priority? Probably not. It’ll continue working for me on Firefox.